The End Is Near: How to Work with a Survival Vertical?
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A couple of years ago, a personal anti-nuclear bunker packed with a year’s supply of canned food was rather an object of jokes. However, today, when the world is going more and more nuts, survival kits and strategies stop being funny.
For affiliate marketers, the survival industry has always been interesting and profitable. Today, the number of people willing to prepare themselves to thrive in any circumstances grows, and therefore – the demand for survival products becomes higher. According to the All The Research analysis, the global survival kit market was valued at $1.1 BN by 2020 and is expected to reach USD 1.7 BN by 2027.
Which offers does the Survival vertical contain?
The survival vertical is huge and you can find everything here, from dried food to military tactical defense equipment.
Let’s discuss some typical survival categories:
Nutrition
Food is one of the most widespread goods in the survival vertical. By the way, not only preppers, but also hikers might be interested in this type of product, including:
- Seeds and nuts
Classic. Energizing, light, and non-deteriorating nuts, seeds, and trail mixes make an integral part of the emergency survival kit.
- Dehydrated food
You can hardly cook homemade food in emergency conditions, but dehydrated products increase your chances of that. Meat, veggies, and even dry milk or eggs are popular with peppers since they can replace everyday-like meals – mostly, it’s enough to douse them (or eat without water).
- Crackers
Crackers replace bread, since preppers can store them for a long time. Another great product for an emergency situation.
- Water purifying devices
In surviving conditions, water is even more critical than food, because people can live only three days without hydration. In the outdoor and extremal conditions, finding pure water is not always possible, but special purifying devices can solve this issue.
- Vitamins
Smart preppers always keep their health and stamina in mind. Since dehydrated food and nuts obviously don’t include enough nutritional chemicals, multivitamins are essential.
Clothes
Clothing is another critical thing for survival. Let’s see which products are there.
- UV-rays protection
UV protection is preferred by survivors who travel to hot countries or decide to live there. Indeed, sun rays can be very harmful, so special protective clothes may come in handy. This might be anything from hats to face covers and full-body costumes.
- Cold protection
Obviously, the most dangerous weather is extreme cold. Survivors being survivors, frequently choose destinations where they can get frozen to death, so they need to be prepared. Protective clothing that saves from cold is a must-have for extremal alpinists and all fans of snow barchans.
- Footwear
Survivors cannot be satisfied with generic sneakers! They need something that can protect their feet from injury and ensure their mobility. Footwear for survivors includes puncture-resistant, tracking, and anti-slip boots.
Military
Military stuff, like light armor, tactical defense equipment, or optics, is available via numerous affiliate programs. Either because of aesthetics or real preparations for a sudden occurrence of war, military goods make a large part of survival vertical. Moreover, survival military kits cover numerous needs that appear beyond military operations. Say, survival kits can also include high-quality ropes, knives, hooks, sunglasses, or medical supply.
- Body armor
Body armor is a type of protective clothing initially designed for soldiers, security guards, and policemen to deflect physical attacks. Today, armor is also available and used by civilians, so people can easily buy it online.
Important notice: here, we are talking about soft body armor, which is allowed to sell and ship worldwide without any license and regulations, namely – in the USA, the most popular GEO for survival campaigns.
Generally, there are five levels of body armor:
The International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) applies to all current military weapons and associated items. While Level IV body armor is not considered as a weapon, it is an “associated item” and thus is subject to ITAR.
- Optics
This category includes night vision binoculars, shooting glasses, prismatic red dot sights products, and more. Just like armor, these products are used by soldiers, by also – survivors, extremal travelers, and hunters.
- Defensive masks
CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear) defense masks are used as protective measures against different types of attacks, including terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
Tools
There is a huge amount of tools for survivors – tried-and-true as well as fancy and modern inventions. Again, most of them can be used for numerous purposes of military, survivors, travelers, and even ordinary folks fond of the firm and cool instruments.
- Knives
A knife, especially a multipurpose one, is a critical item for any survivor, since it is useful in numerous situations. Military and hunting knives are very popular among survivors, since they can cut through tough materials.
Important notice: shipping! In different countries, there are regulations regarding shipping knives of a certain kind. Make sure to discuss this question with the offer owner and see if all the rules are followed.
For instance, as the main GEO for survival goods is the USA, The United States Postal Service (USPS), United Parcel Service (UPS), and FedEx allow knives to be shipped via their services. However, there are restricted knives, like switchblades, which might require special authorization from a seller.
- Fire starters
Waterproof lighters and matches, wetfire packages, fuel tablets, and other firestarters can help survivors save themselves from cold and wild animals, cook, and sterilize metal equipment.
- Solar chargers
In survival conditions, getting access to a common power source is not always possible. Portable solar chargers for smartphones and laptops can replace electricity, even though they charge devices a bit slower than traditional means.
- Medical aid kits
In fact, first aid kits are necessary for everyone, not only survivors. But the latter usually prefer trauma-treating kits, where there are a lot of medical instruments for critical injuries + basic medication.
Educational materials
Another very popular category of survival products is educational stuff. These are books, webinars, and video guides on all imaginable topics: nuclear survival, warzone survival practices, shelter building, and more. We will show a couple of examples in the next sections of our article, so stay tuned!
So, these are the most basic goods you can find in the survival vertical, but, of course, the market is not limited by them. Now that you’ve got a general idea let’s move to other interesting questions about survival.
Why are survival goods so popular? Who buys them?
Basically, survivors don’t really need objective reasons to prepare for a disaster, be it a nuclear war, tsunami, or just extreme hiking. Even if there is no objective threat, people are fond of preparing for it – it’s their lifestyle.
However, these days, the demand for survival kits has grown significantly, even among those who have never been thrilled by apocalyptic aesthetics. Mostly, because the threat became much more real than ever.
Today’s everyday life background for everyone is pretty stressful, and this started with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The research of Finder.com claims that the number of so-called “doomsday preppers” in America has doubled since the beginning of 2020. To be more precise, in 2020-2021, 45% of Americans, which makes 115 MLN people, reported spending money on survival products. A year before that, only 20% of Americans (52 MLN) bought survival materials.
COVID boosted some survival markets segments, especially nutrition products, which can be stored for a long time, and all kinds of sanitizers. However, because of the social distancing and quarantine, the popularity of camping stuff decreased. At the same time, the supply for military and armed forces was not affected by pandemics.
Still, the fact that the COVID outbreak was sudden and tough, the overall sense of insecurity in society warmed up.
We must admit that COVID is just one driving factor for survival goods to become more popular. According to the Relief Web resource, in 2021, 432 natural disasters were recorded worldwide, which is significantly higher than the annual amount of catastrophic events that happened before. Say, in 2001-2020, humanity suffered 357 natural disasters.
As such, concern about floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters during the last years is another contributing factor.
Regarding the military goods, they have always been popular among hunters, collectors, travelers, paintball/airsoft players, and survivalists, of course.
Another category of survival products buyers includes people living in remote locations and surveyors, like forestry. Most of them have to live in severe climate conditions, where survival kits are a must.
Offers: what do they look like?
We have found a couple of really interesting survival offers at Clickbank and would like to show them as examples. Please mind that the offers were initially designed for the US audience and make sure to check their full article devoted to survival, where you can find more information about offers and their peculiarities.
The Lost Ways
- Earning per click: $0.41
- Average payout value: $39.16
- Starting Commission: 75%
This offer can attract almost any category of survival products fans. The Lost Ways includes four video sales letters where interested audiences can find information about the ancient survival practices – foods, medicine, and tricks people used hundreds of years ago. Some practices have transformed, the others stayed the same.
To promote this offer, you should have an email list or a website. As for the creatives, you can find them inside of the offer itself.
Creatives examples:
Easy Cellar
- Earning per click: $0.79
- Average payout value: $46.70
- Starting Commission: 75%
Easy Cellar is an offer for survivors serious about nuclear war and natural disasters. Through this offer, users can get access to guides explaining how to find or make a shelter, which mistakes to avoid, and how to get prepared for a critical situation.
Like The Lost Ways, this offer belongs to Claude Davis and shares the same concept – it also contains a series of emails with catchy creatives. Like this:
The Backyard Miracle Farm
- Earning per click: $0.69
- Average payout value: $37.87
- Starting Commission: 75%
The Backyard Miracle Farm is a very useful offer, since it covers two topics: growing food during a catastrophe and reducing costs for groceries. Basically, the offer prepares users for a critical situation + helps to manage spending even if the disaster doesn’t come.
The Miracle Farm might evoke users’ interest in the current situation of supply chain issues. An alternative and independent source of grocery products might be an interesting offer at times when people are afraid of seeing the empty shells (especially, after the COVID-19 experience).
Combat Fighter and Combat Shooter
- Earning per click: $0.67
- Average payout value: $49.71
- Starting Commission: 75%
Based on the materials received from special operations soldiers, Combat Fighter and Combat Shooter is a self-defense guide for civilians. The offer presents educational series on how to survive in a critical situation, whether fighting or shooting.
This offer is for users willing to protect themselves and their families, revealing skills useful in various scenarios, from street fights to burglars and terrorism.
Bulletproof Home
- Earning per click: $0.51
- Average payout value: $40.82
- Starting Commission: 25%
This offer is devoted to defending practices for houses that come from the 21st century warzones. The Bulletproof Home guide provides a clear instruction on how to secure one’s house in less than a month.
How to set up your campaign?
As you can see, there is a huge amount of survival goods and therefore – advertising approaches. Considering this variety and general unusualness of this vertical, the campaign settings can be dramatically different.
But here is a general advice from Anastasia Khegay, the Senior Account Strategist from our Sales Team:
- The best ad formats for survival offers are Push and In-Page Push, because they work similarly to native ads;
- If you choose Popunder as your ad format, make sure to have a catchy and informative pre-lander – it is a must for a survival vertical;
- To boost your CTR, pay special attention to creatives and copies – make sure they are attention-grabbing and fully-reflect the idea of your offer + don’t neglect the standard tricks like red arrows and circles, as you see on the examples above;
- Survival offers work great on all platforms: Android and iOS, mobile and desktop. Still, we recommend targeting iOS and Mac – they are more profitable + widespread in the USA.
Wrapping up
With all the global events of the last few years, the interest in survival products naturally grows. Modern reality shows that everything can happen at any moment, so people feel insecure and search for ways of taking control over the situation.
Remember that:
- Survival vertical is extremely popular in Tier-1 GEOs, and most of all – in the USA
- It’s better for you to have an affiliate website or an email list to promote the offers listed above
- Survival vertical requires very appealing creatives with intriguing copies that uncover value and hook users at the same time
Sad to admit, but today survival offers attract not only military fanboys and people obsessed with apocalyptic forecasts. The audience is much wider and expected to grow even more. So, maybe, it is the best time to discover a new niche and start promoting a survival offer! Try it!
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