Interview with the CEO of Realpush

It’s been a while since our last interview… Today we’re sitting down with the CEO of Realpush. Mikhail will tell us about Realpush, share some tips for beginners and experienced webmasters, and explain what “push notifications without a subscription prompt” actually means.

Hi! Introduce yourself and tell us a bit about Realpush.
Hey!
My name is Mikhail, I’m the CEO and co-owner of the ADWIRK group of companies. Realpush is one of our successful traffic monetization products.
For many years we focused on B2B, and even when we built affiliate programs, they were only for a limited number of partners. We’re a major traffic supplier in the push, search, pop, and native segments for many advertising companies. Our products include a tracker, an SDK for app monetization, software monetization, and various websites and apps. To boost the financial performance of our products, in 2017 we tested a relatively new ad format — web push notifications — realized it was scalable and ready to be launched as a standalone product, and then built and launched the Realpush affiliate program. Today we operate in both B2B and B2C, and the system processes several billion impressions per day.
So Realpush successfully monetizes all types of live traffic through web and native push notifications. Our core offer is push notification subscriptions.

Can only website owners work with you, or do you also work with media buyers? Do you provide landing pages?
Realpush works with both media buyers and webmasters. For media buyers, we provide high-quality landing pages, a profitable systemic traffic-back, and a free tracker built by our own team. For website owners, we offer site monetization through web and native push notifications with top-tier payouts. For site owners, we’ve launched a new native push format — without a subscription prompt. This means we cover not just desktop and mobile Android devices, but all operating systems and device types without exception.

Can a beginner realistically get into push notifications right now, or is it better to look at other niches?
For beginners, monetizing traffic through push notifications is the easiest way to earn in affiliate marketing today. That said, like any business, you do need a starting budget to attract traffic. Beginners often think that collecting 200–500 subscribers will earn them serious money. It won’t! That’s not how it works. We recommend attracting at least 10,000+ subscribers before drawing any conclusions — don’t make emotional decisions based on just 100–200 subscriptions, especially if some of them were incentivized.
Our managers can always advise on the best GEOs, browsers, and traffic sources to use.

Which countries offer the highest earning potential? Which GEOs are most in demand among advertisers?
Some partners make money from high volumes of Asian traffic, even though it’s much cheaper than Tier-1. Others focus exclusively on expensive traffic. Every partner chooses their own strategy for driving and optimizing traffic.
We work with major advertisers and are constantly bringing in new big players.
Since relying on a single country isn’t always the most profitable approach, we recommend that our partners drive significant volumes of traffic from multiple tiers — Tier-1, Tier-2, and Tier-3.

Why don’t you sell traffic from your database directly to media buyers?
Based on my experience, the benefit of selling traffic directly to media buyers isn’t all that obvious. We’d most likely end up dealing with a large number of fraudulent schemes and complaints from publishers over low-quality ads. Once we’re confident we can protect ourselves from fraud and adult content in pushes, we’ll open up an advertiser dashboard.

Tell us how “push notifications without a subscription prompt” work.
Yes, the Realpush team has launched push notifications in a brand new format. These notifications don’t require the user to agree to subscribe. The user opens a website and receives a native push notification while they’re on the page. Simple! No subscription form needed — CTR and revenue go through the roof!
Users of Realpush can monetize their site with both our native and web push notifications simultaneously. For more details on how it works, it’s best to reach out to our managers — they’ll be happy to walk you through everything.

Do you think push notifications have a future? Many people say Google will tighten the screws soon and push notifications will die. Is the push market growing, or is it already slowly fading out?
The market is always evolving. In my experience, there hasn’t been a single ad format that has worked unchanged for more than a few months. All players in the online advertising market — including media buyers — depend on Google, specifically Chrome and its search algorithms. We work hard to stay ahead of changes, developing new ad formats and finding solutions within the rules and regulations set by the market.
Push notifications are taking on a new format. As I mentioned, for website owners we’ve launched a new push notification format — one that doesn’t require a subscription prompt.

At the end of every interview, we ask our guest to share a practical tip or life hack for our readers. Share some insights on working with Realpush that would be useful for media buyers.
I’d recommend buying traffic on a CPA model, which is available in almost all popup/popunder traffic networks. Buying traffic this way helps you understand your break-even timeline — we give personalized recommendations to help partners recoup their investment within 10–15 days — and it eliminates the headache of constantly managing whitelists and updating blacklists.

Thanks for the interview — it was fantastic!