Mobile pop ads have been converting well for years, and they aren’t going anywhere, but you might want to know why they are so successful as an ad format.

Well, in this article we will address your frequently asked questions such as what are mobile ads? Why are mobile pop traffic campaigns good for beginners?, & What should you look out for before starting your first mobile pop ad campaign? 

Rest assured we will answer all of your concerns.

So, if you’re just about to start your affiliate marketing journey and wonder what kind of advertising you should begin with, you’re in the right place. Mobile pop traffic campaigns are arguably the best starting point for beginners.

Read on to learn more about mobile pop ads and how they are a good ad format for beginner affiliate marketers.

What are mobile pop ads?

Mobile pop ads are a form of one of the most popular advertising formats, pop up ads. However, they are targeted specifically at those using mobile devices.

So, the first thing you need to know is what is a pop ad?

Well, that’s simple we’ve all seen them before, they are the ads that pop up in front of the page you are viewing and tempt you with a new discount for a pair of shoes or a download of an app for example.

They appear in two forms in the mobile browser as either a pop up in the usual way or as a pop under which is the newer form of the same old ad format. The pop under appears underneath the tab that was initially opened so appears only after the original browsing experience is complete, in this way it is less invasive and can convert better as the user experience is better as it’s a smaller interruption than the original in your face pop up ad.

So, mobile pop ads are those which are appearing to a mobile audience which means that the types of ads need to be optimized for this device type. For example, having landing pages that are the correct size for mobile users’ screens. Another thing to consider is which niche and the type of product you want to advertise to mobile consumers as this can vary from what is advertised on desktop devices.

What’s the difference between desktop pop ads and mobile pop ads?

When optimizing your campaigns the first thing you need to do is choose the device type as this will determine your audience and what type of ads they see. 

Pop ad is a kind of forgotten, yet still an effective format of advertising. We distinguish two types of traditional pop ads: pop-ups and pop-unders. Usually triggered by a click on a designated area of a website, a toolbar, or an onsite script – pop-ups are the windows that contain a landing page or an offer page. They appear on top of the screen, over the content of a website. Pop-unders, on the other hand, show up in the background. Nowadays you will mostly encounter those pop ads on adult or streaming websites.

Mobile pop ads explained

Mobile pop ads are slightly different than their desktop counterparts. Rather than opening a new window, when they are triggered, a new tab appears in your mobile browser. If it’s a pop-up, you’re immediately taken to that tab. If it’s a pop-under, you stay on the page you are currently browsing, and you can only see it when you close the current window.

If you feel like reading more about pop ads and their transition to remain an up-to-date form of advertising, head over to this post.

In today’s article, we will explain why it’s worth hopping on the mobile pop ads bandwagon.

Why are mobile pop ads good for beginner affiliate marketers?

As stated in the opening paragraph, mobile pop traffic campaigns are perfect for newcomers to the affiliate marketing industry, because they can teach you the basics without the necessity of taking a significant financial risk. At the same time, they are a proven path to a profit.

Since pop ad campaigns can’t be targeted in terms of socio-demographics, they are very cheap to run. Impressions cost merely small fractions of a dollar.

Obviously, there is some targeting that can be done. The more powerful the intermediary platform the more advanced targeting options are available (like mobile OS version targeting), but generally, it’s based on location, website, and device, rather than interests, age, and gender.

Moreover, mobile pop campaigns are easy to set up and handle. There are fewer conditions to fulfill, compared to advertising with Facebook or Google.

Another upside of mobile pop traffic campaigns is the fact that they mostly come down to the creation of a landing page. A landing page’s role is to make users take advantage of your offer. So it is easy for split testing and optimization. There aren’t nearly as many variables as there are in the case of other ad formats.

Additionally, mobile pop campaigns allow advertisers to utilize direct mobile billing in their campaigns. This means that whenever the offer owner has an agreement with a given carrier, users taking advantage of the promoted offer can be billed directly by the carrier. As an advertiser, you can choose to target a specific carrier, which makes it easy to improve the efficiency of your campaign.

Top verticals for mobile pop ads – (with up to date data)

We know it can be hard to choose which vertical for your affiliate marketing campaigns in the beginning, so, we have done the hard work for you and come up with a list of the most popular verticals for mobile pop ads.

Top 10 Campaign verticals that tend to perform best for mobile pop ads include: 

1. E-commerce /travel – Web users are searching for shopping and flights more on their mobile devices than on their computers these days, so, they are quite receptive to these kinds of pop ads on mobile.
2. Downloads – Especially utilities, like antivirus, VPNs, and mobile games (each of these can be treated as their own vertical to target) these are all useful downloads to have on mobile devices to protect or get the most out of them.
3. Sports betting – Especially during the summer and the football season sports betting really gets going as users check their phones at half-time to make a quick bet.
4. Gambling – There are plenty of gambling apps that are advertised successfully to mobile users as people play on their commute or at home. 
5. Streaming – Whether it’s the latest movies or the next football match, streaming is on the move, and it is here to stay for mobile users.
6. Binary/Trading – More and more trades are taking place on mobile with many mobile apps being dedicated to making money with financial services.
7. Adult traffic – pop traffic tends to work well with adult sites as the audience is receptive to new content.
8. Gaming – mobile gaming is very popular, and some mobile phones are being built with gaming in mind, as it’s a growing industry, particularly in China.
9. Surveys and Sweepstakes – also referred to as lead generation offers, these are always popular on pop campaigns as they have a good conversion rate for CPA campaigns, the chance to win an item such as a phone or a laptop is too good to pass up if the price is leaving an email address. 
10. Pin-submits – these work well as the user already has their phone in their hand so when presented with an offer that requires their phone number it is natural to proceed with typing it in.

Keen to know more about pop traffic?
Read the ultimate guide to pop advertising!

What to look out for with mobile pop ad campaigns?

You definitely need a tracker for your campaigns. There is no chance you can successfully monitor the actions and take necessary steps based solely on the insights provided by Google Analytics. Even if you tried, you would soon find out that this platform is not designed to track pop traffic. If you need a tip regarding which tracker you should choose, we recommend Voluum, not just because it can be integrated with our platform, but simply because it is generally regarded as the best available solution.

Affiliate marketing ad tracking solutions

A campaign tracker is a must-have for all affiliate marketers and it’s an absolute necessity for those who run mobile pop traffic campaigns. Mobile pop ad campaigns are known for their unpredictability. One source can be bringing brilliant results just to become completely useless overnight. You need to stay on top of your advertising activities and cut off the sources that aren’t performing. Campaign trackers put you in a position to do that.

The fact that mobile pop campaigns are a good starting point for affiliates because they’re simple, cheap and effective, makes them attractive and wildly popular. This obviously means high competitiveness, which only inflates with the availability of campaign spying tools that let you examine landing pages of other affiliates.

Mobile Affiliate networks may be the answer

However, there is a solution to fight this competition which is to find out where to get the best converting offers for mobile pop ads. For example, Mobidea is an affiliate network dedicated to mobile CPA offers. Alternatively, you can check out which mobile ads offers are trending on any of the affiliate forums.

Consider Webhosting services

Finally, note that speed doesn’t kill when it comes to affiliate marketing. Quite the contrary, actually. Research by Kissmetrics shows that nearly half the users expect a page to load within 2 seconds, and 4 out of 10 users will leave the page if it doesn’t load in 3 seconds.

That’s why you should use proven and fast hostings and beware of creating heavy landing pages.

Where to get mobile pop traffic from?

There are many places you can get mobile pop traffic for your affiliate marketing mobile campaigns… You can get it organically through a blog, or website, via social media marketing, or email marketing, or from mobile apps, but the easier way is with paid traffic from an affiliate network like Zeropark!

Paying a small price for traffic that converts well can lead to a much more substantial return on investment when compared to the hours of search engine optimization that is necessary to gain traffic the organic way.

Conclusions

Overall, if you want to become a successful affiliate marketer, mobile pop traffic is the way to go, mainly because of its low entry barriers. So, think about building mobile pop ads into your affiliate marketing strategy.

All you need to have is a traffic source (for example, from an ad exchange), offers (you can get them directly from merchants or from affiliate networks), and a tracker. Oh, yes, and you could also use a bank account to store your earnings.

Ready to run mobile pop ads?
Get started today with Zeropark!