Recently, an affiliate marketer shared a case study on a popular affiliate marketing forum. In the case study, the affiliate says they were able to generate a 400% return on investment (ROI) from an affiliate marketing campaign they ran promoting a health/wellness offer in Italy.
The campaign was launched just last month, in April 2024, and within 3 weeks it generated $2,700 in revenue with a profit of $2,200.
This article is going to take an in-depth look at the specific strategies and tactics used by the affiliate, the key insights they gained, and the important lessons that other affiliate marketers can apply to replicate this kind of success in their own campaigns.
Campaign overview
Let's take a closer look at the key details of this successful campaign:
- Date: April 2 - April 25 (the campaign is still ongoing)
- Offer type: SOI Mainstream
- Traffic source: Adsterra
- GEO: Italy
- Amount spent: $508.32
- Total revenue: $2,754.86
- Total profit: $2,246.54
- ROI: +442.13%
Selecting the right offer and traffic source
The key to a successful CPA marketing campaign is choosing the right offer and the right place to get your traffic from. In this case, the affiliate marketer made some smart decisions:
Offer selection
The affiliate went with an offer called Semenax, a male enhancement nutra CPA offer targeting Italy, which is considered a high-paying "tier 1" geographic location. The specific offer paid $6.00 for each valid lead, where users had to confirm their email address to be counted as a conversion.
Traffic source
The affiliate had successfully used the Adsterra ad network before for similar offers. This prior experience and familiarity with Adsterra made it the obvious choice to be the traffic source for this campaign as well.
Ad creatives
Having the right visuals and messaging in your ads and landing pages is essential for attracting and converting potential leads. The affiliate says that he uses spy tools like Adplexity to research high-performing creatives and replicates them for the campaign.
He didn't share the exact ad creatives he used to run the campaign because the campaign was still active at the moment.
However, the key is to look at what's already working well in the market, and then put your own spin on it. By tweaking and customizing existing successful creatives, you can create visuals that are likely to resonate with your target audience.
You don't necessarily need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to creative design. By leveraging proven concepts and putting your own touch on them, you can craft eye-catching ads and landing pages that help drive conversions.
Bidding strategies
To test the campaign, the affiliate marketer allocated $100 for their initial test campaign. But before launching, a key step the affiliate marketer took was to check the eCPM for the geo they were targeting.
With this eCPM information, the marketer set an initial bid of $0.53 to help ensure a steady flow of traffic to their offer.
He started with a bid higher than the recommended amount, the affiliate was able to access more traffic at the beginning. They then gradually decreased the bid as the campaign progressed, in order to avoid overspending.
The initial campaign settings the affiliate used for testing
The power of pre-landers
The affiliate used prelanders in this campaign to serve 2 main purposes: Filtering out fake bot traffic and boosting conversion rates. However, the affiliate marketer emphasizes that it's crucial to make sure the pre-landers are 100% relevant to the offer, in order to avoid misleading users and negatively affecting conversion rates.
The performance of pre-landers can vary depending on the specific offer. While some offers perform better with direct linking, others, particularly those with higher payouts, often benefit from using pre-landers. Again, spy tools can be really useful for finding high-converting pre-lander templates.
To get the most out of pre-landers, the affiliate recommends including all relevant information from the offer and using attention-grabbing elements like attractive visuals and engaging quizzes. The goal is to capture visitors' interest quickly and effectively, which can lead to higher CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) and conversion rates.
Campaign optimization
With the offer, traffic source, and pre-lander all in place, the affiliate launched the campaign using specific settings within the Adsterra platform.
At first, the results after the first week were not great - this is common in the world of cost-per-action (CPA) marketing. However, the marketer persisted, recognizing that success often requires a determined mindset and a willingness to navigate the ups and downs of campaign optimization.
Over the following days, the affiliate marketer carefully optimized the campaign. They made strategic adjustments, such as:
- Adjusting the bidding amount
- Blocking traffic from non-converting regions and countries
- Blacklisting poor performing sources and campaign elements
This meticulous optimization process led to increasingly positive results. Eventually, the campaign started generating around $100 in daily profit without needing further adjustments.
After making those optimizations, the affiliate focused on scaling only the converting elements of the campaign and slightly increasing their budget to start scaling.
However, by the release of the case study, he was still implementing the scaling process. His target was to push the campaign to an extent that it generates a 5-figure profit per month.
Conclusion
CPA marketing often requires patience and a dedication to ongoing optimization. Even when initial results are disappointing, staying the course and making data-driven improvements can unlock significant profitability over time.
To help fellow affiliate marketers achieve similar success, the affiliate shares some valuable optimization tips:
- Bidding: Regularly analyze and optimize your campaign, adjusting your bid accordingly. Start with a bid higher than the recommended amount to secure more traffic, then gradually decrease it as the campaign progresses to avoid overspending.
- Blacklisting: Take advantage of the blacklisting feature to exclude non-converting zones and GEOs, minimizing wasted spend and focusing your budget on high-performing traffic sources.
- Exclusions: From the outset, exclude traffic from irrelevant sources such as outdated operating systems or languages not spoken in your target country. This proactive approach saves money and allows you to allocate resources to more valuable data points.
Beyond the specifics of this successful campaign, the affiliate marketer emphasizes the broader potential of CPA marketing when approached strategically. By carefully pre-testing each campaign and selecting the right ad networks, affiliates can tap into high-quality traffic sources and achieve profitable results.
