Have you tried to run an affiliate campaign on a native ad platform like Taboola or Outbrain? Have you faced a situation where the drive failed? If you’ve wondered why your program did not work on native advertising, you’ve come to the right place. Read ahead for in-depth information about the three main errors advertisers make and how to avoid them.
Affiliate Campaigns and Native Advertising Are a Great Fit
Before we move forward, know that affiliate campaigns and native advertising work very well together if you know how. That’s because, unlike Facebook ads, you won’t have to worry about account bans. You can focus all your attention on the performance aspect of the campaign without arguing with the traffic source. Nor will you have to deal with issues with fan pages, campaign bans, or any other. As most advertisers will tell you, running affiliate marketing on platforms like Facebook eventually faces a lot of snags. They almost always end up switching their strategies to native ad platforms instead. So, what are the most common pitfalls to watch out for?
1) Selecting the Wrong Product
Look for the Appropriate Niche
Before experimenting with native advertising, be aware that not all product niches or verticals work well on native ads. For instance, any products related to health or beauty are a great fit.
Look for Reasonable Payouts
If your payout is too low, you won’t have the bandwidth to play around and test various approaches. Without extensive testing, finding options that work for you is virtually impossible. So, try to look for products that bring you payouts higher than, say, $8 or $9. Many affiliate advertisers tend to explore sites like ClickBank to look for spammy offers. You might be able to pull them off and learn payouts of, say, $12 or $13, at the very best. But, if you’re trying to scale up your affiliate business on native advertising, look for higher payouts.
Of course, your products and campaigns will depend on the country where you’re working and your advertising technique. Your expertise in this field also plays a huge role in helping you identify what works and what doesn’t. Staying away from low-grade payouts on Clickback that bring you $5 or $10 is always advisable when running native ads.
Look for the Targeted Audience
Niching is another factor you might want to keep in mind. When playing around with native ads, you won’t have a real working targeting option, unlike social media platforms. For instance, Facebook offers options like interest-based advertising or demographic targeting. These features allow you to target your audience with razor-edged precision. Since these options are not available on native ads, you’ll use a much broader product approach. This means you’ll select a product or service niche that is a perfect fit for consumers from different demographics.
Target a Broader Audience
On Facebook, you can target a small audience but with a high probability of making sales. With native ads, you’ll target a higher volume of potential visitors to crack the code and identify selling products. In a nutshell, without the right product, it is impossible to scale up your affiliate business on native ad platforms. Or earn enough profits for the campaign to be worth your time and effort.
2) Targeting the Wrong Pain Points
Take a close look at the ads posted on Facebook. You’ll note that the ads simply talk about their products and why it’s a great buy. The ad will have a static image with, perhaps, a short video made using a smartphone. But, this approach is unlikely to work on native ads. Of course, there may be a small niche audience or low-hanging fruits you can convert with simple ads. Your ads will reveal the product features and any special offer deals, and the audience will place orders.
But, if you wish to target a top-tier audience, these basic approaches won’t work. You’ll work extra hard to identify the pain points correctly. Affiliate advertisers must understand the target audience, their pain points, and the issues they face. Only then can they create compelling, eye-catching titles and interesting copy to solve the pain points.
Explore the Product, Its Features, and Uses; and Target the Right Audience
When you’re looking for the right pain points to target, you can use several channels. You’ll start off by exploring the product and what it does. For instance, the product is a knee pain-relief ointment. While your ad copy can talk about knee pain specifically, you can also target sub-niches. To do that, you can go to Amazon and read some of the book reviews posted there. Pay careful attention to the specific terminology the audience is using, and you’ll find additional issues related to knee pain. Think of ideas like osteoporosis or target grandmas wanting to play with their grandkids. You could also speak to older audiences struggling with the inability to live an active lifestyle post-retirement.
Tall, Hard-to-Believe Claims Come Across as Spam
The objective here is to understand the audience, speak their language, and identify the pain points they want to solve. At the same time, avoid making tall claims that are too good to be true. To go with the earlier example, using knee pain ointment to climb mountains. Or, outlandish results like losing 10kgs in just 72 hours. Content like this is likely to be rejected by the traffic sources, and your prospect will not trust the claims. They’ll simply pass off the ad as a scam and absolutely will not convert.
Even if you have an exceptional product that delivers great results, refrain from crowing about it. While you must try to convince the audience that it’s a great buy, build trust gradually. You’ll let the audience figure that out for themselves and rely on reviews to convert further prospects.
Create New Copy and Use a Fresh Approach to Connect
The most crucial factor to remember here is to create fresh ad copy and advertorials. Host your posts on click funnels like Elementor and other content-generating tools. Refrain from using the content your vendors provide, without adapting it to your niche audience. Chances are that viewers are already familiar with the editorials and are unlikely to have any interest in them. Take the time to get creative, design slick content with fresh images, and give the products a new look and feel. Your efforts are sure to pay off with higher sales and better results.
3) Selecting the Wrong Funnel
When you create an eye-catching headline, it delivers an indication of what the ad is all about. But, then, the content or editorial should align with the headline and deliver on the promise. Viewers seeing the headline choose to read the advertorial, which should provide value for their time. Next, you have the “Offer Page,” which eventually leads to the “Sales” page, where the reader places an order. So, you’ll play around with different headlines, advertorials, and ads to test them for impact.
Use Multiple Approaches
The folks at Purple Black recommend trying three to five different advertorials. If you’re starting off with a lower budget, you’ll need more time to test every editorial. It makes sense to keep watch on data-driven results, but make sure to start with multiple posts. Chances are that a single editorial is unable to target the particular pain points the audience faces. If that happens, your campaign is not likely to be successful.
At times, you might do everything right with the article. You’ll design an enticing headline, write great copy, add hi-def images, and maybe, a video. But, it still falls short of the desired impact, with the reader unwilling to place an order. You’ll end up with a product and an entire advertising approach that just doesn’t work. This is why, you must test different approaches and editorials before figuring how to crack the code. At the onset, you’re unfamiliar with the audience, and you need data before making data-driven decisions.
Let’s Try the Earlier Example
Let’s go back to the knee pain ointment. You have a whole bunch of angles here. For starters, knee pain, osteoporosis, and an active, independent lifestyle for seniors. In the beginning, you won’t know which approach is likely to work. One may work exceptionally well, while another may have zero results. Using the data you compile, you’ll explore the successful approach further. For instance, the audience is interested in learning more about how to be more independent. You’ll develop new advertorials and strategies around this theme. The key is to identify the correct data and make data-driven decisions.
In Conclusion
The wrong product, wrong pain points, and wrong funnel are the three main errors affiliate marketers make with native advertising campaigns. If you need assistance with getting around these issues, we’re here to help. Contact us at Purple Black, and we’ll let you use our hard-won expertise and data to get ahead. We are a native advertising-only agency with Forbes Agency Council accreditation. How about you schedule a free consultation here and let’s talk about how to improve success rates for your affiliate marketing business.
