Hello! Today we’re talking about hidden expenses that affiliates face. Most of the mentioned points are unnecessary, but they will definitely save you some time. In affiliate marketing, the saying “time is money” holds a special meaning. It’s better to spend twenty or thirty dollars on the landing’s translation and layout than spend several days on routine work. Affiliate marketing is, above all – mental work, and the energy you have is better spent on analytics or optimizing campaigns.
Accounts
Price: from $0,02 to $1000
If you work with Facebook, then accounts are your headache. You’ll have to either buy them or “farm” them yourself. Both cost money. For example, the cheapest option – brute (accounts with stolen passwords) – will only cost you a few cents. Facebook accounts from the SoFarm team (one of the biggest suppliers) cost up to $1000, but are intended exclusively for professionals.
Anti-detect browser
Price: from $99 to $450 a month
When working with multiple accounts (especially on Facebook) it’s necessary to change your computer’s configuration. Some of the most famous anti-detect browsers on the market are Linken Sphere and MultiLoginApp, and cost $99 and $99 respectively (the simplest plan).
Tracker
Price: from $0 to $1499
People can endlessly talk about how trackers are useless, but all those conversations screech to a halt after they try it for the first time. It lets you track all advertising campaigns with one system, optimize landings, cut off useless users and many more things. Newbies can try a free solution, like CPAtracker (but you’ll have to pay for hosting). A tracker with the most expensive plan (Voluum) that will only be useful for a big affiliate team costs $1499.
Domains
Price: from $0,99
If you want to hold on to your pre-lander (this strongly affects their speed!), use a tracker, and also hide the referrer (remember, you don’t want your advertiser to know the source), you’ll need your own domains. You can find some cheap domains on Namecheap. For example, .xyz and .icu will only cost you 99 cents, and a standard .com costs $8,88.
Hosting
Price: from $5
For pre-landers (and trackers, if you chose self-serve) you’ll need hosting. The cheapest tariff on DigitalOcean – $5 for the simplest configuration (1 gb RAM, 1 kernel, 25 gb SSD). As traffic grows you’ll need a stronger server, and thus the hosting expenses will also grow vastly (up to several hundreds of dollars a month).
Creatives and pre-landers’ translation and layout
Price: from $1
If you want to transfer your campaign to different geolocation or try your chances in a new country – you need to translate your landings and creatives to this country’s language. Google Translate doesn’t always work well, so it’s better to use translation services (for example, Fiverr or OneHourTranslation). On average, translating a landing and several creatives from English to some other language will cost you $30-$40.
If coding isn’t your strong suit, you’ll need freelancers for your landings’ layouts as well. The average bill for a simple landing – around $15.
Spy-services
Price: from $0 to $149
You can and you should check on your rivals’ creatives. It’s very possible that the pre-lander you find (or a ready campaign) will bring you the most profit. A Facebook spy-service PowerAdSpy offers its free plan (up to 20 creatives a day), and also its paid plans (the most expensive one costing $149).
As you see, even before you were an advertising campaign there’s already a decent amount of expenses involved, which best be counted into your calculations. Don’t forget that clean profit works with the “profit-general expenses” formula.
Good luck!
If you want to reach new GEOs and audiences, maybe it is all waiting for you on Telegram? We’ve prepared some material about Telegram audiences. What are the messenger’s users like this year? How old they are, what they do, and what they are interested in!
