Tier 1 countries

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What is Tiers in affiliate marketing

All countries in the world of affiliate marketing are conventionally divided into 3 groups (Tiers). No surprise, Tier 1 includes the most attractive countries for an advertiser, Tier 2 and 3 combine developing countries.

Economists classified three categories of countries: developed, developing, and third world. Their evaluation is based primarily on the economic development of the country. Affiliates divide countries into Tiers in a different manner. The focus was on the solvency of buyers and their average income.

One more point was also important: online payment. At first, it was only available in highly developed countries like the USA, Canada, Western Europe, and Japan. Online payments and cards were a novelty in other countries, but affiliate marketing was flourishing there. There are now many payment methods available to almost every part of the world: credit cards, Internet banking, SMS payments, etc. 

Also, the political situation influences getting into a particular group in the country and the peculiarities of its laws.

All these characteristics make it possible to divide countries into 3 main groups or Tiers.

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Tier 1 countries traffic meaning

What is exactly means this Tier 1? Tier 1 countries are the most desired GEOs for advertising, while the most difficult to work with. Here are the largest payouts for offers, but the cost of attracting users is significant.

Countries from Tier 1 are the most desirable for affiliates. At first glance, making money here is easy. Payouts for offers are already very attractive, and the audience is the most solvent. It is heaven for launching betting and gambling on RevShare, or CC-Submit offers.

But there is one big but: it is hard to surprise the inhabitants of these countries. They may have already seen everything that you want to offer. As a rule, the population of these countries is not only difficult to attract with advertising. They know how to disable or ignore ads.

Tier 1 has very high competition among advertisers. It will not be easy for a newbie to survive here. More experienced affiliates with exclusive sales schemes win.

Tier 1 lures affiliate marketers, but only real hunters can survive and make a profit. If you are a newbie in affiliate marketing pay attention to countries from Tier 2 and 3.

RichAds advertising network

As a result, Tier 1 countries have not only high competition but also high bids. Traffic in Tier 1 countries will be 2 or 3 times more expensive. Which will require good budgets from the affiliate marketer to start.

There is one more important difference in these countries. Rather strict legal regulation of advertising. Many approaches and verticals are very difficult to convert here due to restrictions or prohibitions.

There is an opinion that Tier 1 converts English perfectly. This is partly true. Don’t forget about European countries. Not everyone in Germany or France speaks English. Canada also has 2 national languages. When launching campaigns on such GEOs, it is worth running a split test of two different languages and optimizing the campaign based on the leader language.

One of the characteristics of these regions is the value of personal data. Therefore, you can earn much more on Sweepstakes than in other locations.

The list of countries from Tier 1 in affiliate marketing

There is no single approved list of countries that fall into Tier 1, 2, and 3. It is often determined by the affiliate marketer’s experience. In addition, countries can migrate between groups.

Tier 1 countries list:

  • Australia,
  • Austria,
  • Belgium,
  • Canada,
  • Czech Republic,
  • Denmark,
  • Finland,
  • France,
  • Germany,
  • Italy,
  • Iceland,
  • Ireland,
  • the Netherlands,
  • New Zealand,
  • Norway,
  • Spain,
  • Slovenia,
  • Sweden,
  • Switzerland,
  • Portugal,
  • Poland,
  • the United Kingdom,
  • the United States of America.
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Tier 1 traffic: How to work with it?

Tier 1 has very high competition among advertisers. It will not be easy for a newbie to survive here. More experienced affiliates with exclusive sales schemes win.

As a result, T1 countries have not only high competition but also high bids. Traffic in Tier 1 countries will be 2 or 3 times more expensive. Which will require good budgets from the affiliate marketer to start.

There is one more important difference in these countries. Rather strict legal regulation of advertising. Many approaches and verticals are very difficult to convert here due to restrictions or prohibitions.

Key Tier 1 characteristics

Advantages Difficulties
Solvent audience;
The leader in payouts;
All payment methods are available;
Lots of offers available;
Highly-developed technologies;
Wide choice of traffic options.
High CPC or CPM;
Requires large budgets;
High competition;
Strict sector regulation;
Demanding audience;
Traffic volumes are lower than in Tier 1 and 2.

The main peculiarities of RichAds traffic in Tier 1 countries

Economic development, payment system availability, and audience characteristics influence the choice of geo. Affiliates should also consider the amount of traffic available in the region when selecting the country. The amount of traffic available in the region determines profits as well.

The traffic volumes of Tier 1 countries advertising networks are divided according to the devices they originate from. This information is vital for advertisers who launch mobile offers. If the offer is not tailored for a specific device, it will not be excessive to take into account volumes for desktops, mobiles, and tablets.

86% of RichAds push traffic comes from mobile devices.
Desktop traffic makes up 10%, while tablet traffic makes up 4%. Meanwhile, some countries in the ad network have a lot of desktop traffic.

We have prepared a table of RichAds’ traffic for your convenience.

The table below lists the 15 most popular countries based on impressions across multiple devices. As an example of top Tier countries, the USA ranks 7th in mobile traffic and 1st in computer traffic. Brazil takes third place both for mobile and desktop, and its volume is excellent.

Tier 3 countries dominate mobile traffic, but Tier 1 and 2 countries dominate computer traffic.

Push ad impressions statistics for one day in the RichAds ad network

*countries from 1 Tier are highlighted

DeviceGEOImpressions Device GEO Impressions Device GEO Impressions
1 MobileIND529247434ComputerUSA31037481TabletRUS812410
2 Mobile THA78941961 Computer JPN10371087 Tablet FRA802285
3 Mobile BRA47805000 Computer BRA7404812 Tablet DEU767170
4 Mobile IDN46871235 Computer MEX7369488 Tablet IND603451
5 Mobile RUS33688524 Computer GBR6365387 Tablet USA483149
6 Mobile MYS29565182 Computer IND4282363 Tablet GBR441908
7 Mobile USA21177300 Computer CAN4045973 Tablet ESP437941
8 Mobile EGY20417781 Computer MYS2708893 Tablet CAN341160
9 Mobile BGD19189031 Computer FRA2534261 Tablet EGY280522
10 Mobile PAK17049732 Computer DEU2338092 Tablet THA276211
11 Mobile IRQ16773369 Computer AUS2183120 Tablet ITA260059
12 Mobile SAU15187635 Computer ESP1795794 Tablet TUR233017
13 Mobile ITA13874928 Computer CHL1726987 Tablet MYS206880
14 Mobile UKR13361289 Computer PHL1311729 Tablet BEL186146
15 Mobile TUR12399621 Computer ITA1244319 Tablet POL181791

*The data is relevant for January 2024

What is RichAds?
🔝 High quality push and pop ads,
🔼 domain redirect and native traffic source,
🔝 buy push ads at $0.005 (CPC), pop ads at $0.5 (CPM),
⏫ domain ads costs start from $1.5 (CPM), native ads — from $0.001 (CPC),
⏫ ad network offers large volumes of traffic in more than 200 geos from Tier 3 to Tier 1.


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Aksana Shakal
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Aksana Shakal has been in affiliate marketing for more than 5 years and is currently the Head of Content at RichAds, an ad-tech holding company. Her sphere of interest lies in affiliate marketing and SEO copywriting. In her articles, Aksana provided in-depth expertise in gaining traffic with different ad formats (push and in-page push ads, popunders and native ads) and verticals (Gambling, Dating, Nutra, Finance and much more). Aksana also loves reading novels and watching interviews on YouTube.
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