The New Year has arrived and the holidays are over which means it’s time to overview 2022 and make 2023 forecasts. That’s what we’re going to do today! In this article, we will compile the key 2022 trends, study 2022 expectations that did or didn’t come true, and make some 2023 forecasts.
We have reviewed 2022 statistics and now we can make some conclusions regarding the 2022 expectations we drew back in 2021. So, what were we right about, and where were we wrong?
On 30 December 2021, we posted our 2022 estimates.
What Did We Expect in 2022?
Forecast #1: Aging Audience
Back in December 2021, we predicted that offers for the mature audience will become more popular. The audience is aging and older people and their relatives are looking for solutions to their issues online more often.
Our estimates were fully justified because in 2022 the offers for the elderly audience were on point! Prostatitis, hypertension, vision, and joint treatment products provided partners with excellent profit and we are sure that this trend is gaining momentum.
Forecast #2: Competition in Tier-1
Recently, it has become more challenging to work in Tier-1 countries due to high competition and traffic prices. Another factor is that the audience is familiar with offers and does not react to them as actively as before.
In the forecast, we assumed that advertisers would shift their focus to other GEOs like Asia and Latin America.
And we also were right about that! Asia and LATAM demonstrated high performance in 2022: publishers and advertisers discovered these countries as a source of a large solvent audience with stable demand for nutra offers.
Surely, these GEOs will develop further because to date many countries are still uncovered.
Forecast #3: Pandemic
We assumed that in 2022 we would forget about the pandemic and demand figures would return to their normality.
So it happened but now we recall the coronavirus pandemic with warm feelings…
It has been replaced by conflicts, blockages, and mobilizations. But we are sure that this also will pass.
It seems that we nailed it with our 2022 estimates!
Now that you trust us a little more, you will definitely read our 2023 forecast, yay 🙂
Key 2022 Trends
Now for the trends that we noted in 2022.
We have compiled them in this section for a brief overview of GEOs, offers, promotion approaches, and traffic sources.
GEO
Let’s start with trends related to the publishers’ community interests in certain countries. Let’s go over the regions affected by the changes:
- Tier-1 countries become less relevant. High traffic prices, growing competition, and the audience’s familiarity with our approaches take their toll: promoting offers in Tier-1 countries is becoming more challenging.
There is nothing for this region without a team and extensive budget, and therefore many webmasters and advertisers shift their focus to more fresh and suitable regions.
- Latin America. The relevance of offers promotion in LATAM is increasing because the region provides excellent volumes of loyal audiences and relatively inexpensive traffic with a good CR.
This is a great foundation for promotion and we are sure that in the future advertisers will develop this region further;
TOP GEO – Mexico;
- Asia. Asian countries also demonstrated high performance in 2022: the audience provided many conversions and was loyal to nutra products. Their solvency is often higher than in LATAM while traffic volume and little competition allow for effective promotion.
TOP GEO – Bangladesh;
- Africa. African countries also demonstrated good results. Despite the low solvency and standard of living, the nutra offers provided perfect CR.
The demand for nutra offers will grow in African countries: medicine is still underdeveloped while unsanitary conditions motivate users to solve their health issues.
TOP GEO – Algeria;
- Russia and the CIS. Promoting in Russia has become more challenging due to political conflicts and the fact that foreign traffic sources have been blocked. Local businesses have migrated to such online platforms as VK and Yandex which has increased competition and traffic prices.
On the other hand, the CIS countries which were not affected by the blocking may still bring a solid profit if you promote from large foreign networks.
Otherwise, if you are promoting in Russia, you might want to consider switching to the non-CIS market. In the coming years, there’s no use in waiting until Facebook will be unblocked or the competition on local platforms will decline.
Both advertisers and publishers shift their focus to fresh GEOs with low competition and a small average purchase amount. Due to a loyal audience and large traffic volumes, you can make more money with them, despite small payouts and low audience solvency.
We’re sure this trend will remain in the future which means you’ll discover even more promising GEOs and offers!
Offers
As to offers, things are stable in the nutra.
This year there were no pandemics or other urgent threats to the vertical and therefore, all categories of nutra offers demonstrated excellent results:
- Evergreen classic. Potency, weight loss, and rejuvenation products and other evergreen offers were as popular as ever. Good old health problems have remained and therefore, these offers demonstrated stable results, as always;
- Offers for a mature audience. We have already mentioned them in the previous section. A reminder: blood vessels, joints, and vision treatment products have been gaining momentum in recent years;
- Narrow offer categories. The performance of offers related to diabetes, psoriasis, and other specific health issues depends on GEO. The demand for such products commonly depends on regional characteristics.
Things are stable with nutra offers and almost all categories are popular and effective in fresh GEOs.
Creatives & Landing Pages
Audiences tend to burn out and therefore, publishers look for fresh promotion strategies year to year.
The expiring year was no exception: we identified several approaches that provided perfect CR:
- Laconism. Users are spending less time viewing content. They are looking for answers to specific questions and are not ready to dive deep into product stories.
So, make sales funnels shorter and more capacious, bring answers to the audience’s pivotal questions to the fore, reduce landing page content, and do not include too many details and meaningless slogans in your creatives;
- Localization and customization. Audience demands are evolving: now, to make a purchase decision, viewers pay attention to the translation quality, compliance with the cultural patterns, and the values of the brand.
This means that the webmaster must dive deeper into the specifics of GEO and pay more attention to localization and customization of their ads. For example, characters on creos and landing pages must resemble your target audience;
- User-generated content. Users tend to trust branded content less and pay more attention to other customers’ feedback.
This means that reviews and other user-generated content are becoming more relevant. Use creatives with amateur photos, obfuscate landing pages as blogs and let the audience know that other users have already checked the efficiency of the product.
Otherwise, there are no major changes. For many GEOs, time-proven approaches provide perfect CR. For example, the “before/after” creatives or landing pages with celebrities and doctors are still relevant in the majority of countries.
Traffic Sources
Traffic sources are constantly updated and improved.
Here are some changes that have affected popular platforms in the past year:
- Facebook and Instagram. As always, they clamp down on us with ad policy violation notifications and other blockages. It became more challenging to farm accounts and drive traffic.
This trend has been going on for many years which means that if you are working with Facebook, you should prepare for new challenges and stock up on budgets;
- Google. Google Ads has demonstrated the efficiency of such fresh automated advertising formats as Discovery.
For sure, it will develop further because even now such formats provide excellent results.
- TikTok. TikTok’s audience is expanding: in 2022, the platform gained a lot of new users in Europe. If the tendency remains, TikTok may become the best source of Tier-1 traffic in 2023.
However, it’s not worth planning new TikTok promotion campaigns in the United States: US Congress has introduced a bill to ban the platform in the USA.
- VK and Yandex. Due to the migration of businesses after the lockdowns, prices, and competition have increased significantly. We recommend switching to other sources until the situation stabilizes.
It is also worth mentioning such promising sources as messengers. They are gaining an audience and developing their ad networks. So far, they do not work very well for traffic arbitrage but in the future messengers stand a good chance to become great traffic sources.
What Trends will be Relevant in 2023?
Now for the 2023 estimates!
Here’s what we expect in the near future:
- More offers and GEOs. Advertisers and webmasters are extremely interested in fresh GEOs and offers which means that in 2023 we will surely discover more countries in LATAM, Asia, and Africa;
- New traffic sources. Probably, there will be new opportunities for promotion in 2023 so you might want to monitor updates of messengers and major ad networks: as a rule, fresh channels always demonstrate great performance;
- Audience’s high bar. Users are becoming pickier: they pay attention to the design, feedback, company’s opinion, narration style, local content, and many other things.
This means that the deeper the webmaster digs into the specifics of GEO, the higher the chances of their success. The audience is becoming more demanding and the market must meet their demands.
In the coming year, we will face a lot of changes and opportunities, so you might want to stay relevant and set yourself up for high profits
You might also want to stock up on budgets because promotion and consumables costs go up and up while new challenges emerge. Make reserves: we are sure that they will allow you to discover new efficient promotion schemes.
Summary
Today, we have analyzed and compared our 2022 forecasts with reality. We recalled 2022 and innovations that were introduced in traffic arbitrage during the year.
So, let’s face the future! After all, 2023 offers prospects of new and promising discoveries!
We wish you excellent profits, a high CR, and the best promotion schemes. The rest will follow 🙂
Good luck!