Adult Affiliate Marketing In 2024

One of the most profitable areas of traffic arbitrage is adult. High payouts, and a huge target audience – all these make the vertical interesting for webmasters. However, without knowing the intricacies of working with adult traffic, you can easily waste your budget and go into the red. In our review, read how to work with adult traffic in 2024.

How adult arbitrage works

Verticals

Adult is a huge industry with thousands of different offers centered around the “strawberry” theme. There are several directions in the vertical itself:

• Dating. Unlike regular dating apps, these are aimed directly at intimacy.
• Nutra. Dietary supplements, gels, aphrodisiacs, and the like to improve sexual life.
• Goods. Sex toys and perfumes.
• Gaming. Erotic games, usually uncomplicated.
• Porn. Sites with videos 18+. Usually, they have some kind of free section, but most of the services require money.
• Webcam. Platforms with broadcasts of erotic shows.

All these are not narrowly focused offers. The target audience of any of these areas is hundreds of millions of people around the world. At the same time, a typical lead for the adult vertical is not a schoolboy without money. The audience is willing to spend a lot of money to satisfy their needs.

At the same time, the reach of adult offers is very high. For example, PornHub claims 220,000 porn views per minute. Accordingly, almost every creative that hints at adult topics is highly likely to bring the user.

Finally, this is an expensive vertical. Unlike installs or binary options, adult brings tens or even hundreds of dollars for each user.

The only negative is very high competition. A lot of affiliates rotate in this vertical, so the cost per click and impressions will be high.

Monetizing

Monetizing in the adult vertical is a little different from other areas. In addition to the usual CPA and CPL models, there are also single opt-in and double opt-in. The first involves registration or passing a survey without the need for confirmation, and in the second case, the data must be confirmed by mail or SMS. Naturally, users pay more for more complex actions, so double opt-in brings the affiliate the most.

The target audience

As mentioned earlier, the target audience of adult offers is almost the entire population of the globe. But if we narrow the picture as much as possible, then we get only two portraits of typical users of the adult industry.

The first is a young man aged 18-25. He does not have much money yet, but everything is in order with his health. Erotic games, webcams, and dating are better for such users.

Another type of user is a man 35+. He already earns enough, so he can afford to spend. Such a client will buy dietary supplements, tablets, and various ointments.

Of course, this is far from absolute truth.  Young men can buy ointments to enlarge their genitals. But the overall picture looks something like this.

A separate category is women. Statistics confirm that they devote less time to adult topics. On the other hand, this is an untouched vein of traffic, which only needs to be approached appropriately.

Promotion Methods

Adult differs from other verticals in its restrictions on promotion methods. Most sites will not allow explicit erotica as a creative. On Google and Yandex you also cannot pass moderation with 18+ topics. The exception is resources of erotic content. That is, on a porn site you can advertise webcams, erotic games, and other adult content.

On the other hand, you can use tricks to bypass the prohibitions of advertising systems. For example, instead of frank erotica, they use a peeled banana. This is a trivial but effective creative. Cloaking can also help, although from the point of view of the sites this is not a completely legal method. Finally, when working with adult topics it is worth buying several accounts, so the user coverage is greater, and a safety net in case of a ban.

Platforms that are working with adult offers

Mobidea

This CPA network was founded in the early 2010s. It works not only with adult, but there are “adult” offers there,  and very good ones. In total, Mobidea has over 800 advertisers.

• Available geo: 200 countries
• Targeting: mobile devices only
• Target actions: direct and SMS billing, SOI/DOI, CC-submit, Click to Call
• Payment Model: CPA and CPL
• Pre-landers: available
• Minimum withdrawal amount: 50 EUR
• Payment systems: PayPal, WebMoney, Paxum, ePayments and bank transfers

CrakRevenue

CrakRevenue is a small but popular CPA network. In total, she can offer about 700 offers, but each of them is tested within the project team. In total, CrakRevenue has over 10 years of experience.

• Available geo: 200 countries
• Targeting: mobile and desktop
• Target actions: SOI/DOI
• Payment Model: CPA, CPS, CPL, RevShare
• Pre-landers: available
• Minimum withdrawal amount: $100
• Payment systems: ACH, ePayService, Paxum, PayPal, Wire, Bitcoin

ClickDealer

ClickDealer is an affiliate network with ten years of experience. It operates almost all over the world, and its portfolio contains about 20,000 different offers. ClickDealer specializes not only in adult. There are offers for dating, Nutra, and other verticals.

• Available geo: 180 countries
• Targeting: mobile and desktop
• Target actions: SOI/DOI, CC-submit
• Payment Model: CPA, CPI, CPS, CPL, CPC
• Pre-landers: available
• Minimum payout: $100
• Payment systems: Wire Transfer, ACH, Payoneer, PayPal, Paxum, WebMoney, ePayments, eCheck, Qiwi, and Capitalist.

Olimob

This is a young CPA network that specializes in a variety of dating. It does not have many offers, and the geography of work is an order of magnitude lower than that of higher-rated platforms. However, reviews of Olimob are very positive. In addition to adult and dating, the network specializes in gambling, cryptocurrencies, and installs.

• Available geo: 100 countries
• Targeting: mobile
• Target actions: SOI/DOI, Pin submit, FTD, Click-to-SMS
• Payment Model: CPA, CPI, CPS, CPL, CPC
• Pre-landers: available
• Minimum payout: $100
• Payment systems: Capitalist, WebMoney, Wire, PayPal, BTC, USDT

The best ad formats for adult traffic

Adult traffic allows you to experiment with formats, you can reach the right user using any creative. But there are several formats that are more effective than others.

Popup windows

Working with pop-ups is easy even for a beginner affiliate marketer. They are cheap and easy to manage. You can run tests with a relatively small amount and then scale the campaign. In addition, pop-ups can be launched with almost no creatives using only text.

Banners on Pinterest. With hundreds of millions of coverage, the social network has quite flexible rules regarding erotica. There is enough explicit content here and you can place adult banners for relevant requests. Also, ads on Pinterest can be shown depending on geo, age, interests, and many other factors.

Banners on Pinterest

With hundreds of millions of coverage, the social network has quite flexible rules regarding erotica. There is enough explicit content here and you can place adult banners for relevant requests. Also, ads on Pinterest can be shown depending on geo, age, interests, and many other factors.

Banners on the right and left are promotional. And on-demand content can be more explicit

Advertising on Quora

The site of questions and answers also raises topics 18+. Accordingly, here you can promote the link by creating a dialogue from different accounts. Standard ads are also present here, but the dialogue looks more natural and annoys users less.

Push notifications

Users on certain sites subscribe to push notifications in return for some kind of bonus or discount. Push notifications are not perceived as aggressively as the rest of the advertising since the audience itself agreed to receive them. Such traffic is of high quality and quite expensive. Creatives are required there,  their quality determines whether the user will go to the target landing page. On the other hand, affiliate networks can offer some banners themselves.

The best Geos for adult

If you look at the situation globally, it turns out that approximately all users are equally interested in the “strawberry” topic. But historically, certain countries have responded slightly better to certain areas of adulthood.

Webcams work well in European countries such as the Netherlands, Norway, Ireland, and France, and they are ready to pay good money. On the other hand, Latin American countries and India also bring a lot of traffic, although there are many times fewer solvent ones there.

Porn sites are quite universal offers and people can be attracted from any country. However, it is best to focus on the most solvent ones from Europe, Canada, the USA, and Australia.

Creatives for adult

Frank creatives will not be published by most advertising sites, they will only be allowed to be promoted on porn sites. Therefore, the image should veiledly hint at the “strawberry” topic.

The first option is the girls in the frame. Here you need to take into account local beauty standards. In China and Japan they love the baby face, and in Italy and Brazil – curvy ladies. At the same time, photos should be realistic. Gloss and photoshop will rather scare away the user.

Such photos are simple and without frills, any girl can post them. It is on this simplicity that the target audience “pecks”.

Another option is veiled pictures with hidden meanings. The fact is that creatives will also be checked by bots of advertising networks. “Strawberry” they will not go through, but a hint of it – easily. The main thing is that a person catches the subtext.

Such pictures will easily pass moderation. And even Google can take them for something relatively decent.

Finally, the third option is to disguise erotica with the help of art. Again, this format is aimed at robots, a person needs to see everything right away.

The message remains, but the algorithms will allow it.

You can check images for safety for algorithms using Google Vision. In the Safe Search section, the service will analyze the image and determine how much it violates the rules of the system. Pictures with a high level in one of the parameters need to be corrected.

From the point of view of the service, this picture is completely safe.

The main thing

• Adult is a profitable but very competitive vertical.
• The vertical itself is divided into areas: webcams, dating, erotic games, goods, and nutra.
• The target audience of the adult vertical can be any user. The only question is how to approach it.
• Pop-ups, push notifications and banners work well with adult.
• To use almost any advertising platform, you need to mask erotic creatives or use only hints of explicit images.