Pay per view advertising is interesting, in part, because you’re presenting offers to a unique audience type. The people who’ll be viewing your ads have all agreed to download the PPV company’s Adware. While you can’t read too much into this fact, it does have an impact on the way one should approach the practice.
What do you know about the audience for your ads? Obviously, you have some idea about them based upon the search queries they’ll be making or the URLs they’ll be visiting. You know something else, too. They agreed to download the software that shows them your advertisements in exchange for some inducement.
Think about what that means about this particular audience, compared to other audiences you may approach with different advertising strategies.
You know that these people are willing to download items from third parties. That indicates that their either incredibly tech savvy and comfortable in their computer security and protections or, as is more often the case, they’re just not that concerned about bringing in third party materials. Either they don’t realize the potential for risk or they don’t care. In either case, you know that you’re putting an offer in front of people who will click a “download now” link.
If you know a little about the PPV company with whom you’re doing business, you’ll also know what kind of inducement probably led them to become a part of the PPV user base. You’ll know what they wanted badly enough to accept the software. Some PPV companies “recruit” by offering free game access to its members. The fact that someone is willing to download third party ad- serving software in exchange for a free video game should tell you something about his or her interests and habits.
When you think about facts like these, it’s not surprising to discover that PPV advertisers tend to have the best luck with CPA offers that require the completion of quick, small forms in order to secure payment and list-building offers that provide users with free information in exchange for their email address and permission to contact them with future mailings.
It’s also not surprising to learn that offers premised on showing people a sales page for a product don’t tend to do as well. It wouldn’t be fair to characterize PPV audiences as collections of tire-kickers, but they definitely trend away from being immediate buyers.
Before you start building PPV campaigns based on these assessments, it’s important to recognize their limits. You can’t assume that the kind of observations we just made our universally true. That’s because there are exceptions to every rule. There are older potential customers who’ll be happy to pull out their credit cards in response to a good offer who also have an interest in video games. You can’t assume that all members of a PPV company’s user base built on game freebies are kids.
Additionally, it’s important to remember that most computers are used by a number of household members. One may have installed the adware, but others may then see the ads.
It’s important to understand the general composition of PPV audiences. That information can help you create winning campaigns. However, it’s also important to recognize that those generalizations aren’t wholly accurate in all situations and that there is room for profitable campaigns that don’t “fit” the larger model.