Co-registration and What You Need to Know

Co-registration or coreg as it’s often referred to is the process of showing advertisement products to someone who is going through a registration form or a process.

Coreg has been around for a while and many have been using it as an additional source of income on top of their standard registration form, but few understand the power of coreg for primary source of income.

You run into coreg ads everywhere without realizing it. Have you ever seen those email submits that pay $1-2 at your typical affiliate program?

Few that come to mind: $1000 Walmart Gift Card, $500 Victoria’s Secret Gift Card, pretty much anything that requires the user to submit an email or a zip code and then leads them to filling out a bunch of advertising offers in order to complete the requirements is typically a coreg offer.

The smart affiliate marketers figured out that instead of promoting offers as publishers they would much rather take the next step in creating their own affiliate offer and utilize coregistration paths without the need for actual website registration. I like to think of it as nothing gained and everything lost by the user who’s about to enter the path.

Wait, what did you say, these people make their own offers? How is this possible?

It’s quite simple, create a requirement that is nearly impossible to complete, yet achievable and throw a coreg path on it. There are laws and regulations in this industry however I will bet that most of these people have never read them.

What these marketers basically do is create a product offer that promotes other products. I know, it sounds insane but that’s the insane world of affiliate marketing.

How a Co-reg path works

1. Example: publisher advertises the Walmart gift card offer he found on some affiliate network.
2. User lands on the page, enters email or zip to continue (this is done to make the landing page simple and look really easy to complete.. “Oh you just want my email? That’s easy!”)
3. The 2nd page presents a form to be filled out to receive your free product or whatever is being advertised on the landing page. (These form fields are used to pre-populate the coreg path, so that no extra information needs to be entered)
4. User is taken to a co-registration path pre-filled with various offers from participating advertisers.
5. The path can be filled with actual product forms or other co-reg offers like the one the user is completing right now (I know, nuts!)
6. Every co-reg offer completed the participating advertiser makes a profit ($2-10, or much more depending on what that is) Offers with fewer fields work best such as email and zip submits, however the more info the user inputs and submits in the path, the higher the payout for everyone involved. Think of the payout you get when someone submits an insurance quote or signs up for DirectTV.
7. Once the user exits the path they are presented with the actual requirements to receive the freebie. Normally 10 or so offers must be completed to get your Freebie, but you might have guessed it by now – they pay for themselves or are nearly impossible to complete! The user is fooled into thinking that the coreg had something to do with the sign up process (nope, it didn’t and they just signed up for a bunch of stuff in the mail and perhaps a cell subscription as well).
8. If the user is persistent they will try to fill out the required offers (often failing after a few, but generating income for the advertiser).

Who profits in this web of insanity?

1. The guy with the biggest profit in this arrangement is the one who’s got his sign up field(s) in the coreg path. This is the person who’s going to be fulfilling the request of the user (set them up with a subscription or whatever it may be). Depending on what it is the advertiser is promoting their profits will be awesome (because the charge is irreversible) or terrible (because the user didn’t intend to sign up for a product, thus making the lead useless).
2. Next, the publisher and his hard work earns a profit, typically a third of the advertisers revenue.
3. The coreg company takes its cut through lead shaving. Some people scream at affiliate companies for doing this but this is just part of the business. EVERYONE shaves leads.
4. Finally, the advertiser of the fulfillment requirements earns some profit. Typically users get lost in the co-reg process and never get to the fulfillment page, however multiply the process times a million and you will realize that there is money to be made.

Sample breakdown of profits in a coreg:

• Publisher pays the affiliate company to advertise his offer ($1/lead),
• User enters and fills out 1 coreg offer (publisher earns $4, Net: $3)
• Coreg company takes $1 (Net: $1)
• Advertiser who’s offer was filled out in the coreg makes $8 on user, pays $5 for promotion (Net: $3)
• Fulfillment advertiser (not sure, but probably ranges from $0 – $400 per user!)

Summary: Everyone profits, user is screwed. It’s an evil concept with evil consequences, because in our scenario the user was expecting a freebie but signed up for a ton of stuff they don’t really want. If the co-reg was used properly and with legitimate intentions such as an advertizement on a popular forum sign up then the user might actually make use of willful product signup.

This is only a simple example of 1 offer variation. The types of deals that go on between coreg companies, advertisers and affiliates vary quite a bit and so do the profits. The complexity of offers and their payouts also vary quite a bit, but for the most part the publisher (affiliate) who created his offer with a coreg in it earns at best $1 EPU (earnings per user).

EPU is different from EPC because in a coreg environment the user can complete multiple offers earnings as much as $40-60 for the publisher! Since not every user converts, the earnings are calculated as per user (all traffic averaged out). As you can see this model is quite lucrative, perhaps the most lucrative one out there if used in the manner described.

Most affiliates don’t get into co-registration because they don’t understand it or simply can’t find enough information about it. The industry is tight-lipped and there are few if any resources on the web that will give you the detailed description of how it all works and how to get started.

Make no mistake though, once you figure it out and work out the kinks you can be making hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions. It’s a risky game with insane rewards that makes WallStreet look like child’s play.

The potential for fraudulent behavior is vast in co-registrations and the complexity of screening, filtering and shaving is a huge deterrent for most.

The sheer amount of programming required to get everything going is enough to make most people look away. However, if you wish to explore another avenue that can set you up for a very lucrative IM income look no further than co-registration.

Some of the co-reg companies I’m familiar with: Smiley Media, Digipath, Silver-path.

Feel free to hit me up with any questions in comments or via email if you’re serious about getting started with this.

Image Credit: nongpimmy