The New Year holidays have come to an end. And we have a new case for you... on nutra. It's a simple and well-established niche, making it easier to transition from vacation mode and dive into work. The material turned out to be incredibly effective. We managed to set up an advertising campaign that ran for six months with minimal intervention, practically on autopilot, and brought in $8000 in pure profit. Intrigued? Now, let's delve into all the details.
Source Data:
- Vertical: Nutra;
- Offer: Hammer of Thor (Молот Тора) - Potency Enhancement Product;
- Payout: $9.1 - $10.5;
- Payment Model: Cost Per Sale (CPS);
- Traffic Source: TrafficStars exchange;
- Ad Format: Banner and Native Advertising;
- GEO: Malaysia; Advertising Expenses: $13,445;
- Revenue: $21,450;
- Net Profit: $8,005;
- Return on Investment (ROI): 59.5%.
Choosing the Offer.
Dozens of case studies on arbitrage with a focus on the USA, Canada, India, EU countries, and the CIS have been published in the Russian-speaking segment of the internet. And usually, arbitrage specialists tend to overlook the countries in Southeast Asia. But they are missing out... This region has been actively developing in recent decades, and Malaysia, in particular, holds a leading position in terms of economic growth and quality of life.
Malaysia is a new industrial country with an economy oriented towards services and the production of high-value-added goods. It is one of the world's largest producers of electronics and electronic components. Among other things, it hosts manufacturing and assembly plants of giants such as Intel, AMD, STM, Texas Instruments, and X-Fab.
Malaysia is a developed and urbanized country with a population that actively embraces the use of mobile gadgets. In terms of average salary and GDP, it has surpassed Russia, even though the cost of living is lower there. With a population of 33 million, there are many people in Malaysia who are willing to use online services and make purchases through the internet, such as weight loss or potency enhancement tablets.
One can talk extensively about the advantages of this former British colony and its economic growth, but without real metrics, they are just numbers. Instead, we decided to test how the target audience behaves and how convenient it is to work with Malaysian traffic. Moreover, there's a small bonus— the population, especially in major cities, is well-versed in English. Hence, we can experiment with English-language creatives, which are much easier to prepare and can be "borrowed" from competitors.
This is how we proceeded. First, we selected the GEO, and then we searched for an offer with high payouts and a clear and achievable KPI (Key Performance Indicator). We came across an affiliate program for herbal potency enhancement tablets called Hammer of Thor (Молот Тора). We did some research and found that this product is popular in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East. The offer appears in various CPA networks in different forms. The product can be purchased through local online stores and even local Amazon portals in the UAE, Myanmar, Qatar, India, and neighboring Indonesia.
UPD. Later on, we found an offer for a generic potency product on the American version of Amazon. As it turned out, this is a highly popular remedy (claimed to be of German origin) that can also be purchased in Russia.
Promoting a product that the audience is already familiar with is easier than an unknown novelty. The main concern is whether the audience will experience ad blindness.
The affiliate program paid for each sale – specifically for the customer receiving the product and making payment upon delivery to the courier or at the post office. Initially, we received $9.1 per sale. Later on, we managed to increase the payout to $10.5. Don't be afraid to ask for favorable terms, especially if your advertising campaign demonstrates excellent performance.
A quick tip! If you're unsure which product will perform better, launch a test advertising campaign for several products. A couple of days should be enough to assess which offer holds the most promise. Avoid taking on everything at once. Choose the most conversion-oriented offer with the highest potential revenue.
❗❗❗Curious to know: What are nutra offers and how to work with them
Target Audience
It's relatively clear here. The main target audience consists of men aged 40 and above. This is an affluent audience that actively uses modern technologies. However, it's worth considering targeting men in their 30s as well. Potency issues, especially in major cities with poor environmental conditions where people frequently experience stress, can arise at a younger age.
Main Interests.
Women - these can be dating sites, entertainment platforms, portals dedicated to women's beauty, and more.
Sex - adult webcam sites, porn websites, erotica, and everything related to it.
Cars, Sports (inevitable) - these are interests that attract a decent male audience.
Gambling, sports betting - men who are passionate about gambling are more susceptible to impulsive actions and respond well to internet advertising.
Mainstream entertainment - these can be regular entertainment websites with interesting facts, jokes, life hacks, etc.
Sex - adult webcam sites, porn websites, erotica, and everything related to it.
Cars, Sports (inevitable) - these are interests that attract a decent male audience.
Gambling, sports betting - men who are passionate about gambling are more susceptible to impulsive actions and respond well to internet advertising.
Mainstream entertainment - these can be regular entertainment websites with interesting facts, jokes, life hacks, etc.
When preparing creatives, it's essential to remember the main motives and understand the pain points. The main driving force is to restore self-confidence, which is closely related to the ability to satisfy a woman and derive pleasure from sexual contact. However, it's important to consider that even in Western culture, men are reluctant to talk openly about such issues. Not to mention Asians, where male potency is elevated to a cult, and legends circulate about "exceptional individuals" who become parents and satisfy a whole harem even at the age of 90.
When addressing issues related to "male potency," it's best to speak as delicately as possible and focus on what the "client" will be able to do, rather than what he won't. It is gentle to say that "this is a common situation that almost everyone encounters, including his colleagues and boss. And everyone benefits from it, even the elderly also use the product."
What else can engage the target audience? Well, natural ingredients and safety for health are important factors. Mentioning that the product is recommended by doctors can be effective; for instance, using a landing page with an interview with a urologist. Storytelling from the perspective of someone whose life has been completely transformed is also impactful.
Tip! When promoting potency products, also test the female audience aged 35+. This target audience accounted for a significant portion of our conversions. Even when a man denies the problem, the responsibility for its solution often falls on the wife. However, their interests differ. The main audience consists of married women who value family and home comfort. Advertising can be launched on portals dedicated to home, health, lifestyle, weight loss, and entertainment.
Advertising Creatives
As you can guess, we used SPY tools to find advertising creatives. No, the affiliate program provided ready-made landing pages, banners, and pre-landers. However, it was unclear which ones would lead to conversions (or maybe none at all). SPY tools allowed us to see what our competitors are currently running. Honestly, this time we couldn't get an objective picture. Various campaigns were launched online, and each one had different creatives. So, we had to test them ourselves.
We tested over thirty variations of banners. The images included satisfied women, enlarged male genitalia, banners depicting a couple in bed (non-adult), and photos of the product packaging with capsules. So, what did our test launch show?
Surprisingly, creatives with adult content had lower conversion rates. Simple banners with promotional messages about discounts performed better, as well as ads that emphasized the product's natural composition and safety for health, with effects comparable to Viagra (a synthetic drug known to have an impact on heart health).
We discovered that simple images with the product composition indicated often resulted in much higher conversions. Therefore, we further focused on them and completely abandoned adult images. Although we still used images with subtle hints that could catch the eye, as shown in the example below.
Traffic Source
Nutra belongs to the gray verticals, and it can be challenging to push it through Facebook* or Instagram*. On the other hand, this Hammer of Thor is a well-advertised dietary supplement that is legally sold without additional permissions. We weighed all the pros and cons and decided not to use pop-ups or push notifications, which are more suitable for promoting "more marginal" products. Instead, we opted for clear banner and native advertising, which provide good conversion rates for such products. Only interested users will click through, so it's essential to prepare creative content and add triggers that will engage the audience.
We work with various advertising networks, choosing the traffic exchange platform according to the GEO that provides a lot of high-quality traffic. This time, we were interested in the service TrafficStars.
In terms of advantages, TrafficStars is similar to other ad networks. It offers a wide selection of banner sizes, allowing you to experiment and find the most effective format for your campaign. The platform also provides a Russian interface. We have previous experience working with this exchange and know that it offers access to a significant amount of traffic from Southeast Asia.
Advertising Campaign Settings - Test Launch
We immediately launched two ad campaigns: native ads and 300x250 banner ads. These banners are inexpensive yet highly noticeable and usually placed in prominent positions.
During the launch, we kept the settings to a minimum. We excluded proxy traffic and displayed ads only to users physically located in Malaysia. The target audience consisted of men. We didn't specifically target language, device type, or browser. The ads were shown only during call center operating hours to ensure that operators handled hot leads and potential customers didn't change their minds.
Initially, we planned to buy traffic on a Cost per Click (CPC) basis. However, in the end, we chose Cost per Mille (CPM) payment model. The reason was quite straightforward: more than half of the premium traffic sources only accept payment for impressions. Opting for another model would mean losing half of the traffic. We selected the "recommended" purchase price with dynamic changes, allowing the platform to automatically adjust the optimal bid within the daily budget.
During the campaign planning stage, we initially thought the tests would take 3-4 days, and then we would make adjustments to the ad campaign based on the initial results. However, it turned out to be less straightforward. The data was too scattered to precisely target the audience. What mattered more was that even with such a scattered campaign, it yielded results. Therefore, we decided to leave everything as it was, following the principle of "don't interfere as long as it's working." We only removed creatives with low conversion rates.
The test launch of the advertising campaign lasted for a whole month.
And here are the results we obtained:
In total, we managed to attract 740 leads. Out of these, 305 were rejected, likely because the client refused the shipment or didn't confirm the purchase after applying. Additionally, 152 clicks were "empty" or low-quality, where users accidentally clicked or explored the landing page but decided that the price or product wasn't suitable. The remaining leads were approved, resulting in 283 sales, bringing in $2547. Looking at the results, it turned out that we achieved high conversion rates during the campaign.
Optimization
Usually, our test campaigns for cases last no longer than three to four weeks. This is sufficient to get a general picture, and often affiliate programs change their terms or suspend payouts during this time. But not this time.
It was only after four weeks that we saw trends and statistics regarding devices and operating systems. It turned out that we received the highest number of conversions from Android smartphones and tablets. Mostly, these were subscribers of specific mobile operators.
However, the campaign was generating profits almost effortlessly. It was enough to periodically rotate creatives and monitor to prevent a drop in conversion rates. Therefore, we decided to make some adjustments and continue.
Here are the settings we established after one month from the start of the advertising campaign:
Settings after one month from the start of the advertising campaign:
- Devices: Mobile and Tablets
- Operating System (OS): Android
- OS Version: All
- Browser: Chrome Mobile
- Mobile Operators: Maxis, Celcom, DiGi, U Mobile.
Please note!
The "gender" field is not available in the targeting settings. However, if we look at the available platforms, we can notice that the majority of traffic sources on the ad exchange are targeted towards a male audience.
We left the language targeting unspecified. Although the majority of the population speaks Malay, a significant portion of the population visits websites in English, Indonesian (which is largely similar to Malay with some differences), Chinese, and Thai.
At the final stage, we set up a "black list" and a "white list". We removed sources that provided the lowest conversions. For the most conversion-friendly platforms, we set a higher bid.
Results
Our ad campaign ran for six months. We only stopped it when the conversion rate started declining. We decided to conclude the ad display and not attempt to revive the campaign with new creatives and combinations.
Over the course of six months, we received 2,112 confirmed leads. Another 3,057 leads were rejected, and 1,271 turned out to be false. We spent $13,445 on advertising and earned $21,450. The average cost per lead was slightly over $2 (~$2.088). The cost per conversion was approximately $6.37. Our net profit was $8,005, and the ROI was 59.5%.
At first glance, the figures may seem average. However, considering that the campaign operated on autopilot for most of the time with basic settings and standard creatives taken from the affiliate network and competitors, the results can be viewed differently.
In conclusion...
This case has confirmed two hypotheses. Firstly, Southeast Asia is a promising region for arbitrage, and it is worth working with it. The competition, and hence the advertising costs, are lower than in Western markets and the Russian-speaking market. The payouts are good, and there is a substantial audience with purchasing power.
The second hypothesis is that arbitrage doesn't necessarily require constant tension. An advertising campaign can generate profit with minimal intervention. The key is to find a good offer and set up effective targeting.