AFFILIATE NETWORKS AND OFFERS: HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH NATIVE ADS (FEATURING THREE CASE STUDIES)

Note from Ngo: “This is a guest post by MGID with a bunch of editing by me. I normally don’t feature guest posts on this blog, but the information they provided is gold. “

If you’ve ever advertised with Facebook / Google, then you’ve probably had your account banned at some point (or you’re fearing it).

If you’re doing anything remotely shady, then you have to be ahead of their technology to sneak under their radar with your cloakers.

It’s like playing cat and mouse, and it’s never enjoyable worrying about you accounts AND marketing at the same time.

If you’re doing whitehat, you have to constantly adapt to their constantly changing policies.

And even if you do everything right, you STILL might get your account banned because:

• Ads and landing pages are reviewed manually by people. One person may say it’s ok, while another will ban you.
• They use A.I. and algorithms to detect suspicious activity. Log in from a new location? Too bad. Ban!

I mean, these are the two biggest companies in the world.

They can afford to ban pretty much anyone and yet still have millions of advertisers on their platform.

Your options?

You can either adapt to their strict policies or switch to a less-strict traffic source like Native Ads.

Most Native Ad networks WORK TOGETHER with affiliates to make things work.

But we at MGID do it even better than the other networks.

We adopt a more customer-focused approach.

In this article, you will:

• Learn insider tips about how to use MGID’s features to maximize your campaign profits.
• Gain valuable insights into MGID’s current profitable verticals within specific geos.

We’re also going to include case studies to help you better understand these concepts.

Tip #1: Work Closely with a Dedicated MGID Rep

Is it a MUST to have a rep in your traffic source?

No, but having one that works WITH you on your campaign definitely speeds things up.

Here’s why: An experienced MGID dedicated rep can help you with almost all your campaign settings.

They can:

• Help you place the best bids to get the most amount of quality traffic
• Help you optimize campaigns on the fly
• Help you adjust the traffic flow to focus on the most effective publishers
• Help you cut out non-performing publishers
• Help with your ad creation. They even have designers that can create/upgrade your ad units for better CTRs. Higher CTR = Lower CPC = Higher ROI.

Remember, it’s in our best interest to help you.

• A rep helps you get better ROI, which means YOU are happy.
• You become more profitable, and you spend more with MGID, which means WE are happy.

Unless you’re a reputable company with high ad spend on Google / Facebook, the chances of you working with a dedicated account manager are low, or almost impossible.

In MGID, you only need $500 in your ad account to get the full-serve campaign management option.

This guarantees you get a dedicated account manager to work with you.

Note: In MGID, there are two types of campaign management:

1. Self Service: You manage the campaigns by yourself.
2. Full-Serve: Have a personal experienced account manager work with you.

If you’re on the self-service option, email MGID support and get them to switch you to full-serve for all of the above benefits.

Once the campaign’s profitable, it’s like you have a media buyer mercenary helping you out.

Tip #2: Speed up Your A/B Testing with Symlink Integration

Symlink Integration allows you to set up tracking in one click.

This makes split testing ad units and landing pages fast and easy.

MGID is well aware of the needs of performance marketers and ensures that major trackers such as Kochava, Cake, Voluum, Hasoffers, Adsbridge are all seamlessly integrated.

Contact your rep for more details.

Tip #3: Always Make Use of Extensive Targeting Options

Let’s face it.

Google / Facebook are the kings when it comes to precise targeting.

Native ad networks can’t compete with these giant social networks.

The good news?

Not all native networks are created equal.

Look for the ones that can provide more extensive targeting in the industry.

MGID allows you to target precisely by:

• OS (Operating Systems)
• Browsers
• Browser Versions
• Languages (Both Search & Browser Language)

Here’s why this is important.

Imagine you’re promoting a Swiss offer which only allows takes in iOS traffic.

If you can’t target by OS, you’ll be wasting money on Android traffic.

That’s a pretty obvious example, so let’s go one step higher.

Did you know Switzerland has four national languages?

Here’s the breakdown from Wikipedia:

• German (63%)
• French (22.7%)
• Italian (8.4%)
• Romansh (0.6%)
• Others

Imagine what happens if the Swiss offer page is ONLY in Italian.

If you can’t target by Browser Languages, you’ll waste money buying German traffic.

You get the point.

Tip #4: Start Off with HIGH Bids, Then Optimize Downwards

To acquire high-quality inventory, you should always be one step ahead of your competitors.

There’s no sense starting a campaign with low bids since you’ll end up buying only remnant traffic, and not be able to truly test quality placements.

Note from Ngo:
I always advocate starting off with high bids for most traffic sources. If you bid low then you’re only going to get the doo-doo traffic that no one else wants.

Bidding high at first gives you access to the premium inventory that converts.

Setting optimal bids (or even a bit higher) at the beginning will allow you to get good volumes of traffic right away.

Thus, you’re able to gain high CTRs and slightly decrease the bids/set coefficients on the go based on the overall performance of specific placements.

It’s the most efficient way to squeeze more ROI on profitable placements while paying an optimal price to have a fair profitability on lower performing once.

Combine this with Selective Bidding (next tip), and you’ll be able to maximize ROI from every cent invested.

Tip #5: Use “Selective Bidding” to Maximize Profits

If you have a campaign that’s doing well at $1.50 CPC and want to get more traffic, you would increase that bid from $1.50 to $1.80, or so.

That makes sense.

However, most Native Ad networks only allow you to change bids on a campaign level.

That would mean you’re bidding $1.80 on unprofitable placements as well.

Ideally, you only want to increase bids on profitable placements.

MGID allows you to bid on a placement-level with their “Selective Bidding” feature.

You’re able to better control traffic volume from better performing websites without affecting the default bids on other placements.

This highly customizable traffic source management allows affiliates to intelligently manage their diversification and distribution of traffic between publishers within the campaign.

You can preserve reach and customize bidding strategy to optimize cost/profits.

Here’s a scenario to better illustrate:

At $1.50 CPC:

• Placement “ABC”: gets you 100% ROI
• Placement “DEF”: gets you between -20% to 30% ROI
• Placement “XYZ”: gets you -100% ROI (And already spent 3x Offer Payout)

You would want to:

• Increase bids for placement “ABC” from $1.50 to maybe $1.80
• Decrease OR maintain your “default” bid for placement “DEF” to monitor the situation
• Kill placement “XYZ”.

In MGID’s context, you wouldn’t specifically increase the bid amount.

You would play around with the bid multiplier in the “Selective Bidding” feature.

• Increase bid multiplier for placement “ABC” from the default 1.0 to 1.5
• Decrease bid multiplier for placement “DEF” from the default 1.0 to 0.7

That’s how you tell MGID that you want:

• MORE traffic volume from BETTER converting placements
• LESS traffic volume from UNDERPERFORMING placements.

Better bid optimization = Better ROI.

Here’s a before/after case study on selective bidding:

If an affiliate understands this concept, he/she can completely dominate a campaign to maximize ROI.

Speak to one of MGID’s experienced account reps and they’ll be able to help you determine the best bids.

Tip #6: Ride the 2018 Wave: PUSH Notification Ad-Format

This is one of MGID’s newest ad-formats.

Push notifications are clickable messages that pop up within an app or website.

They provide convenience and value to customers.

Users can receive any real-time information via push notifications, from weather reports to special offers.

For affiliates, push notifications is a way to speak directly to these users.

Here are some main benefits of PUSH Notifications:

• They don’t get caught in spam filters or forgotten in an inbox. Click-through rates can be twice as high as email.
• They help generate a large volume of traffic at a reasonable price, allowing you to define and reach your target audience accurately.

Currently, push notifications are working well for our advertisers in the following verticals:

• Sweepstakes, Vouchers & Coupons
• Online dating
• Gambling & Entertainment
• Health & Beauty

Here are some case studies to help you understand.

Case Study #2: Binary Options in the Philippines

Background:

• Vertical: Binary Options
• Geo: Philippines
• Devices: Desktop & Mobile
• Goal: Lead Gen + CPL reduction.

With the help of MGID‘s optimization tools and with the expert assistance of the affiliate’s dedicated account manager, the campaign’s CPL was reduced by 75% (from target $10 per lead to $2.43 per lead).

Case Study #3: Loans in Sri Lanka

Background:

• Vertical: Loans
• Geo: Sri Lanka
• Devices: Desktop & Mobile
• Goal: Lead Gen + CPL reduction

With MGID’s Optimization Tools, MGID was able to significantly improve the campaign’s performance and lower the CPL to $1.89, when the client’s goal was $2.50.

Should you need help with any optimization, speak to one of our experienced MGID reps.

It’s in our best interest to help you reach your optimization goals.

Tip #7: Use “Traffic Insights” to Uncover Potential Goldmines

Stop guessing which GEO to launch on.

Instead, use MGID’s new Traffic Insights feature.

You’ll be able to discover three specific things:

• Best Performing Geos: These are geos that are doing very well. Outbid these competitors to get a slice of that pie!
• Low Competition Geos: You may uncover profitable geos that not many are running yet. There are many reasons for this.For example:
  • Some of these geos require translation. That’s extra work. Most affiliates are lazy – and that’s where you strike!
• Hot Opportunities: These are popular geos that had a recent drop in competition. You’ll be able to buy traffic cheaper than usual.

Each of these categories will let you know:

• What’s the average daily impression you’ll be getting?
• What’s the average CPC to shoot for?
• Which platform should you be targeting?
• Etc…

Instead of running your campaigns with random bids, this data helps you better estimate your test/optimization budget.

BONUS: Top Geos and Verticals In MGID

Here’s an exclusive insider section for Ngo readers. We’re going to let you in on our best-performing verticals and geos, as well as give you a quick case study.

Best Performing Verticals:

• Healthcare
• Biz Opps
• Dating
• Gambling
• Desktop Gaming

Best Performing Geos:

• United States
• United Kingdom
• Vietnam
• India
• Indonesia
• Mexico
• Italy

I know what you’re thinking…

You want even more specific details, right? 

The Best Performing Verticals By Geo:

• [Tier 1] Investments and bitcoin trading, Consumer products, Health and beauty, Dating, e-commerce
• [Thailand] Weight loss, Binary, ED
• [Germany] Online games, Gambling, Dating
• [Spain] Dating, Nutra
• [Romania] Weight loss, Health and beauty
• [Indonesia] Forex, Anti-age creams
• [Vietnam] Weight loss, Money making, ED
• [India] Hair loss, Casino, Money making
• [GCC] Moneymaking, bitcoin trading

Here’s the average CPC you should be shooting for to outbid your competitors.

And…

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How to make money online with membership

Technically the Dare to Conquer is a membership site that happens to have courses in it. However, most people think of membership sites as having recurring monthly or quarterly fees.

Dare to Conquer has an option where you can pay once and get all present and future courses forever.

It’s the same thing with my weight loss membership site, Keto Bootstrap.

Each of these sites brings in over $20,000 a month.

Let me repeat…

EACH of these sites brings in over $20,000 a month.

Membership sites can work a number of different ways. You can simply offer a forum. You might offer monthly video lessons. You can think of a number of different things but you must make sure that you are providing continuous value to your audience.

Membership sites usually work best once you have an established audience to work with. Starting them from scratch without an audience is difficult because people join membership sites with the intention of interacting with other like-minded individuals.

If they are the first one to the dance and nobody shows up for days or weeks then they will quickly lose interest.

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How to make money online with ebook

I love writing eBooks because you can make them as simple or as complicated as you want. The easiest way to make an ebook is to simply write it in some type of word processing application (Word, Pages, or Google Docs) and export it as a PDF.

There you go. You now have an eBook that the world will enjoy.

eBooks are a great starter product for many bloggers because everyone has the tools to create them.

Some people believe that your ebook has to be super long for it to be successful and I’ve seen 4-page ebooks do well and 200-page ebooks bomb.

It’s completely dependent on the subject matter and what problem you are trying to solve.

If you don’t even want to set up your own website you can go directly through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing to reach millions of people instantly. Of course, you are dealing with a lot of competition but I know authors that make over $40,000 a month with their Kindle books.

I have one ebook out right now with more in the works:

• The 3-Day Weight Loss Manual

Both books were created with Apple Pages so you don’t need fancy technology to make these things happen.

What service do I use to sell them?

I use DPD for the Pinterest book and SendOwl for the weight loss manual only because I wanted to try out both services and haven’t found one to be better than the other.

Curious about creating your own product? Then 6-Figure Product Creationmight be the course for you.

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affiliate marketing

online from a technical standpoint because you don’t have to do anything but post a link on your site.

That link points to a manufacturer of some product that will pay you every time someone purchases from them.

For example, if I run a car blog and I sign up for an affiliate program with a car parts shop, I can link the different car parts that I like on my blog and when people click on the link and purchase from the car parts shop I get a cut.

The commission that you get is totally dependent on the affiliate program. There is no status quo. I’ve seen percentages range from 4% to 90%.

However, making money with affiliate marketing is a lot harder than people present it. You might think that all you need to do is put a link on your site and then watch the money flow but that isn’t the case.

You have to do a lot of upfront work to convince your audience that they want/need a particular product. If you can’t do that then your links will just sit there unclicked.

I also have an awesome course dedicated to affiliate marketing that will show you all of the steps that I take to make money with affiliate marketing.

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How to make money online 2019

Yes, you can make money online. That sounds really dumb to say and I hate saying it because that phrase alone sounds scammy as hell.

Anyone can make money online and I’m not trying to blow smoke up your ass.

There isn’t a crazy system that you need to learn or mystery that you need to solve.

Go on Pinterest and check out any big blog. Everything they do to make money is sitting right there in front of you.

It might seem so obvious to you that you don’t actually believe it. You might think that there is a secret that you are missing but there really isn’t. If you study enough success stories you can see the methods that they use.

In this post, I’m going to explain to you the 5 different ways I make money online and how I was able to achieve each one.

Who the Hell am I?

My name is Paul Scrivens and I run over twenty (!!!) blogs in different niches.

Before you get the wrong idea, you don’t need to run this many blogs to make this kind of money. I just do it because I like to understand how to be successful in a number of niches.

Currently, across my sites, I make over 5 figures every single month. It varies from month to month depending on the niche and what I’m promoting but every month I’m guaranteed (okay, nothing in life is guaranteed but it’s consistent) to make at least $50,000. Check out this blog income report that I created to see where the money comes from.

Here is a screenshot of one of my sites bringing in money almost daily:

Note: I can’t receive bank deposits over the weekend so some days in the above image are skipped.

If you want to get an idea of some of my sites (besides this one) then here is a list of some of them:

• Obstacle.co
• Thrive/Strive
• Talented Underachiever
• Dare to Conquer
• The Daily Nutrition
• Keto Bootstrap

As you can see, I’m pretty varied in what I do and it’s important to keep in mind that all of these sites contribute towards the money I make each month.

What about the other sites? They are still in the grow out phase so they won’t be added to the list until they start bringing in money as well.

First Things First

Before I dive into the 5 ways I make money online I want to talk to you about the most important aspect of making money online no matter what route you decide to take: building an audience.

If you can build an audience online then you have an easy road to making money.

This is a basic concept to understand. If you have an audience that pays attention to you, you can make money.

Remember that.

It’s the core concept of any audience whether it’s online or offline. Without an audience (clients, customers, members), you have no business.

The problem is that many people just don’t know how to build an audience or don’t put any focus on building an audience. Instead, they concern themselves with blog themes, Twitter posts, and other small things that don’t move the needle.

This is a big reason why one of the first courses on Dare to Conquer is a Pinterest Course. You need to learn how to build an audience and that means getting traffic.

Seriously, if you have a blog and have decided that you need to start building up an audience then Pinterest is a great place to start. I have a Pinterest Courseavailable at Dare to Conquer that will show you how to increase traffic with Pinterest. That’s how important I think it is.

Or you can get started with my free Pinterest Bootcamp.

If you can get traffic to your site then the whole world begins to open up for you.

It’s great that some bloggers will tell you that you don’t need much traffic to make money and they aren’t wrong, but if you can get a lot of traffic everything becomes much easier for you.

If I have a blog that is getting 100,000 page views a month that means that I’m probably getting at least 50,000 people to the site (most blogs will do between 1.2 to 1.4 pages per session). That means I have to try and get some small percentage of those people to buy something from me if I really want to do well. If I can’t get them to buy something then (in some cases) I have ads running on the site that will make me money anyways.

With a decent ad network, like AdThriveor Mediavine, 100,000 pageviews should net you between $800-$2000 a month.

As the number of people visiting my site increases, the chances of me making more money increase. That should be easy enough to understand with one caveat. The traffic just can’t be random traffic. It has to be traffic that is interested in what I’m writing about.

You aren’t going to bring 100 vegans into your hot dog shop (no you don’t serve tofu dogs).

It’s a pretty simple formula but for some reason, many bloggers (and other website owners) don’t put a lot of time in figuring out how to get traffic to the sites.

Make It Easy With a Good Niche

Now, let’s address something else which is going to be bad news for some of you.

If you want to make money online then I’m not going to tell you to follow your passion. Instead, I advise you to do stuff that has been proven to work.

If you like the idea of starting a blog then know that there are only 7 blog niches that get good traffic and make good money.

There really is no reason to try a different niche for your first blog.

I’ve spoken with people that want to start blogs on the topics they are most passionate about and they assume that they will do well simply because they believe other people love the topics as much as them.

Wrong.

What people love are things that make their lives easier and better. Why do you think how to make money blogs, personal finance blogs, and health blogs do so well?

Don’t hesitate to start a blog in a big and popular niche. The audience is already established in those areas so it’s pretty silly to avoid them.

With that being said let’s dive into the ways that I make money online.

Every penny that I earn starts with my blogs. I’ve put together a series of free email bootcamps that will show you all aspects of building a successful online business..

Check out the DTC Bootcamps today

The 5 Ways That I Make Money Online

I’m going to surprise you here and say that one of the ways isn’t by blogging.

Nobody pays me to blog.

However, the whole reason why I can make money online is because of blogging so if you want to make money online I suggest you get into blogging.

Blogging is your marketing platform.Fancy marketing people like to call it content marketing.

Blogging gives you the opportunity to build an audience which in turn gives you the chance to open up new revenue streams.

Get this straight, blogging opens the doors for a ton of opportunities for you. So when you see other people talk about the virtues of blogging, they aren’t talking about how awesome it is to write a piece of content.

In fact, one of the last things I want to do is sit down at a computer and write.

They are talking about how blogging levels the playing field for individuals to be able to reach thousands or millions of people similar to a bigger company.

My site, Keto Bootstrap, reaches over ONE MILLION PEOPLE A MONTH. That’s completely insane to me.

Every single way that I make money online is directly connected to my blogging but I don’t want to say I make money by blogging.

That might be a small technicality but I wanted to get that out of the way.

1. Ads

This is the second easiest way from a technical standpoint to make money online because you don’t have to do much to get them set up. If you use one of the ad networks that I mentioned above then they actually do all of the work for you!

What you do need though is a shit ton of traffic for this to be effective. By this, I mean at least 30,000 page views before you even want to consider putting ads up on your site.

I don’t use ads on all of my blogs but the few that I do, I use AdThrive or Mediavineand both have been wonderful.

Now I know the question you are asking is how much money do I make for the amount of traffic that I get. I get paid every time an ad is shown on my site but you get fractions of a penny for each view. For this reason, ad dollars are measured in CPM.

This means that for every 1,000 page views I make $X amount of money.

So with AdThrive/Mediavine, depending on the niche and the quality of ads, the CPM fluctuates between $5 – $30 per 1,000 page views.

If I do 100,000 page views in a month (the minimum you need to apply to AdThrive) then I will make anywhere between $500 and $2,000 for that month. Again, it’s dependent on the topics that you write about.

Not bad, but not great considering the other ways that you can make money.

However, ads are the most passive way to make money online. Your only focus is to get people to continue to come to your site which can be challenging in its own right.

As of May 2018 I do about $15,000 a month in ad revenue.

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