Everyone thinking about starting in affiliate marketing will have to choose their first offer. Among all the choices a beginner has to face, sweepstakes offers are the most frequently recommended vertical to start with.

Surveys and sweeps are universal, easy, always-popular, and perfect to start with. There’s more than one type of sweepstake offers, though. And despite the fact they are all great choices, it’s good to know how to distinguish between them, to better tailor your campaigns.

If you want to know more about the kinds of sweepstakes, especially credit-card submit offers, read the article and learn!

What are CC submit sweepstakes offers?

The surveys and sweepstakes vertical encompasses various offers promising users rewards for completing some simple actions. The offered items range from vouchers, electronics, gadgets, trips, subscriptions, and experiences. Even though everything is offered for free, there’s a small price to pay.

Usually, that price is some data. Some sweepstakes promise a lottery ticket for those who leave their email address, phone number, credit card details, or some more complex data. People simply need to sign up via one of those methods for a chance to win something.

We want to focus on CC submission kind of offers. Their flow requires users to enter their credit card number in order to sign up for a free trial. The merchant pays advertisers a commission every time somebody signs up. It doesn’t matter whether they do buy the product and invest actual money or not, users just need to sign up.

Since these kinds of sweepstakes require more sensitive data than e.g. an email address, they usually have slightly higher payouts as well. And what comes with more complexity on the part of the offer is also a more advanced flow, thus lowering the conversion rate.

When it comes to surveys and sweeps, the more significant the data required to enter, the higher the payout for the advertiser. Although the customers who enter their details are not immediately billed for subscriptions and products, having that data in the system makes it possible for the product owner to continue the service after the trial period ends without interruptions.

How to make money from sweepstakes offers?

Sweepstakes offers are extremely universal. As long as you have a sufficient budget and plenty of patience, you can easily make some side money with them. They are definitely the most all-around vertical. They work on various traffic sources, including such giants as Facebook.

When it comes to ad exchange platforms, they work well with pop traffic, push traffic, and domain redirect traffic. Regardless of the ad format, sweeps campaigns work regardless of the season. There are, of course, spikes in traffic for these offers seasonally.

If you want to make money from sweepstakes, and especially with CC submit offers, there isn’t much you need to do. However, to provide rough guidelines for beginner affiliate marketers, here are some simple tips:

✔︎ ask affiliate network representatives for the best performing and longest-running offers

✔︎ consult with traffic source support or account manager to compare what offers are most successful with their inventory

✔︎ if using push notifications, follow the guidelines and policies of the traffic source (never promise a prize but offer a ‘chance to win’ something)

✔︎ split test your sweepstakes campaigns to find out what methods and targeting options work best for you (tier 1 vs. tier 2, push ads vs. pop ads, a Samsung Galaxy offer vs. iPhone 12, subscription offers vs. shopping vouchers)

✔︎ don’t get discouraged by unsatisfying results – you can try a wide variety of combinations when it comes to every parameter of your sweepstakes campaigns so make sure you test sufficiently before calling it quits

How to promote CC submit sweepstake offers?

CC submits are not very different from any other type of sweepstakes. As always, you should try different strategies to see what works best for you, although there might be some key points to remember.

Research what the users want to see

If you want to make money online in the affiliate marketing industry you need to put effort into researching the market. Trends tend to change so you need to always be on the lookout for new opportunities and demands.

You can look for ideas in spy tools and communities. Spy tools are especially useful because they allow you to get detailed insights into the current market situation. You can check what has been running the longest and what’s generating the highest revenue. The more time you spend researching what to run the better.

Optimize your sweepstakes campaigns

CC submits are harder to convert than offers that only require phone numbers or e-mail submission. People are generally more willing to share data that isn’t directly related to their finances. That’s why higher payout offers always require more optimization and tweaks. 

Prepare creatives for various audiences

For example, the holiday shopping season calls for festive offers and pre-landers that match the Christmas spirit. On the other hand, back to school season will call for a completely different angle. Even if you’re choosing to advertise the same offer, product, or service, make sure to add variety to your creatives.

Affiliate marketing tends to follow global trends and events so your choice of a CC submit offer should depend on what’s currently happening. Sweepstakes are universal enough for that not to be a problem. You do have to put in effort into researching the product, though. As an affiliate marketer, it’s your job to sell it.

Don’t forget about a pre-lander

That brings us to the most important part. In order to promote CC submits effectively, you need to present them compellingly. Apart from finding the right creative and coming up with a solid copy, you need to explain why people need these products or services. The best way to do that is through a landing page. 

Should you use direct linking or a landing page?

Although it’s always best to split test on your own, what every experienced affiliate marketer will tell you is that in 90% of cases landing pages are necessary. It doesn’t matter what GEOs you’re targeting or whether you’re using pop traffic or push notifications. A landing page can be a game-changer.

9/10 campaigns will be more effective with a pre-lander!

Pre-landers are needed especially in offers that advertise something more complex than shopping gift cards. Every time you’re trying to convince a user to commit to something, be it a subscription, an e-book, or a free trial of a costly service, you need to share enough information to make the users believe they need it.

What makes a good landing page?

A good pre-lander needs to have more than just a field for entering email addresses or other data. Depending on what product you’re advertising, you need to give users what they need. And what they need is a reason to choose your product.

These offers work well and can earn you a lot of money. But sometimes, convincing a user to share their data might not be so easy. Luckily, good pre-landers have a high chance of increasing your CTR and conversion rates. Here are some tips for taking your sweepstakes campaign to the next level with a high converting landing page:

• Research the offer you’d like to run in a spy tool and note down the ideas;
• Don’t just rip landers and run them as they are – make changes and split test;
• Make sure the theme of the pre-lander matches with the one of the offer page;
• Add opinions at the bottom of the page to add the seal of community approval;
• Never mix up the names of the advertised products or prizes throughout the funnel;
• If you’re doing a longer advertorial, add a table of contents;
• Mention the GEO where your offer is advertised to make it seem more exclusive;
• Add a timer to make users act on the fear of missing out;
• Add an easily visible CTA to maximize the number of offer page views;
• Don’t forget to optimize your lander for mobile users as well.

What are the best products to advertise?

When it comes to sweepstakes offers, be it submitting the credit card’s number, e-mail, or phone number, the best products to advertise depend on a seasonal trend. Of course, there are also prizes that always sound exciting, regardless of the time of the year. However, the most successful sweepstakes campaign is always the freshest one.

The biggest market players know this, and so should you. Different products are in demand for different GEOs and in different seasons. For example, even though people want to better themselves all year round, it’s usually after the winter Holidays that they have the biggest need for weight loss products.

You can’t go wrong with gadgets/electronics sweepstakes!

The majority of sweepstakes CC submits, however, belong to the electronics category. So while free trials of any kind can have a wide range of offered products and services, if you want to run sweepstakes, phones and gadgets are your best bet.

Either way, people are always eager to win a brand new phone. That’s why any brand new smartphone model will be a good product to advertise. The biggest challenge here is to find the right GEO and match it with the right landing page.

Additionally, while Tier 1 countries will go crazy about Apple products, the rest of the world will be just as excited, if not more, about a chance to win some other brand. Publishers who own the product tend to have their guidelines and recommendations so make sure not to run your chosen sweepstakes offer with a mismatched traffic chunk.

Best sweepstakes affiliate programs

A lot of popular brands have affiliate programs. Sometimes, all you have to do is look at their website to find a tab for ‘affiliate programs’ among other useful resources. These brands usually offer legitimate Facebook-safe programs which are best suited for more experienced advertisers as they tend to have high payouts.

Don’t forget to do your research, taking into account your niches and experience. Popular brands such as Uber, Twitch, or Walmart all offer affiliate programs. In the case of such companies, the programs have higher standards when it comes to traffic.

Program Example

Amazon Associates Program is a good case in point. It’s addressed primarily to content creators, bloggers, and website owners rather than affiliate marketers who rely on ad exchange platforms. In this case, not even Facebook is a good traffic source, unless you own the profile.

All in all, an affiliate program with sweepstakes is a rather rare occurrence. While it’s easy to find in affiliate networks, programs are geared towards physical products and demographic targeting.

Best sweepstakes affiliate offers

The best sweepstakes affiliate offers will depend highly on different GEOs. Additionally, they will vary significantly in lifespan, with some burning out within weeks and other lasting years. If you want to find the best offers, it’s always recommended to talk to a CPA Network representative. The top performers tend to change and fluctuate just like traffic does so it’s best to always have the freshest information.

Offer Examples

If you want our top picks at the moment, here are some classic win-a-phone sweepstakes examples from Clickdealer:

But sweepstakes don’t have to be about winning phones and electronics. Gift cards and vouchers are almost as popular.

Where to find a good offer?

The best way to get good deals is by signing up to an affiliate network via Zeropark’s Offer Wall. Apart from traffic, we have a whole selection of offers with special bonuses, payout increases, and other benefits for our users.

Is affiliate marketing still profitable in 2021?

Affiliate marketing is not going away yet. Actually, with more and more sales moving online, affiliate marketing is thriving. It’s true that beginner affiliate marketers now have bigger competition than they used to. But the poll of products and services to advertise increased proportionally as well.

The inventories of traffic sources also keep increasing as mobile usage and digital literacy are continuously on the rise. More GEOs offer sufficient volumes of traffic to run specific and highly targeted campaigns. Other platforms such as Facebook or Instagram are also thriving despite having stricter policies when it comes to affiliate advertising.

There are new ad formats still appearing on the market with 2020 witnessing the spread of in-page push ads. It used to be a rather rare ad format and now nearly every traffic source has them. Pop traffic and push traffic are not going away either. There might be a slight shift in popularity from pops to push notifications but it’s not a negative change.

2021 Coronavirus Update

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many people to look for alternative streams of income. Working from home became a sought after type of employment and affiliate marketing fits the requirements. Not only was there an increase in Google searches for WFH, but affiliate marketing forums and communities also became more active.

To give you a short answer, yes, affiliate marketing is still profitable in 2021 and you can read all about the upcoming trends in this article. Just follow the demand and the profits will come.

Conclusions

CC Submit sweepstakes are perfect for intermediate and experienced affiliates. Payouts might vary but generally, it’s the kind of offer that performs really well in any GEO and with all kinds of traffic, including the strictest sources such as Facebook.

It’s much easier to find a good sweepstakes offer than a program but that doesn’t mean they’re scarce. Surveys and sweeps can be found in almost any network.

If you’re an advertiser looking for sweepstakes opportunities then hopefully this article helps you see that there are plenty of those in affiliate marketing. There’s no reason to wait, just go out there and take advantage!

Looking to drive traffic to your CC submit offers?
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Magdalena Bober