Here's a CPA offer selection formula

[theosap]

I haven't ran any affiliate/cpa offers in literally over 15 years, but not many things have changed.

We're currently building some legal/financial services and we're interested to further monetize the in-house leads/traffic we'll be generating and acquiring. For that reason I had a look at what's up these days and I decided to build a simple, 25-points system on how to benchmark offers between them. So here you go:


high network EPC: 3 points (good indication)
great landing page/tour: 4 points (extremely important)
appealing commissions: 3 points (important, but not deterministic)
appealing/quality product/service: 3 points (always a plus, not necessarily the rule of success though)
existing traffic: 3 points (good indication, check if their website get's traffic already from other traffic sources)
reputable CPA network: 4 points (important, tons of bad around)
previously successful merchant: 5 points (now that's huge. Takes mastering different skills to produce a winner. Few can and they tend to repeat this, most fail)

Every yes adds the equivalent points to the sum. Min sum: 0 , Max sum; 25

Again this is based on paaaast aff.marketing experience, but also 20y+ online business experience as well. Never take anything as absolute, but this should be helpful to many.

 

[clearmachine]

These are some great points, thanks for sharing! There are a couple of things I think should be considered.

Network EPC is certainly a good measuring point, but there may be a few reasons why a network has "Low EPC" but is still a good network to work with. They may have lower payout type offers like sweeps/email submits or have affiliates running CPC campaigns. They may even have a pub or 2 running massive amounts of clicks from a cheap source that is making money - more money than most of us could dream off. These and other factors may contribute to a lower network EPC.

Another thing that I think all affiliates need to consider is on-time and frequent payments. Not getting paid on time or at all can be a fatal blow for all but the most experienced affiliate. Getting paid to slow can hold you back from scaling or even having to stop your campaigns altogether. You may not like the cut the affiliate networks take, but reliable weekly payments are much better than waiting forever for a monthly net 30 payment that may come late.

 

[theosap]

Totally, high EPC is just a positive signal. Low EPC doesn't mean anything cause it could be outcome of multiple factors. You may want to lower the weight from 3 points down to 1-2.

In regards to payment frequency, this is more like an accounting/cashflow variable. When it comes down to rating an offer itself shouldn't be included; at least not part of such formula.

 

[silvermoon]

And here is the most important criteria that you op missed:

* Are other affiliates promoting it. If yes, then great.

 

[theosap]

Assuming you won't be the very first (which will be kind of odd) I don't see is as a plus.

CPA offers tend to have a short lifecycle. The later you enter, the harder to convert/make money. The majority of the big players enter as early as possible and do their own experimentation rather copy someone else. Timing is of essence. Within weeks/months they have literally squeezed a big big marketshare and offer is on its exhausting point. You then see the smaller guys and newbies entering by trying to duplicated/steal their work. Guess what happens? 95% campaign failure rate.

 

[theosap]

Sincererely if someone's model here is stealing...better do the following. Validate that an offer is fresh, that it would make sense and see who just started promoting it. Apply some judgement if the marketer is a shark or a goldfish and follow the shark's steps. Do that early, don't wait for those 60-90-120 days worth data for pushing an offer...

 

[theosap]

on a small,yet important note though. Unless you have some serious experience as an internet marketer, even if you get the same deal terms with the shark chances to turn profit are slim. There will be x,y,z parameters you'll miss due to lack of experience to spot them. In addition, all spy tools in the world etc will only give you a glimpse of what is going on and there's a lot of guessing from that point.. guessing in business is gambling.

 

[joeybabbs]

Assuming you won't be the very first (which will be kind of odd) I don't see is as a plus.

CPA offers tend to have a short lifecycle. The later you enter, the harder to convert/make money. The majority of the big players enter as early as possible and do their own experimentation rather copy someone else. Timing is of essence. Within weeks/months they have literally squeezed a big big marketshare and offer is on its exhausting point. You then see the smaller guys and newbies entering by trying to duplicated/steal their work. Guess what happens? 95% campaign failure rate.

In a presentation I saw from Giddyup last year they mentioned this exact same thing...basically a new offer comes in that has great potential, 1 or 2 big players test their own creatives (usually not the creatives provided) and then they start building angles, their own audiences, and data.

Finally at the point where they zero'd in the offer and start making HUGE progress, the info starts to leak out about it either through affiliate managers or spy tools, but these few enlightened affiliates are so far ahead of everyone else that for the life of the offer, it's only a couple of major "sharks" as you say on the network that crush that offer. The rest are picking up crumbs. Affiliate managers are telling their pubs "hey man this offer is CRUSHING!" but most people who test it fail.

The key is coming up with your own stuff.