When it comes to scaling campaigns, the difference between making $100 a day or $10,000 a day in profit is huge. If you're like most affiliates, you'd probably want to make the bigger amount. But reaching those kinds of numbers requires driving a lot of traffic and effectively maximizing the potential of your campaigns. So, today we are going to look at some key strategies that successful marketers use to take their campaigns to the next level.
But before we get into the scaling tips, it's important to understand that the foundation of scaling is having an offer that actually works. There's no point in trying to scale something that doesn't perform well right from the start - that's not scaling, that's just being silly and you’re going to lose money by doing that. If you're launching multiple campaigns hoping that one will succeed, that approach is called testing, not scaling. Real scaling is about taking something that has already proven to work during your tests and making it even bigger.
Scaling means taking a campaign that's generating $100 in profits per day and ramping it up to generate $1,000 per day or even more. It's about maximizing the potential of a profitable campaign and taking it to new heights.
With that said, let's look at 6 powerful ways you can scale your campaigns:
Scaling Tip 1: Increase your bids
One of the easiest ways to scale your campaigns is by increasing your bids on ad placements that are already performing well for you. By outbidding your competitors, you can secure a larger portion of the available traffic. While this may result in a slightly lower return on investment (ROI), the increased volume of traffic often compensates for it.
Let's consider an example: Would you prefer to have a 50% ROI on $200 profit per day or a 20% ROI on $800 profit per day? The answer is likely clear. However, it's important to test this strategy. If raising your bids leads to a negative ROI, then it's best to dial it back. But don't hesitate to set high bids, especially when exploring a new placement. I usually start with high bids to gauge the potential and quality of the traffic, and then gradually reduce the bids to find the optimal balance.
Scaling Tip 2: Increase ad coverage on winning sites
When you come across a website or ad placement that is delivering excellent results for your campaigns, it's time to expand your ad coverage on that particular website. The aim is to have your ads visible across as much of that converting audience as possible.
For example, if you're experiencing a positive ROI with a 300x250 banner ad on a specific site, try testing out other ad sizes on the same site, such as a 300x100 or 728x90. Since you already know that the site's traffic converts for you, expanding your ad presence makes logical sense.
However, be careful if a site offers multiple ad slots of the same size right next to each other. If you purchase both placements, your ads might end up being displayed on top of each other, which can negatively impact your results. To avoid this issue, consider using different creative for each slot.
Scaling Tip 3: Roll out winning campaigns to similar sites
Once you've found an ad size and placement that works well, look for ways to scale that same setup to other, similar sites. Stick with the same ad network and targeting to start.
For example, if you have a winning adult campaign targeting the US running 300x250 ads on Pornhub, try rolling out that same setup to other adult sites like Youporn, XVideos, xHamster etc.
Different sites will likely have different conversion rates and volume, but if the audiences are similar, there's a good chance of it working. And even if the results aren't quite as good as your original placement, it can still be profitable with some bid and budget optimization.
Scaling Tip 4: Scale to new geos
Scaling your campaigns to new geos is a powerful strategy. If you have an offer that is performing well in one geo, such as the United States, consider expanding it to other tier-1 geos like Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, and so on. If the offer is performing well in one LATAM geo, then scale it to the rest of the LATAM geos.
I suggest starting with other English-speaking countries (assuming your original campaign is in English). While results may vary to some extent across different countries, if your offer is successful in one place, there's a good chance it will work in similar countries as well.
An interesting thing about expanding to new geos is that competition levels, conversion rates, and even payout rates from advertisers can vary from country to country. This opens up the possibility of uncovering hidden opportunities. However, it's important to optimize your bids, budgets, and ad creatives on a country-by-country basis to maximize success.
To learn more about this, read our article about how to run international affiliate campaigns.
Scaling Tip 5: Scale your campaign to new traffic sources
Scaling your campaigns beyond a single ad network is another way to really blow the lid off your campaign's scale. Once you have a winning funnel dialed in, start porting it over to completely new traffic sources.
All the big super affiliates have a stable of different ad networks and traffic sources they can plug into to scale up a new winning campaign fast. It pays to get accounts set up and funded on multiple networks before you need them. That way you can slam in your campaign, ads, landers etc rapidly to scale quickly.
The choice of your ad networks should be based on your niche (You can find the list of the top ad networks based on the niches here). However, be aware each network has its own quirks, banned categories, ad policies etc. Make sure to adapt your angle to the network.
You can also try to find traffic sources that let you buy campaign at large scale. These include Fully managed traffic sources that charge a flat monthly rate. Another strategy is to find out the owners of the sites where your ads are converting at a big ROI and ask for direct advertising spots.
The last option will help you cut out the middle man who is the advertising network. However it also comes with some risks.
Scaling Tip 6: Open additional accounts on the same advertising network (Blackhat)
This last one is a bit blackhat, but it works. Once you've maxed out the volume you can get from a particular traffic source, the only way to get more is to become your own source of additional competition.
Many successful media buyers will open up additional ad accounts on the same traffic source, often under a spouse or relative's name. While the networks may frown on this, it allows you to scale your campaigns fast, outbid and bully other competitors for traffic and still keep all the profits flowing back to you.
Several ad networks and geos may also have laws and terms of service that forbid this. So tread carefully and make sure you understand the risks involved.
Advanced scaling strategies & considerations
While the 6 tips above provide a framework for scaling, there are some additional considerations to keep in mind, especially when operating at really big scale:
- Have backup offers: Having backup offers is essential, especially when dealing with large volumes of traffic through a single source. If an offer caps out or has tracking issues, you need to be able to redirect that traffic to an alternative offer ASAP to avoid losing money. Line up multiple offer options in advance. Here you can try finding out which other affiliate network has your winning offer, and apply to it. You can also try to find out who the advertiser/ offer owner is, and work with them directly.
- The more campaigns you are running, the harder it becomes to effectively monitor, optimize and maintain them: At a certain point, adding more campaigns may actually reduce your overall profitability if it means you're providing less attention to each one. Know your limits.
- Big scale means big budgets: Make sure you have access to enough cash flow to fund the ad spend required to scale to high volumes. You may need to raise your credit limits or seek outside investment.
- Stay focused on profitability over vanity metrics: It's easy to get caught up in a race for leads or revenue while losing sight of the profit. Don't scale just for the sake of scaling.
- Be ready to pivot quickly: Part of running at scale is accepting that volatility comes with the territory. Offers get paused, ad networks go down, affiliates get banned, competitive landscapes change. You need contingency plans to shift gears when the unexpected happens.
- Hit winners hard and fast: When a new campaign starts delivering great results, that's the time to slam the gas pedal down and scale rapidly. Profitable campaigns have a limited lifespan so make the most of them. Don't be lazy or complacent.
- Monitor everything obsessively: At large scales, small problems can quickly snowball and turn a profitable campaign into a losing one. Vigilance is key. Set up good tracking and alerting systems to notify you the instant something looks off.
- Learn from losses: Losing is part of the game, but make sure you dig into your losses to learn where you went wrong. Don't make the same mistake twice, especially when operating at scale. Every misstep is a learning opportunity.
More scaling insights from a super affiliate
So to dive deeper into the topic of scaling, we gathered some more knowledge bombs from a super affiliate, KJRocker - the owner of KJRocker.com.
Q: KJ, how do you go about scaling offers in your business? What is the highest daily revenue amount you have ever scaled a campaign to? And how long did the campaign run at full scale until it died out?
A: I have done a couple of campaigns that did some really good numbers. For example, when it comes to affiliate campaigns, they went over five figures. In lead generation, they went over six figures as well. The current campaign I'm running is in life insurance in the UK market. We actually scaled that to six figures.
One thing I noticed is that when it comes to affiliate campaigns, it depends on your approach. For example, if you just run a straightforward campaign using a landing page or something similar, it will die out soon, maybe lasting a month, two months, or three months. But if you work properly on it, campaigns can last for months or years. In fact, they can become valuable assets as well. It all depends on your vision and how you structure your campaigns. Do you want them to be short-term or long-term?
I'll give you an example. Back in the PPV days, we had a campaign we were promoting. In PPV, people usually have adware installed on their laptops, which makes them slow and affects PC performance. What we did was create a whole funnel, not just one landing page or pre-lander. It looked like a complete virus checker or PC scanner that would scan the user's computer or device and figure out what problems they had. For example, it would highlight if they had malware installed and other issues. Then, we offered solutions, which were CPA offers like PC backup software. There was a really famous offer called MyPCBackup at the time. We also offered antivirus solutions like McAfee or Norton, as well as other utility services.
We incorporated several offers within one campaign, and it worked really well. The campaign lasted for two years before it died out, and that was because there was no more traffic left on the PPV networks.
Similarly, we had a short-term dating campaign in the Philippines that we ran for about six months. It was a really great offer that we promoted on push notification networks. The offer was from the Clickbooth affiliate network, targeting mainly the Philippines and focusing on a female audience. It was a dating campaign paying around $3, and the payout was really good. Traffic in the Philippines is dirt cheap. The angle was to show that there were pilots, lawyers, and other professionals on the dating website. The way we scaled was by testing it with one advertising network, like PropellerAds, and once we saw it was working, we expanded it to over 60 push notification networks. On many of these ad networks, I was the biggest advertiser for that geo, be it MGID, Adskeeper, or any other advertising network.
So yeah, it really depends on how you approach it.
Q: What was required in terms of cash flow? Did you need extra credit cards or cash loans to scale it fast?
A: When it comes to cash flow, there are two ways. Number one is you negotiate with your network to get paid early. If you have good volume, you can easily negotiate to be paid on a weekly basis or, in some cases, daily or after three days. It really depends on your quality, though. Only if your quality is good will you get these kinds of relaxations.
The other thing you can do is work with the ad network and get credit lines from them. That is always helpful as well.
One more thing you could do is use credit cards, especially something like Amex, which gives you a great advantage. You can not only spend but also earn reward points. That's very important. I would suggest anyone who can to get these rewards credit cards because they give you free flights and stuff whenever you're spending on advertising, marketing, and things like that. That's a massive plus. You can get all the flights or hotel stays for free.
Q: What do you suggest affiliates should do when they are in a situation where they have a slightly profitable campaign and need to scale it to the next level?
A: When affiliates have profitable campaigns and need to scale to the next level, the first thing I would do is look within the ad network. Can you do more? Maybe talk to that network and see if they can give you exclusive rights to run that traffic. If possible, spend all the money with that network and make sure no one else buys that traffic. That's something you can do.
The second thing you could do is work with your buyers and advertisers to see if you can increase your payouts, especially if your quality is really high. You want to get paid more for it.
Thirdly, you could start looking at other similar ad networks. Once it starts working on one ad network, you understand the flow, the mentality of people, and how everything works. It's really easy to replicate the same thing on another network. You get a basic idea of how much you'll have to pay to get one conversion. Just test that amount. If you don't get a conversion, move on. But you can do that.
Within some networks, for example, major native ad networks, one thing you could do is collect data on publishers. Try to identify the top publishers who are sending you the most traffic and conversions. Go direct and work with them to increase your profits. That's one thing that will slash your costs, and you will have to pay 50% less compared to the full price.
Q: How are you handling the scaling operations in your business at the moment?
A: In my case, for the lead generation offers, what I'm doing right now is not working with affiliate networks or even advertisers. I'm working with the people who work with the advertisers. I'm going back to the source, the direct buyers of leads, and all that. That is literally saving me lots of money. Where I used to get 50% of the payout, I'm now getting 50% more. So, if I was getting $20, now I'm getting $40 or even $60. So, that's another way. Once things start working for you, you can go direct. This way, you're giving up tons of money by just cutting out all the third parties.
Yes, it could be tricky, especially if your advertisers or direct buyers are not reliable. In that case, what I do for my life insurance leads is charge them in advance instead of asking them to pay me after a week or whatever. I tell them to pay me on, let's say, Wednesday, and on Friday, I'll start their campaigns. So, they prepay you as well. It all depends on quality, though. But if you have good quality and everything, there's no reason you should stick to just an affiliate network.
Try going directly to the buyers who buy traffic from the advertisers who work with affiliate networks. This way, you're cutting out two or three parties who are taking their part out of your commissions. That's another great way to maximize your profitability.
Also, another thing is, right now, what I'm doing is I have my own offer in a way. Normally, your landing pages and everything belong to the advertiser. I own those landing pages and sites, and I can easily flip them or sell them as a business. It's still affiliate marketing, but I can exit it as well if I want to. I can sell it as an asset. And I think that's where you make real money – when you exit these kinds of businesses or campaigns. That's where you see the biggest profit, separate from the usual campaign profitability.
Conclusion
So as you’ve seen. Scaling winning campaigns is how the super affiliates take their earnings to the moon. By expanding what works and learning to manage large volumes of traffic effectively, you can turn small successes into big paydays.
It takes a combination of identifying winning elements, opening up the campaign to more ad placements, traffic networks, and countries, while managing the complexities that come with big campaigns. But if you can master the art of scaling, the potential rewards can be massive.
Start putting these tips into action when your next campaign shows a sign of potential, and see how far you can scale up those winners. With some luck, and smart scaling decisions, those $10,000 profit days may be closer than you think. Now stop reading and get out there and launch some campaigns!
