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If you're just starting out with your CPA affiliate journey it may be hard for you to select a good offer to run. A common mistake for a newbie is to just select a random affiliate offer that they see on the affiliate network(s) they are a member of.
If you're experienced this may be an option (more on this later), but as a newbie with a low budget, this is no better than going to your local gas station, buying a lottery ticket and hoping to win the big jackpot.
Let's go over several methods you can use to find a good affiliate offer to promote:
METHOD #1 - TOP OFFERS REPORT
From my experience, this is probably the most reliable method to find a proven offer.
For this method, you need to contact your affiliate manager (by email or Skype) and ask for an Excel report of their top offers by revenue or conversions. I mostly prefer the by revenue report, but if they can't give that to you then by conversions will also suffice.
You should get a file that looks like this:
This report is specifically for the sweepstakes vertical. Some networks will have vertical-specific reports like this, while other networks will give you a report with all of the verticals combined in them.
You can generally assume the offers are in order with the offers doing the most revenue at the top, but this isn't always the case. That's OK. What matters is that you have a list of offers that other affiliates are doing volume with.
Depending on the affiliate network you get the report from the columns will be different. They should all be pretty self-explanatory, however.
The stats about conversion rate or EPC don't really matter, as you have no clue what types of traffic other affiliates are using and whether or not they are direct linking or using a landing page. For more about this topic you can read here.
Now that you have the report where you can pick offers to test. A good situation is that you have a GEO (Country) with 2 - 3 similar offers that you can split test against each other.
METHOD #2 - AFFILIATE MANAGER RECOMMENDATIONS
Sometimes when you try to do method #1 your affiliate manager won't actually give you a .csv with the top offers. They might instead just recommend 3 - 5 different offers for you to try. That leads us to method #2 of asking your affiliate manager for offer recommendations.
Sometimes these "recommendations" can be really good, and sometimes not so much. So be careful here.
For this method, you just ask your affiliate manager for recommendations of offers to run. If you're interested in a specific vertical/GEO you might ask something like this "Can you recommend me 3 performing SOI sweepstakes offers in Germany that I can test?".
Depending on how experienced or lazy your affiliate manager is will be a determining factor in how good the offers really are.
After you've worked with an affiliate manager for awhile they might occasionally send you some recommendations based on what they think is working for you already. Sometimes you get access to offers before everyone else has a chance to see them!
METHOD #3 - SPY TOOLS
The next method requires you to have a subscription to a spy tool like Anstrex or AdPlexity. There are many ways to find offers with spy tools:
Also note that the by volume search may not be the most reliable. If someone is cloaking their offer may seem like it doesn't have much volume, but that's because they are cloaking and the spy tool might not pick it up 100% of the time.
If you find an offer and you're not sure what affiliate network has the offer you can use offer aggregators like OfferVault, Affplus, Affbank, Odigger, etc. to see if you can find what network has the offer. An alternative is to give your favorite AM the offer URL and ask if they can get the offer for you.
METHOD #4 (ADVANCED) - RANDOM OFFER
If you've got some experience under your belt picking random offers sometimes can pan out quite well for you if you know what you're looking for.
If you know a particular country is working well and you have a proven funnel to work with you can get a bunch of offers that could fit in your funnel and split test them all against each other. Some of the random offers may not have got enough volume yet to make it on the top offers reports.
This method is advanced because you not only need a proven funnel, but also some cash flow to test tons of offers at once. Balls of steel and very high tolerance of red ROI are also suggested.
METHOD #5 - COMBINE SEVERAL METHODS
The last method that you can use is the combination of several of the methods above. This will probably give you the highest probability of success, but also requires more work than just using one single method.
For example, you can get the top offers reports (METHOD #1) and then pop those URLs in a spy tool (METHOD #3) that are meant for the type of traffic you want to use. This should show if other affiliates are promoting it on the same traffic type and also show you what landing pages they are using.
Or you might do the opposite of the example above... first see an offer frequently in your spy tool and then confirm it's a top performer by also seeing in on the top offer report from your favorite affiliate network.
CONCLUSION
If you're a newbie and struggling to find a good offer to promote you'll probably have higher chances of success if you use methods 1 - 3 (particularly 1 and 3). Don't pick random offers you think look good! Pick offers that are already proven and exponentially increase your chances of success.
If you're experienced this may be an option (more on this later), but as a newbie with a low budget, this is no better than going to your local gas station, buying a lottery ticket and hoping to win the big jackpot.
Let's go over several methods you can use to find a good affiliate offer to promote:
METHOD #1 - TOP OFFERS REPORT
From my experience, this is probably the most reliable method to find a proven offer.
For this method, you need to contact your affiliate manager (by email or Skype) and ask for an Excel report of their top offers by revenue or conversions. I mostly prefer the by revenue report, but if they can't give that to you then by conversions will also suffice.
You should get a file that looks like this:
This report is specifically for the sweepstakes vertical. Some networks will have vertical-specific reports like this, while other networks will give you a report with all of the verticals combined in them.
You can generally assume the offers are in order with the offers doing the most revenue at the top, but this isn't always the case. That's OK. What matters is that you have a list of offers that other affiliates are doing volume with.
Depending on the affiliate network you get the report from the columns will be different. They should all be pretty self-explanatory, however.
The stats about conversion rate or EPC don't really matter, as you have no clue what types of traffic other affiliates are using and whether or not they are direct linking or using a landing page. For more about this topic you can read here.
Now that you have the report where you can pick offers to test. A good situation is that you have a GEO (Country) with 2 - 3 similar offers that you can split test against each other.
METHOD #2 - AFFILIATE MANAGER RECOMMENDATIONS
Sometimes when you try to do method #1 your affiliate manager won't actually give you a .csv with the top offers. They might instead just recommend 3 - 5 different offers for you to try. That leads us to method #2 of asking your affiliate manager for offer recommendations.
Sometimes these "recommendations" can be really good, and sometimes not so much. So be careful here.
For this method, you just ask your affiliate manager for recommendations of offers to run. If you're interested in a specific vertical/GEO you might ask something like this "Can you recommend me 3 performing SOI sweepstakes offers in Germany that I can test?".
Depending on how experienced or lazy your affiliate manager is will be a determining factor in how good the offers really are.
After you've worked with an affiliate manager for awhile they might occasionally send you some recommendations based on what they think is working for you already. Sometimes you get access to offers before everyone else has a chance to see them!
METHOD #3 - SPY TOOLS
The next method requires you to have a subscription to a spy tool like Anstrex or AdPlexity. There are many ways to find offers with spy tools:
- Do a global search and filter the results by volume or days running
- Do a country-specific search and filter the results by volume or days running
- Do keyword searches for common words used in your favorite vertical
- Take offer URLs from your affiliate network and search for them in the spy tools
- Etc.
Also note that the by volume search may not be the most reliable. If someone is cloaking their offer may seem like it doesn't have much volume, but that's because they are cloaking and the spy tool might not pick it up 100% of the time.
If you find an offer and you're not sure what affiliate network has the offer you can use offer aggregators like OfferVault, Affplus, Affbank, Odigger, etc. to see if you can find what network has the offer. An alternative is to give your favorite AM the offer URL and ask if they can get the offer for you.
METHOD #4 (ADVANCED) - RANDOM OFFER
If you've got some experience under your belt picking random offers sometimes can pan out quite well for you if you know what you're looking for.
If you know a particular country is working well and you have a proven funnel to work with you can get a bunch of offers that could fit in your funnel and split test them all against each other. Some of the random offers may not have got enough volume yet to make it on the top offers reports.
This method is advanced because you not only need a proven funnel, but also some cash flow to test tons of offers at once. Balls of steel and very high tolerance of red ROI are also suggested.
METHOD #5 - COMBINE SEVERAL METHODS
The last method that you can use is the combination of several of the methods above. This will probably give you the highest probability of success, but also requires more work than just using one single method.
For example, you can get the top offers reports (METHOD #1) and then pop those URLs in a spy tool (METHOD #3) that are meant for the type of traffic you want to use. This should show if other affiliates are promoting it on the same traffic type and also show you what landing pages they are using.
Or you might do the opposite of the example above... first see an offer frequently in your spy tool and then confirm it's a top performer by also seeing in on the top offer report from your favorite affiliate network.
CONCLUSION
If you're a newbie and struggling to find a good offer to promote you'll probably have higher chances of success if you use methods 1 - 3 (particularly 1 and 3). Don't pick random offers you think look good! Pick offers that are already proven and exponentially increase your chances of success.
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