Being a website owner in the productivity and remote work niche, I try to find tools that would actually help teams work better. One option that I have come to use a lot myself is Controlio. It is a great employee monitoring and time tracking tool. The tracking software you need is Controlio. It offers everything from attendance tracking to cloud-based productivity reports.
Last year, I wanted to take advantage of the Black Friday hype in the SaaS industry. It is the right time to promote the Controlio time tracking software as a lot of companies invest in tools to help their teams work better. It went from a simple experiment to a nice payday: $912 of affiliate earnings in just a few days from a combination of email campaigns, social media, targeted advertising, and on-site promotions.
I will go through what I did to get these results and the lessons I learned from it.
Here are some suggestions for your multi-channel promotions for SaaS tools, whether your site is niche or otherwise.
The Importance Of Timing: Black Friday
For plenty of SaaS brands, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are great opportunities for selling subscriptions to SaaS tools because they go beyond just selling physical products. At the end of each year, many managers buy productivity tools to help them prepare for the upcoming year.
Controlio was a good choice for me because of its great product offerings. From AI-powered productivity scoring and continuous screen recording to real-time activity tracking and reporting on app and website usage. Plus, its time tracking is insightful rather than intrusive. Companies adore it for their remote and hybrid teams, and they even have an easy 14-day free trial.
As for the plan? My aim was to drive targeted traffic to a specific landing page to showcase Controlio’s Black Friday deal and monitor how many people converted through my affiliate links.
Simple, But Effective: My Promotion Tactics
To avoid burnout, I kept it simple. To break it down:
- The Landing Page
Using WordPress on my site, I made two basic landing pages (one for organic/email traffic and the other for social ads) with a different affiliate tracking ID for each.
I kept the page design simple:
- Short explanation of how Controlio changes the game when it comes to tracking employee productivity.
- Bullet points outlining main features (productivity analytics, time tracking, screen recording)
- Sections answering common employee monitoring questions.
Most of my results stem from pure email follower counts, so I’ve opted for deindexing the pages to focus on Google for direct traffic and bypass the time and effort of setting up redirects.
Results of my email campaign
My email list is by far the most valuable asset of my email campaigns, as I had upwards of 15,000 subscribers, with the productivity sector being the most profitable. I sent the following three emails to the list of subscribers.
- Cyber Monday—Last chance reminder
- Black Friday – Morning email reminder
- Email reminder
The tone was not sales but rather helpful as I explained how Controlio helped me see time wasters in my workflow and included links to the landing page. The email had a 22% open rate and a 4.5% CTR. This is considerably better than my previous statistics.
Facebook is my strongest channel, as I have over 120,000 people following me on my page and in my groups. Simple graphics with text overlays, such as “Boost Team Productivity This Black Friday,” incentivized people to visit. I posted 3-4 times each day during the promotional period and left the promotional post pinned at the top of my page.
- Paid Facebook Ads
I ran a small test ad campaign for U.S. business owners and managers who are interested in tools that increase productivity. The budget for the campaign was $75 over four days. I set up a single image ad that was professionally designed and linked to the social-specific landing page. The cost per click was less than $0.10. (Text and image ads are priced on Facebook. You can clearly tell which ads are texts and which are images because of the different prices.)
- On-Site Pop-ups
OptinMonster offers EXIT pop-ups. They are great because the pop-up does not show to the visitor unless they try to leave the page. I used it to show the Controlio Black Friday deal. The pop noticed they were interested in the deal, and they contributed some good traffic.
The Results: Traffic and Profit and Commission
Total commission earned was $912. The cost of the ads plus the cost of the VA was $105. Total cost was $105. The total net profit was $807.
The total traffic is broken down by email clicks = 2300 and clicks on the Facebook ad = 850. Clicks on the social posts = 400, site pop-up and direct traffic = 1200, and total page views = 6200. Email, once again, was the best source for the 5 ads. The commission for the Facebook ads achieved a great profit, although the social ads were at a lack of profit. I will fix that on the next ad.
The amount of time I spent on this was only 8 hours. Most of it was spent on email writing. The VA spent only a few hours on designing and scheduling the images.
What Worked, What Didn’t, and Key Takeaways.
Email is still the best source because the subscribers trust the ads.
Paid ads offered quick, targeted reach at a low price. *Value-add pop-ups* took added value, driving little effort.
Social posts were a little underwhelming. Normally engagement is high, but this time because it was deal-focused, it didn’t resonate as strongly. While pop-ups added value, they didn’t convert as much as expected; maybe they were too generic.
Takeaways:
- On-demand traffic (email, direct) is better than anything else when it comes to conversion
- Keep it trackable and simple but with enough granularity to actually learn something from it
- Small tests really do lead to low risk and high reward profits
If your audience is engaged and your site is in the business or productivity categories, advertising something like Controlio during peak times can be a game changer.
What I’d Change For Next Time
- More segmented emails (one for remote team managers for example)
- Test Pinterest; it’s underutilized when it comes to productivity
- Change the landing page to be current with whatever offers are active
- A small retargeting ad campaign for visitors who didn’t convert
This was profitable, and I would do it again for sure.
Controlio and Time tracking: Frequently Asked Questions
What is Controlio? Controlio is a cloud-based time tracking solution that assists organizations in monitoring employee productivity with actionable insights.
It can help teams understand how to work better by recording screen activity, monitoring how apps and websites are used, and generating reports.
- Is employee monitoring software ethical? It can be when used with clear directives and guidelines. Several companies use this data to improve processes and workflows so employees can better achieve work/life balance and avoid being overwhelmed.
- How precise is Controlio when it comes to tracking time? Automatic and highly accurate. Controlio is able to record active time and break time, distinguish between those two, and record keystroke and mouse activity to facilitate precise billing and attendance reports.
- Specifically, can Controlio assist remote teams? Yes. Controlio eliminates the need for managers to conduct regular check-ins with all of their remote employees and helps managers identify remote employees who may be struggling to accomplish their work.
Have you ever run a promotion like this on your site? Or are you considering the Controlio tool for your team? I’d love to hear your thoughts!