International traffic is great. Many complain that international traffic is lower quality, but the fact is if you target it well, it may actually be higher quality than domestic (USA) traffic. If you try to promote to Nigeria you may not have very high quality, but many of the larger countries offer very high quality on many campaigns I have run.
If you are not buying international traffic, you should be, and here’s why…
4 Reasons to Take Advantage of International Traffic
1. Less Competition
If this isn’t the goal of every marketer, I am not sure what is. Being the first to enter a market means there is very little or no competition for you. This also means you will probably make higher returns. Every single time I found a fresh market, or at least came up with a new way to promote a product, I had VERY little competition.
It’s hard to complain when you are getting $0.01 clicks on Facebook with EPCs in the $0.15-0.20 range isn’t it?
2. Less Expensive
I just explained this a little bit, but it deserves its own section. One of the biggest reasons an advertisement starts to decline is banner blindness. Because of that, copying a Facebook campaign is bad news for you and the person you copy. However, when entering a fresh market, they have not seen your ad yet. Generally speaking, you are setting yourself up for VERY inexpensive traffic, especially if you target it well.
Use proper targeting like you would for any other campaign and you would be surprised just how low you are able to get your click cost. As I said, it is not hard to get clicks for just a penny or two, especially on Facebook.
3. Same Payouts
While some offers have different versions for international traffic, many accept multiple countries on the main offer. Either way, the payout is usually very similar or slightly lower.
Even if the payout is 25% lower, it’s hard to complain when clicks are 75% cheaper, right?
4. Same Language
Most people refuse to run international traffic because of the language barrier. It is not fun when you are really unsure whether or not that translation turned out to read what you wanted.
Most countries speak English! You don’t even have to do anything but get a different offer (sometimes) and start making money.
Closing Tip for You
What would a Profit Addiction post be without an actionable tip for you?
So you know why international traffic is good and how it can make you money, but what can YOU do now?
Simple.
Try these niches and see how international traffic can help you make more money.
3 International Niches You Should Be Promoting
- Dating
- Mobile
- Games
The other great thing about those niches is that they all generally pay low. This means you can recycle them quickly during testing to minimize your losses AND your risk.
Where else can you get less expensive, less competitive traffic, with very similar payouts and very little risk to you?
Good luck!
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{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
You mention the language barrier. How much of your international is english vs. non-english. I hate paying for something (like translation) when I may be going in losing everything anyway.
I am not running any non-English at this point. I did some but it did not perform well so what I stick to is English speaking foreigners right now.
Jeremy, great post here. You have some really good, valid points for expanding internationally. Perhaps I should give it a try?
Motivating my readers was the point of the post Moon, go for it!
You are right on the money right there. In this day in age you have to think global. They world is a small place and reaching all corners of the world is not that hard and best of all you will really be able to maximise on profits.
Thanks for the comment Gerri, I agree completely.
There’s still an issue with this, because international traffic doesn’t convert so well.
I beg to differ. It really depends on WHAT you are marketing in my experience. I have had some international traffic be converting MUCH better than US.
Jeremy, International traffic is very interesting subject, I know they will click on your Google ads, but do they buy your product such as e-book.
Great post,
Marios
Marios,
If you target your product correctly, chances are you will do very well with international traffic.
Jeremy,
Very cool post. I’m currently not pursuing any international efforts. However, as someone trying to diversify every way possible, this seems like a great idea. Very much appreciate the inspiration to try this out!
Best,
Ian
Ian, it’s definitely a great plan to diversify. Depending on how/where you promote, you can create a variety of diversified campaigns!
Beside the language barrier and some legal right here and there.. international traffic is awesome.. how come you don’t have the arrow going to Thailand? lol
My map only had so much room for arrows!
I think that one point that is worth making is that a great deal of one’s traffic is from outside your home country anyway – that is the nature of the web. I always find it irritating to read a blog that I enjoy, only to find that they are only interested in traffic from the US. Thanks for sticking up for the rest of us.
BTW – I just found your site by reading your comments over at ViperChill and you have a minor typo in your url in the most recent post (as of 6 October) – it is simply missing the last “m” on the .com.
Vernon,
Thanks for the comment and the support. So many people write off international traffic but it holds a huge potential.
Thank you for pointing out my error, I guess I should slow down when typing my comments!
International traffic is as applicable as what you are trying to sell.
High ticket products are not going to fare well in countries will a relativelly low wage structure – $17 might not seem a lot in Europe/US etc but perhaps somewhere in Africa might be a living wage.
So as with the rule of thumb in marketing – if you are thinking in location terms then its a matter of trying to match your product to the target market.
Pete, great comment.
That is always the case. I guess I should have been more clear with the post. I was thinking more about lead type products where the need for them is really universal (dating, entertainment, etc.)
Thanks for stopping by!
Pete,
I would say that the average person online in Africa isn’t living off $17, but much more. However, of course, that is a much smaller segment of the population. In some ways you need to be even richer in Africa to be connected than one would need to be in the US or Europe.
Cellphones are changing some of that, rather fast, but still, I would maintain, the average person you are trying to sell to probably has the means to buy what you offer.
I certainly don’t actually know much about the demographics of who is online in Africa, just sharing my thoughts. You know, countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Egypt will have loads of rather wealthy people online, somewhere like CAR or Liberia will have none (or nobody with whom you will feel good doing business with, anyway
)
Vernon, great points! Speaking of cell phones, mobile type stuff is still huge and I can only see it growing more.
Thanks for your comments.
Nice post Jeremy. Yep, it depends on the niche you’re in, and when talking about selling products it depends on the price. But it’s always worth to consider expanding your market reach.
Jun,
Price does play a large role in the outcome of your success, and it is important to keep in mind how different cultures react to different price points as well.
Thank you for commenting, I appreciate it.
Hey Jeremy,
Nice post, I was targeting Asian countries when I was really into a dating site I own, Singapore and Hong Kong are very good with English and clicks are relatively low depending.
But I also believe that if you study your market hard that country specific targeting particularly for affiliate marketing is key!
See you around!
Dan, I agree. I haven’t done much traffic to the Asian countries but that makes a lot of sense.
Thanks for the comment!
What keeps me wondering is how you get such low clicks on Facebook. I’ve tried promoting some products with targeting and bids are $1.50 to $2. That might be the more expensive range.
But if You say english speaking foreigns, like Aussies, UK for pennies, that sounds insane. Even 3rd world countries on FB ask for .10 to .20 CPC minimum to be shown. And second, with better targeting, CPC only increases.
So my question is, when you say you pay pennies, does Your minimum bid says pennies or it says $1 and You bid $0.05 and get $0.01 clicks? How does it work, cuz FB seems to me quite expensive traffic source.
Monty, in my experience, it is dependent on your CTR. The higher the CTR, the lower cost you will pay. Also, bidding CPM instead of CPC will allow you to pay less money when focusing on CTR.
Create very targeted ads and you will be on your way to killer CTRs.
Good luck!
Great point with the CPM Jeremy. I’ve been doing ads in FB for more than a year now, and I focused on CPC only. Based on that experience though, you don’t have to follow FB’s suggested CPC. I’ll be trying the CPM on a new campaign and see if I can get the results with what you had.
Good luck Jun. Make sure you have a compelling image and/or make it targeted. Otherwise you will be paying upwards of $5/click which isn’t good!
Thanks Jeremy. I’ll keep that in mind. Less than $1 per click is where I want to be as I am currently paying a little over that on CPC right now. I am running a campaign for a different niche though not affiliate marketing. Looking forward to using FB advertising for my personal site soon.
Awesome Jun. The possibilities are endless, just be creative. Good luck!
Thanx Jeremy, I’ll give this another shot.
Good to hear Monty. Make it happen.
Norway, Sweden, Netherlands and Denmark are the countries with the highest rate of English speakers and the highest gross salaries in the World. I would say, target the travel niche, especially keywords referring to traveling to sunny countries, from these countries I listed above.
People from these countries crave for sunny weather and they search the internet in English when trying to find the destinations. There are some good travel agency affiliates in Zanox worth promoting.
Jeremy, good post man!
Thanks Peter. It’s comments like these that are extremely useful and potential goldmines if people actually act on them.
Much appreciated!
Hi Jeremy i have been doing IM for about 3 month now and everything seems to be pretty easy to learn and quickly becomes second nature. Tho one thing i have a problem with just like many other newbies is getting the conversion. Its funn cause sometimes you get the click and high CTR on facebook but no conversions and sometimes u just have no clicks and no Conversions. So my question is, for a dating offer per say, how long should I lets say, let my first Batch of 30 ads run to say it’s not profitable and pause them to go ahead and ad some new ones? Or do I just keep Adding new ones while the others are testing ?? Btw lots of thanks for all the great content.. You truly help us new Internet marketers by your informative posts here. Looking forward to hear from you soon.
Tony.
Tony,
It depends on a number of factors but a good rule of thumb is to spend 1-2x the offer cost before killing a dating ad when starting. If the ads are performing terribly, don’t even bother spending that much on them.
Good luck!
I am guessing you meant 1-2x the offer payout? So you suggest to spend $7 per ad on a $3.50 offer payout?! Or should I spend a little more since it’s a short lead generating offer?
Cheers,
Tony.
Right, the payout. There is no set formula, it’s all preference. You can generally tell pretty quickly how the ad is performing and make adjustments from there.
Hi Jeremy I posted a question about whether I should use landing pages with dating offers (Richmen.com) on one of your posts, but I couldn’t find it so I’m just going to ask you again.
Thanks,
Tony.
Tony,
That’s something you have to test. I’m not going to continue to answer each specific question in this format, sorry.