Lots of affiliates managed to succeed in the short term but only a few make a career out of it.
The secret is building yourself as an antifragile pro.
We have given some thought, collected
over 10 years of our experience, and brainstormed what are the key elements in
building yourself to success as a media buyer in the world of affiliation,
meaning-making you an antifragile media buyer.
Based on what we have seen over the years, we have come up with 5 key elements you should always look for.
- Focus, Focus, Focus
Don’t try to shoot to all directions, focus on a few verticals only. Ask the account managers what’s working and what’s not – it’s better to start with something that worked for others and progress from there, after gaining success and knowledge you’ll be able to find potential offers by your own.
Real art is finding the balance between trying too little to trying too much, but it comes with experience. Try to invest 10% of your time to study new verticals and offers.
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket (or format in your case)
As part of being focused, always choose the format that works best for you and stick to it, yet it’s important to remember- not all formats stay forever. Always keep yourself updated with new formats that may emerge so you will be the first to succeed in them. this is where the margins are at.
A good example is push notifications that are booming for the past two years but now show a light decrease as regulation kicked in. It will stay for sure, but you can’t rely on it only.
In page push, new tabs, etc should always keep your mind busy in parallel.
- Be patient, but cut to the chase
Give every offer you run its chance to perform on different sources and formats, but make sure to use blacklists right away once you reached somewhat statistical significance.
- Keep it Data-oriented
Results and conclusions should be always data-driven. Adjust your a/b testing, live campaigns, and buying strategy according to the numbers.
This can be achieved only if you organize your campaign and tracking platform in a way that allows you to correctly track what’s going on in a required segment.
Make sure you adjust every few days once the campaign is running and showing nice results. Adjusting too often may lead you to a “local optimum”, as you blacklist too fast, or make decisions too quickly. You may see good results, but some points are better in terms of potential pro all around you. Look for them and push changes to the campaign now and then to keep it fresh and actively looking for those new points.
- Advise with others
There is no substitute for a piece of good advice from an experienced affiliate or traffic account manager.
Make sure you are up to date with trends, recommendations, and what’s hot by participating in forums, reading newsletters, and the most important – a conversation you initiate with others online or face to face.
STM and Afflift are great sources of knowledge.