Copeac CPA Network Reviews

Although Copeac is one of the big CPA Networks, I never cared for them very much in the past. Luckily they seem to be improving and are doing a lot to have more offers, pay better, and have better communication. They’re not perfect yet in my opinion but they’re heading in the right direction. Copeac is one of the larger CPA networks and if you’re going to be in the CPA game, Copeac is one of the CPA networks you should sign up with.

Copeac generally pays toward the higher end of the spectrum as compared to other networks. Lately they seem to be very aggressively trying to compete with other networks and have been raising their payouts. I’ve received several emails from my affiliate manager telling that they’re determined to be the top network and payouts of course is a big part of what draws affiliates. In addition, I’ve never had a problem getting my payouts raised–some pretty substantially. Like I said, lately they’ve been very aggressively competing and trying to get more affiliates and better offers.

OFFERS

Copeac is showing 455 offers today. They have a pretty good selection of niches from health and beauty, finance, to dating. For the most part their landing pages tend to be pretty good. I have noticed that they are conscious of the design elements that improve conversions on landing pages. A lot of networks have no clue about this so it’s good to see some good landing pages.

SCRUBBING

This is a thorn in my side. I’ve never achieved close to the conversion rate that my affiliate manager says people are getting. I don’t know what it is. I asked him how much they scrub and he told me in no uncertain terms that they do not scrub. Of course there could be a lot going on with the merchant but that’s hard to prove.

So I can’t say for sure that there’s scrubbing going on but I suspect there is. Either that or they’ve got some major tracking issues. (See below about tracking.) Either way, as an affiliate it’s something you should be aware of.

AFFILIATE MANAGERS / COMMUNICATION (SUPPORT)

My affiliate manager is pretty proactive. I get their “what’s hot” newsletter weekly and and sometimes I get more weekly mailings than that. As I said earlier, my affiliate manager has never said no to a request to bump up my payout, so you gotta love that.

INTERFACE

They finally got rid of direct track. Thank god because direct track sucks. The interface is much improved. (Maybe they listened to all of my suggestions and bitching You can search for offers by category, country, type of traffic and banner sizes.

REPORTING

Again…it seems to be very much improved now that they got rid of direct track. But honestly, I haven’t done much with Copeac since the transition to the new interface and tracking system so I don’t have enough data to say how accurate it is these days. In the past with direct track it was absolutely horrible and inaccurate, so lets hope it’s much better now with the new system.

PAYMENTS

Net 15 for US affiliates, Net 30 for non-US affiliates and a $100 minimum payment. You can get paid by check or direct deposit. You can’t just set direct deposit up in your interface. You have to contact your affiliate manager to set it up.

My checks are always on time and that’s a big plus.

NON-US OFFERS

• UK – 59
• Canada – 82
• Australia – 70
• Germany – 16
• Kyrgyzstan – 16

Copeac passes the Kyrgyzstan test!

PROS

• Good payouts
• Aggressively working on improvement
• Good communication
• Net 15 payments

CONS

• Not sure about their tracking. It used to be horrible, inaccurate, and dropped a lot of leads (or there’s a lot of scrubbing going on (which they deny). Hopefully it’s better now with the new interface.

OTHER COMMENTS

Copeac has their pros and cons but since they are one of the largest CPA affiliate networks, it’s a good idea to join them. They have a decent number of offers and they are aggressively seeking affiliates and paying good payouts.

You can sign up for Copeac here.

Neverblue CPA Network Reviews

Neverblue Ads CPA Network is one I used to have mixed feelings about but after working with my affiliate manager I’ve become a big fan of Neverblue. They do a lot of things right, but of course there are some that I think they could do better. Overall though, Neverblue is one CPA network that you need to be a part of.

Here are the details…

PAYOUTS

Compared to other CPA networks I find Neverblue’s payouts to be in the middle to lower end of the spectrum. I can often find a higher payout at other networks, although Never blue does have a fair number of exclusive offers so that’s not always possible. (Also see scrubbing below.)

I’ve gotten some pretty big bumps in payouts from my Neverblue affiliate manager when I’ve asked and I’ve even had a couple of times where he’s volunteered to bump me just so I’d promote an offer more.

OFFERS

Neverblue media has a lot of offers (1147 as of today) in a wide variety of niches. Their offer creatives (banners) are some of the best looking of any network I’ve found. They also tend to keep making new ones for popular offers which tends to keep the CTR high because it combats banner blindness.

Neverblue offers tend to have a lot more restrictions than other networks. A high percentage of offers tend to have extra terms and conditions which limit how you can promote the offers.

I also see a lot of extra notations of reasons that offers will not pay and warnings to expect chargebacks. There are also a lot of offers that you have to apply to run. I don’t see these things at other networks.

SCRUBBING

This is one of my biggest disappointments at Neverblue.  From my experience they are one of the hardest scrubbing networks. In almost every case, when I run the exact same offer at other networks my conversion rate is higher. According to my affiliate manager neverblue doesn’t scrub at all but he admits that some of the advertisers do. So if NB doesn’t scrub and it’s the advertisers who do, maybe that’s because Neverblue takes a bigger commission or something, I don’t know. The bottom line is though that quite often I’ll get a better overall ROI on the same offer through other CPA networks regardless of the reason. Of course you have to test for yourself to see what the numbers look like for each offer.

AFFILIATE MANAGER / COMMUNICATION

I get reasonable communication from Never blue. They send a newsletter with the best converting and new offers every day or so.  If I ask a question my aff manager is usually pretty quick to respond and he definitely contacts me if he sees that I’m driving less business to them then he asks me what’s up. He’s been great to work with and has given me a lot of tips on how to promote certain offers.

INTERFACE

Neverblue’s interface is one of the best in the industry. It’s well laid out and it’s very easy to find what you want to find.

Their campaign search is awesome. You can search by keyword, category, country, banner size, type of traffic allowed, and whether or not incentives are allowed. You can also just click on a category to see all offers within that category.

You can also search by newest campaigns, top search campaigns, top email campaigns, newest freebies, top web campaigns, and top EPC campaigns. This really allows you to zero in on they type of offers you’re looking for.

When you get to the list of campaigns (whether through search or by clicking on the category name) you’re shown the date the campaign started, overall network earnings, EPC (earnings per click), payout, and offer category.

Once you click on a particular offer you’re given even more useful info — allowed and disallowed promotion methods, the exact action that counts as a conversion ( email submit, 2nd page submit, credit card submit, etc.), EPC, and lead payout. You’re also shown any additional terms and conditions which you must agree to and a link to the landing page.

One great thing that Neverblue offers is the ability to add tracking pixels directly within your account. You can set global tracking pixels at the account level which will track all offers in the network, or you can add a different tracking pixel to individual offers from within the offer’s info page.   Most networks require you to send your tracking pixel  to your affiliate manager to get it implemented, so the ability to do this yourself saves a lot of time. I have to say though that in practice adding the pixel through their interface doesn’t always work and my affiliate manager actually told me to let him place the tracking pixels for me to make sure they worked correctly. This is a great feature that Neverblue has which sets them apart from most other networks. They just need to make sure it works correctly.

Another awesome and unique thing that the Neverblue interface has is the ability to set international redirects. This allows you to get more conversions (or at least not waste) international traffic.

For example, if you’re promoting an offer which is valid only in the US, then normally if someone from a non-US country clicks your link they’re either sent to a completely different offer which is usually not related or they’re shown an “offer not valid in your area” error message.

However, with the Never blue international redirect, you can CHOOSE to send a visitor from a particular country to an offer of your choosing which should give you a much higher chance of converting them.

REPORTING

Reporting is another area in which Neverblue CPA affiliate network shines. You can get reports on overall campaigns, subids, creatives, or by a particular site. You can also do advanced reporting with different combinations of options and you can save reports. On top of these great features you can choose to have the reports output in your browser, or into CSV, tab separated, or XLS (MS excel) format for downloading. These are great features that I wish other networks had.

PAYMENTS

The default payment method is a check mailed to you. After you’ve been with Neverblue for a month you can get paid via paypal.  You can also get paid by wire transfer, but if your payment is less than $1000 there is a $25 fee. Payments over $1000 have no fee.

You can get paid by ACH (direct deposit) after you’ve been with Neverblue for one month and if you have a US bank account. There are no fees for ACH.

Standard payments are net 15. However, if you earn $1000/week (consistently) you can get paid weekly and if you earn $1000 every 2 weeks you can get paid every 2 weeks. I love getting paid weekly! It really helps with the cashflow if you’re pumping big volumes. I had to ask them to set this up. They didn’t just volunteer to pay me weekly so ask and you shall receive!

NON-US OFFERS

Neverblue has a pretty good number of non-US offers.

As of today…

• UK – 193
• Canada – 201
• Australia – 128
• Germany – 98
• Kyrgyzstan – 44

NeverBlue Ads passes the Kyrgyzstan test!

PROS

• Great interface
• Great reporting
• Good tracking
• Lots of offers
• Great creatives
• Lots of international offers
• Lots of payment options

CONS

• Higher scrub rate than many networks
• Low to medium standard payouts (they will bump you up if you can send volume)
• Many offers have more terms and conditions than on other networks

OTHER COMMENTS

All in all, if you’re promoting CPA offers then you need to join Neverblue. They’re a large network, they have a lot of offers, and they have many tools which make an affiliate’s life much easier.

As I mentioned earlier, one thing that concerns me is that Neverblue (or the advertisers) seems to scrub leads more than many other networks. Combine that with the fact that their payouts are only average to low and I often find that I make more money overall by promoting the same offer with another network. This is not always the case and of course you should always split test offers from other networks regardless. And of course they’ll usually give you a payout bump if you ask, but sometimes it’s just easier to go where the payouts are already higher to begin with.

Neverblue does have a lot of great offers (some unique to them), a great interface, reporting, and good tools which make them one of the top CPA networks. I highly recommend that you join.

Hydra Network Reviews

(Note: Hydra Network was acquired by Adknowledge in early 2011. Practically speaking, nothing has changed except the name and the website, so my positive review still stands. FYI all links now go to the Adknowledge site.)

Hydra Network is one of my favorite CPA networks overall. They were the first CPA network I signed up with and they have been a consistent good performer. If you’re looking for a great network with low scrub rates Hydra CPA Network is for you. You can sign up here.

PAYOUTS

I find that Hydra Network tends to have payouts at the higher end of the spectrum.

OFFERS

Hydra Media has a wide range of offers ranging from financial, health and beauty, education, entertainment, etc. Hydra has a lot of zip/email submit offers but I find that a large majority can only be promoted by email. As of today Hydra network has 390 offers.

SCRUBBING

Hydra seems to have one of the lowest scrub rates of all the networks in my experience. This is an extremely important point that some people don’t consider. You’ll often see networks promising high payouts but then you find out they scrub the hell out of the leads and so you end up making much less than you would have with a more honest network like Hydra.

AFFILIATE MANAGER / COMMUNICATION

My affiliate manager is generally proactive and sends out a daily report of the days/weeks best offers including EPC and conversion rates. You can also sometimes get the EPC and conversion rate data broken down by different traffic sources (ppc, email, display, etc) if you ask, but someone at Hydra told me that breakdown numbers probably are not very accurate.

INTERFACE

The interface is really the only issue that I have with Hydramedia.

Simply put, their campaign/offer search is pretty bad. They recently created a brand new interface, and although it’s much improved, it still leaves a lot to be desired.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve searched for offers by subject/keyword and nothing comes up. Then I’ll search for them by using the category pulldown and I get nothing there either. But if you look at the list of ALL campaigns, and scroll through all of the pages (it’s locked at only displaying 25 campaigns at a time so it takes a while) you’ll find offers that match your search. It’s usually too time consuming to look through that large list and so I’m sure that I’ve missed a lot of offers that Hydra had, but since I couldn’t find them I had to go with another network. I can only assume that whoever enters the offers into the database doesn’t do a thorough or accurate job.

Another complaint I have with the campaign search is trying to find non-USA offers. Simply put, you can’t do it. There is no country-based search function. All you can do is search the general campaign tab and scroll through page after page and hope that you find one in the country you’re looking for. But again, I don’t have time for that crap so I go to other networks. They really need to get this fixed!

REPORTING

Reporting is OK and generally gets the job done but it’d definitely not comprehensive. You can choose by date or date range on a calendar. You can also select by today, yesterday, week to date, last 7 days, this month, last month, and year to date.

The output of the search leaves a lot to be desired. It shows campaign id, campaign name, conversion rate, revenue and EPC. You can sort the list by any of these options but you can’t isolate specific campaigns, so you can only see all the results of all campaigns. All you can do is look down the list to find the campaign you’re looking for. When you’ve got a lot of campaigns this can be confusing.

This pain in the butt is amplified if you choose to show sub ids. You can choose to show all subids or only the ones which converted. That’s fine. But again, if you want to get subids for specific campaigns you cant. You have to sort through a list of hundreds or thousands of lines to find what you want.

Luckily you can download a CSV of these reports. This allows you to cut and paste certain campaigns or subids manually, but it would sure be nice if you could just get your data directly from the interface.

PAYMENTS

Hydra Network does net 15 payouts. You can get paid by check or ACH (direct deposit), wire ($10 fee), paypal for those in the US. Non-US affiliates can get paid via paypal or wire ($20 fee). Those in Canada can also choose to receive a check.

NON-US OFFERS

Really difficult to tell. (See my comments above about their interface.) I know Hydra has some international offers but it’s really too difficult if not impossible to know for sure!

• UK – ?
• Canada – ?
• Australia – ?
• Germany – ?
• Kyrgyzstan – ?

I can’t tell if HydraMedia passes the Kyrgyzstan test or not.

PROS

• Good payouts
• Low scrub rate
• Allow a variety of traffic sources
• Net 15 payments
• Direct deposit
• Lots of offers
• Good communication
• Rewards program
• Allow incentive traffic
• Allow pre-pop

CONS

• Offer search is cumbersome and often inaccurate
• Limited conversion/payment reporting
• Hydra Media is VERY selective of who they let in their network. If you haven’t been an affiliate for over one year and you’re not making at least $10k/month, they don’t want you.

OTHER COMMENTS

In my testing, Hydra CPA Network has consistently higher conversion rates overall when compared to many other networks. Several times I’ve split tested and compared the exact same offer from HydraNetworks with an offer from another network and almost every time my conversion rate / EPC has been higher with Hydramedia.

If Hydra would get their search and reporting interfaces fixed and/or upgraded they’d be great all around in my opinion.

But other than than that, like I said, Hydra Network is one of my top favorite CPA affiliate networks. I advise anyone interested in CPA marketing to sign up with Hydra Media. Their combination of high payouts, low scrub rates and good converting offers is hard to beat.