High-Payout CPA Offers: Are They Worth the Trouble?
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So, admit it – whenever you look at these creamy CPA offers with really high payouts, you fall under temptation of taking them. Sure, why won’t you refuse to get more money? But some unknown power stops you every time. It is important to ask yourself, which kind of power is that: is it rationality or just a myth that lives in your mind only?
Today, we are going to discuss high-payout CPA offers and see which peculiarities they have. We will find the difference between generic and high-payout offers, discuss verticals, creatives, and other interesting stuff.
What are those high-payout CPA offers?
In a nutshell, high-payout CPA offers are those that have… high payouts! And this means that the sum you get for a completed target action is pretty large. Really large. Sometimes, payouts can reach hundreds of dollars per action. For instance, this Finance offer from ZeyDoo has a $960 payout!
And the main peculiarity of high-payout offers is that they have a longer user journey than an average one. So, the more actions users have to perform and the more complicated they are, the higher the payout is. That’s pretty straightforward – encouraging users to do more is harder than just making them click one button. As such, you have less conversions, logically, but they are more expensive.
What is more, another tricky thing about high-payout offers is that they usually have numerous restrictions regarding traffic types. Meeting advertiser’s requirements is way not easy. As an example, take a look at this Dating offer. It has a $300 payout, but at the same time – so many traffic types are not allowed!
Widespread types of complicated flows
To make the long story short, complicated conversion flows are recommended to experienced affiliates with significant budget and optimization skills. Let’s see which types of complicated flows exist:
CPL – Cost-per-lead
CPL is one of the most widespread complicated conversion flows. The main aim is to help offer owners get high-quality leads. Usually, the affiliates’ main task is to take users through a pretty extensive process – information gathering (name, address, demographics, etc.). Offer owners will use the data to turn potential leads into actual.
FTD – First-time-deposit
In FTD, your task is to encourage users to make a deposit. The main verticals here are iGaming and Finance – you receive money whenever a new user invests some money.
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CPS – Cost-per-sale
In CPS, affiliates are required to produce a sale. To find out which affiliate encouraged users to order a product/service, offer owners usually check cookie lifetime. Logically, this flow is widespread in the eCommerce vertical and other verticals that require actual payment for the goods, like Software.
Hybrid
In high-payout offers, we mostly meet hybrid conversion flows, like CPL + FTD (say, registration and deposit). Mind offer owners rarely pay for mid-actions, but for the target one only.
Which verticals may include high-payout offers?
Mostly, you can find high-payout offers in the following verticals:
- Utilities and Software – when the target action is a purchase or subscription;
- iGaming – when users are supposed to make a deposit;
- Finance – again, when users are required to make a deposit, get a loan, or request a card;
- Dating – when a promoted app has a paid subscription and users are required to get it;
- eCommerce – product purchase, COD (cash on delivery) – which is a tricky thing, because some users may even make a purchase, request a delivery, but then they just don’t take the item and your payout vanishes into the air.
As you can see, there is a logic behind high-payout offers – pretty often, they ask users to pay for goods or services.
Recommendations for launch
Creatives
As our sales experts reassure us, when it comes to creatives, there are no specific rules for high-paying offers. The recommendations are the same as for any other offer – make them appealing, relevant, and trustworthy.
For Dating apps, use photos and add pre-landers; for Utilities, avoid scary ads; for iGaming, keep up with the sports trends and current events, like football. Here is an example of a descriptive Interstitial ad:
Regarding that most high-payout offers require payments from visitors, you may want to include product descriptions, instructions, and customers comments as a social proof – these elements are more likely to evoke more interest and further actions.
Pricing model
CPC or CPM are suitable models for your high payout offer, while CPA Goal can be used only for a mid-action. Say, the target action of your offer is a deposit (for Sports-related offers), but users have to register before they move to this final step.
So this way, you can use CPA Goal for registrations, but you are not recommended to use it for the entire chain of the marketing journey.
For the CPA Goal model, you need mid-results tracking only, because you won’t understand which creative brought registrations + purchase without this step. As our affiliate partners say, in such cases you should set up to $15 CPA Goal to reach the balance between your investments and income.
Retargeting
The main peculiarity of high-payout offers – you should use retargeting or create custom audiences.
Considering that such offers always include a long user journey with a couple of steps, a pretty significant amount of them won’t reach the target action. This is what naturally happens. And this is the reason why such offers are actually high-payout.
Still, you can retarget and gather users who made a couple of steps – registration, installation, or free-trial, but didn’t place the order or make a deposit.
Campaign optimization
To track the high-payout campaign performance, you need time. Sometimes, you will have to wait for a couple of weeks before you gather enough statistics to make conclusions. Again, the reason is that such campaigns usually don’t get too many conversions due to the complicated user journey and/or payment required.
To see precise stats, you will also have to eliminate zones without complicated conversions.
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What do our affiliates say about high-payout offers?
We asked PropellerAds affiliates to share their opinion about high-payout CPA offers. Our questions were pretty bold: “Would you work with high-payout CPA offers?” and “How much money are you ready to invest in such a venture?” Read their comments:
Tony M.:
| “If you really have a free bundle of cash – you can try high-payout offers. Grab the CPC model, do your settings manually, and relax. Track the performance, see which zones strike, and roll further. But as for me – no, I wouldn’t do that ever.” |
| “Yes, I would promote high-ticket offers. Budget-wise I usually spend 10x offer payout on testing an offer. Especially, if it is an offer which is unique and not saturated and I understand its audience (this is the key when it comes to audience selection). I would definitely promote it. Budget: Everyone has their own formula and rules for budget allocation for campaigns. I usually set aside a 10x offer payout as my testing budget for an offer.” |
| “I would work with high-payout offers CPS ($$$) if I had preliminary data or experience in that vertical and wanted to expand to another ad format (e.g., Push notifications). If I don’t have prior data, another option is to track the number of leads/calls, so we at least know we’re getting conversions, even if not all of them end up in sales. In my opinion, it would be better to test the waters with a CPL version (low payout) of the same offer and, based on your traffic quality and feedback, move to CPS (higher payout). Another reason why I could potentially select a high-payout offer is when you see the market is validated and people are running them when you do market research. Having insights from your traffic source and affiliate manager also helps confirm this. I wouldn’t work with high-payout offers if the market isn’t proven or if I don’t have a way to track the whole funnel (lead, trials, sales). Otherwise, it’s like running blind, and optimization becomes quite challenging when you have hundreds or thousands of sites/zones with 0 conversions, and low ad spends each. The offer payout and CR would define the budget. If the offer pays more than $100, think of spending at least a few thousand dollars to test the waters. And make sure you’re tracking the whole funnel, even if you’re just getting paid after the final sale. A $50 offer still requires a lower budget vs. a $400 offer.” |
Summing up
So, you shouldn’t be afraid of taking high-payout CPA offers! Just remember about their core peculiarity – complicated user journey.
You should approach your creatives, optimization efforts, and pricing model choice regarding this crucial fact. Everything else is pretty much the same as you already did with ordinary offers. Experiment, do your best, and get your cash!
What do you think about high-payout offers? Share your thoughts and insights in our Telegram chat!
