300% ROI: what EdTech is and how it works

Target audiences in EdTech can differ from offer to offer: e.g., housewives might be interested in tarot, while young students in learning new coding skills that will help them earn more. Experienced affiliate marketers can use this: if you’ve worked with nutrition traffic before, you already know what your target audiences need and you have already accumulated a good set of creative materials that you can use when working with weight-loss traffic.

These greatly depend on the offer itself. For example, while weight-loss courses are very popular in Russia, as approximately 40% of Russians are overweight, remote-work occupations are more popular in Tier-1 GEOs: the USA and Europe account for the largest segment of the global online education market: about 70%.

We have talked about EdTech with affiliate marketers specializing in it, and the guys have told us which traffic sources perform well, what ROI you should aim for, and why EdTech is perfect for beginners. Who are they?

Arslan: CBDO at TraffLab responsible for partnership programs in EdTech. He worked as a product manager of an educational product before; his EdTech experience is 4 years.

Thugger 52: affiliаte marketer and a fan of artist Friendly Thug 52 (pictured). Works with TraffLab now and has worked in nutrition affiliate marketing previsouly.

Semyon: owner & founder of Lead-Magnet, specializing in partnership programs.

Arslan: the market is currently slightly confused as to what exactly EdTech is. It is often mixed up with info-business and SP offers, even though these spheres use different approaches to ad campaigns.

We at TraffLab are convinced that it is quite possible to enter EdTech without a lot of experience. You can compare this to gambling, where you will have to learn the hard way: you need to understand how Facebook behaves and learn how to properly set up your expendables, such as a multi-accounting browser and proxies. In contrast, EdTech is clean and easy, and is perfect for the first steps in affiliate marketing.

There’s a difference when it comes to EdTech and CPA networks in, let’s say, the developed and developing worlds. The developed countries prefer internal buying and distrust CPA networks, even though we can offer post-pay and various traffic sources. In the developing world, on the contrary, educational companies and startups often reach out to us themselves.

I won’t say that EdTech is the perfect vertical market with the best ROI and payment models. The market is still developing: the basics are already there, but we need more certainty. Ideally, we would like to see this vertical develop its own unique identity, so that EdTech sounds as clear as, for example, nutrition or gambling.

Thugger 52: I am not sure that target audiences are rapidly growing, but with good creatives and landing the Click2Reg conversion can reach 80. I’m not sure if it’s like this everywhere: I found the combination that works in courses about crypto.

Semyon: For 6 years straight the EdTech market has been steadily growing. During the pandemic it increased two and a half times, and in 2023 we expect it to grow by 23%.

Arslan: It depends on spending volumes; however, sometimes you can get truly astonishing numbers of 300-350% ROI.

Nowadays we see a lot of offers that reward simple registration, even without a full-course sale. This can be a registration for a free lesson, a webinar, or in a Telegram bot.

Semyon: A beginner can realistically expect to be earning something between $800 and $5000 depending on traffic sources and background; paid sources can provide a ROI of 300%.

Arslan: Of course. Let’s compare EdTech and gambling once again: in gambling, you always have a clear KPI: there are advertisers that will pay for the deposit a gambler spends, advertisers who set the base amount starting from which you will be rewarded (e.g., a gambler spending $20 or more), or advertisers paying only if a gambler tops up their deposit for the second time — point being, everything is straightforward there.
In EdTech, on the other hand, you really need to apply a personal touch, or the advertisers might say, for example, that some of the leads you’ve attracted do not qualify, as they could not have been reached by phone.

However, when it comes to the launch itself, everything is easy; our ad accounts in EdTech have never been banned; any issues we have faced have been mundane ones: are our creative materials good enough, what’s our conversion, etc. No expendables as well, which is one less headache.

What’s more, advertisers can take an active part in promotions: in our cases, they have offered their own videos for social media and TikTok and other materials. This is always nice.

Semyon: Here you do not need to spend money on expendables, as all offers are clean, and the sales funnel is already there.

Arslan: EdTech perspectives are bright as ever. The market just keeps growing, as more and more companies go online. From the traffic point of view it’s even simpler: any online product that sells knowledge has just two main items of expenditure: wages and traffic payments. The product itself is ready, so you do not have to spend money creating it. The main resource here is leads, and everything is straightforward. This is why we see gigantic potential here: it’s easy for beginners to easily learn the tricks of the trade, and it's easy to start working with EdTech if you’ve been doing other kinds of affiliate marketing before.

Thugger 52: EdTech is definitely cool, and the traffic is cheap, which makes everything easier.

Semyon: EdTech is great for all affiliate marketers. Beginners can start easily, and others can take advantage of the market that offers the same income for less effort.
EdTech mirrors other vertical markets: those who have worked with crypto can also work with trading, those who have worked with nutrition can work with health-related courses.
A clean vertical market is great for beginners, as you don’t have to learn how to bend the rules and spend a lot of time doing various tests. You invest less money, less time, less resources. All in all, the future is bright for EdTech.