MenaClicks

Performance based marketing or what is also referred to Affiliate Marketing or CPA (Cost Per Action) is still limited in the Middle East.

That’s because over the past ten years the market has been dominated by regional portals belonging to well established media networks like TVs and Newspapers with huge resources in terms of content creation and advertising. Those websites will definitely be looking more for CPM campaigns as their traffic is more or less general and it is easier for them to sell their digital advertising space on a CPM basis.

The mistake that smaller and newly established websites make is that they try to copy the business model of the well established ones and try to sell their advertising space on a CPM basis too. As an alternative, those websites turn to CPC like Google Ads in order to monetize their traffic even though the revenue per click is very minimal. The argument here is that “something” is better than “nothing”.

What about Affiliate Marketing or CPA? Have you thought about it? Do you know how it works?

The Affiliate or performance based marketing will only grow with the creation of new micro sites and professional blogs in our region and that are able to attract a new kind of traffic looking for original and user generated content. The European and North American markets are mature in this regards, where a successful blog can attract Millions of readers because of the quality and originality of its content. These websites or blogs use Affiliate Marketing to generate a higher return from their traffic as they can perform more targeted campaigns that appeal to their readers. This doesn’t mean that they should be relying on Affiliate Marketing only to generate their revenue; a more successful approach is to combine Affiliate Marketing (CPA) with other kinds of online advertising methods such as CPC and CPM in order to maximize their return on investment depending on the behaviour of the traffic on their site.

The difference between Affiliate Marketing and the other methods of Online Advertising methods is that the Ad placed on the website will generate revenue only when the traffic is directed to the Advertiser’s website and an “action” is performed. An “action” could be making a purchase or submitting contact information or maybe subscribing to a newsletter. The revenue generated from this kind of campaigns is usually much higher than the one generated through CPC and the best part of it is that you have full control over it. It’s you who decides what is advertised on your site and not a certain set of keywords like in CPC.

In my opinion, we are currently living the transformation in the Middle East where we are hearing more and more about new websites being created and advertised by young entrepreneurs and web enthusiasts. A lot of these websites are covering interesting subjects or offering new services that don’t exist in our market yet. Hopefully we will also see the emergence of more specialized blogs that cover subjects like Technologies, Finance, Business, Fashion, Food, Travel and many more…

With all this been said, the MenaClicks Affiliate Network decided to enter the Affiliate Marketing world in the Middle East and start with it from it’s infancy by trying to link local Advertisers from the Middle East and North Africa with the Websites and Blogs that are looking for alternative ways to monetizing their traffic and generating enough revenue to help them grow and attract a wider audience.