CPA Networks

CPA is 90% mental. The other half is physical.

Is an Advertiser Worth Working With?

You've seen earlier that when possible you want to work with brands where you can build a relationship with the affiliate manager; that fits hand-in-glove with this next part: how to tell if they're even worth working with.

This is where the rubber starts to meet the road.

Each network publishes an advertisers EPC (Earnings Per Click); you'll use it to ascertain (in part) their worthiness of working with.
EPCs tell you how much their average affiliates are earning on average from the visitors who've clicked that advertisers offers.

EPCs are not a performance guarantee; they are a measure of the advertiser's ability to convert visitors their affiliates are sending them into paying customers.

As a general rule you want advertisers with high EPCs.
EPCs, like home or car prices, are all over the board. The thing is, there's always an average.

Advertisers for your own magazine's niche may well fall outside the averages you'll see here, but this should give you a feel for what to look for.
Some advertisers may have a $10 offer with a crazy high conversion rate that's a might be a perfect match for your readers.

Thus, even though there's a low network EPC for that advertiser, you might still be able to do quite well with them.

As a general rule, it's best NOT rule out working with every advertiser just because they have a low EPC.
First, we're going to look at a few brands in the motorcycle niche here. Then we're going to compare them with network averages.

In extremely broad strokes, an EPC over $100 is stellar. Anything above $50 is worth your attention. $25 an under needs scrutiny.

Lastly try to always look at at least a 30-Day EPC. 7-Day EPCs, especially around Black Friday and other major sales holidays, are useless.

One super affiliate pushing a brand can skew EPCs so badly they go completely pear-shaped.


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Choosing the Right Ads
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An Example EPC (Earnings per Click) Analysis