Providing You With Free Marketing Education That Will Increase Your Bottom Line - Guaranteed
Do you ever take out the middle man A.K.A. affiliate or CPA networks? If not, why not have a look at what you’re running now to see if there is something that you can potentially do this with? I did this (and more) with a an offer, and the results have been great…
First, going direct with an advertiser results in an instant payout increase (assuming that have some negotiating skills). It also opens windows to other lucrative possibilities. For example, recently I set up a deal that has enabled me to host and design the entire lead generation landing page myself (including the form that submits the user data). This means I that I now have full control over the copy, and that I am not dependent on the advertisers copywriting skills anymore. So, what can this mean to you?
In my particular case this meant a 100% bump in conversions. What it means to you depends on your situation, i.e. how good the copy of the advertiser is vs. your own copywriting skills. If you believe you can do a better job at that, then striking a deal like that is a profitable thing to do. Usually there’s a natural progression…
You start by developing and improving your copy on your regular landing page first. Then, after you know that your copy is preforming well, it’s a good time to approach the advertiser and ask if you can “post the data” to their website. Posting the data to their website means that the form on your website submits the user data to their system.
Posting the data is pretty easy from a technical P.O.V. You only need to understand HTML. If you don’t know HTML though you can also easily outsource it for a few bucks.
Do you have an offer that you can do this with? If so, why not contact the advertiser right now to see if you can go direct?
Update May 16th, 2009:
I just found a good complementary post by Chad from CDFNetworks.com, he talks about the advantages vs. the disadvantages of going direct, something I didn’t touch on. Have a look here: Networks Versus Private Affiliate Offers.
I send them an email where I talk about what I can do for them, and I also mention my affiliate ID so they can check my traffic at the affiliate network.
Here’s an email template you can use that has worked for me:
Interested in Sending Traffic to {advertiser name}
Hello, I have been driving a lot of traffic to {offer name} via
{affiliate network} (my affiliate ID there is ...). Since
my traffic seems to be well received I would like to take out the
middle man and work with {advertiser name} directly.
{insert story about how much traffic you can deliver here, and some conversion stats}
Please let me know what is possible, I would like to set something up together.
Kind regards,
...
Ive been having trouble trying to contact advertisers .. how did you approach the situation to get them to respond in a timely manner?