Networks that Allow Offline Marketing

Status
Not open for further replies.
What I was told -- by one of the few AMs who actually understood why I might be supplementing my efforts with offline media -- was that neither the network nor the advertiser wants to have their links in hard copy. Makes no sense to me, but I'm not driving enough volume yet to make my case ... yet -- plus there are workarounds if offline marketing is allowed.

Also, as I've mentioned in previous posts about offline, you may need to explain the geographic clustering of the traffic and leads that result from the effort. Like I said, I call the AM prior to beginning such a campaign because the traffic patterns may be very different than those to which they and their analytics packages are accustomed if most of their publishers are advertising online without geo-targeting.

What I've done in some cases is to use my own domain in the publications or brochures that points to my site that pre-sells the advertisers' offering.

Hope that helps. Hope it made sense too.
 


What I've done in some cases is to use my own domain in the publications or brochures that points to my site that pre-sells the advertisers' offering.
Click to expand...

That's what I said I would do. Can't use the advertisers link in the brochure cause you would need a tracking link.
 
Just run an ad somewhere and send people to your domain that has the tracking link in it. You can use a landing page of your own, or the affiliate's sales page. There's no QS concerns when you're sending people to a sales page from an offline referrer.
 
i did ~$10k gross with a campaign running an offline advertisement last month and nobody seemed to care.
 
JoshTodd said:
If you want to pass out some flyers, then go down to your local Pizza Delivery shop and get a stack. Maybe you'll get a year of free pizza or something. If you want to market online, then sign up to some affiliate networks.
Click to expand...

HUH? You do realize you can market an online product, offline, right?
 
Well I think online Product should be mainly promoted by online techniques.

But sometimes offline techniques boosts our affiliate promotion.
 
*facepalm* Jesus, some of this shit is so obvious I am literally holding my forehead, elbow supported by my desk, and just thinking that your AM is a complete idiot, and you're a bit of a fool.
Really, I don't want to be a schmuck here, but it's hard not to be when the answers are so obvious.

Sooooo, for each "offline" campaign you want to run, simply advertise it using a subdomain, or on a "special offer" page within the site, that simply redirects to the main site, after telling your analytic script that that's the page that traffic is landing on... From which you should know where you placed the ads...
Say you've got www.shittyacaicampign.com, you'll place ads with shittyacaicampaign.com/Fitnessmagazine or shittyacaicampaign.com/specialflyer or shittyacaicampaign.com/bluetoothspam, etc etc etc.

As for the ways to do it, here's the ones I can think of without even trying:

  • Magazine ads
  • Local newspaper ads
  • Flyer drops
  • Business cards
  • Tear of slip posters
  • Bluetooth mass messaging in appropriate locations
  • QR Codes (do people in the US know what these are yet? Japan's had them since '01)
  • Radio campaign (may want to use a redirected URL or a subdomain, instead of deeplink)
 
I'll give you one possibility why the network is saying no to your request to do offline marketing: for every person who is going to do legitimate offline marketing, there are a dozen who SAY they're doing offline marketing as a coverup for their fake lead generating scams. I've seen this first hand. So the network is probably playing it safe by saying no to everyone who comes forward with this suggested method.
 
MaxSteve said:
I'll give you one possibility why the network is saying no to your request to do offline marketing: for every person who is going to do legitimate offline marketing, there are a dozen who SAY they're doing offline marketing as a coverup for their fake lead generating scams. I've seen this first hand. So the network is probably playing it safe by saying no to everyone who comes forward with this suggested method.
Click to expand...

I still dont get how by generating the leads offline at all increases the chances of them being fraudulent. Its easy as hell to generate fraudulent leads online and just scrub out the referrers.
 
narsticle said:
I still dont get how by generating the leads offline at all increases the chances of them being fraudulent. Its easy as hell to generate fraudulent leads online and just scrub out the referrers.
Click to expand...
I think you misread what I wrote. I'm not saying that offline leads are fraudulent. I'm saying that a good chunk of fraudulent affiliates creating fake leads have used "I'm generating leads offline" as an excuse, even though they obviously weren't doing that.
 
Not going to read this thread, but I've done offline marketing to networks and wanted to share a few tidbits. There's this thing with 'brick and mortar' marketing guys (douches) that they call pURLs, or Personal URLs.

They take their customer list, generate usernames/passwords for them, and send them a mailer pointing them to http://www.domain.com/customer_name

Then the customer enters their 'password' to see if they've "won" anything, and it's usually just some $1000 gift certificate towards a new car or some stupid shit. In this case, could be a "free" shamwow or "free" trial of Acai assuming you have a surgically targeted mailing list.

You could easily do this with AM without the networks ever knowing.

For example, health insurance/medicare. Send out a postcard to 10,000 senior citizens in Sun City Arizona (who have requested health assistance) with a URL unique to them. They get the postcard, hit the PC, and go to the site. Since the traffic to the network is still coming from your site, they're none the wiser.

I know this likely isn't the topic of the thread, but it's as close to discreet offline marketing as most people will safely get.
 
I've been doing offline marketing for a little while now and I've never had a problem with it. In fact, sometimes I wonder if the leads I send over are actually better that some of those generated online, due to the fact that the people have time to think about what they're going to do before they do it - they have to grab your flyer/save your ad/remember your URL and get to a computer in order to complete the offer.

I love the simplicity of it - just buy a domain for the campaign, iframe the offer, and promote your new domain. In rare cases, I've taken the time to make new landing pages, but only if the advertiser's page really sucked. I definitely don't use the advertiser's name in my copy, though, as I don't want to give anyone the impression that I am the original advertiser.

The only real downside is that the leads tend to come from a concentrated geographic area, but even still, I've never had a complaint or even a question about it.

I also never ask my affiliate managers about offline advertising. I tried that once and the response I got was, "You mean like TV commercials? No, you can't pretend to be the advertiser on TV." I didn't bother explaining.
 
I think it would be a wise precaution to keep hard copies of all offline ads you're running in case there's a dust-up. You could thereby prove.... you know.
 
That is one of the smartest things I've read for offline stuff. Get a hold of a list of names and addresses and hit it up. You would probably get some sick conversion rates.

bb_wolfe said:
Not going to read this thread, but I've done offline marketing to networks and wanted to share a few tidbits. There's this thing with 'brick and mortar' marketing guys (douches) that they call pURLs, or Personal URLs.

They take their customer list, generate usernames/passwords for them, and send them a mailer pointing them to http://www.domain.com/customer_name

Then the customer enters their 'password' to see if they've "won" anything, and it's usually just some $1000 gift certificate towards a new car or some stupid shit. In this case, could be a "free" shamwow or "free" trial of Acai assuming you have a surgically targeted mailing list.

You could easily do this with AM without the networks ever knowing.

For example, health insurance/medicare. Send out a postcard to 10,000 senior citizens in Sun City Arizona (who have requested health assistance) with a URL unique to them. They get the postcard, hit the PC, and go to the site. Since the traffic to the network is still coming from your site, they're none the wiser.

I know this likely isn't the topic of the thread, but it's as close to discreet offline marketing as most people will safely get.
Click to expand...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom