Not all offers are created equal

Something that all affiliates should split test when launching offers is CPA Networks.

Many affiliates start launching campaigns and select a few offers to gather data quickly. However, sometimes you can increase your revenue and ROI just by testing the same offer from different CPA Networks.

For example, a common path to launch a campaign would be:

1. Select 2-3 top offers from your favorite network
2. Craft 3-5 landing pages
3. Create campaign and start running traffic
4. Select 2 best landers
5. Select best offer
6. Scale that shit

But many affiliates forget to split test the same (or very similar) offers within different networks, leaving money in the table. Split testing offers and networks is easy with a tracker like Voluum.

Think about this pin submit example:

• You’ve got offer 1 at network A. Payout is $1.5 and converts on 2-click-Flow.
• Same offer at network B. Payout is $3.2 and converts on MO-FLOW.
• Same offer at network C. Payout is $1.2 and converts in 1 click Flow.

Many affiliates would skip the conversion process and will say the best offer is at network B, because it pays $3.2 which is a lot more than Network A/C. Higher payout = More money in my pockets = better. Correct?

WRONG.

Which offer would be the best one? What’s the correct answer here?

None. The correct answer is in your data, and you’ve got to split test them to see which one converts better. Nobody can tell you which one will perform better than your data.

Look at this example:

I took an offer running in network A that after a few days was in positive with a CR of 8.4% and a payout of $1.2, resulting into a 8.95% ROI initially.

However, I talked to my managers in other networks to see if they had a similar offer telling them I could bring in a couple hundred of conversions per day.

Network B manager told me they had a very similar offer which was in fact from the same advertiser. They just had different landers and a higher payout. So I started split testing.

Look at the image again:

The second offer pays almost $1.6, and while the conversion rate is 7.81% (lower), the payout is a lot higher, resulting in 25% ROI just by split testing.

In this case, the winner was the offer with a higher payout, which has a lower CR but the payout compensates it. But sometimes it doesn’t work like that.

Sometimes I have split tested the same offer between 3-4 networks, and you won’t believe the difference I’ve seen.

• Offer 1: $1.5
• Offer 2: $2.2
• Offer 3: $3.5
• Offer 4: $4.5

I realized the best offer for the majority of my traffic was the first one, with the lowest payout. The conversion rate pretty much kicked ass. 8% for a pin submit offer.

However, there was a carrier that worked a lot better with offer 2, so I redirected it with Voluum just for that carrier.

Offer 3 and offer 4 didn’t work. I had conversions but the ROI was pretty bad even if the payouts were higher.

Conclusion: never forget to split test offers between networks.

Why does this happens?

There are a lot of reasons behind this, but a few ones are:

• Network redirects are faster in platform A compared to platform B
• Servers/CDN location
• Offer conversion process (a simple change in the process can yield very interesting results or screw your campaign completely)
• Scrubbing (some networks might do it more than others)

So, now that you know how this works, never forget to split test or bring working offers to new networks if you’ve got enough volume to make them get the advertiser for you (exclusively ;)).