Many affiliates who rely on blackhat methods struggle with challenges like strict moderation when driving traffic from various sources. However, affiliate marketing opportunities extend far beyond just blackhat verticals.
Lead generation offers can provide an excellent ROI since there are now many whitehat offers on the market that allow you to compliantly drive traffic. In this article, we'll take an in-depth look at the world of lead generation — examining the different types of offers, weighing their advantages and disadvantages, and showcasing real examples and case studies to learn from.
What are lead generation offers?
Lead-gen or lead generation offers are offers that require users to complete a survey or submit a form in order to gain access to an advertiser's product or service. Affiliates generally get paid on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis — earning a commission for each call, sale, or verified lead generated.
Some lead generation campaigns use a revenue share model instead, where the advertiser gives the affiliate a cut of the revenue generated. The lead generation vertical encompasses a wide range of legitimate, above-board industries like education, legal services, and more. These offers go through official certification, provide real value to consumers, and are run by reputable companies and institutions.
Whitehat lead generation offers are allowed on most major ad platforms and traffic sources. They often promote services but can include physical products as well. Most of these offers target Tier 1 countries, especially the US, where traffic is high-quality and payouts are strong. With the right offer, affiliates can generate consistent profits.
Top strategies for driving traffic to lead generation offers
Method 1 – Direct linking
The simplest approach is to take a direct tracking link from the advertiser and start sending traffic to it. Ad networks like MyBid are a great fit for this — with extremely low costs for Tier 1 traffic (as little as $0.00169 per click) and hands-on campaign management to help you set up, launch and optimize profitable campaigns, even if you're new to lead generation.
Method 2 – Pay Per Call model
Some advertisers will allow you to route leads directly to their call center to convert them over the phone. This works especially well with Google Ads campaigns that let you bid and optimize specifically for call traffic.
Method 3 – Website Integration
For affiliates with experience in search engine optimization (SEO), integrating lead collection forms on their websites or utilizing the advertiser's API to transfer leads can be a profitable approach. While not a traditional method of driving traffic, this method can still generate substantial income from lead generation offers.
Integrating with ad platforms like MyBid is also an option. They work with thousands of advertisers across 200+ countries and can programmatically display the most relevant offer to each site visitor.
Types of offers
Finance
The financial vertical includes a wide variety of products and services, such as credit cards, insurance, debt relief, and more. As the finance market keeps growing, you can take advantage of this opportunity by promoting these offers through different traffic sources. Financial products are often supported by well-known advertisers, which helps build trust with the target audience and can lead to higher conversion rates.
Education
Education offers revolve around the promotion of courses (e.g., professional development), writing services for academic papers and essays, tutoring services, and more.
When promoting education offers, it is important to consider the broad target audience, which includes students, housewives, and adult learners. By understanding the diverse needs and preferences of this audience, affiliates can craft compelling marketing messages and target their campaigns effectively.
Home services
These offers cover a wide range of services related to home maintenance and improvements, such as window installation, roof repair, and professional services (e.g., plumbing, and electrical work). The home services market is vast, with a significant portion of the population utilizing these services regularly. For example, surveys indicate that approximately 76% of American homeowners hire a repairman at least once a year, and the industry's volume reached $1.1 billion in 2023.
Window installation services are also popular across many European geographies.
Pros and cons of promoting lead generation offers
Pros
- Whitehat niche: Lead generation is considered a whitehat niche, making it easier to promote compared to niches like gambling or nutra. Affiliates are less likely to encounter issues with creative moderation or account bans.
- Stable campaigns: Lead generation campaigns tend to have a longer lifespan, as the flow of traffic is consistent and abundant. This allows affiliates to generate profits over an extended period without frequent campaign updates.
- Versatility: The lead generation market offers a wide variety of offers from advertisers, making it easy for affiliates to find suitable offers to promote. Additionally, lead generation offers are compatible with most traffic sources, providing affiliates with flexibility in their marketing campaigns.
Cons
- Lower ROI: Compared to verticals like gambling or nutra, lead generation offers often have a lower return on investment (ROI).
- Creative restrictions: Some advertisers are particularly protective of their brand image and may require affiliates to use only pre-approved advertising materials, limiting creative freedom.
- Data regulations: When collecting leads independently and transferring them to advertisers, affiliates must adhere to strict rules regarding the storage and processing of personal data to ensure compliance with relevant regulations.
Successful case studies for promoting lead generation offers
Case study 1: Making $15,000 Profit in 2 Months by promoting a bankruptcy lead generation offer
- Traffic Source: Facebook
- Expenses: $42,760
- Income: $57,890
- Profit: $15,130
- ROI: 35.4%
The US bankruptcy market for lawyer services is highly competitive, requiring significant effort to find a good offer. An offer with a CPL (Cost Per Lead) of $11 was selected. The advertiser had to review and approve all creatives and promotional materials to ensure compliance with advertising rules.
Images of money, checks, happy people with cash, and credit cards were used to supplement advertising posts, which showed the best conversion rates.
The most successful creative featured a simple message about the benefits of the service.
The affiliate tested 15 pre-landers (landing pages) and narrowed it down to the two best-performing ones with CTRs (Click-Through Rates) ranging from 37% to 49%.
The first pre-lander asked two simple questions to filter out customers interested in the service.
The second pre-lander was an article describing the positive results of the service.
The affiliate targeted only states that showed high EPC (Earnings Per Click) and achieved an ROI of 25% after two weeks of testing and optimization.
The affiliate also used pixel targeting, retargeting, and lookalike audiences, resulting in a high conversion rate of 21%.
Case Study 2: Generating a 73% ROI by promoting a Solar Panel lead generation offer on TikTok
- Traffic source: TikTok
- Expenses: $2,439
- Income: $4,230
- Profit: $1,791
- ROI: 73%
The affiliate chose a lead generation offer for solar panel installation services and tested it on TikTok. Based on the test traffic results, the target audience was identified by state and age.
The campaign's goal was to complete registration.
The ad creative featured a video of solar panel installation work with text highlighting the benefits and a clear call to action. 
The informative and relaxed video converted well for the service and passed TikTok's strict moderation process quickly.
Conclusion
Lead generation for whitehat offers presents an excellent opportunity for stable earnings. The advantages include a large market size, low competition among affiliate marketers, and easy integration with advertising platforms. However, there are also drawbacks, such as lower ROI and market rules, including creative approval requirements and collected lead storage regulations.
Lead generation allows affiliates to test various approaches using different ad formats. In the MyBid ad network, every affiliate is assigned a personal manager who can help the affiliate to select the necessary ad creatives, launch, and optimize advertising campaigns to maximize success in the lead generation space.
