Push traffic is the most accessible source for starting in affiliate marketing: clicks from $0.001, instant moderation, no account farming and no ad account bans. The flip side — a "cold" audience and plenty of bots on cheap placements. Here is how to squeeze profit out of push instead of feeding junk subscriptions.
How it works
A user once clicked "Allow notifications" on some website — and joined a push network''s base. You pay per click (CPC) on your ad: icon + small image + a ~30-character headline + one line of text. The click goes to a prelander or straight to the offer. A separate format is in-page push: a banner imitating a notification on the page itself; it also works on iOS where classic web push does not exist.
What converts on push
- Dating — the eternal push classic: simple SOI/DOI offers, cheap to test.
- Nutra — weight loss, joints, vision through a story prelander.
- Gambling and betting — especially tied to sports events.
- Antivirus, utilities, sweepstakes — convert on broad cheap geos.
CPC benchmarks: Tier-3 (India, Bangladesh, Africa) — $0.001–0.01, Tier-2 (LatAm, Eastern Europe, Asia) — $0.01–0.05, Tier-1 (US, Europe) — $0.05–0.5. Starting with Tier-2/3 makes sense: statistics come cheap.
Creatives that work
A push ad disguises itself as a personal notification — that is its power. What works: messenger imitation ("1 new message"), curiosity gaps, emoji in headlines, localization into the geo''s language (raw machine translation kills CTR). Creatives burn out in 3–7 days — prepare a batch in advance and check spy tools: whatever runs for weeks is profitable.
Optimization: where the money actually is
The core work in push is placement cleaning. Traffic comes from thousands of source sites (site IDs), and half of them are bots or junk. The routine: run with site ID passed to your tracker → after 3–5 days cut placements that spent 2–3 conversion prices with zero leads → build a whitelist from survivors and raise bids on it. The second axis is subscription freshness: user bases "younger than 7 days" convert several times better but cost more; test both segments separately.
Typical mistakes
- Sending cold push traffic straight to the offer without a prelander.
- Judging a campaign before each placement spent 2–3 conversion prices.
- One creative "for all geos" without localization.
- Ignoring dayparting: every geo has its active hours; nighttime is bots.
Push forgives mistakes with cheap clicks but demands discipline with numbers. Bring your questions about networks and geos to the Push traffic section — we will go through your numbers.