I am an affiliate with links to an online retailer in this blog post. When you read what I have written about a particular product and click on that link and buy something from the retailer, I can earn a commission. Please note that I only recommend products that I truly believe in and use in my business. Please read my full disclaimer here
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Whilst this blog teaches you about different digital marketing strategies for your own business, every now and again I like to do a case study, documenting my results so that the next person who is reading this can take steps to achieve the same for themselves.
In today’s blog post I am going to talk about FlexOffers and provide a detailed synopsis of how I was able to use this affiliate network to earn over $10,000 in affiliate commissions and how you can make money with FlexOffers.
There are many ways that you can promote affiliate products but I have found the best way to do that is through a valuable blog post that teaches your reader something educational.
But the difference with this case study is that I did not have one of those traditional blogs. Like this one that you’re reading.
I wanted to create something that was fast and easy to get started in very little time.
Know what it takes to create a niche blog and ready to take the leap? Start your blog by following my step-by-step guide.
When I started this campaign, all I wanted to do was test the affiliate product to see if it would generate any interest. The quickest way to do that without a traditional blog was to create a small blog post and drive traffic to it to see if it would produce any sales.
Guess what happened next? I got six affiliate sales in the first 24 hours and went on to earn over $10k in a little over two months.
Now, I want to show you what I did.
- What is FlexOffers and how to sign up with them
- Which are the best products to promote with FlexOffers
- How to promote the affiliate product through a blog post
- How to get traffic to your blog post
- Other features of FlexOffers
- How I earned over $10k in affiliate commissions from FlexOffers in 2 months
FlexOffers is an affiliate network that connects you to many reputable brand name companies who you can become an affiliate for.
FlexOffers has over 12000 affiliate programs and are adding new ones each day.
Some of their affiliate programs include companies like Lord & Taylor, Skin Store and the InterContinental Hotel Group.
You will notice that the brands that I just mentioned are in the fashion, beauty and hotel niche. This means that there is a wide range of programs to suit almost every niche.
To sign up with FlexOffers you do need your own website to get started. I do not know how they select their affiliates and whether they expect that websites should already have sufficient content on it to join but this is what FlexOffers said:
From the above it would appear that even if you have very limited content on your website, as long as you explain how you are going to promote their products and are very detailed as to your traffic sources, this will give you a good chance at being accepted onto their platform.
Take note of this and take your time when applying for their program.
To start the application process click here. Once you get to the website click on Publisher Sign up.
Next go through the steps to complete your application.
There is no secret to getting accepted with and making money with FlexOffers but here are a few things you should know:
- Give truthful, honest information
- FlexOffers want people who know how they are going to promote their products. So have a plan and be sure to be as detailed as you can when you state that plan in your application to increase your chances of being accepted.
- Give accurate information. Don’t worry if you make a mistake. You can always contact them after you have submitted your application and inform them of the error.
- Read their terms and conditions carefully to ensure that you can comply so as to avoid violations and termination of your account.
- There is no cost to join FlexOffers
In my view, the best products to promote are the cost per lead products.
Cost per lead, means that you will earn a commission when your traffic opts into the advertiser’s product form providing their name, contact details and other information which the advertiser requires from the lead.
This means that your audience is not required to make a purchase in order for you to receive a commission.
I find that cost per lead programs are one of the easiest ways to make money from affiliate networks as all that is required is for the lead to enter their information which is a much easier, no obligation task for the lead to perform as opposed to taking out their credit card and buying a product.
To find cost per lead items, once you are in the FlexOffers Publisher area, click on Advertisers then Search Advertisers.
Scroll down to Payout Type then tick the Cost Per Lead box and click on Search.
This will bring up all the affiliate programs that are paid on a cost per lead basis.
If you want to filter the search results based on your niche, you can enter keywords or select categories to help you narrow the search results.
You can promote an affiliate product by linking directly to the affiliate program but I find that the best way to make money with FlexOffers and well, any affiliate product is with valuable content.
Valuable content allows you to educate and inform your visitor about why they should take a particular action. People are more likely to act when you teach them something and they understand why the action is necessary, both as a benefit to them and what could happen if they do nothing.
Valuable content can come in the form of a sales funnel where you capture the lead’s information on a lead capture page, then take them to a bridge page where you educate them on how to do something and send them off to the affiliate product.
However with cost per lead programs it can be quite tricky when you ask for the lead’s information through your own sales funnel, then ask them to provide their information again through the advertiser’s lead form.
So what I like to do, which has reaped tremendous results for me, is write an educational blog post that recommends the affiliate program (kind of like this one you’re reading).
So when your audience clicks through to your links, they are taken to the affiliate program where they are only required to enter their details once.
Whatever way you decide to promote the program, I recommend that you always use your own landing page before sending the traffic to the affiliate program. What this allows you to do is:
- You can either capture your traffic’s information by using your own lead capture page. This will help you build an email list to which you can remarket and follow up with the lead.
- You can add retargeting pixels to your landing page, which will allow you to retarget and remarket to your visitors.
Interested in using this method to promote your affiliate products? Check out my LeadPages Review blog post which teaches you how to use LeadPages to do affiliate marketing.
There are many ways that you can get people to see your promotional content. You can get traffic from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest or search engines.
When promoting my own blog posts, I use Facebook Ads as well as Bing Ads. Before you spend any money promoting the affiliate program, make sure that you know what the earnings per click is (EPC).
Earnings per click is a metric provided by affiliate programs that give you insight into the estimated earnings that you can achieve for every 100 clicks you send to the affiliate program.
This metric is determined by the average earnings earned by affiliates over a certain period.
FlexOffers measures this over a 7, 30 and 90-day period.
By knowing what your earnings per click metric is, you can ensure that you run profitable ad campaigns where your cost per click falls below the EPC.
For example, if you place an advertising campaign with Facebook and you ask Facebook to send people to your landing page, look out for the amount that you are spending per visitor.
This is measured by the cost per link click metric (or cost per landing page view) on the Facebook platform.
If you are using Bing ads, see how much each link click costs. Look for the “average CPC” metric.
As long as the advertising platform’s metric is below the EPC of the affiliate program, you can ensure that your campaigns will remain profitable if you are getting conversions.
When I started with FlexOffers I chose an affiliate program that was paid on a cost per lead basis. That program was the Credit Sesame offer.
Next I wrote a blog post about Credit Sesame to include the features, benefits, why I used it and why I recommended it.
I used Facebook ads to drive traffic to the blog post by targeting people who I thought would be interested in a website app that helped them improve their credit score.
My cost per click was under $0.25 and went as low as $0.17.
To get my cost per click low I paid attention to my ad’s text by making it personal and relatable. This would ensure that a lot of people who saw my ad were first attracted to it and then engaged with it to drive down my costs.
I started this campaign at $5 per ad per day to first test different interests and see what worked. I initially tested eight different interests and when I got my first conversions, I looked to see which interests were converting.
I then turned off those that were not performing.
The ad campaign ended up running for approximately three months and I achieved a final return on investment of x2.7.
The final amount earned in affiliate commissions was $10,266.
Some things that I love about FlexOffers are:
Dedicated affiliate manager. I have an affiliate manager who helps me find the most suitable affiliate offers. They are also the go-to person if I wish to negotiate an increase in my commissions.
Ease of access. FlexOffers has online chat support features and you can reach their office by email or by telephone if you have a question. I have not had a problem speaking to someone although at one point I did have to follow up with their Accounts department after not receiving a response for seven days.
During the follow up, they answered my questions satisfactorily and were helpful in addressing my concerns.
Reliable payment. Although I am not a fan of their Net30 or payment when they receive commissions from the advertiser, they are reliable. I started with FlexOffers in January and received my commissions for the month of February at the beginning of April. This is usually the case with most affiliate networks. Some pay you on Net30 terms and others pay you on Net7 terms. I must add however that FlexOffers do have Net7 payment terms but you must have sent them quality traffic for two months and earned at least $5000 in affiliate commissions during each month.
Ease of payment. You can receive your affiliate commissions via PayPal or if you live in the US you can receive payment via cheque or direct deposit.
FlexRev-$hare. FlexOffers has a referral program where if you refer publishers who are approved, you can earn a percentage of their affiliate sales.
Anyone can make money with FlexOffers if they want to. They are a trusted affiliate network that provides thousands of affiliate programs that you can promote for a commission.
It’s a great revenue stream for bloggers and marketers who are looking for high quality brands to promote on their blogs or website. Click this link to get started with FlexOffers.
I cover more about FlexOffers and affiliate marketing with small blogs in my latest eBook How To Make Money With Small Blogs.
The information inside this eBook teaches you how to make money from affiliate products using small valuable blog posts. Plus I uncover a lot more, in-depth strategies that I used to earn over $10k in affiliate commissions with FlexOffers.
Whereas you can promote affiliate products using sales funnel, you can also provide value to your audience through educational content. They refer to this as a form of article marketing.
I also share with you how to get other people to pay for your advertising and business costs, plus one free traffic source that I absolutely love.
Many would-be bloggers want to start making money from blogging but they eventually give up because they don’t have the time to manage a blog or they find it difficult to get visitors to their blog. Make Money With Small Blogs solves this problem by showing you how to create a small blog and promote it for near instant results.
This eBook is designed to help you find an affiliate product that suits you, write content around the affiliate product and make money in a short time span.
Cheers,
P.s Have you joined FlexOffers? Leave a comment below and let other people know what you thought about them.
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