Case 1: “Be CBD Affiliate” network
One of our first customers, the “Be CBD Affiliate” network, the best solution for CBD traffic, shared the story of the affiliate network’s creation and its experience with us.
You can read their story here, or a bit below.
You can join the network as an affiliate at https://login.becbdaffiliate.com/
How the “BE CBD Affiliate” story started
The CBD market in the US have been growing at an accelerated rate over the last few years. The team have worked in this vertical utilising various affiliate networks and advertisers from the very start of the boom. They have successfully converted large volumes of CBD traffic. However, they realized the time was right to create their own tailored network. The objective was to create an ecosystem, where for the first time, they could resell the offers of other affiliate networks (gathering an audience of affiliates) and gradually attract more direct advertisers.
However, creating such a platform had various challenges. The main barriers were the need to develop the network in no more than one week whilst ensuring it would be able to bring in revenue from day one.
To develop a network in-house would take up an enormous amount of resources and time. The team did not want to start active work with serious customers whilst having an unfinished product on their hands. With that in mind, the best option was the work with a third-party platform that could help launch the system literally “on a turn-key basis.”. With so many providers and platforms in the marketplace, the next step was working out the best one to partner with.
Choosing a platform for creating a network
There were critical success factors for making a decision on the best third party for the team to work with. The network needed a flexible, intuitive and (most importantly!) a fast interface to instantly respond to traffic fluctuations. Having the functionality of assisting affiliates with the formation of financial reports in different sections was also imperative. In addition, the availability of integration solutions with advertisers: both s2s, and through a pixel or JS was a necessity. There are many advertisers, and all of them have their own standards of work, and there could be no compromise.
Following a literature review “BE CBD Affiliate” narrowed the decision down to three networks. Each of these would be able to meet the requirements. The three providers were Everflow (https://www.everflow.io/), HOQU (https://hoqu.com/) and Tune, which recently went under Cake (https://tune.com/).
Given each provider had comparable attributes and features, they drew attention to the possibility of a test period. Such an offering would be a good indication that the provider was confident in what they could offer. Everflow and Tune / Cake allow clients to discuss this opportunity with the managers separately, and HOQU offers a 30-day period right on the landing page.
Having weighed all the pros and cons, the price became the decisive factor of choice. HOQU’s offer to start work for only $99 turned out to be at least 4–5 times cheaper than that of the competitors. Along with a 30-day trial period, the option stood out firmly over the other providers..
The final argument in favor of this particular network was the work of platform managers. A wishlist of mandatory requirements was sent to each of the providers. Everflow answered first but more technical questions had to be referred to a senior employee, prolonging the correspondence between emails, chat and calls. At HOQU, a full compilation of information was provided right away. In addition, their employees thought out the migration from all possible CPA networks and affiliate platforms in the shortest possible timeframe. A full launch on the White Label was offered by the very next day and agreed upon.. The final answer with the cost and all the information from Tune / Cake didn’t come until such time when the team were creating the first offers in our new network.
With the excellent service from HOQU, the choice was virtually made for the team. There was a possibility that the other providers just had the wrong people communicating but at the affordable price tag, HOQU was a low-risk chance worth taking.
Building a HOQU Network
The team started to work with the HOQU platform. Thanks to a well-thought-out, simple system, they launched the affiliate network in 3 days, and started delivering traffic to customers ahead of schedule.
Keeping to their promise, a day after the application, the HOQU development team announced that the platform is ready for use and the networks couldn be launched.
The HOQU employees had thought out the migration from all possible CPA networks and affiliate platforms in the shortest possible time. The first step of the migration application was implemented with Hasoffer, Affise and Tune. Where the partner has a self-written platform, HOQU prepares a custom migration solution in just a few days.
As well as this, HOQU already had all the necessary solutions for the integrations that were required (those mentioned above).
HOQU were also able to supplement functionality according to new requirements of the team during the project. They understood that new ideas can arise on how to improve offers when working with the platform and they were quick to suggest the best solution.
Creating a network
Creating a network with HOQU is a very smooth and simple process.
First, you need to create an account in the system at https://hoqu.com/. Access to your personal account is opened immediately after registration. Following this, you can immediately proceed to the basic settings manually, or wait for the call of the manager to conduct a detailed onboarding and solve any problems. As the first step is simple, the team were happy to proceed on their own. This exemplifies just how easy the platform is to use.
To start ”BE CBD Affiliate” filled out information about their Network: Name, Types (CPA, СPL, СPS, etc.), country of the network representative, transaction currency, descriptions, rules, consent and logo. The set of fields is fairly standard.
Once setup, you can move on to White Label integration. The aim is to connect the project identity with the platform functionality. A landing page was created, with the login.becbdaffiliate.com/ and affiliate.becbdaffiliate.com/ links on the “Login” and “Registration” buttons, respectively, while writing down the necessary DNS parameters. Finally, the favicon was uploaded. Everything was then ready to go.
After setting up the landing page, you can safely go to the user creation section. The managers working with advertisers and affiliates were the first in the new network.
The role of the administrator of the network is selected separately.
The block of settings that were skipped earlier becomes important at this point. On this page, you can assign specific “default” managers linked to advertisers or affiliates when they connect to our network.
Finally, a payment method is created, which is how affiliates will withdraw their earned money. Previously, a third-party mass payment service had been used for this process and so the fields were filled in accordingly.
After all these simple actions are completed, the network is ready to go! You can roll out into the public, launch websites, advertisements, offers, and start making money. It took just one day to create the network, taking into account the White Label integration.
Creating an offer
Prior to showing the new brainchild to the world, the team decided to make a couple of offers. As with the initial setup, everything is very simple.. There is a separate information tab in the platform called “General”.
The tab contains name, vertical, currency, description, rules and additional notes — all the basic information on the offer.
Next are the working conditions, where you indicate the type of offer (public or private), the Hold period in days, and the allowed and prohibited methods of attracting traffic.
Once all the conditions have been filled, you go into tracking and indicate the advertiser’s link and prescribe the macros. The cookie lifespan was set at 14 days, and example.ru was set in the Trafficback field, because the model of work does not yet include this function, but the system itself suggests that it would be useful to have.
The team set themselves the task of obtaining a unique identifier, so in the macros section they registered “affiliate_info1 = {click_id} & aff_click_id = {click_id}”.
However, if suddenly you have another task, then you can consult with the manager on a clear formulation of the parameters, and the HOQU team will provide you with all the information.
Next, indicate the tariff: fixed or percentage, rate, affiliate network commission and description.
When finalizing the creation of the offer, the team prescribed the integration settings, as part of the offers comes to them from resale and integration is a necessity.
You will need to take the partner’s API Key, its offer ID and network ID, and apply them in to appropriate fields.
That is all there is to it, the first offer is also ready to go! Taking the created model as a template, it was passed to the team and started 17 offers in as little as 3 hours.
SUMMARY
One brand new affiliate network, 6 employees, 17 offers and 1 landing page were developed in just 3 working days. BE CPD Affiliate immediately started sending traffic to the advertisers and launched a small advertising campaign to attract affiliates.
Today they have more than 100 connected websites as well as more than 20 offers from major advertisers.
However, the process doesn’t stop there. Over the coming year, they aim to significantly increase traffic density and network recognition. The experience gained has clearly shown that today it is possible to launch a full-fledged network in a few days with the help of ready-made solutions and earn money without wasting a budget on development and initial “buildup”.
