An overview of Performance Marketing and Affiliate Marketing for startup businesses.

1. Performance Marketing for Startups
@ Gibraltar Startup Meetup
Frank Ravanelli
frank@ravanelli.com

2. • Internet marketing since 1995
• Affiliate marketing since 1999
• In eGaming since 2002
• Managed affiliate programs for European
eGaming and Fintech, plus US Saas and
eCommerce
• I have been an affiliate myself for long
time, plus I have been a senior manager
for eGaming companies
• I understand opportunities and challenges
from both points of view

3. TODAY WE DISCUSS…

4. • Performance Marketing: what is it? How to
use it – as a VC or Entrepreneur – to test
and optimize your business, products,
funnels
• Affiliate Marketing: what is it? How to use it
to grow your sales and/or monetize your
user-base
• Check-list for success
• Q&A
WE WILL DISCUSS

5. PERFORMANCE MARKETING

6. Performance Marketing is a model of
marketing, where you pay only if an
agreed result is achieved.
WE WILL DISCUSS

7. Performance Marketing models include:
 Revenue sharing: a percentage on the
sales generated
 CPA: a flat amount for each sale
 CPL: a flat amount for each lead (name,
surname, contact info of a potential
Customer)
 CPC: a flat amount for each click
 CPV: a flat amount for each time your
site is shown to a visitor
WE WILL DISCUSS

8. Advantages of Performance Marketing:
 Flexible
 Scalable
 Fairly fast to implement, pause, restart
 A/B testable
WE WILL DISCUSS

9. Examples: is this Performance Marketing?
WE WILL DISCUSS

10. It depends:
 If you pay a fixed upfront fee to get the
space, no matter your ROI, it is not
Performance Marketing
 If you use a way to track the sales you
get from this ad, for example by using a
unique phone number connected to the
ad, and pay only for results, then it is
Performance Marketing
WE WILL DISCUSS

11. Responsibilities which come with
Performance Marketing:
 Reliable tracking: reward each and
every valid commissionable action
 Clear message: what’s in for
Customers?
 Clear goals: what do you want to
achieve?
 Fraud prevention/detection: pay only for
bona-fide actions
WE WILL DISCUSS

12. As a VC or an Entrepreneur, you can use
Performance Marketing to:
 Test products
 Test business models and prices
 Test marketing messages/page layouts
You can do this before you scale up,
allowing you to find the best converting
approaches before investing more
WE WILL DISCUSS

13. Products:
 Before you invest more, see if there is a
market for the products
 Quantify cost to acquire each Customer
 Get feedback from Customers
WE WILL DISCUSS

14. Business models:
 Have a paid version on the HP
 Promote free trials
 Promote freemiums
 Promote discounted versions
 Promote upsells at a better value
Internet users can share urls, so make
sure the different pages make sense
WE WILL DISCUSS

15. Marketing messages and layouts:
 Focus on benefits
 Focus on features
 Test different page lengths etc.
WE WILL DISCUSS

16. HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL WITH
PERFORMANCE MARKETING

17. Different traffic sources, different mindsets:
• PPC: ready now
• PPV: interruption-marketing
• Mobile: UI is king

18. Create Optimized Funnels
• Organic: home-page plus opt-in popup
• PPC: static, signup landing page
• PPV: catchy title, video, simplified signup
• Mobile: simplified forms, call-in option

19. Organic: Home-Page plus Opt-In Popup

20. PPC: Static, Signup Landing Page

21. PPV: Catchy Title, Video, Simplified Signup

22. Business Intelligence to Select Your PM
Partners
• MajesticSEO
• SEMRush
• LinkdEx

23. PPV and Retargeting: Real-Time Optimization
• What is PPV?
• Understand the demographics of your target
audience
• Understand the demographics of each PPV
network
• Get a test-budget
• Use PPV with automatic target optimization,
using pixels
• Use PPV to track visitors who visited
competitors/specific brokers

24. AFFILIATE MARKETING

25. Affiliate Marketing is a form of
performance marketing. You recruit
affiliates, who promote your
products/services on revenue share, CPA
or CPL.
WE WILL DISCUSS

26. Different rewards, different value of the traffic:
• Revenue-sharing: it usually bring high-
quality Customers. The interest of the
affiliate is aligned with yours
• CPA: it brings Customers. The affiliate may
be focused more on the number of sales,
than on the amount of each sale
• CPL: choose your affiliates wisely. Their
interest is to bring you leads, fast

27. How is the affiliate ecosystem?
• With affiliate marketing, affiliates are paid on
performances
• However, some major affiliates may ask for a
placement fee, or prepaid amountbehalf,

28. Affiliate Networks:
• Provide tracking and have existing affiliates
• Take care of payments
Tracking solutions:
• Provide tracking, but have no existing affiliates

29. •CPA networks: they have their own
affiliates, specialized in CPA programs
•Sub-affiliate networks: they have their
own sub-affiliates. They act as a
“commission aggregator”, offering many
networks and program to their sub-
affiliates
•Coupon sites: they offer coupons/deals
to their visitors

30. •Loyalty sites: they offer points/cashbacks
to their users
•Major content sites: they want to
monetize their traffic with relevant
campaigns
•Magazines: they want to monetize their
traffic with relevant campaigns

31. An alternative way: Master Affiliations

32. Bitcoin: exponential change in affiliate marketing
• Programs promoting Bitcoin services
• Programs paying in Bitcoins
• Each transaction becomes commissionable
• A revolution in affiliate marketing, which hasn’t
expressed its magnitude yet

33. Affiliate marketing: a two-way street
• Use AM to promote your products/services
• Monetize your existing user-base, by
presenting to them products/services for which
you are rewarded as an affiliate

34. CHECK-LIST

35.  Be ready for success: funnels
 Tap into new traffic sources
 Retain the users
 Monetize the traffic/users
 Add new revenue streams
Check-List for your Startup success with PM:

36. Q&A