What is the difference in affiliate marketing between west and east: why in Europe and in Asia they understand this way of making money on the Internet differently

Today we’ll talk about the western and eastern CPA community, since the terminology and approach to affiliate marketing in these countries is fundamentally different (and even called differently). If you carefully analyze approaches to affiliate marketing in different countries, it turns out that in the Eastern Internet, affiliate marketing was initially associated with gray niches, and sometimes with deceit, while in Europe and the USA this is an adequate model for working with business. In this article, we will understand the inner workings of affiliate marketing in different countries and just have a good time. Let's go! 

Features of traffic arbitrage in Western countries

Communicating with Western webmasters at international conferences, we realized for ourselves that 99% of them do not know at all about the existence of such concepts as account farming, first billing, cloaking, generation of documents for passing FB checkpoints, etc. Their main source traffic was, is, and, apparently, in the next 100 years there will be sites and blogs with review articles. In their professional forums, 95% of the time they discuss copywriting, buying domains, link building and other SEO stuff.

In addition, in affiliate marketing in western countries, advertising networks with push, native, pop and banner ads are perceived as one of the reliable ways to attract thousands of leads at a sweet price. Many owners of blogs and sites with quality targeted traffic often connect to ad networks as publishers.

Another feature of the Western affiliate marketing market is that CPA networks provide access exclusively to licensed offers, even in gray verticals. But in 99% of cases, affiliate networks cooperate with advertisers who promote white offers, the payouts for which are much higher than in Eastern networks. 

That is, even if Western webmasters generate traffic from push notifications, they work mainly with e-commerce offers, honest promotional offers (for example, sweepstakes), gaming, insurance, travel and install verticals. Here they pour even on booking business jets and expensive real estate.

Let me give you one interesting example. One of the Canadian webmasters, whom we recently met at a conference in Brazil, honestly earns $35,000-50,000+ per month on four affiliate programs in the pet products niche. For reference, I note that in 2020 alone, US residents spent almost $104 billion on goods in this category. 

I also had a chance to communicate with those guys who combine traffic from their own websites and advertising networks with exorbitant ROI, generating traffic to offers of such major players in the American market as Walmart.

By the way, that webmaster from Canada shared another interesting insight, how affiliate marketing works in western countries. During periods when there is a drawdown in the number of visitors on his sites and blog, he throws $200-400 into the advertising network and drives the audience from the desired GEO with push notifications to landing pages. An increase in site traffic due to a large number of verified sites connected to the network, as well as an increase in engagement and behavioral factors helps to bring the site to the best positions in the search results in the shortest possible time.

I will add one small fly in the ointment to this barrel of honey, which can confuse many webmasters from the CIS countries. Payouts in most Western affiliate programs are made exclusively to official bank accounts or in the form of checks that need to be cashed. Moreover, when registering in such affiliate networks, the webmaster should be ready to provide the most detailed information about himself, and in some cases, also about the persons who are ready to vouch for him.

What is the difference between affiliate marketing in the post-soviet space

In Eastern Europe, affiliate marketing (traffic arbitrage) is associated with something illegal due to working with gray verticals. Many webmasters, having seen the size of the commission in gray verticals, started/continued to launch to gambling, betting, adult, nutra, crypto and other verticals, the promotion of which is strictly regulated by law and the rules of advertising platforms.

Driving traffic on such offers in which the user makes an impulsive decision is much easier. Especially if you promise bonuses and embellish the offer in the creative. It is also easier and cheaper to attract Target Audience to gray offers from sources such as push notifications, pops, banner ads, etc.

The local webmasters, due to their mentality, are not particularly eager to work with white verticals, since in most cases advertisers prohibit pouring on the brand. At the same time, the requirements for sources and the hold period will be much stricter than in the gray verticals, since the advertiser maintains all the accounting officially.

When working with gray verticals, webmasters are forced to use the same gray methods of promotion, which involve finding ways to bypass advertising platform bans, IP spoofing, generating documents for verification, etc. 

Instead of a conclusion

Differences in affiliate marketing in different countries are really strong. This is influenced not only by the mental characteristics of the community, formed in local chats and forums, but also by the regulation of the Internet in these parts of the world. At the same time, each affiliate, regardless of place of residence, can pour traffic, both white and gray, receive payment to a bank account or crypto wallet. Personal choice for everyone!