The difference between a Sales Manager in CPA and AdNetwork: how to find the right specialist?

For employers in the arbitrage field, finding an experienced sales manager is quite a challenge. Recruiters often don't understand the difference between CPA sales and AdNetwork sales and don't grasp why a manager from an ad network would not hire a specialist from the affiliate network. As a result, the employer spends time reviewing irrelevant resumes, and the recruiter spends time searching for a candidate in the wrong area.

We are the recruiting agency ADHUNT. In this article, we want to show what happens behind the scenes of hiring in Affiliate Marketing: what is the difference between sales managers in two directions and what candidates employers want to see in CPA networks, and which ones in AdNetworks. 

The article will be useful for:

• Employers in affiliate marketing – to forward it to their recruiters 🙂 and understand what is important to convey to the recruiter in order to save their own time on resume screening.
• Recruiters – to understand the intricacies of the industry and bring only relevant sales managers to clients.
• Novice sales managers – to understand what experience is required for CPA networks and AdNetworks.

Who is a sales manager and their role in a CPA network and AdNetwork

Let's go over the main concepts.

A sales manager is a specialist whose main task is to attract new advertisers and clients to the advertising or CPA network. They establish contacts with potential clients, provide information about the network's offers and services, and close deals.

A CPA network (affiliate network, partner network, affiliate program network) is an aggregator that hosts advertisers' offers on its platform, finds partners, and facilitates cooperation between the two parties for a commission based on the order amount. 

In other words, an affiliate network connects offer owners with people willing to find traffic for these offers.

Tasks of a sales manager in a CPA network:

• Attract advertisers with direct offers.
• Find those who will generate traffic for these offers.

An AdNetwork is a traffic “marketplace”. It connects publishers (website owners) with advertisers who need traffic.

Tasks of a sales manager in an AdNetwork:

• Attract advertisers who are looking for traffic sources:
• Arbitrageurs
• Media buyers or media buying agencies
• Products with their own in-house media buying team

Despite the similarity in basic skills (ability to attract and persuade clients to make a purchase), these are largely different roles and experiences.

Let's take a closer look at what experience distinguishes a sales manager from a CPA network from a sales manager from an AdNetwork.

Why sales managers in CPA and AdNetwork are not interchangeable specialists

1. Different clients

Advertisers in CPA networks and AdNetworks are different client bases with different goals.

A sales manager in an AdNetwork seeks those who purchase traffic based on CPM, CPC models, and sometimes CPA: 

• CPM - the advertiser pays for one thousand impressions,
• CPC - the advertiser pays for each click,
• CPA - the advertiser pays for a specific action by the user (form submission, registration, or purchase).  

In an affiliate network, the sales manager seeks not those willing to buy traffic, but those who will find traffic for the advertiser elsewhere – affiliates, arbitrageurs, media buyers. In other words, a sales manager in a partner network acts as an intermediary between the direct advertiser and the affiliate.

Furthermore, a sales manager in a CPA network finds offers (direct or not) and negotiates favorable payouts and their terms. 

Meanwhile, affiliate networks only work with the CPA model. 

To summarize:

• A sales manager in an AdNetwork seeks demand for traffic, 
• A sales manager in a CPA network seeks demand for offers or advertisers willing to provide offers.

2. Different methods of interacting with clients

A key skill of any sales manager is the ability to retain partners and prolong the interaction to the maximum. To do this, one must understand the nuances of traffic sales and know how to optimize campaigns. Here, both specialists face different challenges.

Skills to improve for a sales manager in CPA

• The ability to find a good offer. A sales manager in an affiliate network looks for those who buy traffic on a CPA basis. Usually, this model is easier to sell: many prefer to pay only for tangible results, as it is profitable and provides guarantees. However, not all offers work well on a CPA basis. Advertisers don't take this into account, and in affiliate networks, there are thousands of identical offers that ultimately don't convert due to their low quality. Hence the main challenge for a sales manager in a CPA network: finding advertisers with a unique product that works well on this model. To do this, it’s important to understand the principle by which traffic is distributed in the network, be able to assess the quality of the offer in advance, and predict conversion rates.

• Constant monitoring of traffic quality and fighting fraud. For example, if an advertiser pays for completed forms, a webmaster may attract motivated traffic by paying for completed forms or offering another bonus. The conditions for receiving this bonus will be met, but the advertiser won't receive sales from such traffic. 

Skills to improve for a sales manager in AdNetwork

• Understanding analytics from the perspective of interacting with publishers. For example, why there is less traffic today from specific sites than yesterday. 
• Ability to optimize traffic. To retain advertisers, a sales manager must assist them in obtaining only relevant traffic. To do this, it’s important to constantly monitor the situation: which traffic sources are effective, which ones should be discontinued, and what options can be offered to increase profit for both parties.

3. Different payment methods

CPA networks almost always operate on a post-payment model, which entails numerous risks and opportunities for fraud that sales managers must deal with.

Cooperation with AdNetworks often involves pre-payment: the advertiser tops up the balance and uses it to purchase advertising. This requires effort from the sales manager to find clients willing to make a pre-payment and retain them.

Why employers prefer experienced sales managers

In most cases, employers prefer professionals with relevant experience because:

• Such specialists are capable of adapting more quickly to the needs of clients and partners;
• Working with an experienced professional accelerates their integration and saves the business money.

In general, an employer from an AdNetwork can hire a specialist from a CPA network. However, in this case, they’ll need to spend time and resources to retrain the person for the required niche. It's similar to different programming languages in the IT world: the field is the same, but the knowledge and skills set are different.

Training can take around 1 month. Some time will be spent on building a client base. However, whether the client is willing to take a specialist with different experience and retrain them entirely depends on the available resources. 

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If you are looking for an experienced sales manager, reach out to us on Telegram. We'll find a relevant candidate for you within 2 weeks. 

And if you're interested in learning more about our services and rates, visit our website.