Click-through Rate
Click-through rate or CTR is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. A CTR is obtained by dividing the number of users who clicked on an ad on a link, banner, or email creative by the number of impressions. For example, if a banner ad was delivered 100 times and one person clicked on it, then the resulting CTR would be 1 percent. This metric is good for PPC, search, email and banner advertising to determining the success of creative and the appropriateness of the placement.
Calculating EPC
EPC stands for “Earnings Per Click” and is a great way to determine which offer performs better between two offers with different payouts. When comparing two offers, one with a $36 payout and another with a $40 payout. A common mistake made by affiliates is that they assume that the $40 payout will be the better offer. Offer A with a $36 payout receives 100 leads earning the affiliate $3,600. We can now calculate the EPC by dividing $3,600 by the total clicks 700 to get the EPC of $5.14. Offer B with a $40 payout receives 70 leads earning the affiliate $2,800. Offer B received the same amount of clicks so let’s divide $2,800 by 700 to calculate a $4.00 EPC for that offer. So based on the stats Offer A’s epc is $5.14 compared to Offer B’s EPC of $4.00 which shows that an offer with a higher payout is not always the better offer. In this example Offer A earns the affiliate $1.14 per click more then Offer B that’s an extra $800 of revenue.EPC can also be used in optimizing marketing campaigns. The EPC allows the affiliate to know what their CPC “cost per click” must stay below in order to make the campaign profitable.
EPC for specific traffic types
EPC = Earnings per Click (Clicks/$Commissions Earned) This formula can be calculated by dividing the number of clicks per offer by the commission earned. Please check out our video on Calculating EPCs for more details. It is important to remember that different traffic types will almost always have varying EPC ranges. For instance, email EPCs for a good campaign will typically be right around the $1 range, depending on the offer. The email is being sent to an email address who has expressed interest in receiving email from the publisher, but they have not specifically asked for every product that hits their inbox. Therefore, it is normal for an EPC to be lower than a search publisher would see. A Search publisher will see a higher EPC because they have paid to target users who have a specific interest in the product they are promoting. The end user has a definite interest in the product and has sought out the product. Each traffic type will react differently, some will get tons of clicks and a smaller EPC, while others will click less but earn a higher EPC. When you log in to your account, you will see the network wide EPC. This is an accumulation of all publishers spread across all traffic types and often will not reflect the true EPC for your traffic type. Our AM’s are available 24/7 to let you know how an offer is performing for your specific traffic type.
Payout vs. EPC
Payouts are the money a publisher receives for each action completed. An action can be anything from a user inputting their email address all the way up to the purchase of a product.EPC, or Earnings Per Click, is how we measure the success of a campaign. To figure out EPC, you take the total payout earned and divide it by the number of clicks the offer received. This will give you the amount earned for each unique visitor that came to the offer. So, if an offer generated $1,000 and received 100 clicks, then the EPC is $10.If we compare Payout and EPC, we can see how to most accurately measure the strength of an offer:
If an one offer is paying out $50 per lead, seeing 100 visitors a day and only converting 10%, then the EPC is $500 divided by 100 visitors…making it $5
Another network is offering the ad at $40 per lead, seeing 100 visitors a day and converting 25%, then the EPC is $1000 divided by 100 visitors, making it $10
Some people only look at big payouts and miss the boat because the conversion rate and EPCs are lower than other offers they could be running.When comparing two like offers be sure to take a look at the EPC and not just the payout, since that is how you will really see how much revenue you can generate from the offer.
Objective System
Bigpayout operates on a 100% objective system. What does this mean? It means that if you are interested in two similar offers, we will always let you know which is the better offer. We will never let personal relationships with our advertisers determine which offer we recommend. The only offers we recommend are the ones that work! It is our job to provide our publishers with only the best offers and this is exactly what we do. You will never be misguided while looking for the perfect offer to run. We will always be completely upfront about which offers are doing best, giving up to the minute stats on how all offers are performing for different traffic types. Our #1 goal is to put money in your pocket, and having an objective system allows us to do just that!
Affiliate Marketing Basics & Terminology
Basics
What is “Affiliate Marketing”?
Affiliate marketing (as related to Internet marketing) refers to the sharing of revenue between advertisers and publishers. Compensation is based on performance from sales, clicks, registrations or a combination of such.
What does “CPA” stand for?
“CPA” stands for Cost per Acquisition or Cost per Action and is a leading form of media buying that provides advertisers with the true value of a consumer. As a payment model, CPA means advertisers pay publishers per lead. The lead is a set action by the advertiser which publishers’ users must complete. Such actions range from inputting email address or zip codes to purchasing a product. Payouts for set actions vary accordingly.Terminology
Above the Fold
Once a web page has loaded, the part that is visible is said to be ‘above the fold’.
Adsense (Google)
Text and image ads that are precisely targeted to page content, from which the webmaster earns a percentage of the price per click paid by the advertsier.
Advertiser
The person selling the goods or service; also knows as the merchant. The advertiser or merchant pays affiliates for sending traffic to the merchant’s web site after a product or service is purchased.
Adware
Also known as “spyware”, a program hidden within free downloaded software that transmits user information via the Internet to advertisers.
Adwords (Google)
Google’s Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising program.
Affiliate/Publisher
A website owner, search engine marketer, media buyer or email list owner who promotes a merchant’s products or services and earns a commission for leads or sales.
B2B
Business to business marketing.
B2C
Business to consumer marketing.
Confirmation/Thank You Page
A page that loads when customer has completed the desired action.
CPA
Cost Per Acquisition/Action. Actions can vary from a user inputting their email address or zip code (email/zip submit) all the way up to the purchase of a product.
CPC
Cost per click.
CPL
Cost per lead.
CPM
Cost per thousand impressions.
Creative
The advertisement provided by a client; banners, email text or html creatives, etc.
CTR
Click thru rate. The number of people who click on an advertisement after seeing the ad. Clicks/Impressions.
eCPA
Effective cost per action.
eCPM
Effective cost per thousand impressions; allows you to compare CPC, CPA and CPM pricing models.
EPC
The EPC is the “Earnings Per Click”. This figure is calculated by dividing the commission by the number of clicks generated. The EPC will give you a gauge of how well your campaign and/or affiliate are performing. If you have a large number of clicks, but a low amount of commission, this will translate into a low EPC number, which would tell you that although traffic is being driven to your site, not many people buy something once they get there. You could then adjust your campaigns accordingly.
Incentivized Programs
A program where the user is given something in return for either clicking on an advertisement, viewing an ad, or completing the action. Bigpayout does not allow this form of marketing. We removed incentivized traffic from our network in June 2007 and were the 1st in the industry to do so. Incentivized traffic provides much lower quality for advertisers.
Landing Page
The first, and sometimes only, page of an advertisers offer. Should detail the action desired and have a strong call to action.
Lead
Information that would potentially be a consumer of a product.
Long Form Lead Gen
A form of data that includes a lot of info: address, age, etc. and typically some sort of qualifiers (ex: How much debt do you have?).
Pixel
A 1×1 piece of code placed on the thank you or confirmation page of an offer. This pixel “fires” each time the page is loaded allowing us to track completed actions.
PPC
Pay per click, typically refers to search engine marketing where you pay for clicks.
Publisher/Affiliate
A person or company that promotes traffic to our ad campaigns via their method of choice (search, email, contextual, onsite, path, networks).
ROI
Return on investment.
Short Form Lead Gen
A form of data that does not include much more than just the email address, name and address.
Uniques
The number of unique people as determined by IP address.
URL
Uniform resource locator. The web address of a page.
Vertical
A group of offers. For example: Health and beauty vertical, debt vertical, work from home vertical, etc.
Viral Marketing
Marketing phenomenon that encourages people to pass along a marketing message.
Whois
A website that tells you who actually registered and owns a certain website.