Shotgun Angles (22)
So this is actually an ongoing campaign, but its not heading in the direction I had anticipated and I seriously need some input from you guys.
Setup
Hosting: Hostgator reseller hosting
Tracking: Bevomedia
My strategy: After reading a few posts and case studies on the importance of using angles in any type of marketing and vertical, I decided this is legit advice and I launched a campaign with many angles in adult.
I picked the big tube sites and US for this since I'm in the US and english is my native language AND it would be easier (i suspected) to make creative angles work. And if they worked, port them over to other countries. Plus I like the volume and opportunity to scale.
Examples of angles I used: "Meet girls who love to suck cock." (That one failed btw, lol). Some seemed to be complete failures while others actually seemed very promising.
I will now give you the play by play up until where I'm at now. I started 2 days ago. I want to give just enough info to get advice and help others, but conceal enough so I don't get people straight up copying the campaign if it works. Sucks to work so hard and lose so much money upfront, only to get it ripped once its profitable, lol!
Day 1-2:
$100/day budget
Created 8 banners, 3 landers (ripped and modified), targeting 2 offers. All on 1 placement (Video A).
First day was interesting, 6 of the 8 banners all had 1 or 2 conversions. All the landers had about even conversions too, except 1 of them was kind of lacking. Basically, not enough data to optimize anything right of the bat.
Half way through the second day, it was clear some banners were way better than the others (close to breakeven). So I had 2 banners that appeared to be breakeven, and replaced the other banners with new ones. I also cut 1 landing page that had high CTR but extremely low conversions (bad epc).
Banners ranged from .3% ctr ro .5% ctr.
Landers were average of 30% ctr.
Offer1: .30 epc
Offer2: .19 epc
Optization end of 2nd day:
I decided to pick the angle that was working and themed new banners with similar images and headlines.
I also picked the offer that had highest epc (and naturally was aligned better with my angle).
It really looked like I was on the right track. I clearly saw a good lander/banner/offer combo that was seemed like it should be profitable... at least that's what the numbers were saying.
Spend: $209
Revenue: $81
Clicks: 1455
Impressions: 420,000
CPM: 0.50ish
Day 3:
With all my banners themed around the same winning banner image/copy.. I was getting .4 to .5% CTR! I was like, SCORE!
But then I looked at my tracker and revenue, and I was shocked... ONLY 2 conversions!
So the stats were as follows:
Spend: $100
Revenue: $8!!!!
Banner CTR: Average 0.45%
Lander CTR: Average 25% (dropped!)
Offer1: 0.07 EPC (dropped like a ton of bricks!)
Help!
So guys, before I dry up the rest of my testing budget for the week.. I need to figure out what the hell is the next course of action. Some shit is going on, and I was really expecting at LEAST breakeven with everything in place/optimized.
I was hoping for my losses to become smaller and smaller and on the road to profitability by now.
Banners are doing awesome, landers are kind of stinking, and offer is definitely stinking bad all of a sudden. I'd like to get some advice, and make my moves moving forward. Campaign is currently on pause.
Let me know if you need any details that you feel are missing!
Your hosting: is that a VPS, or still shared hosting? (I think it's shared, but I'm not sure).
If it's shared, I'd strongly recommend getting off that. You can't really trust your stats until you do.
Not really sure myself, but it may be shared. How much would getting a VPS affect my conversions realistically?
A solid VPS is pretty much the MINIMUM requirement for running any meaningful amount of paid traffic and with $100/day budget it is a comparatively small expense, so it's time to upgrade 
As stated many times before, there are so many variables involved in IM, so worrying about your hosting shouldn't be one of them.
I agree with the others, a VPS/dedi with SSD is a must in driving traffic. You never want to have a slow loading LP or redirect.
http://beyondhosting.net/Virtual-Pri...x-VPS-Hosting/ Tyler is on here, he could help you get setup. http://stmforum.com/forum/member.php...dHosting-Tyler
Another source would be burst.net/ultravps.php
@itsjustbrian - I just checked, and it's definitely shared hosting.
Here's a quick write-up on shared vs VPS hosting, from the Stack That Money hosting guide.
The short version: the problem with shared hosting is that you can't trust your stats on it. That drop in conversions you saw over the last day? That could just be because someone else on the same physical machine as your hosting account installed a Related Posts plugin on their wordpress account and kicked the hell out of the entire box's MySQL installation. You just can't be sure - and that's why shared hosting is bad.
I'd say get onto a Beyond Hosting starter plan or other decent VPS immediately!
Talk to a few people as well as took in your feedback.
Decision done, I'm getting a VPS from Beyond Hosting using STM coupon. Thanks guys, I'll keep this updated with my progress on this campaign.
FYI, 3rd day looking better. We'll see how a VPS server affects things in the next few weeks.
UPDATE:
Tasks:
-Cut 1 landing page that was clearly underperforming (had like 0.05 epc)
-Revised offer rotator to target 2 offers, each targeted specifically to my angle
-I bought new VPS hosting.
-Moved my domain and all files over to new hosting.
-Bought SSL cert on subdomain (Installation done, waiting on email approval)
-Bought CPVLab (working on installation)
I still have my bevomedia tracking in place, and its always worked well... just hate the laggy dashboard at times. So, fuck it, I launched it with my original bevo links and tracking in place last night. This morning shows very interesting results. I'm actually breaking even pretty much. The only thing new is that my landing pages/domains are on the new VPS hosting.
I'm not sure if its the hosting or if its because its Sunday. But things are looking much better. I'll give you guys an update once I have a full day's worth of data.
Using angles is definitely a smart decision and it will work (sooner or later).
Question though... are you tying these angles in to your landing page?
A 25% LP CTR suggests to me that there is definitely room for improvement in the jump from banner >> landing page.
If you're using an angle for your banner but NOT for the LP, then that's something that you can fix up today. Make sure the LP copy/image/headline is consistent with what came before.
I came to this thread expecting something about guns
25% lp ctr is a bit low, in adult i would always shoot for 40-50%, i always recommend landing page genius to people. it definitely makes the split testing of landing pages elements faster. its worth the investment.
Yeah, I heard good things about Landing Page Genius. I don't run enough volume at the moment to take advantage of it, since I only really test 2-3 landing pages at a time. And I change a lot more than just text and images... I'm usually testing completely different functioning landing pages, at the beginning at least.
CTR at the moment ( after the wierd shitty day) is about 33%.
One simple thing I have not done was test matching the copy of the landing page with my banners. The images on my landers match up with my angle, just not the copy. I'm using generic copy, like "Pics of someone you know!" or "This is not a dating site!" etc.
I will make this change right away 
Most of the time matching your whole campaign is pretty key! (not always though).
Usually i'll match the lander to the offer, that is almost ALWAYS key, 99% of the time!!
Matching the banners to the page/offer is the next step, but just a heads up it doesn't always do better
Thanks Stackman!
UPDATE
I wanted to update everyone after I had a full days data. But unfortunately i dried up the remaining of my test funds earlier in the day so I just have about $44 of data.
Today's Stats:
Spend: $44.962
Revenue: $40.20
Clicks: 443
CPM: 0.513
Average banner CTR: 0.51% <-boss
Lowest banner ctr is .35 and highest banner ctr is .65.
Landing page CTR: 30-35%
Today's conversion rate: 3%
So without being able to get more data, I've finally finished the following. Transferred completely over to CPVLab. I have it installed, I have my campaigns up, and I have my tracking links updated. This should be real interesting to see how this fairs against bevo as far as performance goes. And of course, I am now running on VPS hosting.
I've been playing with CPVLab for a while and I like it a lot better than Bevo. I guess you get what you pay for. Its fast, organizes shit easily, very easy to modify campaigns.
Campaign summary:
Total spend: $500
Total rev.: $212.24
Overall campaign conversion rate: 1.5 to 2%
I guess those stats are okay... the good news is that I came a long way and seem to be breaking even almost.
What I need to improve to get into profit:
-Increase landing page CTR (I need to do this without sacrificing CR)
-Increase CR (match landing page copy with offer/banners or test new offers)
I think where I can get the most leverage in getting good profit is improve my CR. Its definitely on the low side. As of today, my CR was about 3%. This pretty much make me breakeven. If I can bump this to 4% CR, that would give me an "okay" profit. I think I have about 7 banners all doing okay. If I get enough data and cut out the under-performing ones, this would increase my profit even more.
If things go according to plan in the next few days, I think a 50% ROI is very doable.
UPDATE:
Off to a rough start again guys. Everything is running 100% on new setup (vps hosting, CPVLaab).
Spend: $63.151
Revenue: $15.76
ROI: -75%ish
I would typically want to wait until $100 spend, but I saw this going downhill pretty fast and decided to pause.
I was down to my best 4 banners and best 2 landers which should have been a recipe for awesomeness. The results said otherwise.
Traffic
Breakdown (CPVLab:
Looking shitty folks. So, I was doing way better the day before where I was breaking even. Not sure what the hell to do next.
I created 5 more banners (same angle, different images) and I added a new landing page that is designed to mimic the offer, almost exactly except the copy.
PS. I guess I might as well say it, I'm using Traffic Junky.
If ANYONE on this forum is on shared hosting, please o please save yourself many tears and upgrade to at least a VPS, Beyond Hosting has always been great to affiliates with friendly service I also know liquidwebs is great
Hosting is the backbone foundation of your whole entire company, don't skimp on it unless you want skimped conversions haha
especially after they are offering this big discounts !
Use Coupon Code: STACKTHATMONEY
50% off the FIRST MONTH of ANY VPS hosting package!
Use Coupon Code: NEWCUSTOMER2012
Well, I think Beyond Hosting is a great hosting service (which I now use), but as of now I have not seen an improvement in moving to the new hosting plan.... so I assume the hosting wasn't holding this campaign back, but some other factors I have yet to figure out.
PS. My hosting was not traditional shared hosting to begin with, it was reseller hosting. I think its kind of the same, but maybe a supercharged version.
UPDATE:
Spend: about $200
Revenue: about $100
Profit: -50%ish
So I've been hitting the same angle for a while...
Now, the ROI numbers are skewed because the cost/cpc is 100% accurate since we're actually paying based on CPM.
But basically, not looking great. We aren't making significant enough improvement.
I think I'm going to try to add 2 other landing pages to see if I can improve landing page CTR and conversions and also test my 2 best banners with 2 near banners with different copy.
If that doesn't work, I don't know what else to do.. maybe call this campaign a failure and start a new campaign?
Also what I can't figure out is one one day CTRs will be really good and then the next day, CTRs will plumit. Like the day before this, the same landing pages were getting 30% CTR, but then today my landing page was LESS than 20%. What the hell? Each day was over 1000 clicks.
Do you guys see huge fluctuations day to day? Maybe I need to stick it out?
Mini update... still in the same day... we've swung a little bit into the positive ROI for the evening part of the day. Went from -50% for the whole day to -40% for the whole day.
I wonder if the trick for this campaign lies in the time parting. I'll keep you guys updated.
ONE thing I noticed... I see that I'm now in position 3 in the bidding listing. I wonder if this had anything to do with it.
Just a little POA, day/time parting in my opinion should only be a minor tweak to increase ROI once your campaign is already profitable and running for a couple weeks.
It shouldn't be the factor your campaign depends on to be profitable at all, so I would suggest you to focus on other things instead (creatives, LPs, bidding etc.).
Hmm - are you noticing higher CTRs on the first day you introduce the LPs? If so, it's probably what Finch has referred to as the "Champagne CTR" - day 1 fresh landers get more clicks, but the effect wears off fast.
Yeah, a few people have said something similar. Supposedly, a lot of the big players don't even use day parting.
Hmm...
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