If you are not already familiar, virtual goods are taking the online advertising world by storm, and though there are some dangers of social media advertising, it is an extremely profitable space. Virtual goods are basically items that users receive within social applications, and they get these virtual goods using virtual currency. How do they get virtual currency? By completing advertisements of course and many of these are trials, leads, and subscriptions found on an offer wall that was created by a publisher. According to the “Inside Virtual Goods” report by Prophetic Media, 67% of social network members use at least one application within that network. Of that number, eight percent participate in virtual goods transaction. It is further estimated that between two and three million users purchase at least one virtual gift from Facebook alone. In short, we are looking at approximately 11 million total users paying for virtual goods.
Is your interest piqued yet? If you are not already taking advantage of virtual goods, it is time to start, and one of the best ways to do that is by creating an "offer wall."
What is an offer wall and why should you create one?
Essentially offer walls serve to promote several different advertising campaigns using a single web page. This page gives users a choice of products, subscriptions, or services that they might be interested in. Offer walls are a proven successful model of converting offers across multiple campaigns with single users, this is why every advertiser, publisher, and affiliate networks should know how to create their own. Here are four simple steps that give you the tools you need to roll out your own offer wall today.
1. Offer Wall Page
Setting up a webpage is the first step in creating an offer wall. This page will have several affiliate offers on it with affiliate tracking links.
Below is a sample offer wall. It displays affiliate offers on the page and passes a user's ID into the tracking link.
http://www.hasdemo.com/offerwall/index.php?userid=12345
2. Generate Tracking Links
Find offers from your HasOffers affiliate network that you wish to include on your offer wall. Generate tracking links for them and include an affiliate sub ID.
(i.e. http://demomaster.go2jump.org/aff_c?offer_id=8&aff_id=1&aff_sub=userid-here)
Then place the tracking links on your offer wall. Use PHP to replace “userid-here” with the real user’s ID. It is generally preferred to open a new window when users click on these "tracking links," therefore keeping the offer wall up in the user's browser for an easy return.
(i.e. http://demomaster.go2jump.org/aff_c?offer_id=8&aff_id=1&aff_sub=user1423)
3. Setup Postback Page
Setup a web page that will update user points when they successfully complete offers. Refer to the postback.php page below. You will place this page as a third-party pixel on each of the offers you are going to be promoting on your offer wall. When HasOffers registers a conversion, this postback page will be loaded too. You can see how this page works by viewing it below.
http://www.hasdemo.com/offerwall/postback.php?userid=testuser12345&amount=5
4. Place Tracking Pixels<
After setting up your postback page, you will need to place a third-party pixel like the below in
HasOffers for each offer. The system will replace {aff_sub} with the user id that was passed in on click and the amount of payment that should be received.
Test Your Offer Wall
1. Go to the offer wall: http://www.hasdemo.com/offerwall/index.php?userid=12345
2. Click on link to complete Test Offer 1. This is an example of an offer so that you can easily get to the confirmation page and create conversions.
3. Click complete this offer. Notice how HasOffers loads the Postback page too.
4. Go back to http://www.hasdemo.com/offerwall/index.php?userid=12345 to see that your points are displayed.
Get Started building your own offer wall now using your HasOffers account. If you have not signed up for HasOffers yet, Sign Up Here.
COMMENTS
Wed, January 13, 2010 - 11:20 PM
Hi
great stuff
do you have some tuitorials that would help me/others set one of these up.
Cheers
Danny
Or maybe somebody else has something similar that could reccomend
Wed, January 13, 2010 - 11:21 PM
Great article. Are you resetting the session in the postback.php when the tracking pixel loads?
I notice upon refresh the conversion log goes to false, so I am just wondering what the PHP for the postback page is to achieve this—to avoid fraudulent point accumulation.
Thanks,
Michael
Wed, January 13, 2010 - 11:21 PM
Hello Lucas,
What a great informative article. I really like how you actually give instructions in it! It’s refreshing to see not everyone is out to make a buck, especially from us noobies! I’ll be looking into setting up an offerwall as you suggest.
Thanks,
Butch
Wed, January 13, 2010 - 11:21 PM
I may have to try this on some new sites I’m setting up, great post Lucas. HasOffers technology continues to grow keep it up love all this new stuff coming from hasoffers.
Wed, January 13, 2010 - 11:22 PM
Lucas - very informative post. I would love for you to do a guest post on my blog. Lot of my publishers are starting to use your product.
Rick
Wed, January 13, 2010 - 11:22 PM
Great post! I may have to setup one of these just for the heck of it…
Wed, January 13, 2010 - 11:22 PM
Some video tutorials would be highly appreciated. Thanks.
Tue, April 20, 2010 - 3:14 PM
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Sat, May 22, 2010 - 10:11 AM
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