In Affiliate Marketing on
When you think of an affiliate marketer, are grey hairs and a bottle of sedatives the first things that come to mind? Neither for us, just asking. The relentless stress is part of the job, but it’s a price worth paying for those who can detect hidden trends and seize opportunities. The journey may be tough, but the rewards for those who dare to navigate the unseen are unparalleled.
Enough with the fluffy text, our goal for this blog post is to talk about how branching out into new stuff that’s not really mainstream yet can make you (tonnes of) money.
This led us to a yet another challenge – exploring antivirus markets beyond the US. We ventured into the UK and struck gold, especially in the mobile sector.
The shift from US to UK market is nothing dramatic – the language is the same, to begin with. Key difference between the countries lied in population lifestyle. UK citizens are more concerned about safety, so despite the low volumes available compared to the US, the conversion rate has been remarkably high, especially in the mobile niche.
Let us share how we made waves promoting TotalAV in the UK and why this market holds so much promise.
Huge population and well-earning audience is what draws affiliates towards US market. And results are there to keep them. Over time, market became crowded, making it harder to break into and remain profitable. In the UK, the competition was relatively lower compared to the US and we had wealthy, tech-savy, although smaller population to explore. While we were limited in terms of volumes, the traffic quality turned out to be higher – Brits seem to pay a lot of attention to internet security.
We dug into the UK’s mobile usage habits and found that people rely heavily on their phones for everything – shopping, banking, and yes, digital security. This insight was crucial as it helped us tailor our campaigns.
TotalAV allows tracking of two points of conversion: lead and sale. Why is this good?
Receiving leads can help test traffic in more depth since initial results are seen through lead passing, so sources without leads can be cut off straight away and get the cleaner traffic.
Lead to sale combo helps to scale sources with the highest ratio, bringing the best results fastest.
Well, we explained it in the title above for the impatient ones, but in more details, we were:
These simple techniques, when used together, have delivered excellent results.
Our unexpected star of the project was in-app traffic.
People spend a lot of time on apps, so logically, it means insane amount of traffic to work with. But only few affiliates tried it by now. The tricky part with this one is the time it takes to test and clean up traffic and reach funnels that convert. Our key allies in this effort were our friends from inapp networks,, so we had more flexibility to play around with different approaches, compared to what we’d have by using a DSP.
Pro: Users are In the app and usually more willing to convert
Con: Low CTR
Push notifications are the most common traffic type in the software niche, and it’s for a reason – they convert.
The first stage focused on exploring multiple angles, so we tested around 100 different creatives to identify the best combination based on CTR alone and the CR from the creative to the lead, copy’s and other little tweaks that led us to optimized funnels.
This it how the process went, but I know you’d appreciate added drama to it. Our deep dive into Android happened by mistake. We meant to set up traffic for desktop but accidentally targeted Android instead. Luckily for us, the offer we were testing had all-over coverage, so iit brought in leads with great sales. And what did we do? We rolled with it and made the most of this happy accident.
The trick is in getting to THE ONE in terms of creative-prelander combination, and test different messaging (value for money, discouns and the need of protection) along the way.
In-page push notifications were also highly effective, especially on iOS. They’re non-intrusive yet grab attention, as users were more likely to respond to relevant and timely security alerts.
In-Page Push is seriously underrated – it pulls in great volumes and keeps users engaged right on the site they’re browsing, not just hitting them with random messages. It takes some tweaking to get right as well, but it pays. And its THE WAY to reach iOS users.
One of the biggest factors in our success was crafting messages that resonated with our audience. We took the time to understand the pain points and concerns of UK users regarding digital security. By highlighting features like real-time protection affordable deal, huge discounts, counting on fear of loosing data all of us have, and simple way to get it in 2 clicks, we reached and converted our target audience.
Continuous approach to optimization was to go from wider coverage and narrow it down quickly without much mercy to less performing sources. We didn’t lose time. This included lots of analytics – keeping optimal lead to sale ratio on sources, continuously A/B testing different ad creatives, tweaking push notification timings, refining in-app ad placements, and constantly updating our whitelist based on that. Lot’s of tiny efforts that led to maximum impact when combined.
Understanding the local market nuances was vital. The UK’s regulatory environment, consumer behavior, and competitive landscape are different from the US. By leveraging these local insights, we could fine-tune our approach to better align with the expectations and preferences of UK users. This localized strategy played an important role in our campaign’s success.
Looking back, the success of our TotalAV campaign in the UK shows just how much potential there is in less saturated markets. By adopting a hybrid conversion model, leveraging diverse traffic sources, and crafting targeted, locally relevant messages, we were able to unlock new revenue streams and achieve impressive results.
Our journey has taught us that innovation, adaptability, and a deep understanding of market dynamics are crucial. The UK market, with its high mobile usage and untapped potential, offered us a promising opportunity. Being prepared to think more broadly and differently than everyone else helps us become innovators and get rewarded for it (at least until the rest of the market catches up).
And we don’t plan to stop here. It’s all about exploring new territories, understanding your audience, and always being ready to adapt. So, we’ll be back in a couple of months with a new humble-bragging post about comparing our successes in the antivirus markets of Canada and Australia.
If you want to be a part of our next success story, you know what to do. 🙂
