Revcontent is my favorite native ad network by far. I love them for multiple reasons.
One, I like cheap traffic… and they have PLENTY of it.
Two, they’re very lenient on what you can run. As long as you’re not promoting anything illegal or making ridiculous claims that you can’t prove… you’re golden.
NOTE: They’ve recently cracked down on advertisers making claims in their ads and on their landing pages. Be very careful when creating your ad copy and landing page copy.
Three, they don’t charge you based on where you’re sending the traffic. Some native ad networks have three different tiers of pricing. Here they are in order of least expensive to most expensive: Non-Advertisement, Advertorial, and Advertisement.
Revcontent doesn’t do that. They don’t care if you’re sending traffic to a squeeze page, a blog post, or even a sales page. The CPC’s stay the same.
Before I dive into the case study, I want to briefly explain what native ads are just in case you’re not entirely sure.
Native Ads Explanation
In short, native ads are ads that blend into the content that’s surrounding them. They’re supposed to look like more content.
These ads are typically displayed on content-heavy sites like Forbes, Washington Examiner, and Newsweek. Take a look at the image below:
I’m sure you’ve seen ads like this. You can typically find these ad blocks at the bottom of a blog post or in the sidebar of a blog. They’re all across the internet.
Some of the more popular native ad networks are Taboola, Outbrain, and Yahoo Gemini. While those networks are great, they’re pretty pricey (on a “per click” basis).
There are many other less expensive native ad networks you can use though. My three favorites are Revcontent, as you already know, MGID, and Content.Ad.
Content.Ad is one of those networks that charge you based on what type of page you’re sending the traffic to.
What’s cool about these two networks though is, they don’t care if you’re a product owner or an affiliate.
In fact, in the image above, 4 out of 8 of those ads are affiliate ads. And, one of those ads is promoting the product I promoted in this case study.
Native Ad Affiliate Marketing Blueprint
This is a really simple affiliate marketing business model. When using native ads to promote affiliate products there are really only a few moving parts.
I’ll break it all apart for you below and at the same time, I’ll show you my exact campaign so you can follow along.
The Affiliate Product
This is where you start with this affiliate model. Keep in mind that there’s little to no targeting options available for native ads, other than placements (where you want your ad to run). That being said, you’re only charged when someone clicks your ad.
The best products to promote are ones that have a broad appeal. If you go to the Clickbank Marketplace and just click the search button (without typing anything in), Clickbank will return their most popular products.
If you look at the top 10 products from that list, they almost all have a broad appeal and are a good fit for native ads.
But don’t leave anything to chance here. Check out this super cool native ad spy tool. With this spy tool, you don’t have to guess at whether something will work or not.
You can see what other affiliates are promoting. How long they’ve been promoting it. The exact ads (images and headlines) they’ve been using.
The landing pages they’ve been sending the most traffic to (which usually means they convert the best). The placements where they’re advertising (the website showing their ads).
Honestly, I would never in a million years even think about running a native ad before I did extensive research with this tool. Just my two cents.
To be sure that the affiliate product is a good fit, you would like to see that ads have been running for at least 10 days.
It’s unlikely an affiliate would keep an ad up and running for 10 days if it wasn’t at least generating some sales.
The product I chose to promote was actually the #1 product on Clickbank for a number of weeks: Lottery Dominator. It has a broad mass appeal and it includes recurring commissions for affiliates.
The Landing Page
Let’s talk about where you’re sending your native ad traffic. For the best results, you have to enter the mind of your visitor (the person clicking your ad).
They’re expecting to land on a page that delivers content. Most people really do believe they’re clicking on articles when they click these ads.
So, if you send them to a squeeze page, you can imagine the results you’d achieve. But you don’t need to imagine because I already tested it. My conversion rate was less than 6%.
Which actually surprised me. I figured it would be less than that. Either way, there’s no way to be profitable if you’re wasting 94% of the traffic you’re paying for.
It just won’t happen. Instead, you need to send them to a page that delivers content.
Here are a few suggestions for types of landing pages that work well for native ads:
- Video sales letters (VSL’s)
- Presell pages
- Advertorials
Those are the three most popular and what 99% of affiliates use for native ad traffic.
In most cases, Clickbank products usually have a VSL by default so it would be possible to direct-link from your ad straight to the product but I don’t recommend it.
By all means, test it for yourself but I’ve found that by putting a presell page in between the click and the sales page converts the best.
Here’s the presell page I used:
I didn’t swipe this page from any of the ones I found using that spy tool but I did swipe the layout. I just tailored it to this product.
When they click the big blue “Watch Now” button it takes them to the product’s sales page.
This is just a simple HTML page. I didn’t use any page builders or WordPress for this. Just a really quick simple presell page.
The image I used is actually from the affiliate tools page for the product and many people have used that image for the image of their actual ad.
I pulled the text from this page straight from text on the affiliate tools page too. Notice that I haven’t had to do any of my own copywriting or anything here! Just simply copy and paste.
One major reason this landing page worked so well is that it’s mobile optimized. It’s responsive and looks beautiful on mobile devices.
The Revcontent Campaign
I started this campaign using the data I found while researching with the spy tool. I chose to run it just on mobile devices because I knew the traffic would be cheaper.
Here’s the specifics from my campaign:
- CPC $0.30
- Daily Budget: $100 (this is the minimum—you can pause it any time even after one day)
- Topic Targeting: Editorial News
- United States (all regions)
- Device: Mobile Devices only
- Language: English
Here’s my winning ad:
I tested about 3 other images and 3 other headlines. This one won as far as click-through rate is concerned. I’m not sure which ad produced the most sales because my tracking was biffed for this campaign.
I started my CPC bid high because I wanted to get fast data and fast data was what I got. My ad was always in the number one or number two position, which means I got the most clicks.
Later on, I started lowering my bid, just to see what it did to my volume of clicks per day. $0.10 per click is kinda the line I found to be the difference between a lot of clicks and not a lot of clicks (if that makes sense).
Conclusion
Here’s a snippet of my results for a three day period while running this campaign:
Gross Revenue: $729.62
Ad Cost: $310.08
Net Profit: $419.54 ($241.26 is recurring monthly revenue)
ROI: 135%
I actually made more than that but had a few refunds come through recently (as to be expected) so I removed them from the transaction detail report above.
Now, I’m sure I left out a few things here or there but all in all… this is a very simple affiliate campaign. Here’s the flow:
Revcontent Ad > Presell Page > Clickbank VSL
It’s not complicated. There are no emails to write or list automation or anything technical like that. Heck, I didn’t even use tracking, though I’m not suggesting you do that.
Point is, you could have this simple affiliate campaign set up and running in under an hour. No joke. It actually takes longer to get all of your stuff approved at Revcontent.
If I did miss something or did a poor job explaining something, please leave a comment below… I’m happy to explain further.
39 Responses
amazing results! why not desktop mode device on native ads?
Desktop works just as well… the traffic just costs more.
Hello
promoting CB products with native ads is that easy ?
so why i lesend a lot of persones saying that native ads is very complecated process comparing with google ad and bing ad and FB ad ? and they say it’s not good for begginers ?
First off, if making money online was easy, everyone would be rich. Not trying to be a jerk… just saying nothing worthwhile is gonna come easy. There’s a learning curve to all of this. That being said, native ads have a much higher learning curve than other paid traffic sources. You have to be willing to spend money to find profitable placements and the daily budgets at most networks are a minimum of $50-$100 per day.
Hi Duston. Great article, but I’m really surprised how easy it was for you to get profitable on a campaign.
Every article I’ve read about native advertising says that you meed to spend at least 5-$10k to get a campaign just to break even.
Did you spend any more money on your lotto campaign besides what is shown in the case study?
I’ve been thinking about using native ads but have always been put off by the budget rhe gurus say you need.
Thanks
If you’re running an offer that’s never been run before like your own product or something, then yes, you’ll need a decent sized budget to get to a break even point. But if you’re running affiliate offers that other people have been running for a while then all of that research and testing has already been done. Just use a spy tool like AdBeat and match your campaign to theirs.
The hardest part about running native is finding profitable placements. It’s where most of the testing budget is spent. Using something like AdBeat can get you started pretty quickly though.
Hi Duston Sir,
Thank you so much, all of your blog post is always amazing.
Can you share much more know-how with Clickbank affiliate ? I really hustle for it :)
Thank you & thank you.
Hi,
Can you share that presell HTML landing page that you used for this. Thanks!
I created that in Clickfunnels in about 10 minutes… it’s super easy.
Great post! thanks!
I didn’t see you optimize your campaign on the traffic side? did that mean you made it profitable even without any optimization?
If you did, can you talk more about it?
In this case it was profitable just because the affiliate commission is so high ($99/sale). I did have to go back and turn off underperforming widgets/placements.
I have the same campaign ended zero sales ?where particularly target?
I targeted US and I chose only one category… I believe news/publishing or something like that.
Why would you post a screenshot result from a year ago?
Because this campaign ran a year ago. Why does it matter? This method works now exactly like it did then and it’ll work five years from now.
Hi Duston,Do you recommend to run only one geo at a time?
Yes, absolutely.
Hello Duston, I really appreciate your idea simply I would like to know that it is the added value of voluum and how can we multiply the income x2
I know my second question is a little general but I just need to have a simple idea
Thank you very much my brother
Not sure I understand your question.
Hello Duston, did you get sales before removing underperforming widgets ?
Yes I did, but since the payout was so high I was still able to be profitable. After removing underperforming widgets it became even more profitable.
Hi, I want to promote clickbank offers, Should I have a website in order to register to revcontent or mgid? What are their requirements?
MGID isn’t as strict but I would have some kind of blog or something set up before registering at Revcontent.
I have some questions
what is your conversation rate?
how much profit for 1 sale suitable?
what are your criteria for profitable product selection?
The conversion rate varies by product but usually 1-2% is normal. The profit also varies… in this case it was a $99 commission for me so there was a lot of profit. I only run campaigns where I know it’s already working for other people. I use Anstrex to spy on them.
Hi Justin I noticed you used a presall lander was it just an advertorial?
Yes, it was the presell (advertorial) I show above that has a pic with a guy with a hat and sunglasses on.
nice post do you have any more tips or training in how to use native ads?
Yes, I have an entire coaching program called Native Ad Secrets. Here’s a webinar replay that explains more:
https://join.nativeadsecrets.com/replay
Nice blog…and one question:
What’s the minimum amount of investment required to get started with native ads?
Many of the networks don’t have a minimum deposit amount just a minimum daily spend. They range between $20/day up to $100/day and more. If you’re asking how much you should have in total, I would say $1k-$2k is a good starting number.
So happy to see our network listed as one of your favorite Native Ads providers.
Content.ad has worked tirelessly over the past year to upgrade our technology and our service offerings. We hope this evolution will be a great help to affiliate marketers hoping to reach new audiences with their ad campaigns.
One feature many people may not have heard of yet is our new Account Management team. For 2020 all new advertisers will be able to connect with our expert ads team to help maximize the impact and efficiency of their campaigns. (Taking out a big chunk of the guess work that can go in to the initial testing phases for a campaign!)
Please do not hesitate to reach out to our friendly support team with any assistance you may need with your Native or Push advertising campaigns! Learn more at http://www.Content.ad
Thanks, Richard!
I joined content.ad but beware, when you deposit your $500 (the minimum) they send a threatening email saying you have to verify your credit card or they will put a hold on your account.
Then, you have to send a photo copy of your credit card, along with a photo copy of a picture id, and fill out a bank verification form.
Then, you have to arrange a conference call with you and the bank to verify the card.
I opted to get refunded, because Content.ad was not worth the hassle when nobody else makes you jump through all these hoops. I don’t have the time for it just to test a traffic source.
Thanks for the heads up, Jim… definitely too many hoops for a simple $500 deposit.
Great case-study! I want to know:
1. The minimum daily budget & the minimum fund to add at the very first time on Mgid, Adcash & Outbrain, because I’m unable to find it anywhere on the Internet.
2. Is there something like re-targeting in native ads?
3. And which tracker should I choose and why tracking is important in native ads? Because I’ll get to know about the numbers at the native ads platforms’ dashboard also, right?
Thanks,
Sachin
1. $500 for MGID… not sure about the other two.
2. Yes, they all have their own retargeting pixels you can put on your site.
3. Voluum is my recommendation. Tracking is required in order to dig deep into the data to find the winning segments of your campaigns.
1. Product is based on hair loss
2. Targeted country
3. In my offer best cpc is 0.15
4. I can spent 100$ first.
5. How many sales I can generate in 100$ …
Please reply
You didn’t list what type of product it is (info-product, supplement, etc.) or how much it sells for so I would just have to guess your conversion rate would be around 1%. With a $100 ad budget at $0.15/click and a 1% conversion rate, you’re looking at roughly 6 sales. Here’s the math: ($100 / $0.15) * 1% = 6 sales.