This is a guest post by Ilya Lichtenstein. Ilya is the CEO of MixRank.com, a media buy research tool that automatically identifies the most profitable ads and traffic sources in any market.
One of the easiest ways to generate massive revenue as an affiliate very quickly is through targeted direct media buys: paying bloggers or article writers to place your banner ads on their site. When doing a media buy, you don’t have to worry about quality score, getting slapped by Google, or any other highly technical variables. All you have to do is find a site that has traffic that’s relevant to your offer. Here’s how to do your first profitable media buy.
Pick a High Volume Niche
You want to select a niche that has a lot of demand and a lot of content about it you can buy ads on. Search the main keyword for your product/market in quotes on Google and note how many results appear. Most affiliate offers fit this criteria.
Design high quality banners
Having banners that catch the eye and attract clicks is really important for a media buy. Try to design a few banners that have the following elements:
- A large headline 3-8 words long
- An image that grabs attention and stands out from the rest of the page
- A prominent call to action button that encourages people to click
You can also outsource this through a service like 99Designs.
Find relevant publishers.
Search for your keywords using Google Blog Search, The AdWords contextual keyword tool, social bookmarking sites like delicious. Make a list of smaller sites in your niche that seem likely to agree to a relatively low-traffic buy to test. You can also use free research tools like MixRank.com to see where other affiliates are currently promoting similar products.
Contact relevant sites
Email the sites you found and say you have a large advertising budget and are looking for traffic sources. Offer to pay them to replace their current AdSense or other ad network ads with your banner. Try to negotiate a flat rate or CPC deal when you can. Paying CPM can be risky and you can lose money quickly on a high traffic site.
Track everything and kill losers quickly
You don’t want to get roped into an ad buy that keeps losing money. So try to negotiate a short term buy of 2-4 weeks to see how their traffic converts. After tracking your results, you can negotiate a discount in exchange for a longer term spending commitment on that site.
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