Inside Affiliate

Posts Tagged ‘ppv networks’

If you’ve read my other posts on PPV, you know I’m a fan of Media Traffic and their PPV network.  This is the place that 90% of the people I talk to start out with PPV.  That being said, there are other options out there.  A newer network that I heard about recently is DirectCPV.  Since I had a few people asking me about it, I decided to give it a test run to see how it stacks up to the other guys.

First of all, the interface may look familiar to you when you log in and setup a campaign.  This is due to the fact that DirectCPV is white labeling the CPView platform.  This does not mean that DirectCPV is the same thing as CPView, they have a different user base with the adware installed so it is a completely different network.

It is relatively simple to get a campaign set up with the interface, you put in your Landing Page url (affiliate link), give it a name, and then you add in at least one type of targeting (URL, keyword, or category).  I put in about 20 URLs from a quick Google search and decided to try out a couple keywords as well.  One thing to note here is that DirectCPV does not have anywhere near the number of adware users that some of the bigger networks have, so you might be a bit safer testing out new keywords here (keywords on the big networks can mean your whole budget gone in the blink of an eye).

I let it run for a few days and when I came back to check my stats (using Prosper202) I was pleasantly surprised that my campaign was profitable right off the bat.  It wasn’t a home run, but it did make money.  I decided to make a couple of minor tweaks at that point.  The first thing was checkout my Prosper202 to see what URLs were converting.  As is often the case, all the conversions were coming from one URL.  I noticed that some of them were coming from the Keyword that I had put in instead of the direct URL.  The problem with that is that the bid price for the Keyword was 0.08 (8 cents) and the bid for the direct URL was 0.01 (1 cent).  Simple fix there, I paused the Keyword and added the URL to my targeting.  After that the profits were decent.

The main gripe I have about the DirectCPV interface is that you have to click “Check Bid” on each URL individually to see if you are in 1st position.  Other networks have done this better, but you can take some of the hassle out of it by setting the bid mode to Auto and then setting it at 1st position.  This will automatically increase your bid if somebody is above you.  Also if you want to Geo Target your campaign, you have to do it after the campaign is setup, you can’t do it during the campaign creation.  This stumped me the first time.

Final word?  I like DirectCPV.  I think it’s worth a shot especially if you have a profitable campaign on another network that you are looking to expand.  It can also be good for testing out a new campaign to if it converts without blowing your budget since there is a smaller installed user base, there is less competition, and the bid prices start at 1 penny (at MT it is 1.5).  It doesn’t have as much traffic as the bigger guys, but from what I saw it can definitely be a good source to add to your repertoire.

If you signup through my affiliate link here you can get a $25 credit by using the promo code “BR25″.

Disclosure: http://cmp.ly/5

For the uninitiated, PPV (Pay-Per-View) is a type of display advertising.  It allows you to market your website, landing page, or CPA offer by displaying it for users that have downloadable software installed on their computer.  Commonly called Adware, they get this software typically by using free games and services (like screensavers, etc.) from websites like Zango.

A word about Adware:  it is not Spyware!  Spyware is a parasitic form of software that installs itself on your computer without your permission and can do anything from log your IP info and website history to install viruses on your computer.  Adware is perfectly legal, and it is installed with the permission of the user when they download games & other software from different websites online.  That being said, let’s continue with the overview…

There are five major PPV (also called Contextual) networks currently.  They are Zango Ad Services, Media Traffic, Traffic Vance, Clicksor, and AdOn Network.  If you are new to PPV, I would highly recommend starting with just Zango and Media Traffic, or even one of the two.  Eventually, if you decide to get deeper into PPV, it would be advantageous to sign up with all of the networks, because they are all going to have different users with their software installed.  Traffic Vance is a little harder to get started with because they require a $500 deposit up front to get ads running with them.  Zango requires $200, and Media Traffic requires $100 (I believe).  Clicksor and AdOn Network require much smaller deposits, but they only offer Pop-Under ads instead of Full Page Pop-Up ads, which are much more effective.

You are also going to need to sign up with a few CPA networks, if you haven’t already.  You can certainly work with my network, affiliate.com, and I would also highly recommend Neverblue, Hydra, and Market Leverage.  You need to make sure that you are promoting the correct offer, as not all offers accept contextual / PPV traffic.  They will usually have a special link that you have to use for PPV (called the “Contextual Link” on affiliate.com, and the DLS [Downloadable Software] Creative on Neverblue).

This should take you a good day or two to sign up for the PPV networks and the CPA networks, if you have already done this, just hang on, I am going to get more in-depth on how to promote offers in Part 2 of this post.