Your ultimate guide to scaling affiliate business in Q4 2020! PREMIUM TIPS INSIDE

[zeropark]

Hey guys!

️ The holiday shopping season is already on.

Triggered by the Amazon Prime Day launch on October 13th, and some of the biggest retailers announcing there’s no point waiting until November 27th, many have already launched their Black Friday campaigns.

☞ How is your Q4 strategy going? Are you one of those early birds? Or have you just frantically started to think about how to kick off your campaigns a month earlier than expected?

Whether you’re into e-commerce or any other affiliate marketing vertical that rocks Q4 year after year, here’s a treat for you. Read below for a list of 99 marketing ideas for Black Friday 2020 from the biggest brands in the industry!

Black Friday checklist for best landing pages & ad creatives.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2020 are less than a month ahead of us. That means it’s a last-minute call for marketers of all kinds to get their Black Weekend campaigns ready to go. Having analyzed the past year’s campaigns, we’ve discovered three areas that advertisers need to focus on asap or otherwise risk falling behind their competitors. These areas are:

• testing your creative funnels,
• getting just the right amount of attention with your ad creatives,
• making sure your campaigns don’t suffer from creative fatigue too quickly.

In other words, you need to find the best performing set up for your offer and eliminate ads that don’t bring expected results. Then, you need to keep adjusting your campaigns. Add, delete, rotate, swap, bring back — do anything to keep your CTR at the most optimal level. You don’t want millions of clicks and no conversions, but you also don’t want your ads to just sit there unnoticed.

That’s why balancing the CTR and WinRatio metrics may be the key to keeping your campaigns both successful and sustainable. How to do just that?

Well, there’s never an easy way. It’s impossible to give marketers a one-trick golden nugget that would turn all their advertising efforts successful overnight. Instead, advertisers are often able to find the most optimal setup for their campaigns if a series of small steps and checks is followed.

The Black Friday checklist:

• Loading speed is of utmost importance — the faster the better.
• Keep your ad visuals according to the policy guidelines or nobody will ever see them.
• All creatives should appear both credible and appealing to users.
• Avoid shady-looking landers and/or ad images — people are able to spot those quickly.
• Match the language with the country so your audience can understand the offer.
• Adjust the theme per seasonal trend, e.g. the Black Friday, Cyber Monday or Holidays.
• Match your ads, pre- and landing pages visually so people won’t feel the difference switching through the next steps.
• Increase credibility and user-engagement to help the audience continue through the funnel.
• Add positive reviews or user comments to raise the sense of credibility.
• Try using a problem and a solution angle.
• Include numbers and percentages in your headlines.
• Use power words.
• Add clear and visible CTAs.
• Create a sense of urgency to prompt users into action.
• Use icons imitating unread messages — they’re great elements for driving attention.
• Use simple icons or images — they tend to convert better (especially with smaller graphics, like push ad creatives).
• Use images of people — they tend to perform better rather than cartoon-like visuals.
• Don’t clutter your ad creatives with too many elements.
• Test your creatives using images of men vs. women to see which works better.
• Use spy tools for research purposes but don’t just copycat content.
• Test your creatives to find the best-performing one.
• Rotate your creatives to avoid creative fatigue.

That list may seem like a lot of work, but it’s not. These are small details that can be fixed quickly yet have a huge impact on the performance of your creatives. You might be already using some, most, or all of those tricks already!

The most important thing is to keep optimizing your ads while at the same time monitoring their performance. Always track the changes made and try to attribute the campaign’s results so you’ll know what works and what doesn’t in the future. Also, don’t try too many things at once or otherwise you won’t be able to detect what technique is responsible for what results.

Remember to:

• make sure you know how to read and analyze the most important data and metrics of your affiliate campaigns.
• learn how to fight creative fatigue when running your Holiday season ad campaigns,
• get all the creative resources you need before the Black Weekend comes!

No more theory, though. Have a look below and draw inspiration from 99 marketing ideas for your Black Friday campaigns and beyond!

Black Friday 2020 — advertising ideas in times of coronavirus.
Our buying habits are very much influenced by what’s happening around the world. That’s why this year marketers cannot forget about accounting for the global pandemic angle. Especially that there’s a number of items in great demand due to the lockdown situation. Here are some of the most striking shopping trends that can be observed during this year’s Golden Quarter.

• This year’s shopping season came early and it’s mostly happening online!
• People declared to spend their money on physical items rather than experiences.
• Lockdown has certainly prompted new hobbies and so new equipment and gadgets will be in demand this Black Weekend!
• There will be tough competition online so advertisers really need to hustle!

And where’s demand, the supply should follow. Here’s our proposal for Black Friday marketing ideas in times of coronavirus.

Black Friday & Cyber Monday ad examples.
Black Friday is always a busy time of the year and advertisers need to really go out of their way to get through the competition. Also, testing various marketing angles, visuals, ad copy, or any other assets you may use is necessary to protect your ads from banner blindness and secure the right amount of user attention.

Black Weekend landing page & pop ads ideas.
When the competition is tough, there’s little time, things kick off earlier than expected, but stakes are high — it’s best to use all the help you can get. That’s why below you’ll find a collection of landing page and pop ads ideas coming from some of the biggest players in the digital marketing industry. Have a look at the various ways these brands promote their Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns and draw inspiration for your own marketing efforts.

Electronics

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Would you like to see more examples? If you need:

• Holiday shopping marketing ideas;
• Survey & Sweepstakes ad ideas;
• Dating vertical ad ideas;
• Black Weekend landing page & pop ads ideas for:
  • Clothing,
  • Cosmetics,
  • E-commerce,
  • Retail,
  • Subscriptions & Other:

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Magda

 

[zeropark]

Hey guys!

Pop traffic and the e-commerce vertical have always been a good match. And with the shopping season picking up speed, it might be the perfect money-making combination!

Need some tips and ideas for your e-commerce pop campaigns? Read the article below and learn to earn big!

People are starting their holiday shopping earlier this year
We’ve got the lockdown, the pandemic, the struggling economy, and the boredom of having to stay at home. And because of that people will start their holiday shopping early instead of doing exciting activities with friends and family.

While physical stores are starting to promote their holiday deals in October to avoid big in-store crowds later on, online e-commerce businesses have a similar reason for an early start. Instead of crowds, though, they are simply worried about shipping delays caused by massive surges of orders.

That’s why the shopping season starts earlier this year. It’s safe to say that it has already begun with Amazon Prime Day on October, 13th. And while the culmination is still ahead, the deals are already on.

Pop ads are best for e-commerce shopping sprees
Pop ads are actually the perfect medium for spreading the news about ongoing deals and promotions before the holiday season. As the internet users have already started researching their gifts ideas and Black Friday bargain-hunting targets, pop-ups appear bearing discounts, coupons, and free shipping codes.

Additionally, while spontaneous shopping is often done on mobile devices, research and planned shopping sprees are not. Pop-ups, on both mobile and desktop devices, catch users mid-action. But instead of visiting yet another page of a store’s inventory, their attention will be brought to an ad promising special holiday deals.

And if the shopping spree is already planned to be big, why not add another gadget?

Landing pages are the most important part of your e-commerce campaigns
Even though there are no creatives in pop up ads, there are still things you can do to increase the probability of scoring conversions. Besides the crucial factor of testing multiple offers (or affiliate programs), optimizing, and choosing adequate targeting options, there’s a creative aspect that can make or break your campaign. And if you need a little help investigating how to find profitable offers then reading this article should help!

As always, we recommend split testing almost everything. Still, landers, in most cases, can significantly increase your conversion rate. They’re especially important in the shopping vertical as they help to warm up the user before the purchase. People tend to be more likely to buy the product once they know more about it.

There are 5 key components to a successful e-commerce pop-up lander. Here’s what you gotta do to increase that conversion rate:

☞ Create a sense of urgency
One of the most effective ways of raising the conversion rate is putting pressure. Faced with a deal that is about to expire, the potential customer will think quickly whether they find the deal appealing enough to go for it. Usually, the fear of missing out on a great deal will kick in and push the user to convert.

Timers, all kinds of time frames, and limitations are good motivators for anyone who considers buying your product.

☞ Present your product
That’s exactly what landing pages are for. You need to introduce the product to your potential buyers. It’s usually the graphic aspect of landers that first catches the eye, but it’s the description that converts the user.

️ While creating landing pages to sell your products you should ask yourself these questions:

• Who is the target audience of your offer?
• What are the benefits of your product?
• What is the offered long-term value?

The description doesn’t have to be long. It can be brief but straight to the point. It needs to contain enough information to make the consumer feel like they know what they’re buying and they know that they need it.

☞ Add community approval
Peer recommendations have some serious power. If you want your offer to appear credible and attractive, you should consider sneaking in some opinions. Facebook comments or not, any sort of community approval is bound to increase the authenticity of your offer.

As much as a fifth of the internet users say that positive comments on social media would increase the likelihood of them purchasing a product. While affiliate marketing advertising via ad exchange platforms is not the same as via social media, the influence of comments and reviews stays the same.

In short – want to make your product more attractive? Add the seal of community approval.

☞ Make sure the copy is high quality
Although Google translate might be a good option while you’re testing multiple landers at the beginning, the potential of the winner will be significantly higher once you touch up on the quality. Translation or not, the naturalness of language and lack of typos adds professionalism to your pages.

Additionally, the quality of images you use shouldn’t be lacking either. Remember that your landing page needs to look trustworthy and professional. No one will want to buy from a shady looking store.

You can find more information on creative resources here.

☞ Optimize the loading speed
Lastly, landing page optimization is the key. Nobody wants to wait a minute for a web page to load. People aren’t periodically increasing their internet speed for no reason. They want internet web pages to load faster. And they want a smooth and pleasant experience.

Of course, in order to optimize your lander, you need to either be knowledgeable about coding enough to take on the challenge yourself, or you need a solid lander builder. Lander builders are tools that become more and more necessary once you dive deeper into performance marketing.

We’ve shared our recommendations in this article.

GEO targeting is the key! – Hot GEOs and sources below
Although the shopping season is a global event, some regions celebrate it more than others. Each of the big events in November and December has a different character in different countries and it’s worth remembering cultural differences when choosing a GEO for your e-commerce offers.

Here is a list of GEOs that have already noted an increase in performance and are bound to remain hot during the whole Q4:

Country Code Total Visits Avg. Bid
US(United States) 2,336,315,915.00 $0.0009
GB(United Kingdom) 485,454,763.00 $0.0004
DE(Germany) 410,629,741.00 $0.0010
ES(Spain) 235,175,831.00 $0.0004
IT(Italy) 180,936,286.00 $0.0005
PL(Poland) 116,049,840.00 $0.0004
FR(France) 81,753,094.00 $0.0005
AT(Austria) 54,744,150.00 $0.0005
BE(Belgium) 41,870,934.00 $0.0011
KR(Korea, Republic of) 21,567,169.00 $0.0003
SE(Sweden) 14,303,252.00 $0.0006
IE(Ireland) 8,122,497.00 $0.0004

Where to look for offers? – Zeropark’s Offer Wall
A good offer is the foundation of a good campaign. So, if you want to boost your chances of scoring conversions, you need to look for proven offers from reputable sources.

In order to make this easier for you, Zeropark gathered the best offers and put them, for your convenience, in a tab in the user dashboard. Additionally, we’ve prepared various deals and bonuses for both new and current customers of the included affiliate networks. All these offers with extra benefits are right at your fingertips as soon as you become a Zeropark client with an active account.

And what’s a better way to look for offers, if not through a bonus-loaded traffic source recommendation panel?

If you want to learn more about:

• Why are pop ads the perfect format for everyone (not just for beginners)?
• Top sources for the top-performing countries;
• What other verticals perform well with pop ads during the shopping season?

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
[SOURCES INSIDE]

Magda

 

[zeropark]

Hey guys!

We’re getting closer and closer to the Black Weekend.

And what if we told you there is a completely new, brand-safe, and user-friendly way to maximize your e-commerce marketing profits?

Read the article to learn how search advertising can redefine e-commerce marketing this Golden Quarter and beyond!

What are Search Ads?
Search advertising has been on the market for a long time now. In fact, it’s the first ad format launched by Google. And October 23, 2000, will be a date forever remembered by internet marketers all around the globe.

Naturally, search advertising has come a long way since the day it first appeared. Apart from the fact it’s now widely used by all sorts of search engines (sorry not sorry Google) it looks and works differently from its ‘prototype’. Note that mobile advertising was still pretty much non-existent at that time.

But what’s the most important thing for all those interested in search advertising 20 years later, is the fact that it’s still a great way to connect with your audience while keeping it as low-key and natural as possible.

☞ Search advertising is a user-friendly and brand-safe ad format designed to instantly match brands with customers. Search ads are displayed the moment users begin typing a keyword-related query into their search engines. For example, if users search for a specific brand, the brand’s ad tile or a URL suggestion will be automatically displayed allowing for an outright connection. Search ads operate on a CPC cost model and work for both desktop and mobile devices.

Search advertising is simply effective. It answers people’s needs (search-queries) and delivers desired results (specific keyword-related ads). And if relevant content is displayed before users even finish to input their query, the journey to conversion gets significantly shortened.

How do Search Ads work?
That’s why, when trying to understand how search advertising works, it’s important to note that search ads may operate differently depending on the target device. For example, there are two ways in which users may interact with search ads in Zeropark.

• Search Autocomplete model, which works for mobile devices only, is triggered when customers start typing in a search query on their mobile device’s keyboard app. A suggestion of a brand URL is then displayed, and if users click on it, they’re redirected to the brand’s website.

• Suggestion tiles, which work for both mobile and desktop devices, are also triggered once users start to input their search-queries using a keyword app (mobile) or a publisher’s search engine (desktop). Then, a suggestion tile with a related brand is displayed. If users click on the tile, they’re redirected straight to the desired/promoted brand.

• Also, some search engines, like Google, AVG, or Bing, feature search ads just below their search bar. Such a measure gives search tiles a bit of a native feel, making actual ads look as if these are top, last, or most common search results.

Benefits of Search Advertising.
We’ve already mentioned that search ads are simply effective — that’s not all, though. Search ads are characterized by its non-invasive, user-friendly, instant, and outright form. So the benefits of promoting your brand using search advertising are simply manifold.

• High Conversion Rates — using search ads means targeting people who have already shown interest in the brand or product you’re promoting. Cutting down on targeting an uninterested and unmotivated audience while tapping into the demand segment saves you time and money, as well as secures higher chances for conversions.
• Improved Customer Journey — Search ads significantly shorten your customer’s path to conversion. The ad tiles or URL suggestions are often shown within split seconds, sometimes even before users finish typing their queries. This allows clients to engage with the desired content faster and easier.
• Instant Match — Search ads minimize the risk of the situation where a customer lands on a SERP and clicks on your competitor’s ad. They’re simply faster and better.
• Tremendous User Experience — Given that keyboard apps predict customers’ intent, they’re now able to serve them ads they appreciate, too. The fully automated and AI-powered customer journey is thus more likely to result in a satisfied and motivated customer.

If you want to know more about:

• Why is search traffic premium traffic?
• What are the guidelines and policies for search ads?
• What are the top e-commerce brands using search ads?
• Why are search ads the perfect choice for scaling your e-commerce business?

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Magda

 

[azgold]

Amazingly helpful information as always, Magda!

 

[T J Tutor]

We are steadily getting great posts from you zeropark.

 

[zeropark]

Hey guys!

The options for holiday season campaigns are endless.

As we’ve already established in this mega-thread, e-commerce is the obvious winner.

But have you tried pairing it with injection traffic?

Read the article below to learn more about injection traffic and take your affiliate campaigns to another level.

What is injection traffic for affiliate advertising?
Injection traffic is a form of pop traffic inventory focused on keyword targeting. Injection traffic is generated by toolbars that users have previously installed in their browsers. In this way, the browsers give permission to display ads relevant to the currently browsed content. Injection Traffic works on the Cost-Per-View cost model in Zeropark.

As it is based on keyword targeting, it’s a very precise form of advertising. Also, placements providing injection ads are carefully selected and curated to offer only the highest quality of potential leads.

To put it simply, the toolbar injects related adverts onto the page. If a user with an installed browser extension goes to visit a website, the content of the site opens with certain words (keywords) highlighted as links. Once the reader clicks one of those links, they get redirected to a landing page (optionally, straight to the offer) prepared by the affiliate.

So, if you start a keyword pop campaign for a sportswear offer and choose to target, for example, sports shoes, if sports shoes appear in the content of a website visited by the user, your sportswear ad will be ‘injected’ under sports shoes as well as related keywords such as football boots or running shoes.

What is injection traffic best for?
We do have a very good reason for talking about injection ads right now. After all, Black Friday, Black Weekend, Cyber Monday, and every consecutive day leading up to the winter holidays will be an amazing opportunity for scaling any affiliate marketing business.

Last year, injection traffic proved to be the perfect channel for connecting brands and customers of the e-commerce sector. During the shopping season, so the entire Q4 2019, it brought impeccable results to many advertisers specializing in both e-commerce and travel verticals. While the travel niche is on pause this year due to the unfortunate circumstances of the global pandemic, e-commerce is anticipated to outperform last year’s results.

Because injection traffic is based on keyword targeting, this type of pop ads is perfect for e-commerce. Also, running brand-to-brand campaigns with Zeropark is possible and highly encouraged. And a shopping campaign for discount stores such as Banggood, Zalando, or Asos, with exact keyword targeting which uses injection ads, is a dreamy set up which can guarantee a successful campaign.

How does injection traffic differ from pop traffic?
It’s important to remember that injection is a type of pop traffic. It’s not a different or separate ad format but, similarly to in-page push being a type of push, injection pop is a type of pop.

As it’s based on keyword targeting, injection traffic is geared towards higher payout offers that offer physical or electronic products. While pop traffic is perfect for sweepstakes, vouchers, lead-gen, gaming, and all kinds of offers ranging from data-collection to sales, injection pop is ideal primarily for sales.

The reason for this narrow specialization is that injection is about the most accurate form of targeting and it’s usually the mid-shopping consumers that click on those well-targeted ads.

While pop ads are automatically triggered by the browser extension, injection ads are non-invasive and merely inserted in the text waiting to be clicked by the curious users. Hence, they’re less invasive and only interacted with by people interested in a given keyword.

Top injection sources
As we’ve mentioned before, injection traffic can also be found in regular pop traffic placements. If you’ve ever run a pop campaign and decided to bid up on a source or keyword, chances are that you’ve bought some injection traffic, too.

If you feel like injection could be a nice addition to your pop campaigns, here’s a list of traffic sources in Zeropark offering injection inventory:

rubious-buffalo

lurid-woodcock

olivaceous-scorpion

saffron-impala

sanguineous-cat

whey-wallaby

spadiceous-peacock

sage-oyster

erythraean-jellyfish

amaranthine-stork

icterine-hyena

solferino-kangaroo

virid-bee

ferruginous-cow

cramoisy-oyster

eburnean-racoon​

If you want to learn about:

• Where to find injection traffic?
• More on exact vs. broad keyword targeting;
• Alternative verticals for injection traffic.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL BLOG

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Magda

 

[zeropark]

Hey guys,

The e-commerce industry and domain redirect advertising have one very important thing in common.

They give people what they desire.

And they do it fast.

If you want to increase your chances of profit this season, read on to find out how to use domain redirect traffic for e-commerce advertising in Q4 2020!

Domain redirect traffic in a nutshell
Domain Redirect Traffic, also domain redirect or zero-click traffic is one of the most precise ad formats in PPC advertising. It’s based on redirecting traffic from parked domains or misspelled URLs to landing pages promoted by advertisers based on keywords entered by users into the address bar of their browsers.

Whenever users put an unused or parked domain URL into the browser address bar, often by misspelling, they might encounter a domain redirect ad. It is quite common for people to misspell domain names or research things online by entering such. If the inserted keywords match the parked domain address or keywords targeted by advertisers running zero-click campaigns, users are then redirected to such domains.

☞ What essentially happens is that as the website loads, a Real-time bidding (RTB) auction is triggered. During this auction, various ad exchanges compete to win an ad impression that will be displayed to the user who has just entered a particular web address or phrase. The auction takes less than a blink of an eye and the user is instantly redirected to a website — that is the highest bidding ad, most often a landing page to an offer an affiliate advertiser promotes.

That’s why domain redirect traffic is often considered to be one of the most precise advertising formats, especially for e-commerce campaigns. It’s in fact triggered by users who proactively search for desired content, and thanks to keyword targeting, they’re delivered very close if not the exact results. This allows advertisers to reach a highly-motivated and purchase-oriented audience who’s ready to engage with presented content. Bringing the right ads to the right people has never been easier, has it?

Top-performing verticals for domain traffic in Q4 2020
While e-commerce is one of the most profitable verticals for the Golden Quarter season, we need to emphasize that there’s a number of verticals that tend to do equally well. Mind that all these verticals are universal to Q4 advertising and can be run with various ad formats, too. The reason why they’re so popular during the last quarter of the year is mainly because of their direct connection to holiday shopping trends or newly prompted hobbies of the COVID-19 induced shopping craze.

Whatever the reason, they’re profitable and ready to be run with domain redirect traffic just next to your e-commerce campaigns.

How to build an affiliate landing page that converts?
There’s one more thing that needs to be done before you can enjoy the profits of your zero-click campaigns, though. That thing is building a landing page that will provide both the ultimate user experience for your audience and any advertiser’s desired action — that is conversion.

First impressions count the most, remember? That’s why the moment users land their eyes on your offer website it needs to grab their attention, keep them engaged, and lead straight to whatever action you want them to take. And it truly is a matter of seconds that people decide to stay or leave.

That’s why using all the intel you can get to build a well-converting and user-friendly landing page for your offers is essential. Naturally, you don’t need to build them from scratch every time.

High-quality and eye-pleasing landers are often included with an offer.

Sounds fabulous, doesn’t it? But what about tens of advertisers promoting the same offer who use the very same landing page? Sadly, banner blindness and creative fatigue are a thing and that’s why tweaking your visuals a little bit can really make a world of difference.

️ Remember to check, include, test, and optimize the following items to make the most of your landing page.

• Page loading speed — even if you have a perfect lander, but it takes ages to load, users will switch it off before you even have a chance to display the promoted offer.
• Optimization — it’s a never-ending process that might seem tedious, yet it’s essential. Especially now. That’s why limiting HTTP requests, optimizing visuals, using asynchronous loading for JS and CSS elements, reducing the number of WordPress plugins (they do have a great impact on the loading speed!), using file compression, and minimizing redirects/CTA so as not to disrupt users is much recommended.
• Hosting — use quality servers only to ensure stability, quickness, and broaden your reach especially during Q4 when even the biggest players in the e-commerce industry suffer from technical problems due to heavy demand.
• Engaging content — motivate users to engage or buy promoted products. Show them its worth, make their lives easier by explaining the product’s benefits, show them the problems they’re facing every day and how you’re able to solve them. Quickly.
• User-experience — always optimize for mobile, keep your CTAs above the fold (don’t add too many, though), and be both credible and neat — no place for shady landers here.
• Credible language — use translation tools to make your landers understandable for various viewers. It saves both time and energy having one offer that can be run and tested in various GEOs as long as people can understand what you’re saying.
• Q4 mood — always tune your visuals and copy to match the occasion. With Black Friday, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve happening soon this has never been easier.
• Spy tools — using them can save your time, money, and energy figuring out the best designs and strategies. Do not just copycat content as you’re risking falling prey to banner blindness before you’ll even test your campaigns.

Regardless of whether you take your landing pages directly from the affiliate networks, you rip them straight from spy tools or build from scratch, remember about the items from the list. A good landing page might be the break-or-make element for your domain redirect ads campaign, especially for the e-commerce vertical during the holiday season craze.

If you want to learn more about:

• E-commerce trends for the holiday shopping season;
• Top e-commerce advertising ideas;
• 10 targeting and optimization tips to succeed with domain ads.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Magda

 

[T J Tutor]

As always, another awesome post by zeropark!

 

[Dinarys Gmbh]

And we recently wrote on our blog on the medium how to optimize your e-commerce site for the holidays so as not to lose a single client.