FMS FinPub Pro

How To Get FinPub Affiliates To Sell Your Trading And Investing Products

• John Newtson

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FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

SPEAKER_00:

All right, let's talk about how do you get affiliates in FinPub to sell your uh trading and investing offers. This is an area that um like I get a ton of questions about. Um I know that like I posted a post that's basically like a short version of this video in our FMS Discord group where we had a lot of people who respond. Like, I wish everybody knew this when they were coming in. Um, what I wanted to do is put together um something different here instead of a conversation or interview. Like, let me run through what I've seen having been in FinPub for since 2005, 2006, um, and running FMS and having everybody come through and like really getting a good sense of this industry. Um, like kind of give everyone the context of who the affiliates are, what types of affiliates they are they are, what they expect, um what the limitations are, what the opportunities are, where to find them, and all that kind of stuff. So if you sell trading or investing offers and you're coming to this for the first time, or coming to like the FinPub or FMS community for the first time, like I'm hoping to kind of give you just a real good context of everything you need to know when you're thinking about building your affiliate business out. All right. So, like going back, my very first venture in FinPub, I was like the chief copywriter for a group that was 100% affiliate driven. Um, the entire business model back then was affiliate-centric for us. And so, like, I have a ton of experience from there, and it's just evolved since then. Um, I talk to everybody, I know everybody. Like, let me give you kind of a deep dive here on what there are. So let me start real simple, right? Because there are three kinds of affiliates. So, the what kind of affiliates would promote your investing product or newsletter or trading service or community? Um, I'm gonna run through three quick groups and then we'll go with each one in detail and kind of what they mean, right? So, number one, um, I think of these as the scaled super affiliate media groups, right? Um, for a lot of people, these are the holy grail of marketing and FinPub because they're basically one of the top acquisitors new customer acquisition sources for even some of the biggest publishers. Um, and so these are groups like Market Beat and Is Today Media and Apex, and we'll get into those in a minute. I'll talk about um how you get them to promote for you in a minute, um, if you can. Um then the next group is just other publishers, right? So people who have a business model just like yours, um, they sell investing and trading offers. Um, this is a this is like a core group in most people's affiliate programs in the space, and it's super important to understand. Um, there's reasons they'll promote and reasons they won't. Um and this is probably the group that if you're thinking about building an affiliate program, this is a group you need to focus on in the space, right? Uh but there's a ton of variability here, so we'll get into that. And then the final group um is the one that I hear most about from new people who come into the space or new marketers who are like, I need to get affiliates, and I don't really know FinPub. And that that's social media creators. Um, this is like where everybody kind of says when they start, like, hey, I have these affiliates or this or that. And so um what I want to do now is just kind of run through each of these groups and we'll do it in reverse order because um I think that the social media creators, like I said, is the one that I hear the most from newer folks who come to the industry. Um it's what everyone thinks of these days. And so um the reality is like if you're just a pure, if you're going to a pure social media creator um to be an affiliate, like they are the smallest type of affiliate you're gonna get. And that's okay if you are especially when you're starting out or you're looking for small things, and there's ways to use that to get bigger, but like let's just kind of run through what this is because it can be counterintuitive to folks who maybe don't understand this industry that well, um, and they're coming from a more general marketing environment. Um, so the problem with a lot of the social media is that the those posts, even on large, seemingly larger affiliates, don't drive the kind of revenue that like other forms of marketing do, right? Um and so like when you think about this group, the you'll have these these affiliates who are or these creators who maybe they have 50 to 100,000 um followers. Um their posts are great. And if you get a bunch of them working um for you, that can be amazing. And so, like, you know, groups like WAP.com, they have a platform for their traders and they have a clipping network that kind of functions as like it's a bidding system for um people to promote, like small creators to promote offers. Um, and that's a really interesting space because it's really it's kind of moving towards paid media, right? Um, and that's why I think of social creators as like as an from an affiliate model, they're not awesome, right? Because you need a lot of them. Um, because the posts themselves don't make a ton of money. And in fact, when you talk to people who are doing well with them, what they find is like some of these smaller publishers or some of these smaller creators, they'll also have a media an email list, right? So maybe they have 50 to 100,000 followers and then they have 10, 15, 20,000 name email list that they built off of that. And then because they don't value the email list, um, they'll they'll promote on the um the channel and then give the email list for free. Um, and and that's where a lot of the revenue is coming from. And so the the thing about that is that the best social media creators, the ones that scale, end up moving into the small publisher model, right? So they start to sell their own courses and their own products, and then they find um how to get into paid media as well. And then that they're no longer just a social media creator, they're kind of a small publisher. And so um, when you stay in that small creator space, um, they actually prefer pay being paid outright rather than commissions. And so as an affiliate, they're less of an affiliate, and they're they're basically just a traffic source that you can buy if you can find either an agency that can get you access, do cold 101 outreach, or use platforms like WAP that kind of have like these clippers who will go in there and like create videos on a you know, get paid this many dollars per views that they get. Um and so let me just make sure I don't miss anything here on my notes. Um yeah, they're the smaller side. So like really the key with that group is is once they once they kind of become sizable enough that you're really interested in them, they have either transitioned into being just paid media or being another publisher, and then they fall into this other kind of category of affiliates and they have different concerns. And so let's talk about that, like getting other publishers to promote. And yes, you can get even the biggest publishers to be your affiliate in certain circumstances. Like this is a common thing that's happened in the industry over the years, is it's just it's a very deal-making and deal-centric kind of space, and we're very fortunate for that. Um, but you got to understand, right? These groups they make money by selling their products to their list, just like you do. Um, and so there's only like three reasons that I found consistently that one of these other publishers is willing to work with you and to be your affiliate. And so those are number one, they want you to also be their affiliate. They want to they'll promote your offer in exchange for you promoting their offer. And if you're not willing to do that, then they're just not interested in doing anything for you because why would they, right? Because other publishers are trying to make money selling their products. Um they either would love to have you promote for them to sell their products and do the same for you, or there wouldn't, there's no reason for them to do it, right? Um, the only time that there is another reason that they will promote for you is that they don't have enough offers converting at the moment to make it worth their maximizing their marketing inventory, right? So they maybe don't have um a promotion that's working really well in the current marketing environment and they need to make revenue. And so if you don't have something converting, then you look to something else out there that is converting to try and promote. Now, then you start to get into that competitive realm where you're basically like, is your promotion better than somebody else's promotion? Um, and this is where like your price point matters and your copy matters, right? So um even if I have, if I'm a publisher and my back-end products like are not converting very well at all, the chances of me mailing one of your low price tickets, right? A hundred dollar product,$150 product to my list and it converting well enough to beat my lackluster results on a two, three thousand dollar product is very, very, very low. And it's hard for me to have faith that I'm that that's gonna work. And so this is a game for high price backend products. You have to have an offer that is a higher price, that has a higher payout than just like uh, you know,$50,$100, even, right? Because it's not really worth it to somebody else to give up their inventory for their own products in order for you to just promote them, right? Or or or for you to give them a commission that is very low, um, especially in a scenario where you're not going to promote for them. Like people will do that deal only when they're gonna do that first thing, which is you're gonna promote for them and they're gonna promote for you. Um, so that's like a very key, key thing that if you don't have products in that two to three thousand dollar price range, like why would they do it if you're not gonna promote for them? Um and then even if they do do it, it's only in certain times, and like I said, because most of the time their goal is to have promotions that are working for them for their own products. And so um if they get kind of caught out in the mismatch between like the markets and what the audience is buying and what they're promoting, there's gaps like that, right? And so you have to have those relationships with them in order to be able to find those moments. You can't just cold approach all the time and expect this to be a thing that's gonna work for you. Um, but one just because it kind of an aside, like across this entire industry, like the strength of your copy matters. It's the big differentiator, right? Like, if you had the stronger you can convert, the more opportunities, both on the paid and the affiliate side, present themselves to you. So like that's why we kind of obsess on copy. Um, I mean, I had back in the day, um, I did have a business when I was writing copy and I was a copy chief, and we had like products that were very, very, I'd say new compared to where the market was at the time because we were focusing very much on real money traders who approved their returns. Um we had affiliates who did make more money selling our products and they're selling their own products. Um that was for a very defined window, and it was because they never focused on copy, right? That's that's not something that you find commonly at all. Um, and so then let me just jump to the last reason another publisher is going to promote for you is just that they like you, right? They met you, you built a personal relationship. Um, you're either trying to launch something new or you're trying to um or you're struggling with something and trying to get over hump and they're willing to help you out, right? They're willing to do this as a favor. Um, that's not uncommon at all. We have, like you said, a great community of folks who really kind of look out for each other in a lot of times, and especially when when when you build a friendship, um you build a relationship, and people are willing to help. Um so that's it. Like there's only those three reasons why people are gonna promote for you, right? Um there's not like, hey, I have a hundred dollar product,$150 product, um, I'm giving you 30% commissions, and you're going to promote for me, and I'm not gonna promote for you. I'm not gonna offer you anything other than those commissions. It's just the math won't math for another publisher to promote you that way. So, like, that's a key thing to understand about FinPub. Um, and if you understand that, then there's a just a massive amount of opportunity to work with other publishers. It's just you got to respect the fact that other people have differ had their own business interests besides your business interest. Um, and so let's talk about what kind of commissions publishers expect. Um, I think the industry standard for for a very long time has been like kind of a floor of 50%. Um, and this is on those higher priced products, right? Two, three thousand dollar products. Um, I'd say that like that's kind of the floor that I would expect. Um, and now the larger publishers, we've gone through, you've seen this quite a bit, will always tend to push up towards a much higher number. Like some of the big Agora groups and other things have very regularly said, hey, it's 80% to get to our list because they had the promotional power that they wield, right? Um like because again, they have a ton of products that they could be promoting to their lists. And so why would they promote for you? Um, there have been people like Brett Holmes when he was running at Money Map, he would do he would go out of his way to help small publishers out um with different deals and find ways to work together because these he saw kind of there is a benefit to having um kind of a strong affiliate relationships that you build over the long period of time. But like the payouts are still very high. Um, and you got to kind of expect that. And so if you're doing something where you have an 80% payout, like obviously you need other products in order to be able to monetize those names. Now you will get an amazing customer who will buy other products, but if you don't have those other products, then they're not gonna have anything to buy. Um, okay, so now let's go to the last group. And this is like I consider this, and I think a lot of people consider this as the holy grail of super affiliates in FinPub. And that's the CPA-driven media companies, right? These are the market beats of the world. It's today media, apex groups that can scale traffic and scale your offers and function basically as one of the top like customer acquisition sources for even the largest publishers, right? So like they will help you get maximum distribution of your offer across the customer universe. Um, but it's super, super competitive, right? So um one of the reasons that everyone loves them is like I said, it's the scale. But unlike the other types of affiliates, um, these are consistent, right? If you have an offer working and it's meet in and it's one of the top offers in the industry, they're gonna be able to, they're gonna keep pushing it until it's no longer one of the top offers in the industry because that's their business model, right? Um, and so unlike getting another um publisher to promote, like the publisher is filling gaps in his schedule. Whereas people like Mark Beat and this today, like this is their model. And so they want to promote the best offers and leadmark and other groups like this. We have this really great, like robust ecosystem of media that their model is to promote the best performing offers. Um, so but there's a big catch, right? Because everyone wants to use them, um, but you can't because you're competing with every other offer in the industry. That means you're competing with both the copy and promotion of the best publishers out there with the payouts that they're making, right? And so this group does tend to focus more on the lower price product model because they're gonna get a CPA, right? Um, and often what you'll see is there'll be a$100 product that's paying a$300 CPA because the the publisher knows that they just need the units sold. They can lose money on the front end because they're gonna make it up on the back end. Um and so that makes this hyper competitive because at any given time, what these guys are constantly doing is they're looking at this kind of basic math of how many units are we selling, what commission are we getting, and how does that compare to this other promo that we're testing? And they're gonna keep pushing it and pushing it. And if they don't, they actually lose money if they promote an underperforming offer. So you're like, oh, well, you have so much traffic, why can't you promote it to promote my offer for me for a couple days or whatever? And it's like because they will lose money compared to what they are they would make promoting the strongest offer out there. And so again, we see the same dynamic that copy is one of the huge differentiators in FinPub. And so you're you're you're not gonna be able to compete with them on the same way, right, that a large publisher is, because the large publishers is hiring the best copywriters, putting out the most like promo after promo after promo, trying to find something that really can scale. Um, they're paying high CPAs out. And the other thing is that the larger publishers can pay these CPAs on on funnels that maybe they don't need to have the money um paid back for months and months and months, right? Eight months out in some cases or more. Right. So like it's not really a small publisher game. Um, there are times, and and we saw this in kind of the last few years where some of this mid-sized publishers um were able to kind of step up because they had really good copy. Because usually, like the you know, you look at somebody like Divin Joe Dylan Jovene over behind the market, it's like he's an amazing copywriter and he's the publisher of the business. And so if he's really on the market, he can have a promo that can compete with the big groups, right? Um and and they can get and so when when we've had transition points where maybe kind of like the big machines um have kind of a mismatch with the market story, um, there are these gaps where smaller publishers can come in. And it doesn't mean that they're like totally dominated only by the small the biggest publishers, but again, it's just a much harder game for a small publisher um to play. And so um, because of that, like it's the like they're the most scaled, but it's just the hardest. And so you have to decide if your business is the kind of business that can play those games. And don't worry, they'll tell you. They're not gonna just like, you know, you run an offer or show them an offer, they might not even test it anymore because it's like this is obviously not gonna be a thing that's gonna work for them. Um, and so that's like the the the three biggest groups here that I think everyone should know when you're coming into this space. Um and like the good news about this, and this is something that Brett Holmes um said on one of our, he really made a big point of this in one of our FMS Pro like um conversations, was that really if you're a smaller publisher, a newer publisher who's coming into the space, if you're like, you know, sub five million, especially, and like you're you're looking to get affiliates, um, great, you get these, you try and find relationships to promote things, but the goal with your affiliate promotion is not just to build out a large affiliate program. Your goal with that affiliate promotion is to start to get metrics on your offers and your promotions in order to be able to go and intelligently buy media because in FinPub, we have this amazing, amazing network of traffic networks, right? We have groups where you can go and probably scale up to 100K, you know, at different times, 100k a month and spend without having to do anything other than do an email marketing. We have this amazing community of groups like Darwin Investing Network, you know, financial media core, lead mark, after offers. You have publishers like behind the markets who have built advertising arms as well. Like there's this enormous amount of traffic available if you kind of from from a smaller scale, right? So you're coming in at$5,000 versus$10,000, you know,$10,000 versus having to be up at that$25,000 to$50,000 mark where it's even beginning to be possible to get these super affiliates like Market Beat to promote for you. Um and so I think I hope that helps. I think this is kind of the broader context of um what the affiliate space in like FinPub is. And of course, the last question is always, well, where do I find them? And that's like the easiest one of all because you just come to the financial marketing summit. Like we've been getting together as an industry for 10 years. Everybody that I talked about is a group that goes there. We have tons of affiliates, but tons of publishers, we have media sources, like everybody gets together, and you'll come. And if it's the first time that you'll come, you'll be you might be surprised because it's a very like welcoming community where people are willing to do like to help you out and to help you find kind of relationships and kind of point you in the right direction, give you advice. Like we really try and promote that. And the other thing that you have is um FMS Pro is a monthly thing that we have. Um, this is not for like like new people who, hey, I'm thinking about starting a business. Like, that is not absolutely not going to be useful for you. And we don't really kind of want you in that group because it's not what it is. That group is for people who have a business. It doesn't have to be a big business, but you have to actually be selling stuff in trading and investing. And if you are, then we get together on a Zoom call every month. Um, we have it to talk about what's converting, what's working, answer questions, kind of deal with issues that are coming up, and then we have our Discord group. Um, but if you're looking to find new relationships in the space, like just come to the FMS. Um, the Finnish Marketing Summit puts you kind of, you know, in two days, you'll meet more people than kind of cold outreach um throughout the year. Um but anyway, that's like kind of the context that I have for this. Um I hope that's useful. Um, I know that some of the people that I've talked to would be like, hey, I want I want you to do this just so that I can send it to people when they come to ask me to promote them because I'm tired of having the same conversation over and over again. Um anyway, uh as always on YouTube, go ahead and like and subscribe if you like this video. Um I might actually try and build this channel. I don't know. We'll see. All right, take care. Bye.