CPA Polls - Do they Work?

I've had varied success with polls.

Some win, some lose.

The key with polls is to launch lots and lots of them and see what works. Drop the ones which don't and then scale the ones which do.

Sounds obvious I know, but a lot of people just concentrate on launching a couple of polls, they don't profit and then wonder what they did wrong.

Thing is they didn't necessarily do anything wrong, it just they need to keep launching and testing until they find something which does work.

The ones which seem to work best (in my experience) are the ones targeted at a younger (maybe more naive) surfer. They are more likely to plug in their email or zip code to win an i-phone, whereas older surfers can be more skeptical about these offers (we all know you get nothing for free, right?)

Well, free products usually don't pay well so I stay away from them. My concept is if I am paying $.30 per click on PPC then my product should give me at least $30 factoring in the 1% CTR. I would never promote email/zip submits using PPC.

As far as using polls I stay away from them. They are somewhat played out. I can't say this without informing you that people make good money with polls but they also do it with organic traffic and they don't really use PPC.

This is just my opinion. Building a good solid poll and getting it ranked in google is probably the best route to take.

Shawn

I just started doing the polling. One important note - I was planning to advertise in content network only but with the changes Google made my ads ended up in search as well before I caught it, so be careful! So I'm now trying to pay $72 in Adwords charges. However, I do have $21 from leads in my network account. Payout isn't until $100, though.

I do plan to do polls again and track once they are set up correctly. I did one poll on a popular thing going on today. I do not mention the free whatever in the poll. I only set up the ad to mention a poll. I made my landing page of simple HTML and the landing page's yes or no links went to the offer site. I stuck with the gift card offers and a free cruise offer and the cruise offer got the most leads.

I'm in the process of getting approved by another CPA company and plan to continue to do polls and maybe building mini-sites around particular offers in the future.

I wrote a bit about my first attempt at a poll on my Freebies blog and will continue that information once I get Google paid and try it again. I also plan to revamp my polling website and my landing pages while I get the money together and work on other sites as well. After I do a few polls, I may write up a case study about the experience, but all that is pretty new to me so we'll see.

They do still work, definitely. The best training for it, is through PPC Coach, there is a whole sub forum dedicated to it, and there are a lot of new posts everday. Lots of great information. I also talk about it in my cpa wso.

Basically you have to get the people emotionally involved. A question like "Do You like Coke?" isn't going to get as many people responding as "Is Abortion Morally Wrong?" Post some of your exact questions on polls for CPA and I will respond best I can here.

Polls still do work. The main trick is to find a "news worthy" event and target that before anyone else. Once you have a story (such as Jackson's death) you can find a offer (email, zip, short survey) in which the person voting would be interested in.

Sometimes I don't even send the visitor to an offer but create my own survey (single opt) and let them sign up. I can then later send him / her offers over and over ....

Also, as a traffic source, the content network is the best solution

I agree the MJ keywords probably still rock. I let that one go, I just didnt have the time (two little ones running around here). I find news worthy stuff by looking at other poll sites, like sodahead and that. I also check google trends.

Oh, and yes, only do the polls on the content network, small keyword groups (20-50) keywords.

Polls work great with hotbutton issues and topical items, with email submits I usually put an email field up front so I can prepop it into the offer, fire a postback to my own list, or both. I've never had one convert well into a long form, I agree with jestershaw a 1% conversion ratio is fairly typical in that case.

See i am actually on the other end. I do well with email/zip submits using polls and don't take anything less than 70% hop through, and 50% conversions.

For those who do a squeeze page and start a list, how do you do that? What do you say on your landing page? I've not started that yet because I'm not sure about building a list quite yet.

As jakesellers mentioned, if you can find a prepop offer then that is definitely increasing the your conversion.

Also, nowadays it is pretty easy to set up these offers as there are two main poll offer generators out there. One is php based the other WP (wordpress).

Go and try it out. We can only tell you so much.

routonc38, you have to put together a page that asks people for their email address, offer them something in return, give them a reason to trust you, show your expertise, and test the page with every variable you can.

Opleads, I think there are more than 2 poll offer generators, but I have to agree, you have to try these things yourself, you can't make anything with out giving it a shot.

I have heard that polls and email submits really work well if you target the right niche, but i havent tried yet.

Yeah you have to target them with keywords on the content network to get them to work, but yeah, you should give it a shot.

They work especially when you target the hot topics and trends. Google trends is awesome for this.

You guys want to do a poll, you got a topic! Sara Palin is resigning. Go for it! Make a landing page, pick an offer and get R Done!

The Huff, content network means we advertise in Google's content network for Adwords, not the search results. It's cheaper than search and will only come up on related sites. My polls ended up being in search AND content, which is why I owe $72 now instead of $50 - the clicks got away from me.

The Sarah Palin resignation will be very hot you hit the nail on the head

Wow, I didnt know Palin was resigning, how come? That is awesome! Here come the polls, woo hoo!!

CPA polls used to work well pre-2006. People these days generally just close their windows upon seeing them - we're a lot web savvier now and simple tricks like this don't work nearly as well as they used to.

what are you giving away or does it matter? Gift cards? Etc...?

I still see polls do very well in 2009, so I dont agree with the pre-2006 comment, but everyone has a different experience.

What you give away is usually gift cards, ipods, small things like that, that are believable, in my experience anyway.

Mary Green

Pre-pop campaigns are a must if you are doing polls if you want to build a list as well as sell. I agree with all the comments of MaryGreen and Dmarzean that polls definitely work for the right niches. Many networks that run just incentivized traffic will provide you with pre-pop code if you can demonstrate that you can drive qualified traffic. As a CPA Network, we look for the traffic that does well for the advertiser on both the front and the back end. If your traffic converts well for the advertiser then you will get more love from your AM on these offers.

Polls on hot topics that can glean a little demogrpahic info as well, helps in identifying which offer you show them at the end. So if your poll provider has the capabilty for you to be able to structure if/then type outcome decision making, you can display different final pages to men as opposed to women, or younger users vs older users. I did this with a health offer that asked the users to fill out a 16 question poll on their health. Nearly 70% filled it out and gave their email address and name again at the end, all to get a report on how to alleviate acid reflux. When they got to the last page we displayed offers based on their responses. Much better conversion that way. In fact we had 5% of the people who filled it out tell us they had mesotheliomia, which we were able to broker those leads to lead buyers who specialized in these patients. It was very lucrative.

I never even tried the cruise sign ups, will have to try that. i have always stuck with what works, you know?

Doug
You're a pretty cool guy. Many Warriors would have sold your method as a WSO.
I wish you great success in all your biz activities. Hopefully you are a appreciated
for you contribution.

Mrgoogle, was it on a new account?

Sometimes it can take a while for them to review new campaigns. Just keep making more campaigns, and they will get to you. Good Luck!

I know Poll Method is the best method to promote E-mail Submit offers, but I was just wondering, is there is any other effective method to promote them?

Thanks.

Email works, but you really have to test everything to see what works. Polls are great, but giving away free items works with zip/email offers too.

Okay, now I'm fed up with polls. $100 total between my first one and this weekend and pretty much nothing. And some of the polls I posted are "pending review" and have just sat there all weekend. Big Bummer.

Guys, you might not be doing something right with these polls. Send me a pm with the links to your polls and tell me how you set up the campaigns and I will help.

Yes, they definitely do still work as I can attest to it. The key is knowing the right way to implement them just like others have mentioned.

To set them up properly, get as many words that pertain to the topic you choose and split keywords into 50 each ad group, then put the poll ad as follows:

Michael Jackson?
1 Minute Poll
Was He Killed?

But I would love to look at how you did your landing page, because that makes a huge difference as well.

Make sure the poll relates to the product you're promoting.

And use something controversial or in the news.

Yes, at least make sure the poll relates to the niche of the CPA. Like you dont want to offer people a poll about Bratz dolls and try to sell them on getting a free PS3.

The more emotion you can draw out of people with your poll or topic, the more conversions you usually get.

Anybody can give me a suggesion about which wordpress poll plugin is better? There are many there and I don't know which one to choose. Thanks.

BTW, which one are you guys using now?

Hi tycoon2008, I just saw that you opened a new threat asking the some question: Which wordpress poll plugin is better? I can only tell you thatWP Quick Polls is great if you are looking for a WP plugin, but it seem you have a different experience with it.

If they are related to the offer you're promoting, then they do, if it is different, your CTR will be really low..

the poll method is really outdating and google tends to be slapping affiliates very hard for using that technique (just to warn everyone)

Are you guys using the same affiliate link for both the yes and no answers?

We normally do not split it according to Yes and No answers ... but make a short test in the beginning to see which offer (rotating 2-4 offers) converts the best....

Right like OPleads says, the yes/no and picture all link to the same place. There are scripts available that allow you to rotate between offers, I am usually always testing a couple offers at a time through different networks just in case one expires or is taken down.

Any tips on improving my CTR with these polls? Does the offer have a lot to do with it? Or images? Or niche? Or all of the above and more?

I agree with diggy20, I have seen a lot of poll templates that are all over the place. Make sure everything is above the fold, the picture, and the yes/ no should be above the picture. You want your question to evoke emotion. Take Jon & Kate for instance, a decent question might be Is Kate Getting What She Deserves? or with Michael Jackson Was it Suicide?

I also bought WP quick poll but finally asked refund because the picture in the poll theme just cannot show up. I emailed to joe( the owner of WP quick poll) back and forth more than 8 times but still cannot solve this problem.

In fact I think WP quick poll is not bad, but it seems the user guide is a little bit complicated and if you are not good at tech, you will have problem to set it up.

They still work if you choose a good topic try google hot trends it could inspire you

I bought this:

Poll factory : CPA Polls at Lighting speed

so far so good.

I use google trends to come up with ideas for polls as well. Some people specialize in what kind of polls they do well with, for instance I know one guy who does sports only polls, while someone else does celebrity, and still another does politics only. Those do seem to be the three biggest niches (if you want to call them that) although you can pretty much go after anything big on google trends.

The only other idea I have for tracking with this is manual, with subids. I have stayed partial to coach's from ppc coach, but I have used tracking202 as well. I know the manual tracking can be time consuming, but it can be done.

you can use prosper202/tracking202 to track them as well.. one thing that many people like is the cloaking feature with the prosper/tracking (its just a double meta refresh), that way it helps hide your landing pages..

What many people do is use BuzzDash to come up with ideas..

Yes I have used buzzdash myself. I tried following someones method of using their poll ideas with a lot of comments. It did seem to work as I got a lot of traffic, but the conversions weren't always there. I too have decided to stick to one "niche" of polls for the time being, but have tested many before. I find it always helpful to have a little insider information on the niche of your polls. Knowing the lingo and such helps with ads.

Another big one is search for yahoo buzz - they have a list of hot topics.. this list can be golden!

Yes I was putting together a lot of my links yesterday and realized I have a lot of good polling places to find ideas. I also use Sodahead. Yahoo buzz is great because you get the full story behind the keywords which means you can pose your question to evoke the most emotion as possible from the visitor.

If you want to quickly set up 10 to 30 polls at a whack, may I suggest a $47 product called Poll Creator Pro. It's one of the 3 poll style landing page generators out there, and the price is in the middle.

I actually hadnt heard of this one, thanks for the link.

Theres a few good poll programs out there - poll control, wp polls, pollbot, and a few more that i can't think of

Is there any advantage of using a blog as oppose to a HTML/CSS landing page?

Sometimes not even send the visitor to an offer, but to create my own research (one option) and leave to register. Then you can send it later, offering more and more ....

I tried polls recently using Bidvertiser but it didn't go well. I spent around $17 but only got 1 conversion. It was only free credit i used though. I rotated with 5 different offers.

I don't know if the poor result was due to poor quality of traffic or if it was because i didn't select good keywords and catagories. This method is definalty one that require's a lot of patience.

It would be great if there was an effective way of driving free traffic to polls. Anyone tried Doug's method from page 1 or is that now outdated?

I started showing the poll technique over 3 years ago now on my site.

I still have guys making money doing them.

We get into this mindset that only new and never before seen stuff works online, so we ignore proven money making techniques because they're "old" or "outdated". That is such backwards thinking. If it still works, then keep doing it. You might not be able to do polls on adwords anymore, but that's just because adwords is crazy.

what about driving PPV traffic to poll sites?

I would love to do a landing page

I can't download the easy polls? Kindly assist

Hello old post!

Most networks dont accept poll traffic anymore. There is a new twist around it, but Im not going to publicly out it.

You have to work hard to get success in poll. Success depends much on developing and designing of the poll and selection of proper target to launch the poll.

i used poll on one of my blogs and on a landing page results were fair to good. But don't use PPC to drive traffic.

Hello,

Are they really effective and if you use polls, what topics do you use for your polls?

there is power in TESTING and then more TESTING I would do that.

This is gunna work for some niches and not others, so again I use the T word.