Recently I was asked to speak at an event and then I was told I need to step down because of the type of marketer I am. In the affiliate industry there are certain types of affiliate marketers. The one in discussion for this posts are CPA vs CPS affiliates. These two type of affiliates are totally different in many ways. Every time I go to a conference I always see our industry in a 'clicky' network. Meaning one will always stay with the other crowd and never almost mingle into the other.
In the past I have been approached and have been told "Oh your one of those CPA guys" - WTF does that mean? I actually didn't want to make a video for an open discussion about this or even a post but it affects my growth in the online space.
Why do we never see eye to eye?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQH_3djwlIk[/youtube]I can see why our industry is "clicky" because of maybe who started in the affiliate space first and where the affiliate space is going. A lot of CPS affiliates are SEO talented and have their sites fully optimized for SERPs. CPA guys are all about paid traffic and where they can buy the next traffic. I know myself I always look for that link that says "what is this", "advertise here", "your ad here" etc. I am always looking for the next traffic source and testing it out.
One traffic source that has been brought into controversy is the rise of PPV traffic. The reason why CPS affiliates feel this is bad traffic because it is adware, but adware that is allowed by the end user. Most CPS affiliates feel this is spam traffic. I argued this in the past because a controversy podcast came up going against a prior podcast I have done.
One big difference is CPS affiliates don't properly understand traffic. They think we simple spam a website and just send as much traffic as possible. With PPV or any source of traffic CPA affiliates know how to optimize the traffic to produce quality. For example with PPV, if the traffic isn't converting then we qualify the traffic by creating a landing page or jump page before sending the traffic.
So this in essence filters out crappy traffic to qualified traffic and leads or sales.
Another thing I notice is CPS and CPA never join together for discussions even at conferences. I am friends with some big CPS affiliates but I prefer to hangout with CPA affiliates. My reason is because I don't like to discuss SEO traffic, I find no interests in it because of the slow amount of time you get to receive data.
Most CPS affiliates I talk too are just strange and can not pick up conversation on other topics of online marketing. I am not sure why but the ones I have talked too they are totally on a different playing field than most marketers.
I just want to put this out there because I had to get off a panel which was totally not even related to any sort of paid traffic. The fact I am a CPA affiliate and my traffic sources are paid traffic, make me look bad I guess to some CPS affiliates.
CPS guys prove me wrong on this post, leave your comments.
