At this stage in the series you should now be aware of how important it is to collect data before passing your traffic and leads straight to an affiliate offer. Now its time to turn that data into cash.
Monetizing data can be a very complex subject that couldn’t possibly be covered fully in a single blog post. However, I’ll do my best to give you some ideas and point you in the correct direction with regard to turning your captured data into profits.
The great news about this is that very few affiliates are actually putting data collection and monetization into practice these days, which means even if you only scratch the surface with collecting and monetizing data you’ll still be ahead of your competition.
So you’ve setup a data interception page and are now capturing valuable data into a database of some sort. What are your options for cashing in on the data?
The initial and obvious answer that will be a good start for you is to implement follow-up sequencing across multiple channels. What is follow-up sequencing across multiple channels? It simply means to utilize all possible points of contact to reach out to leads and get them to either return and complete the offer if they didn’t, or complete another relevant offer (either categorically or demographically relevant).
What communication or follow-up channels you are able to utilize of course depend on what data you have collected. You can’t follow-up with email if you haven’t collected an email address, or you can’t followup with a phone call if you haven’t collected a phone number (well this isn’t 100% accurate…more on that in the next part of the series). The point is, you’ll typicall be following up by any channel possible.
The more channels you follow up through, the more profit you will pull from your data, the more margin you’ll have, thus the more you can pay for your traffic, thus more traffic, etc.
Here are some basic channels with relevant follow-up opportunity:
Email
Allows you to follow up by blasting out further emails both to people who have not completed the initial offer and also the people that have. We normally call the people who didn’t purchase but completed their information “partials” and the people who bought are of course “buyers”.
A good CPA optin page should get you around 30% partials. This means that if you’re not collecting data, you’re missing out on building a list of about 30% of all your traffic. If you’re doing any kind of volumes at all this will turn out to be a substantial list for some of you.
What you will want to do with email (and all other follow-up channels for that matter) is to segment your email lists. Meaning, you will want to separate the buyers from the non-buyers. Doing this will allow you to followup with more relevant messages to that group.
For example, asking “partials” to come back and complete their purchase but asking “buyers” to take a look at a complementary product or offer. Segmenting is very important in all channels. There are other ways to segement that are more advanced, but to start out you should at least segment your lists into “partials” and “buyers”.
Coupon Method
One great method I often use with much success is the coupon method followup for partials. Very simply, if the CPA advertiser offers some type of a coupon code or similar, you can followup with the partials through email by offering them the coupon to come back and complete the purchase.
I sometimes get a 10% or even greater conversion rate on my partials by the coupon method alone which can make or break a campaign.
Buyers are great to follow up with through email because they are obviously active online purchasers. This is of course great because you know they are willing to make a purchase or complete a form online…which means they are perfect prospects to send other relevant offers to. IE, if they buy a wrinkle cream they are likely to buy a cellulite cream.
So use coupons as a tool to get both prospects and buyers to your offers.
Complementary Method
A fantastic method you can use for buyers is to find a complementary affiliate offer and immediately mail the buyers with the other relevant offer. A classic CPA example of this concept in action would be the 2-step farticle.
If you aren’t familiar with this, it would basically be a cpa landing page disguised as a news article; however, the article would suggest buying two complementary products instead of just one (obviously brings in more revenue).
So you might see something like a weightloss product combined with a colon cleanse product, or an eye wrinkle cream with a face wrinkle cream, etc. Products that aren’t EXACTLY the same, but are complementary.
Sometimes in certain niches where it makes sense, like bizop, you might see the recommendation of two products that are nearly identical. IE, two different make money from home products.
This concept works very well with email followups as well. Lets say you’ve got a buyer that just purchased or converted on a wrinkle cream trial offer.
You should craft an email explaining the benefits of a relevant product such as a cellulite cream. Then later down the line in other followup sequencing, you could suggest other beauty related products. Now that you know this person is a buyer in a specific market, it’s game-on with sending them other offers in that same niche.
You can see the power here of collecting data. Affiliates are missing out on the majority of possible revenue by simply sending traffic to an offer. NEVER do it…you have no excuses now that you know the power in collecting the data.
Other great channels you can follow up with are:
SMS text messages
If you’re collecting a mobile number…sms messages are a KILLER way to monetize your data. Using the same concepts as email followups and sending relevant text messages you should be able to get conversions.
My tip for SMS followups is to make sure that when sending an SMS you are providing a phone number in your message that the lead can call. They have their phone in their hand…I don’t think I need to elaborate on that, but very few affiliates are doing it.
If you’re doing sms blasts make sure if you provide a link that the landing page is mobile friendly and ALWAYS include a phone number.
Call Center
If you’re collecting any phone number have a call center work your leads. This is without a doubt the most profitable followup channel for me and it usually goes completely untapped by most affiliates. I have campaigns where the call center will convert 15% or more of my partials into buyers. This is HUGE for profit margins guys! I’ll say it again, the call center followup separates the men from the boys and will help line your pockets like no other follow-up channel can.
Direct Mail
If you’re collecting the address of your prospects, follow-up with a direct mail piece. Direct mail of course is a whole art form and subject in and of itself, but my suggestion is to follo-wup with a cheap pastel colored black and white postcard. Include a phone number to a recorded message and a link to a website.
Same principles apply to direct mail in terms of segmenting. Send the buyers and the non buyers relevant messages.
There are of course many other ways to followup with your partials and buyers but that should get you off to a good start.
As a summary, remember to segment your list into at least the partials and the buyers…and here are the follow-up channels you should tap into right out of the gate:
- SMS
- Phone/Call Center
- Direct Mail
I know this question will come up, so I’ll take care of it prematurely. “Can/should I followup with the same lead in ALL channels or just pick one…because won’t they get annoyed?”.
I won’t dig into the specifics here as it will just waste our time, but lets just say follow-up in EVERY channel you can with EVERY lead you have. That is not up for debate, it’s what works.
So start segmenting and following up with your partials and buyers!!!
In the next part of the series I’m going to show you how you can followup in channels where you didn’t collect the data. That means I’m going to show you how you can followup with direct mail even if you didn’t collect the address, or how to follow-up with a phone call even if you didn’t collect a phone number.
Happy data monetization!
