Media Buying Guide – Only For Courageous Affiliate Marketers

What is Media Buying? Today we will discuss thoroughly, but before going on we must underline that media buying is not a ‘toy’ for everyone. This method is very risky, and like other ways that are full of risk, this method can increase your earnings to four, five and even six digits in one day. This guide is for beginners that will explain how to start with direct site-media buy easily by minimizing the existing risks.

To successfully use media buying for affiliate marketing use this guide divided into 4 (four) easy steps:

• Choose offers and do research
• Select the target websites
• Contact the webmaster of the website and negotiate
• Optimize the ad performance

Choose offers and do your research

Some people think steps 1 and 2 are the easiest. Well, in the experiences of some affiliate marketers it’s the most difficult ones. We advise to choose a good offer, contact the Affiliate Manager from your Affiliate Network. They will be able to give you insights on the offers, share the offers with good EPC (Earnings Per Click) with you, suggest which GEOs convert the best. Here at Indoleads, we’re really proud of our Affiliate Managers for being able to tend to all the affiliate needs and timely and professional manner.

Still haven’t got a clue how to identify a good Affiliate Network? Check out our previous blog post!

Moving towards the implementation of your campaign – there are 2 (two) ways to get a high ROI in direct media buy. The first is from websites that have the similar and relative information as the offer requires. For example, a website about high fashion garments that is, can rack up huge commissions for you for fashion related offers because the topic is very relevant to the offer. Another way to get good ROI on affiliate marketing programs is searching for websites with the relative demographics that are good for the offer. For example: a website that covers healthy eating and losing weight, will fit with offers about some nutrition or weightless related offers, which is suitable for visitors who are middle-aged women looking to get in shape.

Find the target websites

Now let’s choose the target website. If we choose niche websites to offer niche ones, it is easy. Search Google for the keywords, choose 10-20 websites that have a good position on Google but don’t have a good ad layout. If we look for websites to promote general offers, such as games, dating, downloads, etc.; you have to start with the demographics of the target website visitors. The easiest way to find out the demographics of visitors is with Quancast Measure.

Contact the webmaster of the website and negotiate

After determining the destination website, contact the webmaster and negotiate. There are 3 (three) ways to contact:
(1) look for the ‘contact us’ form or email that can be contacted,
(2) if there is none, or if they do not reply to the email try looking for some contact information in Whois . Whois shows you when the domain was created and who is running it. Sometimes, however, the webmasters pay extra few dollars to hide their personal info from Whois as well.
(3) if there is no available info in Whois database, look for the webmaster through Google. After getting their phone email, or Facebook you should contact them. Therefore, we recommend having 15-20 lists of target websites, because looking for contacts, reaching out and waiting for reply can take a long time.

Once you have successfully contacted a website manager, it is the time for negotiation. The first information that you must ask is: average Unique View (UV) and the total number of page views. You can also find this info out via such services like SimilarWeb or Alexa. They are a good starting point to check if the webmaster is providing the accurate info. The bigger the Unique View and the more non-repeated visitors the website has, the better for your ads in the long run.

Choose the best affiliate programs for media buying, your website or blog here 

Many affiliates prefer flat prices for buying media, for its convenience. This means the webmaster of the target website sets a flat price for a certain period of time. In some cases, CPMs are the same as when you advertise on Facebook. If you chose a target website with 750,000 impressions per month and they ask for 0.25 CPM, just take it. The method to count your cost is: (750,000 x 0.25) / 1000 = $188 per month.

Pro tip: Try asking for one trial day before starting. Pay attention to the data in the tracking software that you are using, especially CTR of ads and conversions.

Use Ad Servers

Another way for media buying is to use Ad Servers such as OpenX ,  Adbucks , Adperium , etc.  What’s an Ad Server? In simple words, they are a kind of brokers that deal with the webmasters. They have connections to a lot of website managers. The only thing you need to do is to choose the banners from Indoleads platform or create your own and then bid. Many find this much easier because they don’t need to negotiate with the owner of the website directly.

Top ad types for Media Buying are:

1. Social Advertisement (used by 89% of media buyers)
2. Display Banner Ads (used by 77% of media buyers)
3. Mobile Banner Ads (used by 73% of media buyers)
4. Video Advertising (used by 65% of media buyers)
5. Email Advertising (used by 60% of media buyers)

How can each of these types rack up so many per cents? It’s because professional media buyers have to employ 4-5 types of ads at the same time to reach the best results. By implementing multiple marketing and ad channels they are able to better measure and monitor performance of each ad type.

Whether via direct media buy or through ad servers, ad optimization is a very important thing. Make 5-10 eye-catching ads according to the banner size guidelines, if necessary use some minor animated elements like blinks, flashing light bulbs or audio to attract more attention. Or you can download premaid banners from Indoleads platform. Don’t forget to keep looking at the eCPM indicator on ad servers. Some affiliates do not focus on CTR or CR, focus only on eCPM – Effective Cost per Mille. eCPM functions to find out the effectiveness of your ads.

Animated banners do perform better usually in the CTR (Click Through Rate), but usually can be low in CR (Convertion Rate). If you feel like you are spending too much on complex animated ads, just replace ads like this, and focus on something less complicated that will bring you more $$$. Good luck!

Are you a media buyer, website owner or an influencer? Monetize your content efficiently and easily using affiliate marketing. Indoleads has 2000+ top notch affiliate programs from 180+ countries, you will definitely find the best offers for your audience!