How to Find New Strategic Partners for Your Affiliate Program

In affiliate marketing, not all partners are created equal. Long gone are the days when an affiliate channel was made up of only coupon and cash back partners. Today, the affiliate world overlaps with many other channels. Partners have become savvy at operating on a performance model, which is attractive for both brands and publishers. Below, we’ve outlined four strategic partnership opportunities that have grown substantially in this market that your brand may not have considered for the affiliate marketing channel.

Look for CLO Partners, aka Card-Linked Offer Partners

CLO partners are businesses that collaborate with credit card issuers to provide cardholders with discounts, rewards, or cash back offers based on their spending habits. Strategic partners like these use technology to link offers or promotions directly to the customer’s credit or debit card, eliminating the need for physical coupons and promo codes.

These partners are highly attractive because of their capability to granularly target a specific audience or demographic to gain net new customers, and to re-engage customers that have lapsed. Consumers receive personalized discounts and rewards, retailers attract more customers, and financial institutions enhance customer loyalty and card usage. Card-linked offer partners are a great test to add to your program to learn more about your consumer’s behavior and what offers or products they respond to.

Think: Drop, Dosh, Figg

Consider BNPL Partners, aka Buy Now, Pay Later Partners

We’ve seen an influx of traffic to these strategic partnerships due to a popular and evolving consumer payment option that allows shoppers to make a purchase and defer payment for the goods or services they acquire. Instead of paying the full amount upfront, buyers can split their payments into multiple, often interest-free installments over a period. In other words: buy now, pay later.

BNPL services have gained prominence in marketing efforts for e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retail environments, and are often offered by third-party providers or integrated into the checkout processes of online stores.

Think: Affirm, Klarna, Afterpay

Research CUG Partners, aka Closed User Group Partners

Closed user group partners are business entities made up of large exclusive groups that are only accessible through a closed portal via login. These strategic partners work well for brands who have an appetite for testing within specific market segments and who have margin for offering an exclusive discount to consumers, whether that be evergreen or for a short duration.

Strategic partners like CUGs can work with you on your program goals to curate an offer that would resonate best with their audience and give directional feedback for what’s worked with similar verticals. Popular closed user groups include employee benefit programs, student portals, military benefit sites, airline rewards, and others.

Think: EBG Solutions, Student Beans, ID.me

Investigate the World of Technology Partners

We don’t have a fun acronym for this one, and it’s a bit more broad. However, there are unique technologies that operate within an affiliate payment model that can bring high-value, incremental revenue to your partnership program.

These strategic partners offer solutions that help manage, optimize, and track affiliate campaigns, making it easier for both advertisers and partners to achieve their goals. For example, you may want a partner to suggest product add-ons or schedule reminders for users in real time or after a certain amount of lapsed time on a webpage.

Think: UpSellit, RevLifter, Katalys

Get Started with New Partnerships Today

The changing economy and recent market trends have opened the doors to new opportunities for performance-based partnerships, including the four we’ve listed above. What other partnerships have you recently discovered or think are flying under the radar? We’d love to hear from you at partnerships@tune.com.

Once you’re ready to grow your program with these new strategic partners, consider a robust, SaaS-based platform like TUNE instead of using an affiliate network. We outline the benefits of working independently with partners and a solution like TUNE in this Partnerships 101 blog post.

Discover how to expand your affiliate program to new partners and channels in our Ultimate Guide to Mobile Partner Marketing. It’s everything you need to know to combine the power of performance-based partnerships with the focus and reach of mobile user acquisition efforts.

You may have heard some talk recently that TUNE’s been working on an exciting new initiative. Today, I’m thrilled to officially announce the launch of the TUNE Marketplace!

What Is the TUNE Marketplace?

The TUNE Marketplace is a new way that brands can access top affiliate partners found only in networks, without leaving the TUNE platform.

We built the TUNE Marketplace to offer the functionality that large partners like Honey and Skimlinks require without the compromises that come with joining a traditional affiliate network. And because we built our solution to integrate with our payments product, TUNE Pay, our fees are lower to work with these partners. This means we can deliver the same services and functionality of a network, but with lower fees for customers and higher payouts for partners.

So, what does that mean for businesses on TUNE?

• You can run a private program with direct, strategic partnerships and avoid paying a network fee, just as you’ve always done with TUNE.
• You can tap into a marketplace of partners that includes the largest affiliates in the space — affiliates you can’t access without a network.

With TUNE, you can control your data, manage your direct partnerships, and get access to the most valuable affiliates and publisher groups around the world. It’s all the functionality of a network at a fraction of the cost.

Why Did We Build the TUNE Marketplace?

Advertisers on TUNE have always been able to work directly with any affiliate who partners with them. ​Over the past few years, we heard increasing feedback that advertisers also want the option to work with top affiliates and publisher groups, which require the technology and workflows of a network. Knowing we could create a network infrastructure that would work seamlessly with the TUNE platform and cost less than traditional options, we got to work.

Today, we’re excited to see that work through to a public release. Below are some of the current features and benefits of the new network infrastructure for partners, agencies, and brands, with more already on the roadmap.

Top Affiliates and Publisher Groups

The world’s largest affiliates and publishers drive an immense amount of revenue for advertisers. They can also work with thousands of brands at a time, running offers and collecting commissions from all of them. Making this process happen at scale requires the infrastructure of network, which is exactly what the TUNE Marketplace provides.

There are two main pillars to the marketplace experience for partners:

1. Partners get their own account and login on TUNE, and
2. a consolidated payment on behalf of all advertisers they work with.

In addition, partners in the TUNE Marketplace can engage with brands directly, join programs, set up and find offers, access reporting, and pull conversions and other data via API, all from their account interface.

Agencies

Agencies can continue to work with brands and publishers through TUNE like before, now with the added convenience of working with TUNE Marketplace Partners in the same platform.

Advertisers and Brands

For years, TUNE has been the partner marketing platform of choice for advertisers who aren’t willing to settle for the status quo. Giving brands the flexibility and control to own their data and protect their strategic partnerships is a huge differentiating factor that wins us customers over our competition. Now, advertisers on TUNE can manage their direct partners and network partners through the same platform, while avoiding the hefty fees and restrictions of traditional networks. It’s the best of both worlds!

In addition to all the above, brands can also choose to be listed in a directory in the TUNE Marketplace, getting their business and offers in front of the most valuable partners and audiences in the world.

Get Started

There’s way more to the TUNE Marketplace than what I’ve outlined above, so you’ll have to get in touch to find out more. Advertisers and agencies can learn more about the TUNE Marketplace by reaching out to their Customer Success Manager.

Affiliate marketing is a low-risk, high-reward channel that has seen its popularity skyrocket in recent years. However, low risk isn’t the same as no risk. With more than 80% of advertisers and publishers including affiliate partnerships in their marketing strategy, fraud is an unfortunate and unavoidable fact of life. 

As affiliate marketing grew into what it is today, so did bad actors and their numerous technologies to “game the system.” Some of these practices fall into a gray category where they aren’t necessarily illegal, while others are a blatant breach of contract.

Below, we’ve outlined the practices that account for why this channel has historically gained a bad reputation in the marketing industry. Here are the top ways we see publishers break the rules, how they do it, and how you can identify affiliate fraud like it in your own program. 

What Affiliate Fraud Looks Like 

Pop-Unders 

The opposite of a pop-up, a pop-under is an ad that pops open behind (or “under”) a browser window. 

When It’s OK  

A number of publishers still utilize pop-unders as a part of their advertising efforts, and that in itself is relatively benign. However, this practice is considered old school and typically does not add value to the user experience. How often have you seen a pop-under and said, “Oh great, I can’t wait to click on this!” Instead, it’s more like, “Where the hell did this come from?”

Some advertisers may not want this experience to be included as part of their program, while others might not mind, so it’s best the parties involved discuss this practice upfront.   

When It’s Bad 

Pop-unders can be set up to assist in cookie stuffing without the user knowing. It’s bad practice if the pop-under is for something completely irrelevant to what the user is searching for, or if the user did not take an action (click) to cause the ad to fire. 

A common practice for very large retailers or campaigns is to force an affiliate click on a pop-under where there is no immediate relevance for the consumer in the hope that they will purchase (think Expedia) or sign up (H&R Block). A red flag for this type of tactic would be an extreme spike in clicks from a masked referring URL with low conversion rates. 

Cookie Stuffing/Cookie Dropping  

Also known as attribution theft, cookie stuffing is always fraudulent. 

When It’s OK 

Never. 

When It’s Bad 

Cookies are little data bites that capture the parameters we all use in our tracking links. These data bites include important values like your affiliates’ information (name, ID number, etc.), and they track the touchpoints in a consumer journey.

Cookie stuffing happens when a third party, such as a publisher or CPA network, drops multiple cookies on a user’s browser before they take an action so the third party can get continuous credit for a sale. You may be able to tell if one of the partners in your program is doing this if their actions spike but they have very few clicks, behavior that TUNE’s Time-to-Action Report can help you identify. 

TM+ Bidding 

TM+ stands for “trademark plus,” or when a third party bids on your branded name(s) plus additional keywords. 

When It’s OK  

Trademark plus campaigns, when run through the affiliate channel with trusted partners, can help bolster performance and support advertisers by pushing competitors lower in search results. They also offer a means to get supplemental media in exchange for TM+ rights, which can be a win/win depending on the goals of a particular partnership.  

When It’s Bad 

Trademark bidding is part of paid search marketing, which means most brands will have a team that focuses on this and pays search engines to place their ads at the top of relevant pages. When unauthorized parties bid on trademarked terms, it not only drives up costs for your paid search team, but it can also result in completely inaccurate information, stolen sales, and poor user experiences.  

URL Redirection 

This happens when you navigate to a specific URL and instead of ending up there, you are rerouted to a different destination URL. 

When It’s OK 

There are a few reputable auto-redirecting publishers who scrape the web for misspelled domain entries and redirect them to advertisers’ sites. Some notable companies that do this are Resilion, NameSpace, and ProtectedBrand. 

When It’s Bad 

URL redirection is bad if it is set up with the intent to disguise itself and take users away from their intended destination. This can be done in tandem with website cloning, and it is another form of theft in affiliate marketing. Auto-redirecting works by using a protocol that remains hidden and enables click fraud.  

Bots/Web Crawling 

A search engine algorithm that organizes information. 

When It’s OK 

Fun fact: About 42% of internet traffic consists of bots scanning content, interacting with webpages, chatting with users, or looking for suspicious behavior. Some bots are useful, such as search engine bots that index content for search results or customer service bots that help users. A web crawler bot is like someone who goes through all the books in a disorganized library and puts together a card catalog, so that anyone who visits the library can quickly and easily find the information they need. 

When It’s Bad 

Like any technology, bots can be built with bad intent. Because it’s automated technology, bots can assist with most of the malevolent practices mentioned in this post. They can be programmed to break into user accounts, scan the web for contact information for sending spam, set up to perform click fraud, or stuff cookies.

If you have access to a tool like TUNE’s Time-to-Action Report and see an unprecedented number of clicks come through in a short period of time, that could indicate a bot is performing click fraud on a partner’s site.  

Website Cloning 

This practice is exactly what it sounds like: duplicating information and visuals from one site to create a copy of it somewhere else. 

When It’s OK 

Never. 

When It’s Bad 

I’ve seen this happen to brands when a third party purchases similar domain names and replicates the website imagery and content to dupe visitors and get the affiliate payout on those sales. The plagiarized sites abuse the way Google ranks content by sending fake organic traffic to themselves. This is why it’s so important to actually look at potential partner websites and do the research before accepting just anyone into your affiliate program. 

Toolbar Auto-Redirection 

When a toolbar, plugin, or other browser extension takes an action without the user’s knowledge and/or consent.

When It’s OK 

Never. 

When It’s Bad 

Some browser toolbars, plugins, and extensions automatically drop an affiliate click when a user (who has it installed) visits an advertiser’s website in order to generate an action that will give the user cash back. Many times, the consumer doesn’t know they have the toolbar installed and never get the cash back. See the post we wrote about Chrome extensions caught cookie stuffing for an example of this practice in action. 

We recommend requiring that any toolbar or browser plugin adheres to an “affirmative click” policy, where the user has to opt in to receive cash back (and subsequently allow the affiliate to receive commission). The major toolbars that do this are Shop At Home, BeFrugal, and WeCare. 

Tools to Detect Affiliate Fraud 

As affiliate fraud has expanded, so have tools to help brands and program managers fight back. Some platforms offer fraud protection built in, but most charge an additional fee for their solution or a third-party integration. TUNE provides both, allowing you the freedom to use our built-in proactive fraud prevention suite that’s powered by Fraudlogix, or integrate your preferred third-party solution. 

“TUNE’s customers depend on the platform to help them fight fraud and the data we are providing enables them to block fraudulent actions before they affect campaigns,” Fraudlogix CEO Hagai Shechter said in our post announcing the feature. “This saves TUNE’s customers time and has real implications on ROI.” 

Another TUNE technology partner, TrafficGuard, sees that on average across affiliate programs, between 10-15% of commission payouts go to fraudulent affiliate partners. Here’s how they explain it: 

“When we look at ad fraud in the affiliate channel what we are really looking at is misattribution. Tactics like cookie stuffing are designed to misattribute a conversion away from its real origin to a fraudulent affiliate. That means you are then either paying that affiliate for something that you should have got for free, or are paying the wrong affiliate. When it comes to scaling your affiliate program, this can cause you to actually scale into the bad actor, as it appears they are driving the most growth.” 
—Kalen Bushe, TrafficGuard

Keeping Affiliate Fraud Out of Your Program 

These days, affiliate fraud is just a reality brands must face. With the right platform and tools, however, it becomes a manageable part of any program.  

Visit our blog post on TUNE’s Proactive Fraud Prevention to learn more. 

Download our 10 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting an Affiliate Program e-book to get tips from industry experts on what they got wrong — like ignoring the warning signs of affiliate fraud — and how you can get it right in your program.   

In an affiliate marketing program, every partner you have is different — even when they’re the same kind of partner. Therefore, the way you look at their performance should be analyzed individually, too.

In order to efficiently measure and optimize performance, it’s important to organize your partners into groups, especially when you’re just starting out. As your program matures, you’ll get a feel for what makes sense and what doesn’t, and you can create as many groups as you like. We recommend starting with the five groups below, then adding or subdividing as your program grows.

Loyalty

With loyalty partners, consumers earn rewards in the form of cash back, points, or miles. These partners are valuable precisely for what’s in their name: their loyal consumer base. They offer something of value to customers, and therefore have a strong following.

Loyalty partners are great for running a flash sale or testing offers to see what will resonate with your audience.

Examples: Rakuten Rewards, TopCashback, Cartera

Coupon and Deal

This type of affiliate marketing partner is made up of websites focused on offers and discounts. These deals are primarily associated with a promo code, but can also be sitewide discounts without a coupon code.

Coupon and deal partners are what most people think about when they think “affiliate.” The channel has expanded far beyond just a coupon or deal, though, and other things can be offered through these partners, such as free shipping or free samples. Some brands decide they want to cut this group out altogether, but coupon and deal partners can be very helpful for running flash sales and getting customers to make a quick purchase.

Examples: RetailMeNot, Slickdeals, Brad’s Deals

Content

Content-based affiliates promote articles, videos, and other forms of content specific to a topic or vertical​. Content is king for a reason, and we’ve seen this partner group increase significantly over the years, especially in the wake of viral apps like TikTok and after the release of affiliate-friendly features like Instagram’s. Top-of-funnel traffic is vital for brands, especially those who are not as well-known. An original, engaging content piece offers a discovery tool to yield net new customers into the funnel, so this type of affiliate marketing partner is very valuable.

It is important to identify the right content partner for your audience and to work closely with them to curate a message that will resonate with their reader base. Keep in mind these partners often require upfront budget to write about a product or service.

Examples: BuzzFeed, The College Investor, Thrillist

Sub-networks

Sub-networks are publishers with a network of partners to which they distribute deals and offers, and to whom they pay commissions directly. This type of partner is beneficial to work with because they have a wide range of affiliates under their umbrella and can get an offer out to the masses fairly quickly.

There are some considerations in working with these partners, though. One is that you may not know exactly who is promoting your offer, or how they are promoting it. It’s always a good idea to ask to identify and call out any promotional tactics you would not like included.

Examples: Skimlinks, Flex Offers, SOVRN

Closed User Groups

This type of affiliate partner provides unique offerings to employees, military, veterans, or students. They can also be inclusive of card-linked offer partners or any other partnerships that present a unique value to their consumer base, which requires membership or approval to access. Closed user groups can be great partners to work with because they often have niche audiences and can target them according to what type of product you’re offering.

Examples: Student Beans, ID.me, Perkspot

In Conclusion

The types of affiliate marketing partners you will ultimately have the most success with will depend on your business goals, target audience, and product or service, and it will take time to find them and weed out the others. In the meantime, most brands will find that these five groups provide a solid foundation to build a program on.

Get our Partner Groups Cheat Sheet for a quick reference guide to five types of popular affiliates and how to work with them. This info sheet includes the most common types of campaigns and preferred commission models for each affiliate group.

Wondering how to test out an affiliate marketing program for your company? In the process of software buying for next year? Either way, we’ve got you covered with the information you need to start your partner program the right way.

Every successful partnership requires partner identification, outreach, negotiation, and ongoing relationship management. Devoting resources to this upfront effort will pay dividends in the success of your program.   

TUNE’s differentiation is that your program is highly customizable, rather than being held to the rules of a rigid network. Whether you choose a technology platform or a traditional affiliate network, success means putting in the work. Below, we dig into four areas that are keys to success when you start affiliate marketing on TUNE (or any platform). 

4 Keys to Starting an Affiliate Marketing Program 

#1 – Partner Identification 

There are thousands of potential partners for your program. However, all affiliate marketers are not right for every program. Our recommendation is to consider your offer, the channels that perform best already, and the marketing tactics you would approve for a third party to perform to promote that offer.  

From there, you can look at affiliate marketers your competitors are working with using tools like Publisher Discovery. In addition, you can look at competitive commission rates using tools like CashbackMonitor.com.

It’s also important to think about publisher groups, and to understand how they operate and which ones might be the best fit for your offer and budget.  

We’ve identified six main partner groups below: 

• Coupon and deal: traditional affiliates 
• Loyalty: cashback or points earned 
• Content: large and small publishing entities 
• Sub-networks: a mix of all partners under one umbrella 
• Card-linked offers: deals tied to credit cards 
• Closed user groups: partners who market to a small, more focused group that the general public cannot access (ex.: employee perk sites) 

For detailed information and insights about each of these affiliate marketer types, download our Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing.

#2 – Outreach 

Your pitch to potential marketing partners is very important because they receive requests from brands constantly. So how can you make yours stand out?  

1. Get straight to the point. Tell them who you are, what you are promoting, and what payout you’re willing to work on with them. 
2. Make your headline stand out. Like any sales pitch, you want to get your audience’s attention, so let your subject line do the work for you.  
3. Follow up at least three times. Partner recruitment needs to be treated like a sales funnel. You shouldn’t expect that partners are willing to work with just anyone — it’s a mutual relationship, after all. 

#3 – Negotiation 

There are many ways to work within your budget, so leave room for negotiation when onboarding partners. They may have goals they need to reach just like you do. Therefore, it’s common to negotiate on the payout — CPA, lead, upfront fees, or a hybrid of these.  

Below are some options for your offer to partners: 

• Commission: your payout or cost per sale/cost per acquisition 
• Flat fees: a flat payment upfront to a partner 
• TM+ rights: you can allow certain partners to bid on your trademark  
• Exclusive deals: you can offer a partner a steep discount no one else has 

#4 – Ongoing Relationship Management 

It’s called a “partnership” for a reason. Just like any relationship, it needs to be nurtured for ongoing success.  

The best programs operate on quality, not quantity. So, if you find the right partners, you will have the most success with them by testing and learning on an ongoing basis. Check in with them, ask what’s working and what’s not. Run flash sales to see what resonates with their audience. And above all, treat your partners like they are a branch of your business. Because they are. Without partners, there is no affiliate program. 

How to Start Affiliate Marketing Today 

If you’re new to the TUNE platform, we have tons of resources available, from customized onboarding and professional services to the industry’s best technical documentation. 

The TUNE Resource Library is also full of helpful guides and info sheets, like our Partner Groups Cheat Sheet on the right. Download a free copy here.

As we all look ahead to 2022, I thought it appropriate for our final Partner Spotlight of the year to profile a company that’s also focused on the future – future marketers, that is. Evolvez is a brand ambassador agency focused on Gen Z. They help connect college students with jobs as brand ambassadors for a variety of clients. Students who make the cut receive hourly pay, relevant experience, and opportunities that can shape their future careers. Read on to learn more! 

Q: Can you give us a high-level overview of Evolvez? 

A: Evolvez is a Brand Ambassador agency. We create, manage, and scale programs that target the Gen Z market. We work with the likes of Dollar Shave Club, The Economist, and IPSY. 

Our programs tend to revolve around acquisition marketing. We specialize in driving app downloads, account sign-ups, free trial sign-ups, loyalty program sign-ups, subscription sales, and any other KPIs that can be measured on a CPA basis. 

Q: What are some of the top ways you promote brands?  

A: Our Brand Ambassador programs tend to focus on experiential and influencer marketing tactics. Ambassadors will leverage events, sampling, flyering, and their personal social media accounts to drive acquisition-related KPIs. 

Q: Which verticals perform the best with Evolvez? 

A: Subscriptions, fashion and cosmetics, food and beverage, education, gaming, finance, streaming, entertainment, and consumer electronics.

Any industry that is interested in targeting the Gen Z market and measures CPA would benefit from a Brand Ambassador program.

Q: What is the total reach of your audience? 

A: Evolvez has a database of over 20,000 Brand Ambassadors across all 50 states with a cumulative Instagram reach of over 10 million.

Q: Can you tell us about a successful campaign you’ve run in the last six months? 

A: Evolvez has been working with The Economist magazine since 2016 on a Brand Ambassador program revolving around driving subscriptions on a CPA basis. 

Q: What’s something unique about Evolvez? 

A: Our Brand Ambassador programs target the Gen Z market. 

Q: Any final thoughts to share? 

A: December is an excellent time to launch a Brand Ambassador program! Please reach out to Evolvez CEO, Michael Spitalieri, if you’re interested in further discussing what a program would entail: mike@evolvez.co.

Thanks again to all our customers and TUNE Partners for a terrific year. We have tons of additional partnerships, features, and exclusives planned for 2022 that we can’t wait to share with you. In the meantime, feel free to email me at partnerships@tune.com with any questions or comments, or visit our Media Partners page to learn more about TUNE.

See you in the new year!

This month we’re highlighting a website that doesn’t mince words about its target audience, www.wealthysinglemommy.com. Started by Emma Johnson in 2012 as a resource for professional single moms, today Wealthy Single Mommy is the world’s largest single-mom community. In addition to inspiration and information for working mothers, the website offers SEO and affiliate marketing services for advertisers. Keep reading to find out more!

Q: Can you give us a high-level overview of Wealthy Single Mommy? 

A: Wealthysinglemommy.com helps single moms thrive in career, money, dating, wellness, and parenting. 

Q: What are some of the top ways you promote brands?  

A: We promote through SEO and email, primarily, though we do have a large and thriving social community. 

Q: Which verticals perform the best with Wealthy Single Mommy? 

A: Making and managing money are our top-performing verticals, and dating and wellness are also strong. 

Q: What is the total reach of your audience?  

A: The site is visited 200,000 times monthly and our social channels include 100,000 members. 

Q: Can you tell us about a successful campaign you’ve run in the last six months? 

A: While not a brand campaign, earlier this year we ran a survey and media campaign for our sister, activist organization, Momsforsharedparenting.org. Through organic and social reach, we conducted a survey of 2,300 single moms, asking about their parenting arrangements and income. The results, at wealthysinglemommy.com/survey, we formulated into a 50-page white paper, with endorsements from leading feminist voices including Anne-Marie Slaughter, and resulted in media placements in outlets including CNBC, Elle.com, Time.com, Parents magazine, Fox Business Radio, and others. 

Q: What’s something unique about Wealthy Single Mommy?  

A: We are not aware of any other personal finance site with an SEO/affiliate model that is 100% female-owned and operated at our traffic and revenue size. 

TUNE customers who would like to work with Wealthy Single Mommy can request an introduction directly through the TUNE platform in the TUNE Marketplace.

Head over to the TUNE Blog for more partner spotlights.

For October, we turn the spotlight to a brand that was founded just over a decade ago, but has already made a name for itself in the personal finance space: The College Investor. We asked them to fill us in on what makes their brand special and how they provide value to consumers and advertisers alike in order to stand out in a crowded digital industry.

Q: Can you give us a high-level overview of The College Investor?

A: The College Investor is on a mission to help readers escape student loan debt and start building real wealth for the future. We help readers navigate the personal finance world, whether it be budgeting, student loans, taxes, side hustles, crypto, and more. The College Investor was started by personal finance expert Robert Farrington in 2009 and has evolved into a financial media brand reaching millions of readers per month.

Q: What are some of the top ways you promote brands?

A: We provide in-depth product reviews and compare personal finance products for our readers to help them make the best decision for their situation. We also specialize in SEO and publish original articles that align with Google queries and regularly feature brands in these articles. Beyond the website, The College Investor is thriving on social media (Facebook, TikTok, etc.).

Q: Which verticals perform the best with your company?

A: Banking, student loans, student loan refi, crypto, taxes, insurance, real estate, and investing.

Q: What is the total reach of The College Investor’s audience?

A: Our website ranges anywhere between 1 to 3 million visitors a month. We have high seasons (Q1) and low seasons (Q3).

Q: Can you tell us about a successful campaign you’ve run in the last six months?

A: In the last six months, we’ve seen the most success with our cryptocurrency articles, particularly educating readers how they can earn interest on crypto, because traditional banks aren’t paying any interest at all. Additionally, we’ve run sponsored articles like this one for Doordash, and because it ranks for high-volume relevant keywords, we drive a lot of high-quality, high-intent customers to Doordash as a result.

Q: What’s something unique about The College Investor?

A: Robert started The College Investor because he was struggling to pay off his student loans, kept running into scams, and realized there was not a reliable source of information and guidance for people in his situation. This was over 10 years ago — have things really changed? More people than ever are struggling with their student loans, learning how to invest and how to maximize their potential. The College Investor is unique because we prioritize the needs of our readers and hope to help as many people as possible.

TUNE customers who would like to work with The College Investor can visit the TUNE platform to request an introduction. Not a TUNE customer? Email partnerships@tune.com for more information.

This month, our TUNE Partner Spotlight shines on a company that’s making waves in the search advertising ecosystem: Mocha Global. Get the details in their profile below. 

Q: Can you give us a high-level overview of Mocha Global? 

A: Mocha Global (KEE2) is an emerging search advertising platform powering 500 million consumer searches happening outside of Google, Yahoo, and Bing. We have exclusive partnerships with the likes of Samsung Internet Browser (powering 80 million U.S. mobile devices), top keyboard applications (Baidu, Kika, Facemoji), and the world’s largest telecommunications companies. These partnerships enable brands to skip the Google search engine results page (SERP) and provide a friction-free experience for the user.

On top of that, we are seeing great success working with top Fortune 1000 brands in multiple verticals by driving new-to-file customers and sales.

Q: What are some of the top ways you promote brands?  

A: Through consumers who are searching within keyboard applications, browser applications, smartphone original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), internet service providers (ISPs), as well as through our owned and operated white label keyboards. 

Q: Which verticals perform the best with your company? 

A: Retail, e-commerce, finance, travel, sports and ticketing, automotive, insurance, and gaming. 

Q: What is the total reach of Mocha Global’s audience?  

A: 500 million users. 

Q: Can you tell us about a successful campaign you’ve run in the last six months? 

A: We are running a campaign for Etsy and have generated $150,000 in sales in less than one month.

Q: What’s something unique about Mocha Global?  

A: We have very unique supply inventory and implementations on a global scale that have proven to be successful in all major verticals. We have offices globally in New York City and the United Kingdom, as well as Romania. 

If you are interested in working with Mocha Global, let us know at partnerships@tune.com.   

In this month’s Partner Spotlight, we’re highlighting a company you may have encountered while researching new mattresses or shopping for pet food: ConsumerVoice. Like their name implies, ConsumerVoice is all about getting you the ratings and reviews you need to make a smart purchase decision. Find out how they work and how they could benefit your business in their profile below!

Q: Let’s hear the 10,000-foot view of ConsumerVoice. 

A: ConsumerVoice helps consumers make fast purchase decisions by helping them to discover and compare reviews for products and services they desire. We specialize in paid search marketing, targeting high purchase-intent generic traffic (e.g. “best moving company”), branded comparison traffic (e.g. “Saatva mattress vs Purple”), and review traffic (e.g. “Farmer’s Dog review”).

CEO Dylan Ramsey and CTO CJ Sanders founded ConsumerVoice, building on over a decade of success managing a network of affiliate coupon websites including WantaCode.com among others.   

Brooke Martinez (brooke@consumervoice.org) acts as the primary point of contact for new partnerships. She has worked in the review and comparison space since 2013, helping BestCompany.com and ConsumerAffairs to grow before joining ConsumerVoice in 2019. And, CMO Charlie Cohn brings the experience of managing performance marketing campaigns dating back to 2012 with positions at CouponPal and BuyersGuide.org.   

In addition to the primary ConsumerVoice site, the team owns and operates niche sites including MattressReport.org and Top10PetInsurance.org, allowing us to find the best placement for any given partner.

Q: Who is your audience and what are your targeting capabilities? 

A: ConsumerVoice specializes in category-specific paid search for high purchase-intent, brand review, and comparison traffic. This includes targeting ads for terms like “best movers” or “compare cross country movers” for our moving category, “wine insiders review” with the brand showing in the top position on our wine clubs page, and “Nolah vs Purple” on our mattresses page. 

We tailor our ad placements by device, geo-restrictions, search network (Google vs Bing) to meet partner’s needs; and we are building a more robust organic search profile. ConsumerVoice is already seeing early signs of success with our SEO efforts ranking in top positions for “Freshly reviews 2021,” “Pumpkin pet insurance reviews,” and more. 

Q: Can you share an example of a recent successful campaign? 

A: We launched a lead gen paid search campaign targeting “moving company” related queries in November 2020. By working with our top partners to identify the most valuable leads for their business, we have been able to narrow the focus of our campaigns and expand coverage for those terms — frequently showing in the top positions for competitive queries including “moving companies,” “movers,” and “cross country movers.” In the past month alone, we have generated over $1M of high-quality leads for our top partners.

We began promoting pet insurance on ConsumerVoice in December of 2019. A year later we had doubled our monthly traffic, and have more than doubled again in 2021. Our pet insurance partners utilize a CPC payout model that allows us to quickly ramp up spend and evaluate bid changes. To ensure we deliver traffic that converts, our partners provide monthly click-to-policy data allowing us to evaluate each ad group theme and ad targeting setting. By working with our partners, we have been able to align goals and power a secondary site — top10petinsurance.org where we can expand coverage.

Finally, online mattress sales are a particularly competitive niche. In addition to providing coverage for early-interest shopping terms like, “best bed in a box” and “top mattress for heavy people,” we provide brand reputation management assistance for the brands we feature. When a customer searches for “Saatva reviews,” “Casper vs Tuft and Needle,” or “Dreamcloud competitors” —  we show a branded result, directing traffic to a lander with our mattress partner ranked favorably. These TM+ campaigns have proven to add to the brand’s individual efforts, displace competitors, and help fund generic search for the category.  

Q: What makes a successful partnership with ConsumerVoice and why? 

A: ConsumerVoice’s team has worked at top affiliate publishers for over a decade, bringing experience and expertise. 

We understand that our goals must align with our partners and maintain active communication to ensure all parties’ goals align. We work with our partners to ensure the metrics we optimize towards benefit each brand, and adjust over time when they do not.

Furthermore, our development team has demonstrated the ability to roll out features necessary to power these relationships. Need an automated report? We can do that. Just want to show on Saturdays? We’ve done that, too. 

ConsumerVoice has worked with everyone from the most established of affiliate programs to brand new ones — helping to shape what works for each. Let us know how you want to be promoted and we’ll work with your team to make it happen wherever possible.

Q: Tell us something unique about ConsumerVoice.

A: Where other sites might send lower-converting tertiary, remnant traffic, display, email, or social traffic — ConsumerVoice focuses on scaling high-quality traffic. We only run paid search utilizing Google and Bing search engines, as well as optimizing our site for SEO to keep quality and conversion rates high.  

We have dedicated Google and Bing teams that help us to optimize our campaigns, ensure we use all search tools available to us, grant us early access to Beta programs, and set up specialized campaigns and tests in accordance with best practices. By leveraging our expertise and their teams, we are able to deliver superior search coverage while staying a step ahead of less sophisticated publishers.

Q: What can we expect to see from ConsumerVoice in the future? 

A: ConsumerVoice continues to grow at a rapid pace month-over-month. We are active in over thirty product and service categories and are testing new niches at all times.  

We actively promote partners in the following verticals via paid or organic search:

• Moving companies 
• Pet Insurance 
• Mattresses 
• Dog and cat food 
• Tax relief 
• Renters insurance 
• Project management software 
• Invisible braces 
• Credit repair services 
• Debt relief 
• Extended auto warranty 
• Medical alert systems 
• Homeowner insurance 
• Emergency foods 
• Life insurance 
• Air purifiers 
• Wine of the month clubs 
• Identity theft protection 
• Meal delivery / diet meal delivery kits 
• Smart mirrors 
• Bidets 
• Wood chippers 
• Weed eaters 
• Invisible fences 
• Storage sheds 
• Car jacks 
• Car phone mounts 
• Navigation systems and radar detectors 
• Baby cribs and bassinets 
• Blood pressure monitors 

See a place you fit or think you have a good fit for testing? We’re open to new categories and discussions — just send Brooke Martinez a message at brooke@consumervoice.org!

If you really want to know something, why don’t you just ask? That’s the idea behind Zeeto, a question-based ad network that’s now available in the TUNE Marketplace. Learn more about their business and how it works in our profile below.

Q: Can you give us a high-level overview of Zeeto?

A: Zeeto is a data discovery platform and advertising network that allows advertisers to target advertisements based on unique attributes. Zeeto does this by allowing advertising brands to define the data they need, and Zeeto’s proprietary AI proactively finds it by asking questions to consumers. Through this process, brands can limit their marketing spend to only consumers that have a demand or a need for their product or service. The question technology ad network has already generated over $200 million in revenue for Zeeto publishers, and over 2 million questions are asked a day.

Q: What are the top ways you promote brands?

A: Our platform enables advertisers access to bid on over 200,000 leads a day.

Q: What is the total reach of your audience?

A: Over 9 million monthly unique.

Q: Which verticals perform the best with Zeeto?

A: Auto insurance, cooking, credit repair, diabetes, DME, retirement (AARP), final expense, food, hearing aids, home improvement, horoscopes, home security, home décor, home solar, local offers, lifestyle, fashion, medical device, medical insurance, Medicare, pain, personal injury, personal loans, pharma, trivia, tech, sleep apnea, surveys, sports, structured settlement, samples, shopping and savings, sweepstakes, and medical screening.

Q: What is something unique about your company?

A: We’re able to ask users any question on behalf of our advertisers to find out the most insightful data they need for them.

Q: Any final comments?

A: We’re open to testing all verticals and offers!

TUNE customers who would like to work with Zeeto can request an introduction through the TUNE platform. Questions? Email us at partnerships@tune.com.

It’s summer, and you know what that means: time to get out and have some fun! And it just so happens that our spotlight partner for this month is all about fun and games. Check out our profile of Jump Ramp, one of the newest partners below.

Q: Can you give us a high-level overview of your company?

A: Jump Ramp Games, a division of MobilityWare, offers free-to-play and fun mobile games in which users can win real cash and prizes and earn rewards. Our O&O (owned and operated) mobile apps include Lucktastic and Lucky Trivia Live. They offer exciting lifestyle experiences ranging from a million dollar sweepstakes, to a Red Carpet Oscar Night experience, to a trip to Walt Disney World and a dinner for two! These contests and content change regularly, so users play frequently to maximize their opportunities to win.

We manage the campaign for our users and are able to optimize in order to hit ROAS (return on ad spend) and KPI (key performance indicator) goals set by the client. We also watch the users journey through the games in order to show them which apps or games they would be most interested in. Finally, we use return levers to get the consumer to come back to the apps.

Q: What are the top ways you promote brands?

A: We take a native in-app approach, and knowing our audience, are able to show them the best apps based on their journey through the apps, and other apps they have installed.

Q: Which verticals perform the best with your company?

A: Gaming, finance, retail, and travel all work quite well for us.

Q: What is something unique about Jump Ramp Games?

A: Jump Ramp was an early pioneer in mobile performance marketing, and we’ve been successful leading this market for over nine years. We are a wholly owned and operated publisher. We run campaigns as a fully managed service, using in-app native promotions of our clients’ and partners’ apps.

Our audience is composed of folks who are exceptionally optimistic, more positively predisposed than most to want to try new things. Our users love our apps and enjoy them with exceptional stickiness, so they come back multiple times each day. We leverage these many touchpoints to encourage engagement with our clients’ and partners’ apps, using a variety of promotional levers to prompt them to download, play, play to a certain level, register, deposit, and perform whatever user actions represent success (KPIs) in each campaign for each client.

We target consumers exceptionally well, using our own 1P (first-party) data to segment the audience. Our ad tech was all built in-house. Our growth marketing service is fully managed, so clients each get a dedicated account manager and/or account director, who are real people applying real time and effort to make each campaign as effective and efficient as possible. 

Q: Any final comments?

A: We are continuing to not only develop new games, but also developing new ways to drive a broader audience. In addition, we are constantly working on ways to optimize our clients’ objectives in order to exceed their ROAS and KPI goals.

If you’re a TUNE customer who would like to partner with Jump Ramp Games, you can request an introduction by navigating to the TUNE Marketplace in your platform. If you have questions or would like to become a TUNE customer, email us at partnerships@tune.com and let us know!