"Our average ROI in search feed arbitrage is 15–20%" — co-owner of Epic-Media

Epic-Media has been in the market since 2020. We started with nutra, then ran gambling, sweepstakes, e-commerce, and search. Our main traffic sources are Facebook, TikTok, and Google.

At an afterparty during the AW conference in Barcelona, we met the owner of a team who spoke very highly of this vertical. We didn't really understand it at first, but we kept it in mind and started digging. A month later we found an affiliate network and ran a test campaign.

Because it was a fairly new vertical and we believed we could get in before everyone started talking about it. We were 100% confident — but over time we discovered the pitfalls, and that initial belief turned into systematic work, testing, and chasing maximum ROI.

To open an account with a provider, you need to demonstrate volume of $50,000 — so that's the minimum we started with.

Connections matter a lot here, which is unusual. You need a reputation as a stable team and solid stats across other verticals. We don't work exclusively with Tonic, but right now it accounts for about 80% of our traffic. We're trying to bring that figure down to 50% — we don't want all our eggs in one basket.

The start was 50/50. The first month was in the red, the second was in the black, the next 2–3 months we broke even, and then we hit a stable profit.

This is a critical aspect of this vertical — the entry barrier is very high. Every team starts with a limited spend cap. If you manage to deliver results, you can move from NET 90 (ed. 90-day hold) to NET 15 through high-quality traffic.

90% of traffic for any team is Health and Jobs. These keywords have been performing consistently for 3+ years. Right now we're working with tier-1 countries, mainly Europe. I know a lot of teams run exclusively USA, but our results look quite different. We work with FB and TikTok.

The creatives are completely varied — both in approach and execution. We have a dedicated department that produces at least 100 creatives per day; by February 3rd we had already made over 500 creatives. We learned from spy tool examples and ad libraries, and from there the guys got the hang of it and now know on their own what's going to perform.

We'll leave that question open, because sharing it would attract the wrong kind of attention. What I can say is that we're not yet in the top 10 teams in the region by revenue. The key word being "yet."

We started with a stable 40% ROI, but once the niche got really crowded, the numbers dropped to 10–15%, which we cover through volume.

Very hardcore — we had a similar case ourselves. They blocked a payout on a smaller amount, but eventually paid out the larger portion after 4 months. When you factor in a thin ROI, a single delay like that can completely destroy your financial model.

No, because we don't run traffic to the USA. From what our contacts who work with that GEO say, the ban was barely noticeable for them either.

Low ROI and high risk. Providers have a steep revshare tier structure that's very hard to break through. A lot of people started running traffic, but thin margins and the Google algorithm storm knocked many affiliates off track. Funds getting blocked and accounts getting shut down — it's not for the faint-hearted. It's easier to run nutra or gambling.

This isn't about us specifically, but we've noticed a pattern where media buyers work across several teams at the same time, chase quick money, and run 18+ creatives. Then the provider bans the account, they get let go, and they move on to other teams — bringing their 18+ case study with them.