Affiliate marketing is one of the most lucrative ways to earn money online. However, to achieve big revenues in the 6-figure range per month, affiliates need to go beyond simply promoting offers. Building your own lead-generation assets allows you to collect first-party data, diversify your income streams, and maximize ROI on your ad spend.
In this article, we'll look at what lead-generation assets are, and how they work, and also analyze the strategies shared by Jonathan Lender, founder of Spine Media and Secco Squared, on how to build lead-gen affiliate assets that can generate over $100,000 monthly.
So what exactly is a lead-generation asset?
In essence, a lead-generation asset is a tool designed to capture customer information like their name, email, phone number, or other applicable data. The goal is capturing the leads of the visitors that come to your landing page and monetizing them later. The benefit of this is that it gives you more power later on by allowing you to monetize your leads through email marketing, email ads, building an email newsletter business, or actually selling the leads to different buyers. And this can be done over and over again, instead of just sending the traffic directly to an affiliate offer and getting paid once.
Some common types of lead-gen assets include:
- Free ebooks or PDF guides: These are your own free offers that you can place on your landing pages in exchange for visitor contact info
- Newsletters: These are website forms prompting visitors to sign up for content like newsletters
- Quizzes and surveys: These are interactive questionnaires that gather info on user preferences and needs
- Webinars: Online workshops that collect registrant info
- Content websites: These can be niche blogs with very interesting content
- Free product trials/demos: These are free product offers that can only be accessed by users who submit their info
The most effective lead-gen assets provide tangible upfront value to the user while gathering the data needed to market to them ongoing. Targeting and quality are crucial for optimal conversion rates.
Now, we already know that most of you have an idea of how these lead-generation assets work. However, in this article, we are going to introduce you to one strategy that can help you build and take your lead-gen assets to a 6-figure level. This strategy is collecting detailed first-party data.
The importance of first-party data
The key to scaling affiliate income lies in capturing first-party data on your lead-gen assets. This data, which includes details provided by users such as email, phone number, address, credit profile, homeowner status, etc., is extremely valuable for several reasons:
- Retargeting - You can retarget leads with personalized offers based on the data collected, leading to higher conversion rates. According to Google, 64% of consumers expect tailored experiences when they provide their information.
- Email Marketing - Owning an email list allows you to market to leads repeatedly. Research shows 50% of transactions take place via email.
- SMS Marketing - Text message open rates exceed 97% within the first 15 minutes, with 45% of recipients engaging with the message. SMS is a high-converting channel when used appropriately.
- Offline Marketing - Having a lead's physical address unlocks opportunities in direct mail, an overlooked but $41 billion market in the US alone. Matching online and offline data enhances targeting.
By having multiple ways to monetize leads beyond the initial conversion, you gain more control over your unit economics and are less reliant on any single revenue source. You can also sell leads to a range of buyers depending on the data points collected.
Structuring lead-generation flows
The next step is designing lead flows that profile users and segment them into appropriate verticals. For example, in a mortgage refinance lead-gen funnel. After the ad, the landing page flow starts by asking for basic info like property type, loan scenario, and zip code. This allows you to immediately determine if the lead is a homeowner, what their borrowing needs are, and the lead's potential value based on location.
The ad
First step of the questionnaire landing page
Second step of the questionnaire landing page
As users progress through the flow, you can add more questions to get more insights like estimated credit score range, existing debt obligations, family status, vehicle ownership, etc.
Third step of the questionnaire landing page
Fourth step of the questionnaire landing page
An important aspect is phrasing the questions in a way that feels natural to the user's original intent. For instance, inquiring about credit card debt in a mortgage application provides valuable info without disrupting the user experience.
Organizing the leads based on the data
This approach of progressive profiling allows you to collect data points that you can use to organize the leads into relevant verticals beyond the initial offer vertical.
In the mortgage refinance example, subpar leads, for example, home owners with bad credit scores can be offered:
- Personal loan offers
- Debt consolidation programs
- Credit repair offers, etc.
Premium leads, for example, home owners with good credit scores can be marketed:
- Solar panel installation offers
- Home renovation services
- Life insurance
- Auto insurance offers, etc.
The key is leveraging data points to map leads to products they are likely to convert for.
You can always use data analysis to determine the most common attributes of leads and building funnels around those profiles. For example, identifying that most mortgage refinance leads are also parents over 30 who own vehicles allows you to confidently promote life and auto-insurance offers to that audience. A single lead-gen asset can fuel multiple affiliate income streams when architected ver.
Diversification
Owning the entire lead-gen funnel also gives you more control over monetization. Rather than being locked into a single payout from an affiliate network or advertiser.
For example, if an affiliate is primarily focused on the mortgage vertical and their main advertiser suddenly reduces their budget or drops out entirely, they can quickly pivot to other verticals where they have already built out lead-generation assets. Or alternatively they can switch to another advertiser in the same niche.
Also, by owning the first-party data, affiliates to have complete control over how they monetize their leads. Affiliates can choose to sell leads to advertisers on a pay-per-lead basis, or they can opt to retarget consumers with their own offers. This flexibility allows you to optimize your campaigns for maximum profitability.
When it comes to selling the leads, some of the factors that increase lead value include:
- Zip code: Certain geo areas command higher lead values due to socioeconomic and demographic factors. Capturing location data allows you to sell your premium leads for a much higher price than you would have when the location data was not identified,.
- Lead completeness: The more data points you gather on a lead, the more ways you can monetize them. A complete lead profile is worth more than an email address alone. Designing your flow to capture critical info increases lead quality and auction value.
- Buyer diversity: Building relationships with a wide range of buyers creates more competition and pricing power in your auction. Analyzing bids also reveals insights about which traffic sources or geos are most desirable.
The combination of auction pressure and first-party data monetization provides a huge earnings increase compared to standard affiliate marketing.
Scaling tips and considerations
Once you've built out a high-performing lead-gen property, the next challenge is scaling traffic and systematizing operations. Some of the suggestions include:
- Developing a robust analytics suite to track user flow and spot drop-off points. This data guides your optimizations.
- Investing in email marketing automation to handle segmentation, retargeting, and drip campaigns. The goal is triggering the right message to each lead based on their profile and previous interactions.
- Exploring emerging channels like SMS and push notifications to engage leads across touchpoints. Adopting an omni-channel communication strategy boosts conversion rates.
- Creating strategic partnerships with complementary lead buyers to secure revenue. Aligning incentives creates a long term monetization ecosystem.
- Prioritizing compliance and consent in your flows, especially when dealing with industries like financial services. Consult with legal counsel to ensure adherence to relevant regulations like TCPA, GDPR, etc.
While the upfront effort to create these assets is higher than a standard affiliate campaign, the long-term benefits are substantial. With thoughtful planning and rigorous execution, it's possible to construct evergreen annuities that produce reliable, scalable affiliate commissions.
Q and A with Jonathan Lender
Jonathan Lender
Q: Jon, Can you summarize your background and experience in the digital marketing space?
I've been working in digital marketing for a long time. I got my start back in 2001 at a company called TrafficX that specialized in email marketing and lead-generation. That's where I really learned the ins and outs of making money online.
In 2007, I founded my own company called Secco Squared that was one of the first to monetize Facebook apps. We're still going strong and serving over 50 million customers a year. Then in 2015, I co-founded Spy Media, which is one of the biggest media buying operations, spending millions per month on native advertising.
So I've got a ton of experience under my belt - I've made a lot of money for my own companies as well as my clients over the years.
Q: What are some key characteristics you believe make a successful media buyer and affiliate?
When it comes to successful media buying and affiliate marketing, there are a few key things I've learned:
- You have to be super creative with your ads to drive high click-through rates.
- You need to master your media sources inside and out to find the hidden gems others miss.
- You have to be adaptable because this space is constantly changing.
- And most importantly, you need that hustle and drive to just make money - that's what's going to power you through the tough times and let you capitalize on the good times.
Q: Can you walk us through how your company approaches lead-generation and what have been some of the most effective channels and tactics you've used?
Lead-generation is the lifeblood of our business. We're always looking for the most scalable, cost-effective ways to drive high-intent leads. Native advertising has been huge for us - the engagement rates are insane and we're able to really dial in our targeting. Email is another major workhorse, especially when we're leveraging our first-party data for super personalized campaigns.
We'll also tap into content arbitrage, creating informative blog posts, guides, tools, you name it, to attract prospects and pixel them. Quizzes and surveys have worked for us too - people love to engage with interactive content and it's a natural way to qualify leads and segment them into different buckets. Facebook Ads were a game-changer for us as well, making mobile lead-gen so much easier.
And of course, good old-fashioned landing page optimization is a must. We're constantly testing variations to boost our conversion rates and drive down our cost per lead.
Q: As a lead-gen business owner, can you explain about building lead-generation assets and any tips for someone just starting out?
Building lead-generation assets can seem overwhelming at first, but it's really valuable for having control and monetization potential.
The key is to start with one market or vertical, perfect that, and then expand. First, you need to deeply understand your target audience - their pain points, desires, and objections. Use that to craft compelling hooks and messaging.
Then it's about creating a high-converting lead capture form or quiz. Keep it simple - only ask for the essential information. Make sure the overall flow is smooth and seamless.
From there, you need to have your monetization strategy ready, whether that's working with direct advertisers or using affiliate offers. And don't forget about what happens after the lead is captured - you need automated systems in place to follow up quickly, like a solid email welcome series, SMS alerts for your sales team, or integrations with your CRM.
Start small, master it, then scale up. Before long, you'll have a portfolio of lead-gen assets generating passive revenue.
Q: Why is first-party data so valuable in your opinion? Can you explain how you're using that data and the impact it's had on your campaigns?
First-party data has been a total game-changer for us. By building our own lead-generation assets and owning the full user journey, we're able to track and collect tons of detailed data on our audience.
We know their demographics, interests, behaviors on our sites, and more. This lets us segment them into highly targeted groups for our marketing campaigns and monetization efforts. No more blanketing the market - we can laser-target dog owners with dog food offers, new moms with baby products, divorced people with dating apps, and so on.
The more we learn about our audience, the more we can continue monetizing them across various verticals.
Plus, having this data allows us to constantly refine our targeting and traffic sources to get the highest-value users from the start. Our customer acquisition costs have dropped dramatically, while our customer lifetime values and margins have skyrocketed. In some cases, we're seeing 200-300% increases in ROI. If you're not capturing first-party data, you're leaving a ton of money on the table.
Q: What were some of the key benefits in building out these owned and operated lead-gen assets?
The benefits are huge, no doubt. First off, your revenue goes up significantly because you're not just making a small margin on a third-party offer - you control the whole monetization process on the backend.
Second, you can stop having to worry about daily schedule changes, which really messes with your algorithms and marketing campaigns.
Third, your conversion rates skyrocket because you own the entire process and can optimize every single step to perfection.
And fourth, your traffic costs go down dramatically while your profit margins explode.
I will show you an example where our owned and operated asset had 2-4 times better return on ad spend, conversion rates, and margins compared to just sending our traffic to someone else's offer.
The key is building your own assets, owning the data, and raking in the profits. Hopefully this got some light bulbs going off for you.
Real-world case study
To illustrate the power of this model, Jonathan presents a comparison between a lead-gen offer promoted through traditional affiliate channels and an in-house lead-gen property. Both campaigns were given $150,000 in ad spend. However, the owned asset generated a 34% profit margin versus 17% for the affiliate offer.
The owned funnel also had a 2x higher conversion rate and didn't require dayparting to remain profitable. Jonathan attributes this to the ability to optimize the user experience without restrictions and having the leverage of auctioning leads to an array of buyers. While not a perfectly analogous comparison, it showcases the benefits of retaining control over the funnel.
Finally, Jonathan notes this strategy is applicable across verticals, not just financial services. E-commerce, dating, weight loss, and other popular affiliate categories can all be tackled through the lead-gen lens. The unifying thread is leveraging first-party declared data to deeply understand your audience and cater to their needs. With the right hooks in your flows, a single lead can be monetized in a dozen different ways.
Conclusion
Building lead-generation assets is a top strategy for affiliates seeking to break through to 6-figure monthly revenues. By capturing first-party data, you open up a realm of monetization opportunities beyond the boundaries of standard affiliate marketing models. While there are technical hurdles to overcome in development, the earning potential renders it well worth the effort.
Through deliberate funnel architecture, profile-driven segmentation, and auction-based selling, you can transform a simple affiliate website into a multi-vertical revenue engine. As data restrictions continue to expand and clamp down on indiscriminate behavioral targeting, the value of leads willingly provided by users will only increase.
Affiliate marketing will always have its place, but lead generation represents an evolved approach for ambitious affiliates. With the right structure and mindset, you can construct an asset that pays dividends for years to come while insulating yourself from platform disruptions. As Jonathan says, putting in the work upfront to deeply understand your audience positions you to serve them like no one else can, and the profits will follow.
