Trial Offer

A trial offer refers to a promotional strategy where an advertiser suggests a limited trial of a product or service to potential customers. For example, the app will do the first 3 translations for free or provide 3 days of free use.

The trial offer allows customers to experience the product or service before making a purchase decision. For example, users can subscribe to a music app and use it for free during the first month, but when the term is over, the first payment will be made automatically.

Trial Offer Meaning

Trial Offers is a type of offer where the customer gets a test period of service for free or for a small amount of money. Trial in affiliate marketing and advertising is nothing new. The advantage is that the potential customer sees the company’s confidence in its product and can try out the product before buying.

In affiliate marketing, there are two types of trials:

• Paid Trial — a trial period in which a small amount is paid, for example, for the delivery of the product or test week;
• Free Trial — a test period in which the product is provided completely free of charge.

Trial offers have been known for a long time, especially among Nutra/Health vertical and SAAS products. Also, this type of offer is popular in the eCommerce niche, where users can get trials of clothes, bags, household items, and other goods. But remember that trial works only in countries with well-developed economies and high standards of living.

Benefits of Trial Offers

In general, the advantages of trial offers are:

• Applications are confirmed after linking a bank card, not through call-center, this guarantees almost 100% approval;
• Payout per lead on trial-offers is 2-3 times higher than in COD, but slightly lower than in SS.

The advertiser and affiliate marketer have an interest in having users renew subscriptions, as this way they get more profit. As a result, trial offers benefit everyone:

• The user can try the product for free and see if it is effective. Trust in the manufacturer and the product grows. Paying the entire amount at once is not necessary;
• The affiliate suggests to test the product or service, making it easier to convert users in leads;
• The advertiser works with affiliates who are motivated to attract quality traffic to get paid longer for renewing subscriptions.

Disadvantages of Trial Offers

Of course, trial offers have some disadvantages in affiliate marketing. We can highlight the following:

• Traffic in Tier-1 countries is expensive, so big budgets are needed for testing and scaling. Tests can require up to $500, so many affiliates, especially beginners, may not be able to afford this type of offers to run;
• Misaligned target audience leads to customers that abandon services after free trials, and they do it intentionally. In this case, affiliates don’t earn as the traffic is considered low-quality.

So, consider these factors when you choose these offers to work with.

How to Run Trial Offers

Trial offers are well-run in such countries as USA, Canada, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, and other Tier-1 GEOs. The task of affiliate marketer is to convince a user to order a trial and then to continue the subscription. Running trial offers, you need to remember the following information:

• Traffic is considered quality if 60% of leads or more pay for the subscription after the trial period;
• The advertiser usually needs about 2-3 weeks to confirm the quality of traffic.

When running trial offers more often landing pages are used. As a rule, they contain information about the advantages of the product, delivery conditions and its cost.

As sources of traffic in the trial offers are successful native ads, social networks and email newsletters. That said, Facebook can be quite an expensive source if you are an inexperienced affiliate marketer. Also, you can use TikTok.

Among creatives, images or videos of celebrities recommending or reviewing a product work best, but it all depends on the type of offer. Personal advice and a promise to close the pains that your creative should address with the audience also work well. Images and videos play on empathy by demonstrating the problem and talking about the solution method.

Related articles:

• What is CPA Marketing;
• What is a CPA Offer in Affiliate Marketing;
• mVAS (Mobile Content Offers).