Tired of CPA Offers? Try Promoting Shopify Instead

You know the drill: Email submits; Dating offers; Rebills. We’ve all been promoting the same types of cost-per-action (CPA) offers for ages now. I’m not saying they aren’t worth promoting, but sometimes you need to try something different to get the creative juices flowing again. For example: cost-per-sale (CPS) offers. As opposed to CPA offers, CPS offers only pay out when the customer makes a purchase. While it does take a little bit more selling to get them to take action, the nice part is that you never have to worry about not getting paid for your traffic (which is a common issue with CPA offers). There are other benefits to CPS offers as well, such as the possibility for monthly recurring commissions.

Shopify Home Page

One of more interesting CPS programs I’ve seen lately is called Shopify. Shopify is an e-commerce service that creates online stores for their customers. They’ve got several different pricing tiers, targeted at small business and hobbyists all the way up to custom, enterprise-level solutions. If you are used to targeting consumers for your affiliate campaigns, Shopify will give you the opportunity to try your hand at targeting business owners instead. This is a huge niche right now, with sites like Etsy and eBay getting people interested in selling their wares online. Shopify is for people who want to take their online store to the next level.

There are several benefits to being an affiliate of Shopify:

  • They are a very well known brand in their niche
  • Campaigns can be targeted as B2B but also C2B
  • Unsaturated affiliate program and niche
  • All traffic sources are accepted
  • 2 commission options:
    • 20% lifetime revenue share on all customers (Recurring income!)
    • -or-
    • 200% of customers first bill. Per sale commission varies depending on what plan customer chooses (Up to $358 a sale)
  • Commissions can increase depending on volume

It would definitely be worth doing a split test to see if you make more money by doing the lifetime revenue share option or the 200% of the first bill option. Either way, it’s a very generous commission. For promotion tactics, I would try doing a review-style landing page. Perhaps you could compare Shopify to having an Etsy store, or the hassle of managing your own shopping cart solution. If you’ve ever tried to set up an e-commerce site, you know that it’s a lot of work. Your average mom that does knitting in her free time and wants to sell her wares online is probably going to be overwhelmed with something like that. There’s a perfect target for you.

With a little research, your potential targeting options and promotion angles are vast. Promoting a campaign like this could also be a good place to work on from the SEO angle. It’s hard to promote CPA offers with SEO because it is more of a long-term play than paid traffic. With a program like Shopify, you can have confidence that it is going to be around for long enough to reap the benefits of an organic search campaign.

Bottom line, give Shopify a try. If you spend some time getting used to the flow of a CPS campaign, you will find that it can be a great way to smooth out the ups and downs of your CPA campaigns. You can sign up to be a Shopify affiliate here. Let me know how it goes in the comments!

What Offers Are Still Working?

Since the rebill crash there has been a general sense of panic among affiliates.  It’s as if there was only one way to make money in the industry, and now that it’s practically dried up, everyone is scrambling.  Funny thing is, that’s absolutely untrue!  There were affiliate offers long before Acai Berries came on to the scene, and there will continue to be offers that make money.

Conversion Van

Official Vehicle of Affiliate Marketing: The Conversion Van

So what are some of the things that are making money still?  Here’s what I’m seeing do very well right now.

1. Education

As a vertical, EDU has had its ups and downs.  Right now is definitely an up.  Not only has it always been a strong performer on email, but lately social media marketers and PPV guys have been seeing the allure of getting paid $30+ for a lead (no credit card required).  There are many different flavors out there such as Criminal Justice, Nursing, Massage, Video Game Design, and Web Design.  This makes it easy to break down your campaigns and target people that will actually convert.

2. Dating

Dating is one of the oldest verticals there is in all of CPA marketing.  It will never go away.  Why?  Simple: people need companionship.  If you’ve read Ca$hvertising by Drew Eric Whitman, dating and companionship ties directly into one of the “Life Force 8”.  This means that it is hard-wired into our psyche to want it.  You don’t have to sell it to people, they already want it.  You just have to convince them that the site you are promoting is the best way for them to get it.

3. Gaming

Gaming can include a lot of different things such as downloads and Facebook apps.  There’s money in all of them.  The lead gen type offers and Facebook apps are great for social media traffic and PPV, and the download games are great for display and media buy traffic.  These offers have lower payouts, but they convert like crazy, especially the apps.  All the user has to do is press “Allow” and then you get credited.

4. Email and Zip Submits

Yes, they can scrub hard. And yes, the payouts are low.  But these things are still around for a reason: they work.  Ruck from Convert2Media has posted a couple of awesome tips about how to promote these for low bid prices and competition.  You may need to rotate a few to find some that will stay alive for longer, but trust me, they exist.  I’ve seen affiliates do 20,000 leads on one single email submit offer over 3 weeks with no scrub in sight.  For real.

These are just some examples to get you started.  There are many more offers and verticals out there that are alive and well.  Take some time to test out some new things you wouldn’t normally consider, like offers with lower payouts.  They may surprise you.

affiliate.com’s Economic Bailout

Today affiliate.com announced their Revenue Stimulus Program.  Here is the official announcement:

Affiliate Economic Bailout

In today’s challenging economic climate, it seems like just about every industry is getting some kind of bailout program.  But, we haven’t heard anything proposed for the Affiliate Marketing Industry.

Rather than waiting for the Congress to institute a bailout program for our Affiliates – we thought we would just do it ourselves.

Introducing the
affiliate.com Revenue Stimulus Program

Our industry was built on the principles of self reliance and innovation.  In the tradition of those guiding principles, we have instituted the affiliate.com Revenue Stimulus Program to help our Affiliates generate some extra income this holiday season.  We believe that the best way to help Affiliates drive more revenue is to give them an incredible payout increase on one of the hottest offers in the industry.

Beginning today (Monday, December 15, 2008) at 10:00am Mountain Time, we will be raising the payout on Ringtones.net (6013) to an unheard of $16.  (This new payout will remain in effect until December 31, 2008.)

Ringtones.net
Payout Increase – $16
(From December 15 – December 31, 2008)

Take advantage of our Revenue Stimulus Program today and watch your revenue soar this holiday season!

This is the time to make some serious money with Ringtones.net.  I’m not just saying this because I work for affiliate.com, this is a HUGE payout on a Ringtones offer.  I remember when Flycell used to pay something similar and people were going crazy for it.  If you already promote ringtones, you owe it to yourself to switch out your links for the next 2 weeks and enjoy the extra revenue boost.  Nothing starts off the new year like an infusion of cash.

Now go make some money!

FlyCell Drops Payouts

For those of you who have been following the decline of the Ringtones game in Affiliate Marketing, this might sound like a doomsday warning.  FlyCell is going to be dropping the affiliate payout on all of their campaigns to a measly $6.

Remember when FlyCell used to be promoted by affiliates on forums as, “The Ringtones offer that pays $16”?  Those days are gone, and I doubt they are ever coming back.  There have been more lawsuits by the Florida A.G., there have been more talks of the carriers taking control of the market and selling through their own sites exclusively, and now payout drops.

This also comes shortly after the announcement that Flycell no longer accepts Sprint traffic.  Oh how the mighty have fallen.  There are still some Ringtones offers that are doing well.  At CPA Empire we have Ringtones.net with an affiliate payout of $10, and it accepts Sprint traffic (EDIT: As of 10/10/08, Ringtones.net is losing Sprint as well.  Sprint is dropping pretty much all of their ringtones providers).  Jamster is paying out $9 at NeverBlueAds and $10 at ClickBooth.  There are a few other smaller offers, but until someone figures out how to monetize Ringtones better on the backend, I doubt we’re going to see prices much higher than $10 for a while.

Flycell No Longer Accepting Sprint Traffic

In an announcement dated today, the ringtones provider Flycell announced that they will no longer be accepting traffic from Sprint, Nextel, or Boost customers through its landing pages.  There is a process being put in place to allow affiliates to become certified to accept Sprint traffic, but it is going to be looked at on a case-by-case basis from Flycell.

This is another case of the carriers pulling back from ringtones aggregation sites like Flycell.  Mark my words, it won’t be long before one of the major carriers (Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T or Sprint) announces that they will only be selling ringtones through their proprietary store.

CPA Empire affiliates are encourage to redirect their Sprint traffic to our Ringtones.Net offer, which does still accept Sprint customers.

To see the official Flycell notice with instructions for become certified, click below.

sprint_notice_08-29-08