INSIGHT
UNDERSTANDING THE DEAL
FOR BINARY AFFILIATES
Finding a binary options brand to send traffic to has never been easier, but finding a reputable one which
pays on time and offers competitive deals is not so easy. Michael Katz of Sociarati Media looks at the
questions to ask and which revenue models to pursue to get the best deal.
CUE FLASHING LIGHTS and
ambulance sirens! The majority of online
trading platforms, whether it’s forex or
binary options, begin life like an episode
of Casualty or ER. Starting from critical
condition, born from an emergency
situation to make money, these newly
formed brands rely on the life support of
strong lead generation, resulting in hard
and heavy deposits, in a best case scenario.
Without being shocked to life with an
intake of leads that convert via a strong
sales conversion team, and then continual
depositing from the work of heavy hitting
retention agents, the platform will cease to
exist. Rapidly!
New binary and forex brand owners are
compelled to let their heads of marketing
know that the whole success of the
business is upon their shoulders. Should
they fail in their role, there will be no
business. No pressure there then. That’s
just how it is. So, from day one, online
marketing directors for newly established
online trading platforms have fear of
failure as their key motivation, which
drives the marketing effort for good or for
bad. Not such a good starting point for
complex deal negotiation.
Then, while the marketing director
is establishing new deals, the goal posts
change. The owners add three more
languages to the sales team, bringing the
total number of telephone sales people
to 23. Now, in addition to frantically
hunting for the right online partnerships
and media, the marketing director has to
supply enough leads on a daily basis to
keep 23 people, in four languages, busy.
“Where are the leads?” becomes the
mantra of the owners. “These leads are
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bad. They don’t answer!” becomes the
mantra of the sales team.
Then the dilemmas start to kick in for
the marketing team. Should the deals be
CPA, knowing that the lead count per
affiliate will, in all likelihood be pretty
low to begin with? Also, how long can the
affiliate remain happy if the sales team is
unable to convert leads? With that in mind,
CPL sounds like the option to choose. Just
one problem. CPL deals are costly and the
owner has already made it clear to the head
of marketing that an immediate return on
investment is mandatory.
Knowing this information from the
affiliate perspective should assist affiliates
in deciding which platforms to promote.
Depending on your own traffic sources,
working with the big established platforms
is not always the right move either. For
example, some of the bigger operators do
not concentrate on conversion. In fact they
put in minimal to no effort on conversion.
So, unless your traffic is ‘self-converting’ it
could be a waste of your resources.
The burning questions
So how then should affiliates decide which
brands to promote and which to avoid?
And which revenue models to pursue to
obtain the best deal?
Here are the key primary questions to
ask an affiliate manager. And let’s assume
that the answers given won’t be too liberal
with the truth.
1. How long have you been in business?
2. What are your payment methods for
affiliates?
3. How many sales people in your call
centre?
4. What’s the percentage split between
retention and conversion?
5. W
hat is your conversion rate for each of
your targeted geos?
6. What’s your average trader value?
These are basic questions that may or
may not be answered. If they are blatantly
not answered, it would probably indicate a
‘problem’ and should set off a warning sign
to avoid working with the specific program.
Questions one and two relate to the
brand. If it’s a new brand, the chances of
paying affiliates on time should be high
in order to establish a good reputation.
However, if there is only one option for
affiliate payments, for example ‘wire’, then
the chances of paying affiliates on time, if
at all, are slim. Even if a brand is seen as an
official sponsor of a bona fide soccer team, it
shouldn’t be assumed that they have money
to pay affiliates. On the contrary, if a new
brand enters into the marketplace with a
big sponsorship deal under their belt, the
chances are that they are in a financial hole
from day one.
The remaining questions relate to the
working operation. It’s very unlikely that
an entire call centre would be dedicated
to affiliate conversion. Therefore, to get
an idea of how much effort will go into
converting the traffic that an affiliate may
send to a brand will take some probing.
There would definitely need to be a split
between conversion and retention. The split
is unlikely to be 50:50 but more like 80:20
in favour of retention. Retention is where
the money is at. If a broker doesn’t have a
strong retention team, then they won’t be in
business for very long. And by retention I
mean people who sit on the phone, calling
depositors to make them a compelling offer
to re-deposit and continue trading. Not just