ZorbasMagazine. The Essay Niche in 2019

The essay niche has been on the rise in 2019, and it is expected to grow even more popular. The reason behind this is that a lot of students now tend to order professionally written research papers instead of doing the assignments on their own.

During the training period, students have to write lots of academic papers ranging from essays to dissertations. There are universities everywhere around the globe, and students there are willing to pay for professional writing services. 

Payouts in the essay niche sometimes reach unspeakable heights. Businesses that hire freelance writers and promote their services online are popping up in the market, and leadgen websites are at the very top of this chain. First, they reach the top search results and then start selling the leads for considerable sums of money. 

To understand how profitable this niche is, just look at the average affiliate income from each client, which often exceeds $100. Note that it is far more difficult to work with Tier 1 geos such as the US and some European countries, but the payouts there are also much higher.

Traffic sources

The essay niche is unique in that it allows you to acquire traffic from any source. Let’s consider each of them in detail.

1. Google Ads. This is a very profitable traffic source, but you can easily get banned and so you will need to use a cloaker. 
2. Doorways customized for a particular offer. As doorways try to attract as many visitors as possible, you will be able to redirect traffic to an advertiser’s page using high-frequency keywords. You can also drive traffic through a pre-lander, the only disadvantage being that you will have to build new pages rather often, while search engines are very suspicious about them.
3. Facebook. Despite all the regulations, certain rules and frequent bans, affiliate marketing on Facebook enables you to target any audiences. If you can’t circumvent the regulations, use a cloaker. 
4. Targeted ads. Targeted advertising accounts for 44% of all the traffic. To work with this ad format, you should know your audience and be able to set up an effective ad campaign and work with huge traffic volumes. The key platforms here are Facebook and MyTarget. The main advantage of these is a low cost per lead and an opportunity to scale up quickly. The disadvantages are as follows: it is difficult to pass moderation and accounts get blocked frequently, which makes your work more challenging.
5. Push notifications were introduced not so long ago and they are still trendy. Although web companies such as Google and Mozilla have clamped down on push prompts recently, push traffic is still very popular. Affiliates are currently getting lots of quality traffic from push notifications.
6. Teaser networks.
7. Search systems. It’s much easier for the student to go online and search for the academic paper they need, which makes up 28% of all the traffic.

Geography and audience targeting

Brazil is one of the most promising geos in the essay niche. At that, it is still characterized by low competition, and so we strongly recommend you start working with it. And since the more precise the targeting, the higher your income, here are the best universities in Brazil: 

• USP — The University of São Paulo, 
• UFRJ — The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, 
• UFBA — The Federal University of Bahia. 

If you are going to use state targeting on Facebook, then the most profitable Brazilian states are: 

• São Paulo; 
• Rio de Janeiro; 
• Bahia; 
• the Federal District.

If you want to prevent your campaign from burning out too quickly, you can use a cloaker. Remember that your competitors are always on the lookout for new approaches and would want to copy an effective campaign.

As we have mentioned before, your target audience is spread throughout the globe. At first sight, it may seem that it is local students, but it is not always true. Your target audience also includes natives of Arab countries; they come to study, but after that most of them return home to their family business. Arabs are very fond of various discounts and special offers that immediately convert them into customers. 

Europeans are generally a solvent audience; they are mainly interested in the degree only or just get into the college their parents want them to. Another audience segment is Chinese citizens studying in the US. 

The last category is the military and athletes; they just don’t have time to study, and so they can easily be turned into regular customers. 

The Edugram study has shown that the main audience in Brazil is people aged 30-50 years studying for an MBA degree. 

As for the students, they often try to combine education and work. Generally, they only order long academic papers and try to write essays and compositions themselves or copy them from their fellow students. The audience is primarily male (60-65%).

The English-speaking market includes the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates. The USA makes up 70% of the overall traffic share. To enter this lucrative market, you should design separate websites for each state, account for the specifics and delve into all the educational programs. The most easy-to-work-with and profitable country is the UAE. It accounts for a mere 2% of traffic, but it has the highest paying capacity, which will allow you to make lots of money. 

Then, let’s consider German-language students from Germany and Switzerland. These countries are characterized by high growth rates, considerable GDP and wealthy citizens. Don’t use discounts as a means of attracting attention — a quality product must be expensive. Be exact, logical and deliver on your promises.

As for Germany, target such major cities as Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich. In Switzerland, work with Zurich, Grisons, and Geneva. Again, remember about the seasonality. Most academic papers in Europe must be submitted in June, and so you will be able to work with traffic from different countries.

When working with European countries and the USA, be sure to target specific audience segments. For instance, you can choose students from a particular college and university as your main audience and promote your offer to them.

Be sure never to target a wide audience. Otherwise, you will just waste your budget for nothing.

Overall, Canada is a very attractive country profit-wise. It has more than 20 universities that are ranked among the world’s top 200 and attract students from all over the globe. As it is possible to combine learning and work there, you can target certain universities and make a profit.

Great Britain is also known around the world for its universities, and the student population there is capable to pay. The demand for academic papers is not that high, but students are supposed to write comprehensive research studies that not all freelancers can cope with. So, if you work with this region, know your offer and be confident about it.

Brazilian universities are popular among Latin American students, and so this geo is also very profitable.

There are a lot of universities in Australia, and the demand for term papers among the students is rather high, and so you can earn a percentage of student orders for this type of works.

Offer types

Now, let’s break down each type of academic texts by examining the English-language market. First comes the academic essay. There are over 15 essay types and, as a rule, they don’t exceed 5-7 pages. When writing an essay, students are supposed to elaborate on a certain problem, analyze it and then propose some viable solutions. Although essays are generally low-paid, you can earn a considerable profit by driving traffic in bulk, as in some universities students have to submit several essays for each subject per month.

Then, let’s consider research papers. A research paper is a comprehensive writing assignment. Its objective is to give a student an opportunity to put their knowledge to practice. Research papers are usually 40-45 pages long. This niche is very competitive, and so you need to have a lot of expertise in affiliate marketing to work with it successfully.

The third type of academic texts is term papers that examine a large-scale issue and are much longer than essays. It often happens that students do not write term papers on their own, and so there’s lots of traffic in this niche. Add decent payouts and you’ll get offers that are almost perfect. The key thing is to ensure that you earn no less than 40% per order. 

The earnings in the essay niche can be very high and even exceed payouts from promoting gambling and betting offers. In general, you will get from 40% to 60% per order. The percentage depends on your affiliate network. Some of them pay up to 80% to trusted partners working with the English-speaking market. Then, you should also account for rebills: if students that you have brought make an order again in the future, you will also get your payout. 

If an affiliate hits the right audience and works with various geos, their average income may account for $3000-$7000, given that they drive traffic from different sources. The New Year holidays are right around the corner and the term time is drawing to a close, which means that the essay niche high season is coming. Don’t lose your profit!