How to Start Advertising with PropellerAds Network

As an affiliate marketer, one of your main goals is to drive traffic to your site or offer. Without a steady stream of visitors, you won’t be able to generate leads or sales. However, finding a reliable traffic source can be a challenge. There are many factors to consider, such as cost, quality, and delivery speed.

While there are many different traffic networks out there, PropellerAds is a great option for affiliates. They offer a wide range of ad formats, including popunders and push notifications, so you can find the perfect way to reach your audience. Plus, its platform is pretty easy to use.

In this article, we’ll discuss everything you’ll need to know about PropellerAds so you can start advertising with ease. We’ll also discuss some of the reasons why it is the go-to ad network of many affiliates.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

What is PropellerAds?

If you’re new in the affiliate marketing business, you’ve likely heard of PropellerAds. Founded in 2011, PropellerAds is now one of the leading players in the affiliate advertising industry today. It works with media buyers of all sizes to help them reach their target audiences.

The platform is not limited to traditional ads—it also offers push advertising, popunder ads, and interstitial ads. So no matter what your advertising goals are, PropellerAds can likely help you achieve them if you know how to work with these types of traffic.

Of course, they’re not perfect. Like any ad network, they have their fair share of issues. But overall, they’re a powerful tool that any serious media buyer should consider using.

PropellerAds Best Features

Now that we’ve covered the basics of PropellerAds let’s take a closer look at some of its best features.

Self-Serve Platform

PropellerAds offers a self-serve platform, so you can get started with advertising on this network without having to go through an intermediary. This makes the process much simpler and more streamlined.

You also have full control over all your ads—whatever you want to pause, activate, edit, or bid higher and lower is all up to you.

Wide Range of Ad Formats

As we mentioned, PropellerAds offers multiple ad formats, including on-click ads, interstitials, and push notifications. Let’s talk about each one.

On-Click Ads

These are some of the cheapest traffic you can find online. There are two types of on-click ads within PropellerAds, and these are:

• Popunder ads – These full-page ads appear when the user clicks on any part of the publisher’s website. They open in a separate tab or window underneath the active tab.

• Direct click ads – It is a high-performing ad type that usually comes from domain parking. It is a high-performing ad type that opens in the active tab and usually comes from domain parking. Direct Click ads are served on the already happened themed clicks so no need to think about creatives.

Push Notification Ads

PropellerAds also offers push notification ads. There are also two types of this ad, which are:

• Classic Push – These are the alert-style messages that you see on your desktop or mobile screen, even when you’re not actively browsing the web.

One of the advantages of push notification ads is that they can reach users who are not actively online. So if you want to stay in front of your audience even when they’re not actively browsing, push notification ads are a great option.

• In-Page Push – In-Page Push notifications are similar in look to Classic Push notifications, but they appear within the publisher’s website instead of as a separate alert. In reality, it is a banner ad packaged as a push notification.

One of the advantages of In-Page Push ads is that they can appear on all kinds of devices, whereas the classic push ad can only appear on Android, Windows, and Mac devices.

Interstitial Ads

Interstitial ads are also banner ads though they show up as an overlay ad over the active page’s content. While these are not full-paged ads, they have high viewability since the user will not be able to see the main content unless the ad is closed.

Auto-Optimization

You know what they say, time is money! And nowhere is that truer than in the world of online advertising. You could spend hours poring over your campaign results, analyzing data, and trying to figure out which traffic sources are most likely to give you the conversions you want. Or you could try your hand at auto-optimization.

While the platform is a self-service one, you still have the option for hands-free advertising if you want. PropellerAds offers a few types of auto-optimization options:

• CPA Goal and CPA Goal 2.0

CPA Goal is an auto-optimization tool that will help you drive conversions at the target price you set. It’s able to predict which traffic slices are most likely to deliver quality conversions and then optimize your campaign accordingly. 

In order to make sure your campaign is truly effective, it must go through a testing period. This is when the algorithm tests ad placements and their conversion rates. Only by analyzing this data can the system determine an efficient CPM bid.

So during the testing period, don’t be surprised if the cost of traffic exceeds your CPA Goal. Once the period is over, you should see a dramatic reduction in costs.

• SmartCPM

The SmartCPM pricing model is a nifty little tool that automatically finds the best prices for ad placements and sets bids for you around the clock. This means you don’t have to regularly check your campaign to bid at recommended prices.

If you’re looking to create a campaign with a high win rate to get more traffic, this is the perfect option.

• Rule-Based Optimization

With Rule-Based Optimization, you can set rules based on ad spend, conversions, CPA, ROI and conversion rate. Whenever your requirements are met, the system will take action to support and improve your campaign’s performance. With it, you can set up two working conditions, depending on your needs.

To make this work, you only need to set up the following:

• The condition. IF {CPA, ROI, CR, conversions or spend} IS {lower or higher} than ${amount}
• Tracking period. WITHIN a specified time frame (1 hour, 24 hours, 1 week)
• Required system action. THEN {increase zone bid, decrease zone bid, exclude zone} by ${amount} stop at ${amount}

This optimization option is only available for CPC campaigns.

Retargeting

Retargeting is one of the most effective ways to increase conversions since you’re targeting people who have already shown an interest in what you’re selling.

You can collect audiences to remarket to people who have already clicked ads in the campaign, or to those who have completed conversions in the same or another campaign.

Low Minimum Deposit

You don’t need to spend a lot of money to get started with PropellerAds. In fact, you can start running ads with as little as $100 in your account.

This is great for those who are just starting out with media buying for affiliate offers. You can test the waters and see if PropellerAds is a good fit for you.

How to Create Your First Campaign in PropellerAds

Now that we’ve gone through some of PropellerAds’ best features let’s move forward with running ads with them. Creating a campaign in PropellerAds is very simple and only takes a few minutes. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Create Account and Add Funds

First, you need to log in to your account and deposit funds into it. If you don’t have an account yet, no worries—just head over to Propellerads.com and sign up for one.

You can do this by going to the “Add Funds” section and choosing one of the payment methods available. You can top up at least $100 using bank cards, PayPal, and Skrill, and $1,000 for wire transfer.

Of course, you can also create a campaign first before topping up your account. But all the same, your campaign will not run without funds in your account.

Step 2: Create a Campaign

Once you’ve deposited funds, you can start creating your first campaign by clicking on the “Create Campaign” button at the top of the dashboard.

You will then be taken to the campaign creation page, where you will need to create a name for your campaign, choose your ad format, select the traffic type, and choose a pricing model.

There are five pricing models, but their availability depends on the ad format:

• CPC – push notification ads and interstitial ads
• CPM – all ad formats
• SmartCPM – on-click ads
• CPA Goal – push notification ads and interstitial ads
• CPA Goal 2.0 – on-click ads

After that, you will need to add some basic details about your offer, such as the target URL, target filters, and budget.

Next, add the creatives as necessary. You can split-test up to 8 creatives for push ads and interstitials. With on-click ads, you only need to add your target URL (which can be your affiliate link or your tracking link).

Depending on the ad format and pricing model you choose, you can also enable Rule-based Optimization and Smart Optimization.

Once you’re done, click on Start Campaign to submit the campaign for moderation.

Step 3: Wait for Campaign Approval

PropellerAd’s moderation team is pretty fast when it comes to making sure the creatives and landing pages pass their requirements. It typically takes a few minutes up to an hour for a campaign to be approved.

To avoid rejection, make sure your ads don’t fall under any of the prohibited content categories as outlined here.

Once your campaign is approved, it will start receiving traffic based on your targets.

And that’s it!

You will surely get the hang of using the PropellerAds platform after creating ang running a couple of campaigns.

The Bottom Line

PropellerAds is a great ad network for affiliate marketers, especially those in the dating, Utility Apps, and finance niche. They have high-converting ad formats, good traffic volume, and very competitive prices.

So if you’re looking for a reliable traffic source for your affiliate marketing journey, we definitely recommend that you try PropellerAds.