Tricia Meyer published 3 tips when running CPA offers, and I cannot agree more about watching for the cap in her last tip. I have personally worked with Tricia when I worked at Wyndham, I know that she does have a strong following for all things Disney from her HelpingMomConnect site and she knows what is she talking about.
As I have managed numerous CPA program, and with some advertisers spending over $250k/month, here are other things that I would suggest affiliates look for when considering promoting CPA offers to supplement your revenue stream.
Relationship with the network
Once you completed doing your due diligence about the network, you want to establish a great relationship with the account manager that handles that advertiser. When you are successful in promoting the advertiser, and have quality CPA, then it does not hurt to ask the account manager if they are able to provide a higher payout, or spiffs. Advertisers that generate huge volume via the CPA network will often have the ability to establish different commission payouts, or set bonuses on certain goals.
Google Alerts
It is a free tool (Google Alerts), and use it to monitor that company that you are promoting. You will learn a lot about that advertiser, and might even see what other publishers are doing to promote that advertiser. Google Alerts will also provide you with a head start in the event that the advertiser goes belly up and will not pay commission owed. Just keep a look out for “restructuring, layoff, refinance”. It is up to you to decide when to stop promoting that advertiser. I would suggest setting up weekly Google Alerts for “Company Name” and just scan those emails that comes in.
Agencies, or OPM
Reach out to some agencies / OPM that you work with and see if they know of any exclusive, private networks that carries that advertiser’s offer. In most cases, those private networks might provide that offer due to some strategic relationship with the advertiser with the network, or agency. When I ran my program on Rakuten-Linkshare, there were two other networks that were strategic to our presence on the web and we did lots of creative things on those network from private commission to landing page testing, etc.
Niches and substitute
There is no math involved with this concept but don’t spray and pray. There is a saying that it’s a numbers game but with CPA programs, don’t promote everything under the sun. Find something that you are passionate about and also find advertisers that will resonate with your customer base, or target consumer. As for substitution, in the event that one advertiser goes away – have the ability to swap them out immediately.
CPA offers can be very rewarding and there are countless affiliates that strictly focus on CPA offers as the advertiser’s business model requires additional touch points beyond the first action on the web, but at the same time, it can be challenging for affiliates when you promote the wrong advertiser and get burned along the line.