Traffic arbitrage through VKontakte - how to start and make money in 2021 + cases about mobile VK arbitration

In the 90s, enterprising figures speculated on jeans and videotapes; a new generation of businessmen speculates on traffic on social networks.

If you don’t know what traffic arbitrage is, the new publication will dot all the i’s. And don't be afraid of unfamiliar words. Often behind them lie actions we are accustomed to, which, with due diligence, will bring good profits.

Ways to receive traffic from VK

You can attract target users from VKontakte in the following ways:

• VK targeted advertising ensures the greatest accuracy and targeting of advertising. This way you can get the highest quality traffic;
• Announcements in public pages or groups through official or third-party exchanges, as well as by direct agreement with community administrators. Such advertising may turn out to be cheaper (if you can negotiate with the group owner). In addition, if you negotiate directly with public administrators, there is a chance to buy traffic for offers on gambling and other topics prohibited by official rules;
• Spam : commenting, mass liking, mass following. The cheapest traffic, sometimes free, but bringing conversions.

Accommodation

It is best to stay during active times. The active time for each public can be viewed in Publer, section “Analysis of VK Publics”. We look at activity by day of the week and by hour.

This particular public is best posted around 21-00.

Before posting, we look to see if the public’s audience has already been squeezed out by our offer. Publer helps here again. In the same section, click “Advertising posts” and “Advertising reposts”, make sure that there have been no advertisements for our offer recently.

Don't advertise to a squeezed audience!

We agree with the admins.

1. We agree on clearing negative comments or disabling comments. You can ask for the editor's rights to a public page if you have a trusting relationship with the admin.
2. We agree on publication not at a regular time, for example not at 17:00, but with minutes, 17:07, the coverage will be a little greater.
3. We negotiate discounts. Especially works when purchasing multiple posts in bulk. As a rule, many admins cooperate. Demand more.

If the offer is “white”, it is better to work through the exchange. It's easier and usually cheaper.

Buy from adequate admins! Sometimes you just have to ask for a discount.

Analysis of results

After the first tests, we immediately weed out public topics that definitely don’t work. These are topics that give few clicks to the landing page, and topics that don’t generate leads at all.

At the stage of the first tests, you need to at least separate the topics of public pages using subid in order to determine which topics have leads and which ones do not. Ideally, each public has its own subid. We work with the remaining topics and determine which public pages provide profit.

What is VK target

This is an advertising system on social network pages and in VK users’ feeds. The advantage of targeting is the ability to target specific people. An advertiser can select an audience to display ads based on all their profile data and statistics collected by the social network.

The system knows a lot about its users. People's behavior, visits to communities, friends, likes, reposts on VK are analyzed. Also, to determine the interests of users, their actions on other sites are taken into account (for example, authorization using a VKontakte account).

What types of targeted advertising can be used in VK

The affiliate is interested in two types of ads in which you can put an external link:

• TGB (text-graphic blocks) consist of an image, title and description. They are located on the left, under the menu, on the pages of the desktop version of VKontakte. Paid per click or per 1,000 impressions;
• Advertising post in the user feed and on the community wall. It consists of any content, like a regular publication, and additionally contains an action button (for example, “Go to store”). Shown in VK versions for mobile devices and computers. Paid only for impressions (CPM).

What types of VKontakte targeting can an affiliate marketer use?

The VK targeted advertising system allows you to select the target audience according to 14 criteria:

• Geography of users. There are two options: select specific countries and cities, or indicate a circle on the map with a radius of up to 40 km. Separately, certain areas can be excluded;
• Floor;
• Age range;
• Users whose birthday is today, tomorrow or within a week;
• Marital status (based on one of the eight statuses in the profile);
• Interests are indicated by choosing from a directory of categories. The system determines interests based on the user’s behavior and his profile;
• Participation in the specified communities. You can separately exclude users of certain public pages or groups;
• Users of VK applications or games;
• Education;
• Job title;
• Retargeting audiences;
• Devices. A choice of all smartphones, tablets or specific platforms and versions of mobile OS is available;
• Operating system;
• Browser.

These settings are described in more detail in the article on placing targeted advertising on VKontakte.

VKontakte traffic arbitrage - what is it?

The first thing that is associated with the word “arbitration” is an arbitration court. So where did such a word find its way into social networks? Among other meanings, arbitrage is making a profit from playing on price differences. Simply put, you buy traffic for 10 rubles in one place and sell it for 20 rubles in another.

Okay, this is clear. Now let's figure out what traffic is. Traffic is the flow of users on an Internet resource. And in our case, the number of active participants in the VKontakte public.

Arbitrageurs make money by working with affiliate (or CPA) networks. They choose a product that they will advertise for a percentage of the deal, select the location of the target audience and launch a “fishing rod” there - advertising an affiliate product. Each confirmed application brings dividends.

SRA work scheme

It is not known for certain how long ago traffic arbitrage became mainstream. But it is still classified as a shadow part of the world economy, since advertising activities on the Internet have not yet been regulated by law. This is probably one of the reasons why such methods of earning money are popular.

How is the price of advertising in VK determined?

When displaying an advertisement on VKontakte, the advertiser will be charged the rate that he indicated: a first-price auction is in effect. The rules of this auction depend on the payment model:

• CPM (cost per impression) - the ad with the highest bid wins;
• CPC (cost per click) - the system evaluates ads based on the bid and CTR (the ratio of clicks on an ad to the number of impressions). Those ads that are clicked on more often receive benefits, even at a lower bid, and as a result, traffic will be cheaper.

In our article on setting up and optimizing the cost of VK advertising, there is an example of how, when a CTR reached 3%, the cost of a click decreased by 5-7 times.

Are you draining traffic from VK to affiliate programs?

474 votes

Not really

How much can you earn

Making money from traffic arbitrage depends on how much time and effort you are willing to put into the learning stage. Over time, when your experience reaches certain heights, you will devote less time to arbitration, automate or delegate some of the processes.

At the initial stage, you need to study and practice a lot. It is quite possible to earn money even without investments or with a small budget. Now partner CPA networks offer not only cooperation, but also training with practice under the supervision of an experienced arbitrator.

Invest part of your funds in training to avoid mistakes and waste of your advertising budget. The costs will pay off in the first weeks of practice.

And most importantly, don’t give up if you fail! Remember - every failure brings you one step closer to victory!

The amount of your commission depends on the product you sell through the CPA network. So, for a confirmed application for registration in the Letyshops cashback service you will receive 40 rubles, and for a paid order on the Lamoda.ru website - 12% of the order amount.

If you pour on copies of phones and other expensive things, you will receive up to one and a half thousand rubles from one order. And the frequency of orders directly depends on the quality of your advertising post.

Experienced specialists earn up to several tens of thousands of rubles a day, and achieving these figures is quite possible. The Internet is full of cases of such guys with practical recommendations.

How to target mobile users

To serve ads to mobile device users, you must use the ad post format. It can be one of the following types:

• Record with a button. Consists of a title of up to 80 characters, text of up to 220 characters, an image and an action button with one of ten predefined options;

• Universal recording. This is a regular publication in which you can write text and attach up to 10 any media materials (for example, a picture, video, map);
• The carousel consists of a total of 220 characters of text and a horizontal row of 3-10 cards, each with its own title, image and link.

The advertising post is published on behalf of the community, the topic of which must correspond to the advertisement and the content of the landing page. This public or group must be beautifully designed and contain at least 10 publications before creating an advertising campaign.

To target only mobile users, use the Devices ad campaign option.

All the nuances of creating advertising are described in a detailed article on setting up VKontakte targeting.

Benefits of retargeting

Retargeting focuses advertising only on those users who have shown interest in your product (for example, clicked on an ad) or purchased similar goods or services.

Main advantages:

• Increasing traffic conversion. For example, if a user followed an ad to a landing page, read it, but did not place an order, an arbitrator can show him a new advertising option with additional bonuses or discounts;
• Sale of related products. For example, advertising accessories to gadget buyers;
• Repeat sales to existing customers. For example, those who have already purchased BioGrow Plus can advertise the Tornado offer - a manual cultivator.

Our article on VK retargeting tells you in detail about the possibilities and settings of this type of advertising.

Choosing an offer for VKontakte publics

First, you need to think about which products do better on social networks. So, these are various kinds of WOW products that immediately evoke a desire to make a purchase, because they solve some pressing problem for a wide range of people. For example, this could be shapewear for women with curvy figures. A couple of years ago, men's and women's replica watches, posture corrector and Valgus Pro were selling well. Today you can see advertisements for copies of iPhones, various types of exercise equipment and other weight loss products.

Let us note that in recent years VKontakte has become “wiser”, and today the public administrators themselves are afraid to post anything suspicious (for example, miracle teas and diet pills). Although you can sometimes find group owners who agree to advertise such offers, they are more difficult to work with. If you want to arbitrate through a public exchange, then such problematic affiliate programs simply will not be allowed through.

We have already talked about how to generally choose an offer and a suitable CPA network. We recommend reading this material. As for public pages, you can send traffic to:

• gaming offers
• dating (dating sites)
• product offers
• infobiz-partners
• mobile applications

Why do you need VK advertising optimization?

The goal of optimization is to increase the profitability of arbitrage, reduce the cost of traffic and increase the number of conversions. To achieve this, you need to increase the CTR of your ads, analyze traffic and exclude groups of users who do not buy.

Hypotheses about the target audience for a particular offer are rarely immediately accurate. VKontakte users selected by targeting settings may be bad at clicking on an ad or clicking, but bad at buying. Therefore, it is necessary to test all the elements that affect the costs and earnings of an affiliate: advertising campaign settings, advertisements, landing pages.

What to test

• Target audience segments: divide user groups by age, GEO and other parameters. Compare CTR on the same ad, the ratio of the number of conversions to the number of transitions on the same landing pages;
• CTR of ads with different headlines, texts, images with the same targeting settings;
• CR of landing pages and intermediate pages on the same traffic. CR is the ratio of the number of completed actions (for example, sales) to the number of site visitors.

How to buy advertising in communities

Publishing advertisements in VK communities has two features:

1. The minimum unit of audience selection is not an individual user, but all public subscribers or group members;
2. The arbitrator will have to independently find communities and assess the real size, interests and activity of the audience.

Although this way you can publish advertising at a lower price and for more profitable offers, the responsibility of the arbitrator increases. You need to make sure that community members are real people, not bots, and that they regularly read new publications. It’s easier to find suitable publics if you use special services. For example, “COMMUNITY SEARCH” in Pepper.ninja.

The selection and evaluation of communities for arbitration is discussed in an article about the cost of advertising in Vkontakte groups and public pages.

Useful tips for beginner affiliate marketers

In addition to the main advice - do not neglect training and the opportunity to practice with experienced market players - there are several more important nuances that are important to know so as not to waste your entire starting budget.

We hope that you will take responsibility for working in such an exciting and interesting field, and that our advice will be useful to you.

Tip 1. Choose the right target audience and age category

To hone this skill, make it a rule to periodically solve problems like this:

For example, you saw a promotion on weeding tools in the Galyamart store. Think about what their customer looks like? How would you describe it?

These are women aged 35+ (young people have no time for gardening), most often married (the husband takes them to the dacha - the status is “married”), who are members of communities with the theme “Vegetable garden” and similar ones, which are indirectly related to dachas or country farming.

There is a merchant for every product!

Tip 2. Design your post wisely

After drawing up a portrait of the target audience, the arbitrator chooses a method of influencing his target audience.

Thus, family women, concerned about dacha farming in the summer, search on the Internet for solutions to problems that arose while caring for the garden last season.

Taking into account the age characteristics of the audience and taking into account statistics on the perception of types of content by different age categories, it is easy to draw conclusions about what type of content is best suited specifically for your target audience.

For some, this is a video review, others are simply looking for the cheapest offer, and others rely on product reviews.

Tip 3. Choose the right time to publish

Do not advertise on Mondays or weekends. At this time, people are preoccupied with the surrounding reality and are not able to perceive selling content, as evidenced by many marketing studies.

The best time to “cast a fishing rod” is weekdays from 18:00 to 00:00. At this time, your target audience migrates en masse from work to home, stands in traffic jams, rests after a working day and scrolls the news feed on VK.

If you are marketing a product for a school audience, then you can safely advertise during the daytime, for example, from 13 to 16 hours.

Tip 4: Be wary of communities with over a million people

The largest VK communities, with all their coverage, are actually not interesting for placing advertising posts in them. The audience in such communities is very blurred, and most often everything ends in meager conversions that cannot even recoup costs.

For example, advertising in MDK costs about 8 thousand rubles per post. And this is absolutely unprofitable.

Look for highly targeted small communities with an active audience, post there for much less money and get good conversions.

Arbitration practice in video format:

How to get free traffic

Spam on VK is a viable alternative to targeted advertising or paid posting in public pages.

The advantage of this method is minimal costs or completely free traffic.

Flaws:

• Labor intensity;
• It will take many accounts that will be regularly banned.

The general principle of getting free traffic from VKontakte is to attract social network users to your profile or community. Traffic is drained using a link in the “Website” field of personal information, or using a pinned post in a group or public.

Spam methods in VK

• Mass following—subscribing to other users or communities;
• Mass liking - mass marking of other people's posts as liked;
• Commenting on other people's posts;
• Sending personal messages.

We create posts for selected publics

Ideally, you should combine groups that are similar in topic and style and create a post specifically adapted for them. The more organically it fits into the content, the more people will pay attention to the advertisement. There are 2 types of posts.

Direct advertising

This is when you sell something “head-on”, that is, the text and photo-video materials are openly advertising in nature. It’s good if the post is visible in its entirety, and part of the text is not hidden under the “Read in full...” cut. Conciseness, a bright title and a clear description of the offer are welcome. It’s good if it contains intrigue that forces you to click on the affiliate link out of curiosity. It is also worth noting at the end of the post a commercial offer and a deadline (“Sale only 2 days”, “Warehouse liquidation with a 40% discount: 20 units of goods left”, “Each player will receive 100 USD only until April 3rd!” and so on.).

To make your post stand out from the rest, use emoji pictures. You can borrow them from here https://vk.com/page-42154384_44490007, but don’t overdo it.

Examples:

Indirect advertising

This could be a review post “from a subscriber” or a post with super-useful information (for example, a post like “10 ways to lose 10 kg in 2 months” and at the end a link to a weight loss product with a description). The first is guerrilla marketing, the second is native advertising format.

Examples:

Try different approaches, including non-standard ones. Perhaps you will stumble upon a unique bait idea that will bring a high envelope.

Tools for searching audiences and spam in VK

• Cerebro is an online service for searching the target audience in VK. It is possible to search, analyze and filter communities, interests and social circles of users;
• Pepper.ninja is a parsing tool for VKontakte and other social networks. Allows you to search for communities or potential clients by topic, interests, GEO and other parameters. You can also filter users from found publics or groups;
• vk.barkov.net is a powerful service for searching users and communicating in VK using a large list of parameters. There is a free use mode (you can download the first 5,000 results);

• SocialHammer is an online service for promoting communities, can be used for automatic posting, mass liking, mass following and other methods of spam;
• BroBot is a local Windows program for automating various actions on VKontakte and other social networks. Allows you to publish, repost, invite friends, like, subscribe and many other functions. Proxies are supported. When working under one profile, all functions are free.

In what format can posts be published?

You must present the goods with your face. People don’t need long praises about the unique qualities of the next gel to increase something. They need to see the call to action between the lines!

Each audience is affected by a different type of advertising post.

Short post

The post should be as short and succinct as possible. Powerful headline, description of benefits, link, call to action - “Buy now”! It’s ideal not to go beyond the “Show continuation” spoiler.

Post-story

Storytelling is a very popular type of selling text. In this form, the reader is imbued with the story of the successful use of the advertised product, sees himself reflected in the text, and this pushes him to purchase the product.

Such posts are moderately long and captivate the reader, ultimately leading him to the decision to buy the product. There are specialist storytellers online who are ready to write insightful sales text; you will find them in groups of copywriters and freelancers.

Post review

It is written in the first person and varies in length. Such posts are aimed at building trust in the product through the experience of its use by the same ordinary user as your potential client.

A competent post generates more interest

Keep in mind the portrait of your target audience and choose a sales post option depending on its characteristics.