meathead1234
Elite Member
- Sep 24, 2008
- 3,727
- 14,581
Hey guys,
If you're in Europe, you almost definitely know about Euro 2012. For those who don't, it's a huge football (soccer) competition for many European countries and happens every 4 years. There will be millions of people watching, so it's perfect to monetize. I already wrote a similar guide for the SuperBowl so this one has been edited to be more appropriate for this event. Bear in mind - this event goes on for a few weeks so use the first few days to test different methods of driving traffic and towards the finals (where more people will be watching) you'll already know which traffic sources and offers convert best.
Some countries will be able to watch it easily; others will have to watch it on premium channels. I haven't done too much research - I'll run the first few games and see which countries are visiting my site the most. They will be desperate and willing to do almost anything to watch the event. I'm purposely setting everything up last minute so there is less time for forum moderators/Facebook/Twitter etc. to ban my links. Anyone (and I mean anyone) will be able to drive traffic to an event as large as this.
A few years ago, I used to make the bulk of my income streaming football matches in the UK so I know the market well.
There are two ways you can set it up:
Free website (blogspot or similar) or your own domain. I'd recommend a cheap .com, but you don't have to. A shared host will also be fine as you'll only need it for a day. Most of them won't cut you off for a little while - so by the time they get round to banning you, you'll already be done for the day.
If you go with your own domain, I wouldn't recommend using Wordpress as it is resource intensive and will load too slowly. Plain HTML will be fine. Design a really simple landing page. And when I say simple - I really mean it. I've always found simple sites to be the most effective. If you can't design a site yourself, hire someone on Fiverr or use Httrack to rip a site you like. Don't worry about putting any content on the site - just a title like "Watch [match name] here LIVE!" should be fine. And a note saying "please be patient and wait for the stream to load" - people will quickly exit if it doesn't load immediately. If you want to set it all up in advance with a stream for each game, here's a schedule for the event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2012_schedule
I would recommend embedding a stream from a site like uStream or Justin.tv - you can also use highlights from similar games if you don't want to find the stream. As long as they see something loading then they will just assume that the coverage is legitimate. People who watch football are used to seeing highlights so shouldn't be an issue.
You should now have a site setup:
A simple header (rip a banner from another site); an introduction to the event and a fake video player with an embedded stream. You could go a step further by adding things like a Facebook share button - you might get lucky and go viral.
Once you have your site up, it's time to setup your content locker. I use Content Lock Pro for this as it allows me to use higher paying offers and geo-target countries that you won't get on specialist content locking networks. As it's such a high traffic event, I wouldn't bother having it load on-click (e.g. when they start the video). I would set a 20-30 second delay on the locker popping up. It will give the stream enough time to start, but not enough time for them to realise it is not actually live. Rotate a few RELEVANT email submits (there should be loads around at the moment) and that's done on that front. I'll be using with Content Lock Pro and just adding as many offers as I can to start. Add a message to the locker saying something like "please take 30 seconds to visit one of our sponsors and support the site - the live stream will then unlock"
Now you have your site and locker setup, it's time to drive some traffic. You can set your site up whenever (I'm working on mine now). I don't do SEO, but if I did, I would have already been working on that side of things. I focus on social and referral traffic (forums).
There are literally hundreds of sources of traffic, but here's some that work well for me in the soccer market:
- Justin.tv (spam chat boxes)
- Ustream (spam chat boxes)
- Facebook fan pages
- Soccer forums (register the day before so you can post links)
- Twitter
- Other live streams (spam chat boxes)
- Related blogs (hopefully find auto approve comments)
- Buy an Xrumer blast on Fiverr with your link (do this the day before). Doesn't matter if your domain gets sandboxed as you'll only use it once
Most of these are very easy to post links on. I'd recommend hiring someone (pay them $20 for the evening or whatever) and get them to just spam your links everywhere. Don't worry about getting banned - just post everywhere you can. If you have tools to automate the process - great! If not, it doesn't matter. There is tons of traffic out there. My best day streaming was over $1000, but even if you don't make much it's still a good learning curve.
If you build up a good following from this, you can use it again and again for other events. Sports fans are sports fans - they want to watch everything. Don't forget to try things like highlights as well - people are always looking for these and will be for months to come, especially if their team wins.
Good luck!
If you're in Europe, you almost definitely know about Euro 2012. For those who don't, it's a huge football (soccer) competition for many European countries and happens every 4 years. There will be millions of people watching, so it's perfect to monetize. I already wrote a similar guide for the SuperBowl so this one has been edited to be more appropriate for this event. Bear in mind - this event goes on for a few weeks so use the first few days to test different methods of driving traffic and towards the finals (where more people will be watching) you'll already know which traffic sources and offers convert best.
Some countries will be able to watch it easily; others will have to watch it on premium channels. I haven't done too much research - I'll run the first few games and see which countries are visiting my site the most. They will be desperate and willing to do almost anything to watch the event. I'm purposely setting everything up last minute so there is less time for forum moderators/Facebook/Twitter etc. to ban my links. Anyone (and I mean anyone) will be able to drive traffic to an event as large as this.
A few years ago, I used to make the bulk of my income streaming football matches in the UK so I know the market well.
There are two ways you can set it up:
Free website (blogspot or similar) or your own domain. I'd recommend a cheap .com, but you don't have to. A shared host will also be fine as you'll only need it for a day. Most of them won't cut you off for a little while - so by the time they get round to banning you, you'll already be done for the day.
If you go with your own domain, I wouldn't recommend using Wordpress as it is resource intensive and will load too slowly. Plain HTML will be fine. Design a really simple landing page. And when I say simple - I really mean it. I've always found simple sites to be the most effective. If you can't design a site yourself, hire someone on Fiverr or use Httrack to rip a site you like. Don't worry about putting any content on the site - just a title like "Watch [match name] here LIVE!" should be fine. And a note saying "please be patient and wait for the stream to load" - people will quickly exit if it doesn't load immediately. If you want to set it all up in advance with a stream for each game, here's a schedule for the event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2012_schedule
I would recommend embedding a stream from a site like uStream or Justin.tv - you can also use highlights from similar games if you don't want to find the stream. As long as they see something loading then they will just assume that the coverage is legitimate. People who watch football are used to seeing highlights so shouldn't be an issue.
You should now have a site setup:
A simple header (rip a banner from another site); an introduction to the event and a fake video player with an embedded stream. You could go a step further by adding things like a Facebook share button - you might get lucky and go viral.
Once you have your site up, it's time to setup your content locker. I use Content Lock Pro for this as it allows me to use higher paying offers and geo-target countries that you won't get on specialist content locking networks. As it's such a high traffic event, I wouldn't bother having it load on-click (e.g. when they start the video). I would set a 20-30 second delay on the locker popping up. It will give the stream enough time to start, but not enough time for them to realise it is not actually live. Rotate a few RELEVANT email submits (there should be loads around at the moment) and that's done on that front. I'll be using with Content Lock Pro and just adding as many offers as I can to start. Add a message to the locker saying something like "please take 30 seconds to visit one of our sponsors and support the site - the live stream will then unlock"
Now you have your site and locker setup, it's time to drive some traffic. You can set your site up whenever (I'm working on mine now). I don't do SEO, but if I did, I would have already been working on that side of things. I focus on social and referral traffic (forums).
There are literally hundreds of sources of traffic, but here's some that work well for me in the soccer market:
- Justin.tv (spam chat boxes)
- Ustream (spam chat boxes)
- Facebook fan pages
- Soccer forums (register the day before so you can post links)
- Other live streams (spam chat boxes)
- Related blogs (hopefully find auto approve comments)
- Buy an Xrumer blast on Fiverr with your link (do this the day before). Doesn't matter if your domain gets sandboxed as you'll only use it once
Most of these are very easy to post links on. I'd recommend hiring someone (pay them $20 for the evening or whatever) and get them to just spam your links everywhere. Don't worry about getting banned - just post everywhere you can. If you have tools to automate the process - great! If not, it doesn't matter. There is tons of traffic out there. My best day streaming was over $1000, but even if you don't make much it's still a good learning curve.
If you build up a good following from this, you can use it again and again for other events. Sports fans are sports fans - they want to watch everything. Don't forget to try things like highlights as well - people are always looking for these and will be for months to come, especially if their team wins.
Good luck!
Last edited:
.
