Choosing a Perfect Social Offer: 3-Step Guide
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This article was initially published in July 2018, but it’s been updated in November 2023, due to accuracy reasons.Do you want to become the master of social promotion and learn how to play the field? Not a problem, we got you. Entering one of the oldest, so-called evergreen niches can sound intimidating, especially for young affiliates, but we prepared a guide on how to make romance offers love you back.
So let’s get started.
This is one of those verticals that tends to stay afloat even when the market crashes. Why is that? People never stop socializing, it’s in their nature. Look at this data:
Number of social service users worldwide from 2017 to 2023 + predictions till 2027
Naturally, such a versatile vertical attracts a lot of attention. There are around 1,500 online social sites and social apps worldwide at this moment. The huge number of offers means there are many affiliates out there ready to make some money.
So let’s cut to the chase – how do you make social offers work for you? Our teammates have agreed to share their vast experience in this vertical and challenge our thinking on what a romance creative should look like (spoiler: you’ll be surprised).
Meet our Business Development Director, Irina Sandra Razvodova, and an Account Strategist Group Senior Team Lead, Maria Kotova.
Together with these powerhouses, we will guide you through all three steps of picking and promoting a social offer:
→ We’ll discuss where to find social offers
→ How to choose a great offer
→ And how to promote it
Part 1. Where to Find Social Offers?
A few years back, there were only two main types of social offers: mainstream and video streaming. And the boundaries were clear – the mainstream social websites and apps were offering users to find profound relationships, and video platforms were all about having more non-committal encounters and fun. There was also a third type called social guides, where users were offered various advice on this topic.
Now there’s a fourth category – casual romance, and its territory is a bit blurry.
“In terms of advertising these types of offers, they are closer to the video streaming category really. Even though they are presented as more of mainstream offers, through creatives you are sort of winking to the users that what they can expect is an easygoing approach to romance”,
Sergei Abramov, Media Buyer explains.
Note: Here, we will only talk about mainstream social sites, as video streaming romance content is not allowed to be promoted on PropellerAds.
The best way to find an offer is to browse one of these resources: offer aggregators, CPA networks, or even direct affiliate programs.
Some of the top aggregators for social offers are:
- OfferVault – currently presents 5000 social offers
- Affbank – showcases 4500 active social offers
- oDigger – even with only 650 social offers, it’s still a good choice
Note: With aggregators, you can choose an offer by first selecting the CPA network of your preference, or you can simply go through all of the offers of all the networks enlisted within this specific aggregator.When it comes to CPA networks, you should check out social offers at:
- AdsEmpire – one of the leading industry networks focused on social offers
- Mirelia – huge experience in working with romance offers (9+ years)
- AdCombo – great reputation + high conversion rates
- Cpamatica – a well-known name in the social industry and great customer service
- VortexAds – offer exclusive deals on romance offers
Or try social affiliate programs if you prefer dealing with advertisers directly:
- eHarmony
| Commission: | $10 per lead / $30 per sale |
| Cookie duration: | 45 days |
- Cupid Media
| Commission: | 75% per sale |
|---|---|
| Cookie duration: | 45 days |
- Christian Cafe
| Commission: | 40% per sale |
|---|---|
| Cookie duration: | 120 days |
- Elite Singles
| Commission: | $7 per sale |
|---|---|
| Cookie duration: | 45 days |
Disclaimer: These commissions are public information, but they are not the same for all. Commission rates can differ and depend on a combo of various factors, and each affiliate can negotiate a different deal.CPA Network or Direct Affiliate Program?
And here we come to the first important question. Should we choose a CPA network over a direct affiliate program?
“Many affiliates consider direct advertisers to be more reliable business partners and are afraid to deal with networks. But this idea has no basis in reality. In fact, CPA networks offer several advantages to affiliates”, says Irina and names a few of them:
- Quick and easy access to a wide variety of offers. You can start earning almost immediately.
- A better selection of payment methods – including all kinds of eWallets. Meanwhile, direct advertisers might have a limited range of funding options.
- Networks are more flexible when it comes to payouts: you can withdraw smaller amounts. Let’s say some networks have a minimum payout of $50, while direct advertisers offer a minimum payout of $100.
“As for benefits a direct advertiser can offer, I can name slightly higher rates and better support and understanding of the product.”
Part 2. How to Choose a Great Social Offer?
Let’s assume you’re eyeing a couple of offers, but how do you know which one to proceed with?
“First,” says Maria, “look at the product, and try to analyze how attractive the website or an app can be to potential customers.”
Maria suggests going through this checklist before enrolling in an affiliate program.
- Establish how popular the website (social app) is – how big is the audience, and for how long the website has been on the market; check if it’s a mainstream website or a niche one; and bear in mind that mainstream, popular websites are easier to promote
- In the case of niche websites, check the “specialization” – religion, nationality, age groups, socialization type, etc; focusing on a certain social group will heavily affect the targeting and your creatives
- Assess how easy it is for a user to join the community – Are there extensive questionnaires? Can a user register with social accounts? People are not very fond of complex and long sign-in procedures
- Can a user freely search for other members? – if the users are limited in their actions, and a website is too complicated – it’s a big no-no for affiliates
- Pricing – are we talking about free apps and sites, and if not, how high is the monthly payment?
- Check the reviews – reputation matters (How secure is the personal information of the user? Were there any issues before?); if you can’t find anything bad – that’s a good sign for an affiliate.
What’s there for affiliates?
Once you have an understanding of what websites or social apps are most likely to convert, go ahead and check how you can benefit from the offer.
Romance vertical has certain specifics when it comes to payouts. Here are the most popular models:
| Price Per Lead | Price Per Lead has two modifications that vary by the complexity of the conversion process. The easier it is to convert a user, the lower the price will be: SOI (Single Opt-In) – a user only has to provide an email address or other non-sensitive data. Nothing else is required. These leads are the easiest to convert, therefore, you can’t expect high payouts. DOI (Double Opt-In) – the same as SOI, but with an extra step – email verification. Sometimes though, advertisers are making things a bit more complicated: they can request to complete the questionnaire, upload photos, send a message to another member, etc. Conditions of approval are limited only by the imagination of advertisers. |
| Revshare | Revshare works mostly on mainstream social websites. You are getting paid (a certain percentage) when a user purchases a membership. And you will keep getting paid, as long as the user is active, renewing his monthly subscription, or making additional charged actions within their membership. Revshare is a great choice if you are willing to wait for people to convert. Note that the payouts are quite high (up to 50% of the price of the membership). |
| Price Per Sale | Price per sale – you receive a flat rate per each membership sold. But only once, the pre-agreed CPS amount (Cost per Sale or Cost per Subscription). Payouts are usually quite significant, but again, you’ll have to be patient (ranging from $20 to $100 and up). |
“The Price per Lead usually depends on GEO. I would say the average for Tier-1 traffic is from $3 to $6 per lead, and for Tier-2 the range is from $1 to $3”,
Maria explains and adds another interesting fact:
“The prices per lead can also depend on gender, with higher payouts for female leads.”
Note: When choosing an offer, check how often you can withdraw your earnings (As per request, once a month, or there’s a specific schedule?), and also what’s the minimum withdrawal amount. And mind the way of processing user data to be in line with all applicable regulations.
Part 3. How to Promote Social Offers?
When talking about the most important aspects of a social promo, Irina believes a truly successful offer rests on two pillars – correct targeting and well-thought-out creatives. And we would like to add the right ad format as a third and key pillar in holding the fortress steady.
Top GEOs and targeting tools
At this very moment, our best-performing GEOs are India, Brazil, Indonesia, Germany, and of course, the United States (the US is the country with the highest percentage of the population that’s using online social services). But as you know, this is subject to change.
In case you are just getting started with your affiliate journey in this vertical, we would recommend kicking it off with a local campaign. This way, you will get a clear idea of how good the offer is, how well your creatives are converting, and what ad formats are delivering the results.
What can help you at this point is PropellerAds’ Interest & demographic targeting – a feature we developed to help you define, in the most specific way, who you want your campaign to reach to ensure precise targeting, and, therefore – better chances for conversion.
So after you select a country, city, platform (desktop, mobile), OS, browser, and several more targeting options, you can choose an appropriate field of interest for your audience, choose a gender if you think that would help bring more conversions, and select one of three age groups (18-29, 30-49, 50+).
And since all of the targeting efforts are done with the purpose of generating traffic, but targeted, relevant traffic, you will be happy to hear about Campaign Duplication – PropellerAds feature capable of getting the most-performing traffic for your offer, and therefore increasing your profits.
How exactly? By automatically making a copy of your campaign’s best-performing traffic targets and pasting them on similar sources. And the best part of it is – you won’t overspend, the original and duplicated campaigns will be sharing the same daily budget.
Note: Campaign duplication is available for all ad formats and all bidding models, for Gold and Platinum accounts.
Picking the best ad format for Social CPA Offers
When running social campaigns, we recommend relying on Popunder and Push notifications:
→ Popunder ensures massive traffic, it’s hard to miss, and it brings high CR; it’s the absolute number one option for romance offers
→ Push Notification ads – customized, non-intrusive message delivered directly to a user’s device, even when a user is not browsing the website; another format that brings the best results, equally popular as Popunder.
Picking Interstitial ads or In-Page Push ads could also be good options with this type of offer. But did you know PropellerAds has a brand new ad format – the most exclusive one yet?
It’s called Survey Exit, and it can almost guarantee delivering an audience that’s probably already interested in your offer. How’s that possible? Thanks to the fact this audience was previously engaged in different types of surveys.
Finding the right creatives for Social Vertical
Creatives are such a turning point in social campaigns. You should make sure each and every creative is conveying the right message. It must not be:
- Too generic and formal – be more personal with your audience, focus on who’s on the other side of an ad, who you are trying to “attract”
- Too long and too explanatory – in a world of romance, it’s preferable to keep a little mystery alive and not reveal too much right away
- Too dull – leave the door open for curiosity; use the phrases like “secret” or “surprise”
Try using suggestive and playful emojis, never use negative tone nor words, and always include suggestive images when preparing creatives.
Note: Bear in mind that this vertical is very demanding, so we advise you to have more than one set of creatives – they tend to burn out very fast. Also, make sure to use pre-landers to heat up users’ interest and increase conversion rates.
“Always use a pre-lander. A quiz or a survey is a good option. You can ask users about their preferences in terms of socializing, even a one-question survey where they need to select a gender they are interested in can be effective. But make sure to be aligned with what an actual site or app you are promoting has to offer. For example, don’t put more than two options (gender-wise) in a pre-lander, if the social platform doesn’t have the same selection”, Sergei suggests.
Now here comes the BIG surprise, at least for all those who are newbies in the world of affiliate marketing. We asked Maria what type of image the creative should be based on:
“You might think that images portraying happy couples would work best. Let me disappoint you! Place singles on the image, preferably friendly-looking women and/or men, to make your creatives perform better.”
And Sergei agrees. According to him, an image of a girl next door will work better than the image of a model. But here’s another twist.
“Advertisers are sensitive about the quality of the traffic. It’s important to them that the landing page of an offer, or pre-landers are not misleading. So if it’s a mainstream site, they don’t want creatives to suggest finding a one-night stand. And the other way around”.
But once again, don’t forget that all creatives must comply with our policy – nothing explicit will be tolerable.
Give us your thoughts on running a social campaign! Join our Telegram chat and find out what tactics and strategies other affiliates rely on within this vertical.
