International Mobile Marketing (43)
Hi all,
I'm Martin, and I'm a PPC newbie. I have knowledge of SEO, affiliate marketing, etc. (never had much success with it), but I've never tried paid advertising to promote other offers. I decided to join this forum to learn about paid advertising.
I think that mobile marketing has a lot of potential and the fact that it still isn't as popular as traditional marketing can only help a newbie like me. That's why I decided to try this type of marketing at first.
bbrock32 suggested creating a follow along campaign so I decided to start one and share with you my experiences and get some advice.
My plan
My plan is to focus on one mobile CPA network and one source of traffic for at least 30 days (yes, I've read STM guides).
My chosen CPA network is MobPartner, and ad network is Buzzcity. I want to focus on international mobile marketing - marketing to Asian countries, Africa, Central America and South America.
As for verticals, I'm not going to choose just one vertical because I want to test as many things as I can with as many offers as I can.
To keep it simple, I will stick to direct linking for now. I will also use provided banners at first and only test with custom creatives if there are conversions.
My goals
My first short-term goal is to get just one commission within the next seven days. I don't care if it's only $1, I want to take it all step by step, and it all starts with the first commission.
I will share with you my short-term goals along the way.
Day 1 - progress report
done:
I've already joined MobPartner and Buzzcity several days ago. I applied for several offers at MobPartner. So far I tested one German offer on Buzzcity but I found out that Buzzcity is not a good source of European traffic (I received only 150 impressions a day and only one click) so I decided to try other countries.
I'm now accepted for 6 campaigns but 4 of them are for countries that won't work well with Buzzcity. I will start with one South African adult dating offer (payout ~ $2), and one Asian mobile content offer (payout ~$1). Since payouts are quite low, I will have to get really low bids and high conversions. We'll see how it goes once I have some data. It's all a learning process.
As for the SA offer, I need to wait until Buzzcity approves my second deposit so that I can send some money to my other account (I learned that if you want to promote adult/dating on BuzzCity, you should get another account and use it as a sub-account).
As for the Asian offer, I set campaigns for three countries with basic targeting at first (all channels except for adult, allowed OS, all devices, all carriers, no day parting, recommended bid, daily budget: $5 for each campaign). I used two different banners provided by the network for each country. If the offer converts, I'm going to create my own banners and test with different devices, day parting, etc. I'm waiting for ad approval now so hopefully I'll have some first data tomorrow.
to do:
- Contact the campaign manager from MobPartner to tell me which campaigns perform best in Asia, Africa and Central and South America.
- Start the SA campaign once I get money in my Buzzcity account.
I will try to test at least 1-2 new campaigns a day and try different angles on existing campaigns. Since I'm a freelancer, I can't focus on paid advertising full-time, but I will try to test as many things as I can and update this journal at least 2-3 times a week. It's a long-term project so expect many updates.
I have a question regarding tracking: if I understand it right, MobPartner already offers a tracking solution (I can check the OS, device and carrier when I get a commission). Does it mean that I don't have to use any tracking solution for now? I would like to keep it as simple as possible for now. I only plan to use subids to track which campaign works best. I'm very confused about mobile tracking. I also have no idea what I need to do if I want to promote iPhone offers (what's up with these iOS Tracking Solutions?).
All looking good - you're organised and focused!
Tracking: I'd still recommend using tracking. OS, Device and Carrier are good, but you also need to know what banners are converting and from what placements. MobAff or the STM tracker are both good options for mobile tracking.
Tracking will also help you out with iOS promotions - the STM mobile tracker includes redirect functions so that you can redirect iOS traffic to iOS offers and other traffic to other offers.
Thanks caurmen! I tried to set up MobAff but I have no idea how to use it. I watched Vimeo tutorials and I tried to set up a basic offer but it didn't work (it didn't redirect). There's no step-by-step guide there (support portal is not helpful at all) and as a newbie I'm super confused and have no idea what to do... Could someone help me set everything up for MobPartner and Buzzcity?
Update: it seems that I managed to set it up. I thought that it doesn't work because MobAff URL didn't redirect to the offer but then I found out that my affiliate link also doesn't load. It has to work on phones, though, because MobPartner registered many clicks.
By the way, I achieved my first goal and generated my first commission! It's $1 and I spent $27 but it's the first step. I will write about it in detail later today.
Day 2 - progress report
done:
- I asked MobPartner manager about best performing campaigns. No response yet.
- I spent several hours trying to figure out how to install MobAff tracking (per caurmen's advice). So far it reports basic info such as OS, carrier, etc. but it doesn't show which banners work best and I have no idea if I set everything correctly. If you can help me, please check this thread: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...322#post114322
- I stopped campaigns for two countries that didn't bring any conversions. I thought that they won't be profitable because the offer is in English and in these two countries English is not as common as in the second one. I thought that it's better to test my assumptions so I decided to run these ads for these countries anyway. Now with this data I'm fairly sure that I can stop targeting these countries. This left me with one country where English is the first language. Here are the stats for all three countries:
country #1 - English is known by more educated people
country #2 - English is used as a business language + several newspapers and radios in English
country #3 - English is the first language
Payout for this offer increased to $1.5 for country #3 so now I have a much higher chance of breaking even once I find the winning combination.
to do:
- I still need to set up the SA campaign. I focused on the Asian offer and I spent too many hours trying to set up tracking. I'm not sure if I find time to do it tomorrow but it's on the to-do list anyway.
- once I get more data from MobAff, I'm going to test different carriers and devices. I'll also try to create some new banners and get them accepted by the campaign manager. Now I know two things:
- I need to focus on country #3. If I targeted only this country from the beginning I wouldn't lose $20, buy hey, you need to test everything, right?
- this offer converts (0.5% conversion for country #3) so I'm going to keep testing it. With an average CPC of $0.05 I need to increase my conversion to at least 3.33% to break even. Is it a realistic goal? I lowered my bid from $0.05 to $0.04 (which is now recommended bid) so depending on the average CPC the conversion rate has to be around 2.5-3.5% to bring positive ROI.
My goals
My first short-term goal was to make just one commission. I achieved this goal just a few hours after posting this thread. It was only $1 (and I spent $30) but that was the most important first step for me and I'm really happy that I got my first commission so quickly.
My new short-term goal is to break even in the next two weeks (at least one day with ROI of 0%+ for at least one offer). I know that ROI of 0% may sound funny to some of you, but I want to set really small goals because I think they are easier to achieve.
Metrics
Impressions: 158,703
Clicks: 899
CTR: 0.57%
CPC: $0.033
EPC: $0.001112347
Spent: $29.96
Earned: $1
ROI: -96.66%
At least my ROI isn't -100%. I have to ask Buzzcity rep if I can set daily budgets lower than $5. I want to reduce my budgets so that I won't lose money that fast.
Day 3 - progress report
done:
- I asked MobPartner manager about best performing campaigns. I received this handy .xls file: http://www.mobpartner.com/files/publ...gn_Silver.xlsx If you can manage to average $2500 weekly, you can ask them for a complete version of this report. Thanks to this file I found 4 well performing campaigns, and I'm now accepted for all of them. If I find time I'll create some new campaigns on Thursday.
- I think I finally managed to set tracking right. Since I didn't have any conversions I can't be 100% sure until I get my first commission but if it works, the biggest problem is behind me and I'll be able to fully focus on testing offers.
- I stopped the Asian campaign. There were 171 clicks with no conversions. If I add clicks from yesterday (for the country with conversions) I got 371 clicks with 1 conversion. I spent $16.85 and earned $1 by targeting the best country (or $36.81 if I also take into account two other countries). I don't think it makes sense to continue testing this campaign. I'd rather try offers that convert better.
- I managed to create 10 campaigns (each one with a different creative) for a South African adult dating offer. Recommended bid is $0.07 but I set it at $0.02 for now to see how many impressions I can get and avoid spending too much money. I'll use MobAff to track which OS, carrier, etc. performs best and then I will create better targeted ads (if there are any conversions). I'm still waiting for ad approval so I have no data yet. Note: when creating adult ads on Buzzcity make sure to open a new account and let them know straight away to classify this account as "adult". They classified my sub-account as "mobile content" first and then when I created campaigns they blocked them and I had to ask my manager to reclassify my account (and wait again for ad approval - in my case it was too late to get my ads approved on the same day because it was already night in Singapore where they operate).
to do:
- create new Buzzcity campaigns for new offers (I want to try with Central America, South America and Asia again)
- check how the new SA offer performs and optimize it once I get enough data
Metrics
Impressions: 21,653
Clicks: 171
CTR: 0.79%
CPC: $0.04
EPC: $0
Spent: $6.85
Earned: $0
ROI: -100%
Since Buzzcity operates in a different timezone I didn't do much today in terms of testing. Tomorrow should be much better.
I'm sorry that I don't share much details with you regarding my campaigns but I started this thread more as a journal to keep myself accountable than a real case study. I'll try to share with you some general tips (like MobPartner spreadsheet, Buzzcity sub-account info), but I'm not going to reveal offers, banners, targeting options, etc.
Everything looks good so far! Keep up this level of focus and commitment and you'll be making serious money soon enough!
Definitely focus on getting your volume up a bit - mobile has so many variables to test that you need solid data coming in.
I've had mixed results on buzzcity, it seems some of their countries are really tough to monetize compared to others. If you want to focus on Asian countries I would personally recommend staying away from the likes of China and India. Countries Asian countries I've had success with are Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Vietnam.
Mobpartner certainly do have a lot of tempting looking offers but they are very hit or miss. I can tell you that offers/niches like whatsapp, candy crush, android virus, sweepstakes, and adult mobile content work on buzzcity.
caurmen - how many clicks without conversions are enough to decide that the offer won't convert well (if I set campaigns with country targeting only)? I had this campaign for South Africa and I had 433 clicks and no conversions. I decided to stop this campaign for now because I've already spent almost 5 times the payout with no results. It's hard to test things if I don't have any conversions. Should I first create a new campaign with country targeting only (and wait for tracking reports and conversions to check which OS, carrier, etc. perform best and then create better targeted campaigns) or should I create separate campaigns for different OS and carriers straight away?
Mr. Green - thanks for your advice! I didn't target China and India. As for Asia so far I tried Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. As for MobPartner, I now have this spreadsheet with the best performing ads and I'm going to focus on adult offers with the greatest EPC.
Update: I'm going to post my day 4 & 5 report tomorrow. I don't have time to do it today. Rest assured that I set up some new campaigns and learned some new things. I'm not going to give up until I achieve my long-term goals.
I definitely wouldn't start on BuzzCity. If you decide to stick with them, msg your rep to open up custom ip targetting. I would suggest to start with Tapit, their platform is very user friendly.
@mstm - I'd generally recommend around 5x the offer payout. That doesn't necessarily mean the offer doesn't work (although it can), but probably does mean that your angle/targeting on it doesn't work, so it's best to stop the campaign there.
@bizfreak22
Yeah, I find Buzzcity's interface not very user-friendly. How will IP targeting help me? I have no idea how to track it in MobAff. I will look into Tapit.
@caurmen
Thanks, that's what I thought. That's why I paused this South African offer.
Day 4 & 5 - progress report
done:
- more problems with tracking (MobAff didn't record conversions because I didn't know that I have to set callback URL in MobPartner) but hopefully it will work now. I would gladly pay someone to teach me about mobile tracking so that I will always know how to add new custom traffic sources to MobAff, how to create callback URLs, how to promote iPhone offers, etc. Please let me know if you want to help.
- I stopped campaigns for a South African adult dating offer. 433 clicks, $8.78 and there were no conversions. Payout for this offer was $2.05 so I spent more than 4 times the payout. I think that it's enough to decide that this offer doesn't work.
- I started promoting a new adult offer that I found in the Mobpartner's spreadsheet of the best performing ads. It had a good EPC so I decided to try it. So far I spent $2.10 and earned $0.55. I'm still losing money, but my ROI is much better now. MobAff didn't track this conversion (because I didn't set it up correctly) but thanks to MobPartner I at least know which device and carrier generated this commission.
- I joined some new ad networks. I learned from this super educational follow along: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...long!-(Contest) that in mobile marketing different traffic sources can give completely different results so I want to test them along with Buzzcity. Maybe some offers don't convert well with Buzzcity but they would convert pretty well with another traffic source.
to do:
- create my own creatives for the new adult offer I'm testing.
- test new ad networks - if they work on weekends and if I find out how to add them as custom traffic channels, e.g. currently I have no idea how to add AdultModa to Mobaff (I asked their support for help but they haven't replied yet)
- set campaigns for other MobPartner offers with good EPC (seems that it's the best way to find an offer that converts)
Metrics
Day 4:
Impressions: 132,769
Clicks: 439
CTR: 0.33%
CPC: $0.02
EPC: $0
Spent: $8.78
Earned: $0
ROI: -100%
South African adult dating offer. I chose it randomly (before I got this spreadsheet with good offers). Another good lesson: don't promote offers without any knowledge about how well they perform.
Day 5:
Impressions: 8,207
Clicks: 72
CTR: 0.88%
CPC: $0.029 (I started with $0.02 and changed it to $0.03 later)
EPC: $0.007638889
CR: 1,38%
Spent: $2.10
Earned: $0.55
ROI: -73.81%
New adult offer. I think that it's a good sign that there was a conversion so soon. I'm going to keep testing this offer. It has a good EPC on MobPartner so I think that there's potential in this offer.
I need more solid data to draw any conclusions so I'll spend a little bit more money to test this offer.
I have a question. How soon should I stop displaying banners that have a lower CTR? Here's data for 4 creatives:
Should I already stop displaying ad #2 (0.61% CTR)?
According to this video: http://www.screencast.com/t/MeDUu88q and this tool: http://statpages.org/confint.html I can say with 80% confidence that ad #2 won't have a CTR higher than 0.84. Am I right to stop it now?
Day 6 - progress report
done:
- I paused one ad that had a clearly lower CTR (see my previous post). I used this tool: http://www.splittester.com/ and this tool: http://statpages.org/confint.html to find out if my results are statistically significant.
- MobAff tracker finally tracks leads! It took me 5 days to learn how to set it but now it works and I should be able to set it for other traffic sources/ad networks as well.
- I changed my bids from $0.03 to $0.07. I came to the conclusion that if I want to get solid data fast, it's better to bid high to get more volume and data, optimize ads and then reduce my bids instead of bidding low and waiting a few days for any useful data to come in. I will lose more money faster, but if there's any potential in this offer, I will be able to quickly find out the winning combination.
- I noticed huge click discrepancies between Buzzcity and MobPartner (146 clicks in Buzzcity vs 61 clicks in MobPartner). I know that there are several reasons for this problem. I decided to exclude proxy traffic because I've read somewhere here that it's crappy traffic and may be also responsible for click discrepancies.
- I checked some other ad networks, and joined a few of them. Since many of them don't accept adult ads I'm not going to test these for now. I don't like Buzzcity's interface and it seems that traffic quality is low, but I still want to give it a chance before switching over to a different source of traffic.
- I created 3 new creatives for the adult offer I'm testing. I'm no graphic designer so they're ugly, but there's a saying that ugly works so hopefully it will work for me as well.
- I created 5 creatives for the new adult offer I want to test. This time I'm going to start with my creatives from the beginning.
to do:
- create my company's site - Tapit requires company's site and The Angry Russian also mentioned creating a company's site in his mobile marketing guide.
- analyze new stats, decide whether I should pause another ad with lower CTR.
I'm not sure if I find time to create my company's site on Sunday but it's still something I need to do soon. Since it's Sunday and Buzzcity probably doesn't accept ads on weekends, it's time for a break for me as well.
Thoughts
I want to develop my personal set of rules, e.g. when to give up on an offer, when to keep testing it, etc.
So far I decided that if I spend 5x payout and there are no conversions, I'm going to give up on the offer. If there's at least one conversion, I will spend another 5x payout before making a decision whether to keep testing.
For my current adult offer I spent $7.64 which is about 8x maximum payout. Since I got a conversion after spending ~2x maximum payout and another after spending 7x maximum payout I will keep testing it. If I don't get more conversions after spending another $5 or so I will test this offer in other ad networks (it has high EPC in MobPartner and clearly has some potential so maybe Buzzcity's traffic is shitty).
So far I had around 200 clicks and 2 conversions so conversion rate is around 1%. I know that I can't make it profitable with such numbers (even with a bid of $0.03 I will lose $2 for each 100 clicks) but until I get at least 5-10 conversions (if not more) there's no point in optimizing my ads (I need more data).
Metrics
Day 6:
Impressions: 10,765
Clicks: 83
CTR: 0.77%
CPC: $0.046 (I changed my bids a few times throughout the day, currently it's $0.07)
EPC: $0,006626506
CR: 1.2%
Spent: $3.84
Earned: $0.55
ROI: -85.68%
I'm still losing almost everything, but I'm also getting some data that will help me optimize my ads. Even if I don't manage to get positive ROI with this offer and Buzzcity, I will still learn a lot.
I decided to use my timezone for reports here instead of Buzzcity's timezone because it was too confusing. This means that I had to skip several hours from my reports (during which I spent about $2 and didn't have any conversions). Buzzcity reporting doesn't work well for other timezone (there's a delay) so I will have to share with you reports with a delay as well.
P.S. This thread is legendary: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...Hunger-Games-2
I know that I can achieve the same results. I'm going to keep trying until I succeed.
I will post another detailed update for days 7 & 8 tomorrow. Just to keep you updated for now, I had two more commissions ($1.45 in total) so things are starting to look better. I'm definitely going to keep testing this offer. Just a few minutes ago I changed targeting options to target only three major carriers so this should also increase the conversion rate. I made a huge mistake by targeting all carriers because only three major carriers are accepted in this campaign. If I targeted these three carriers alone, my conversion rate would be 4.7%...
I'm also looking for other international mobile adult ad networks. If you know any good networks, please share them here: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...lt-Ad-Networks
Day 7 - progress report
So it's been 7 days since I started my follow along. I'm even more motivated than in the beginning. I'm going to keep learning this stuff until I master it.
I'm not going to write here "done" and "to do" tasks anymore. I'm just going to share with you some of the most important updates to keep this journal more concise.
- In the offer I'm promoting it says "all carriers allowed". However, I had click discrepancies (some clicks were invalid). I decided to check only three major carriers for my campaigns and now there's almost no click discrepancy. It seems that I lost some money targeting carriers that were invalid. Lesson learned: always check which carriers are accepted.
- Even though I can see potential in the current adult offer I'm promoting, I'm afraid that Buzzcity can't provide enough traffic. No matter if I set my bids at $0.1 or $0.04 I only get up to 11 000 impressions which with an average CTR around 1% is only 100 clicks a day. If I want to gather more data quickly (and make money if I find out how to optimize this campaign) I will have to try other traffic sources. I already signed up for several ad networks and I am looking at their traffic.
Metrics
Impressions: 10,563
Clicks: 91
CTR: 0.86%
CPC: $0.062
EPC: $0.015934066 (>$0,01, yay!)
CR: 2.19%
Spent: $5.65
Earned: $1.45
ROI: -74.34%
ROI is still super bad, but it's improving. I still don't have enough conversions to optimize my campaigns so I just need to keep running these ads and maybe I'll find out how to optimize them.
Please keep in mind that day 7 is Sunday (I will write about Monday on Tuesday). I decided to write reports a little bit later to have more accurate data with Buzzcity.
Excellent stuff - I'm impressed with your focus and attention on detail. Sounds like you're conquering the barriers one by one!
Thank you caurmen, your words are always encouraging.
Day 8 (August 12, 2013) - progress report
- I asked Buzzcity to enable pubid filtering for my account. They enabled this option for my accounts so now I will be able to track which publishers convert the best and eliminate the ones with low-quality traffic. It should greatly help me cut bad traffic.
- I launched a new adult offer (for the same country) and decided to go with my creatives from the beginning. Well, it seems that it was a good idea because one of the banners had a CTR higher than 1% (1.22%), two banners had the same CTR as the best performing creatives provided by the advertiser for offer #1 (around 0.8-0.9%) and two banners didn't perform well. Anyway, I still got better CTR with my creatives than using creatives provided by the advertiser so I'm going to test my creatives for other offers as well.
- I created new creatives for offer #1. One of the creatives I created had a much higher CTR than all other banners (1.31% while so far the best converting creatives had a CTR of about 0.9%).
Metrics
Impressions: 15,739
Clicks: 125
CTR: 0.79%
CPC: $0.047
EPC: $0,010560 (still >$0,01!)
CR: 1.60%
Spent: $5.86
Earned: $1.32
ROI: -77.47%
My goals
On day 2 I shared with you my goal to break even in the next two weeks (at least one day with ROI of 0%+ for at least one offer). Yesterday I launched a new offer, spent $1.2 on it (not much because my other ads in the same country got more impressions) and made $1.32. This means that my ROI for this offer is so far 10%. Not impressive, but I achieved my goal nonetheless. ROI in total for both offers is still super low so my next goal is...
My next goal is to have a positive daily ROI for all campaigns. Deadline: two weeks.
So much work to do and I'm so eager to keep working hard! It's actually the first time in many months when I feel so excited about my business (SEO was never as exciting as paid marketing). Mobile marketing (and STM) rocks!
Day 9 (August 13, 2013) - progress report
- I overlooked one very important thing that greatly reduced available traffic. I didn't target all devices approved for the offers I'm promoting, and as a result I was only getting 10 000 views a day from a couple of devices that I approved. It was a huge mistake because once I targeted all approved devices traffic volume increased tremendously. Now I can gather data really fast which is super helpful (I already know several useful things that will help me optimize my campaigns).
- I also unchecked WCDMA (UMTS, 3G). I thought that it was used to exclude Wi-Fi traffic but it doesn't work like that. In Buzzcity, you can only exlude Wi-Fi traffic by targeting specific 3G carriers and disabling proxied-based traffic.
- I created creatives for a new adult offer for a different country but I didn't have any conversions yet.
- I greatly lowered my bids (to $0.03). Because I changed targeting options I'm still getting much more clicks than before. It wasn't a good idea to keep my bids higher, $0.03 is enough to get a lot of data.
- Since two offers I'm currently promoting have great potential I researched many other ad networks in case I want to scale my campaigns. I joined several ad networks that I will try in a week or so with my already optimized campaigns (useful data is pouring very fast now).
Metrics
Impressions: 49,027 (yep, more than three times more traffic than the day before)
Clicks: 443
CTR: 0.90%
CPC: $0.037
EPC: $0,017658
CR: 2.58%
Spent: $15.81
Earned: $7.54
Revenue: -$8,27
ROI: -52.31%
Keep in mind that I may update this data tomorrow because Buzzcity reports some impressions and clicks even 24 hours after the day ended (current data is 95% accurate).
As you can see, it's my best day ever in terms of ROI. It's still negative, but ROI for my next best day was -74,34% so it's a huge improvement. And just wait for my progress report tomorrow...
Day 10 (August 14, 2013) - progress report
Day 10 is my breakthrough day.
- Because of updated targeting options I had a huge change in traffic and conversions (check my metrics below).
- Since now I'm getting a lot of data on a daily basis, I will start optimizing my campaigns by cutting low-quality publishers and using day parting (I already have enough data to eliminate pubs and time periods that don't convert well or at all).
- I'm still eliminating low CTR banners and creating new ones. I'm using STM Adult Ad Spy to check some popular ads and modify them for my campaigns. I'm also creating my own ads. Ads that I created on my own for the second adult offer I'm promoting have a CTR of around 0.8-1.2% and most importantly, generate leads and have a high conversion rate. One ad that I created for the first offer is the best performing ad in terms of CTR and number of leads (conversion rate is also good).
- I'm still running campaigns for offer #3 for another country but it seems it won't convert well (if at all). I'm going to stop this campaign if I spend 5x the payout and there aren't any leads.
Metrics
Impressions: 100,452
Clicks: 860
CTR: 0.86%
CPC: $0.031
EPC: $0,031174
CR: 4.42%
Spent: $27.07
Earned: $26.81
Revenue: -$0,26
ROI: -0.96% (!!!)
I'm so close to breaking even for all campaigns! I would actually reach positive ROI if I wasn't testing offer #3. I spent $1.82 on offer #3 with no conversions. This means that without it my revenue would be +$1.56 and my ROI would be +6.18%.
I'm supper happy that I was able to almost reach positive ROI after only 10 days of learning mobile marketing. I'm definitely going to keep working on these two offers. Once I optimize them and achieve positive ROI I will scale these offers to other traffic sources.
Mobile marketing and this forum is amazing. I can already say that investing in STM membership was one of my best business decisions ever.
This is the shit!
Day 2 - -96.66%
Day 3 - -100%
Day 4 - -100%
Day 5 - -75%
Day 6 - -85%
Day 7 - -74%
Day 8 - -77%
Day 9 - -52%
Day 10 - -0.96% (would be profitable if paused some losing campaigns)
I'm proud of you dude! Most people in your position would of given up on day 3. The way you are working at this campaign shows great signs for success. Awesome awesome progress!
Exactly! Super-impressive progress. You're thorough, dedicated and methodical - I'm not surprised how well things are going so far. Keep it up, and don't get disheartened if you hit a few more bumps on the way - you're doing everything right so far.
(In addition, your daily notes are gold - keep 'em up! I'm going to recommend this follow-along in the next newsletter.)
Thank you guys for encouraging words!
caurmen, is your newsletter sent to all people subscribed here? If not, where can I sign up for it? Thanks for your advice, I'm not going to give up no matter what.
Day 11 (August 15, 2013) - progress report
Day 11 wasn't as spectacular as day 10 but it was still good. I'm getting closer to achieving positive ROI.
- Thanks to enabled pubID filtering I was able to cut two publishers who didn't convert at all. They were responsible for about 300 visits with no conversions so I decided to stop wasting money on them and stopped displaying ads on their sites. It's also interesting to know that one publisher (out of about 35, which is 3.5%) is responsible for 71% of conversions. 80/20 principle in practice.
- I also identified time periods when my offers convert best and when my offers don't convert at all. Paying for clicks with no conversions or too little conversions reduces my ROI so I set basic time parting options "do not show ads/only show ads from". It greatly reduced the number of impressions and clicks, but I'm after conversion rate and positive ROI, not number of impressions or clicks.
- All three major carriers perform well and there's no clear winner so I'm going to keep displaying ads for all three carriers.
- My current data indicates that some devices don't convert very well and it may make sense to cut them. However, I want to wait a little bit longer for more data to come to any conclusions.
Metrics
Impressions: 55,639
Clicks: 495
CTR: 0.89%
CPC: $0.029
EPC: $0,023212
CR: 3.03%
Spent: $14.20
Earned: $11.49
Revenue: -$2,71
ROI: -19.08%
As you can see, I had much less impressions and conversions. I also lost more money than yesterday. I think it's because I started optimizing my campaigns. Perhaps I cut too much (maybe I started messing with day parting too soon?). However, I can already tell you that my ROI will be positive for Friday so I think it was worth it.
@mstm - Yep, you'll get the newsletter automatically. It goes out every few weeks, and points everyone to the best threads on STM.
Day 12 (August 16, 2013) - progress report
- After I got rid of publishers who didn't generate any leads I decided to focus on day parting. On day 11 I set some basic time parting options. On day 12 I identified two time periods during which my offers weren't converting or there were conversions but I was still losing money and decided to stop displaying ads during these hours.
In Buzzcity you can only choose either "only show ads from" or "do not show ads from". There's no option to set two time periods to display ads so I had to clone my existing campaigns. The first campaign shows ads for the first well-converting time period, the second one shows ads for another period. As you can see in my metrics, it really helped with ROI. - I think that I'm close to reaching 50%+ ROI for my two offers. However, Buzzcity has limited traffic for the country I'm targeting so I won't be able to make more than $10-15 a day with these campaigns. For this reason I want to try other traffic sources to get more revenue. From what I found so far TrafficJunky has the most volume for the country I'm targeting. Since I already have optimized campaigns hopefully my campaigns will also perform well there.
In my first post I told you that I'm not going to try other traffic sources during my first 30 days, but since I already have winning campaigns I think it's only wise to try to milk them as much as I can while it's possible. I've read in this thread: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ume-Affiliates that one of the worst regrets of experienced marketers is that they didn't work hard enough to make as much money from winning campaigns as possible and I don't want to repeat their mistakes.
Unfortunately, I have to wait for MobPartner to approve TrafficJunky as a new traffic source and later wait for the campaign managers of these offers to approve this traffic source as well.
Metrics
Impressions: 46,937
Clicks: 415
CTR: 0.88%
CPC: $0.03
EPC: $0,031012
CR: 3.86%
Spent: $12.26
Earned: $12.87
Revenue: $0,61
ROI: 4.98%
Yeah, I finally reached my goal and achieved positive overall daily ROI! I earned mere $0,61, but it's the first time in 12 days I didn't lose any money so that's a very significant event. I'll keep optimizing my campaigns and hopefully reach 50%+ ROI soon.
My goals
On day 8 I set a goal to have a positive overall daily ROI. Since I achieved this goal it's time to set another goal. My new goal is to have a $5 profit day. Deadline: one week. As I said before, I like short-term goals. They're motivating, easy to achieve, and they work pretty well for me.
Day 13 (August 17, 2013) - progress report
You're not going to believe what happened on Day 13... Check metrics!!!
Metrics
Impressions: 38,253
Clicks: 407
CTR: 1.06%
CPC: $0.028
EPC: $0,056560
CR: 7.37%
Spent: $11.23
Earned: $23.02
Revenue: $11.79
ROI: 104.99% (!!!)
As you can see, day parting works like CRAZY. CTR increased by 20%, EPC increased by 82%, conversion rate increased by 90%, ROI increased by 2000%! Even though I had about 20% less impressions I managed to make much more money.
Unfortunately traffic on Buzzcity for the country I'm targeting is quite limited so I won't be able to make more than $15 or maybe $20 a day from these campaigns. That's why I want to try other traffic sources to get more volume, and hopefully even more revenue.
I have a question: should I test landers? I'm not sure if using landers in mobile marketing is a good idea (I'm afraid that more hoops to jump through mean less conversions). Fast hosting is quite expensive and I don't know if I should invest into it or just spend money on scaling these offers.
My goals
Yesterday I set a goal to have a $5 profit day. I earned more than $10 in a single day so my new goal is to have a $20 profit day. Deadline: two weeks.
Legend.
Damn dude you're the man!
I remember a really nice post from the Angry Russian, you can make $500/day+ if you get a campaign working, then scale it horizontally across other networks with the same targeting etc it should work.
Get a campaign profitable in a vertical, scale it horizontally ie you make dating work in UK on buzzcity, then you make it work on jumptap, millenial, inmobi etc. Then you can try it out on CA, or AU, or any other English speaking country. Although you will have a bit too manage, you can be pretty positive that you can make it work on other sources with the same targeting so get scaling bad boy!!
Congrats - nice one!
BTW, another good nugget from this thread - mstm's approach to setting small, doable, short-term goals is an excellent productivity hack. The brain likes achievable goals, and if you keep setting things you can achieve then achieving them, you'll set up a very beneficial short-term feedback loop that'll keep you going well.
@grandtheftpixel - LOL.
@maynzie - thanks for the advice! I'll try to scale this offer to as many traffic sources as possible. The only problem is that the country I'm targeting isn't that big and I need quite cheap clicks to get good ROI.
@caurmen - thanks. That's exactly why I set short-term goals.
Day 14 (August 18, 2013) - progress report
Another good day.
- I stopped displaying ads for the third offer I was testing. I spent about 4-5 times the payout with no conversions. Buzzcity doesn't provide a lot of traffic for this country anyway, so I shouldn't test it there in the first place. Lesson learned.
- This week I'm going to focus hardcore on other traffic sources for these offers. I will also start testing new offers because I know that these two offers won't probably get me to $50 a day, let alone $100 or more.
Metrics
Impressions: 35,912
Clicks: 401
CTR: 1.12%
CPC: $0.028
EPC: $0,051546
CR: 6.73%
Spent: $9.73
Earned: $20.67
Revenue: $10.94
ROI: 112.44%
Thank you all for your support!
admob admob.com
iAd http://advertising.apple.com/
jiwire jiwire.com
velti velti.com
Millennial Media http://www.millennialmedia.com/
Yahoo http://advertising.yahoo.com/product...vertising.html
MobFox mobfox.com
kiip kiip.me
Jumptap jumptap.com
whereAds http://www.whereapps.com/whereads.html
adfonic adfonic.com
mojiva mojiva.com
InMobi inmobi.com
Greystripe http://www.greystripe.com/
140 Proof 140proof.com
Madhouse madhouse.cn
Buzzcity buzzcity.com
Xad http://www.xad.com/
yoc group http://group.yoc.com/uk/
NAVTEQ http://www.navteq.com/
Madvertise madvertise.de
Admoda admoda.com
Hunt Mobile Ads huntmads.com
Mobile Theory mobiletheory.com
Hands hands.com.br
Microsoft Mobile http://msftads.mobi/
AOL advertising.com/aol
MobClix – mobile ad exchange mobclix.com
Lead Bolt http://www.leadbolt.com
Zestadz http://www.komlimobile.com/
AIrpush www.airpush.com
Burstly http://www.burstly.com/
Motrixi http://www.motrixi.com/
Propeller Ads http://propellerads.com/
Vdopia http://mobile.vdopia.com/
medialets http://www.medialets.com/
smatto http://www.smaato.com/
adwhirl https://www.adwhirl.com/
Tapgage www.tapgage.net
Admobile http://admobile.com/
Tap Tap taptapnetworks.com
Mob Hero http://www.mobhero.com/
Vserv http://www.vserv.mobi
Upsnap http://www.upsnap.com/index.jsp
admarvel http://www.admarvel.com/index.php
pontiflex http://pontiflex.com/
Adsmobi http://www.adsmobi.com/
Aditic http://www.aditic.com/
Digital-Advert http://www.digital-advert.com/
Gigafone http://www.gigafone.com/
Mobile Fuse http://www.mobilefuse.com/
Mob Gold http://www.mobgold.com/
Mobiadz http://www.mobiadz.com/
Nokia Ads http://advertising.nokia.com/advertise/
Toda Cell http://www.todacell.com/
Ybrant http://www.ybrantmobile.com/signup.php
Amobee http://amobee.com/
Out there media http://www.out-there-media.com/index.php?id=4
Adhaven http://www.adhaven.com/
Mobaloo www.mobaloo.com
There is going to be similar set ups to what you're running in atleast a couple of these sources, and thats just free money for ya!
Thanks a lot maynzie! I checked about 15 networks on my own and found only one that has a lot of adult mobile traffic for the country I'm targeting, isn't that expensive and offers carrier targeting. Out of these dozens that you posted probably only several of them will accept adult traffic and maybe a couple of them will offer additional options I need. I'm going to check them anyway. Thanks again!
Day 56 (September 29, 2013) - progress report
Step by step...
Metrics
Spent: $24.15
Revenue: $4.18
Profit/loss: -$19.97
ROI: -82.69%
ROI was a little bit better but since I spent more money I lost more money.
Country #1
Spent: $3.12
Revenue: $0
Profit/loss: -$3.12
ROI: -100%
I've been testing push ads on another traffic source. It seems this country won't work. Today I tested it on my primary traffic source again with 300x250 ads (320x50 ads don't work) and couldn't get impressions so I decided to forget about it for now.
Country #2
Spent: $16.35
Revenue: $1.9
Profit/loss: -$14.45
ROI: -88.38%
I'm still working on this country, I have a gut feeling it's going to work even though ROI is so bad now. Today I tested 320x50 ads for this country and they didn't convert at all (lost $10 testing them) but 300x250 ads performed quite well (more details in report for day 57 below).
Country #3
Spent: $4.68
Revenue: $2.28
Profit/loss: -$2.40
ROI: -51.28%
A noticeable improvement, it was -72.56% before.
I don't share many details regarding optimization with you because I just do too many things and it's hard to remember everything (I only note down the most important changes).
After reading this post I decided to invest in Litespeed and CDN hosting to improve loading speed. Since I mostly focus on rather obscure countries even a small improvement in loading speed can have a huge impact on LP CTR.
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Day 57 (September 30, 2013) - progress report
Still optimizing.
Metrics
Spent: $26.31
Revenue: $5.7
Profit/loss: -$20.61
ROI: -78.34%
ROI was again a little bit better but since I spent more money testing 320x50 ads I lost more money.
Country #1
Spent: $0.54
Revenue: $0
Profit/loss: -$0.54
ROI: -100%
I tried displaying 300x250 ads for this country but I couldn't get much traffic so I decided to forget about it.
Country #2
Spent: $17.01
Revenue: $2.66
Profit/loss: -$14.35
ROI: -84.36%
A small improvement in ROI. However, if I wasn't testing 320x50 ads that just don't work at all (336 clicks without any conversions) my ROI would be -56.75% which is a huge improvement. I cut a bad performing publisher for this campaign and ditched one angle (I'm left with only one that works best) and that's why ROI for 300x250 was much better.
Country #3
Spent: $8.76
Revenue: $3.04
Profit/loss: -$5.72
ROI: -65.30%
If I wasn't testing 320x50 ads ROI would be -40.39% so that's also a great improvement. I also cut a bad performing publisher for this country.
To sum up last three days, here's ROI for 300x250 ads:
Country #2
Day 55: -80.84%
Day 56: -88.38%
Day 57: -56.75%
Country #3
Day 55: -72.56%
Day 56: -51.28%
Day 57: -40.39%
The trend is up and that's all that matters! I won't make millions with these campaigns but it's a great learning experience and I think I can make a profit with these offers. In the meantime I'm going to test other offers.
Originally Posted by mstm
I stop testing an offer after 500-1000 clicks (it depends on the payout and CPC). If I had a higher budget I could spend more on testing but for the time being I usually give up if I couldn't get any conversions after getting a decent number of clicks with 2-3 different angles and testing either direct linking + LP or several LPs.
nice work on the improvements.
i actually never use CDN so can't recommend anything about it. I've looked into CDN a bit a while ago and found out that the networks' servers weren't anywhere near my targeted country so I left it alone. My LPs (if any) are extremely light weight.
This might sound silly to many but I use quite some shared hosting for smaller campaigns. It's cheap ofcourse but mostly instantly set up. Sometimes I stumble on some quite good ones even.
I also try to make my LPs very light weight but I decided that even if I can get a 10% improvement in loading speed it's going to help a lot. Even if servers aren't that close to the countries I'm targeting they're still closer than US servers which should affect loading speed. I don't know (and don't have time, I'd rather focus on my campaigns) how to perform proper speed tests so I just relied on caurmen's results. Better server and CDN will definitely be at least slightly faster.
Day 58 (October 1, 2013) - progress report
Things are looking brighter.
Metrics
Spent: $24.91
Revenue: $7.01
Profit/loss: -$17.90
ROI: -71.86%
Overall ROI would be much better if I wasn't testing two new offers. I tested two offers that according to my AM performs very well on the network. However, I couldn't make them work on my traffic source.
With the first offer I started with two angles, eliminated one that had a super low LP CTR and focused on one. I tested 6 banners and after 717 clicks I only had 2 conversions. Since payout is very low and I don't know how to attack this offer I decided to stop it.
With another offer I started with 300x250 banners, 3 angles, 3 banners for each angle and 2 LPs for each angle and couldn't get traffic so I decided to test 320x50 (every time I tested them they didn't convert at all so I wasn't very eager to test them). Just like I expected 320x50 banners didn't work at all. LP CTR was extremely low (2%) and I couldn't get any conversions.
As for the offer I've been testing for the past several days:
Country #2
Spent: $4.65
Revenue: $5.32
Profit/loss: $0.67
ROI: 14.41%
Finally making a profit! $0.67 is nothing but the fact that I went from -80.84% to 14.41% means that this offer can definitely work, even if it's only going to make a few bucks a day on the current traffic source. Here's a great lesson - even if an offer is -80% on the first day, it can work if you keep optimizing it.
Conversion rate was much higher because I created some new banners and LPs. New banner I created has a 4x conversion rate of the old best performing banner (results are statistically significant) and the new LP has a 2x higher conversion rate (results are also statistically significant).
I'll keep optimizing it on current traffic source and also try it on other traffic sources already using optimized targeting options and banners. Hopefully I'll be able to find another profitable traffic source and increase my profit.
Country #3
Spent: $3.66
Revenue: $1.14
Profit/loss: -$2.52
ROI: -68.85%
I'm not sure what happened here. I was testing some new landing pages and banners and maybe that's what lowered conversion rate.
I wanted to test some new offers but I think I'll just focus on this offer for now. My thinking is that if I have an offer that's working for at least one country I should milk it instead of chasing after other offers. I can test this offer on other traffic sources. I can also test this offer for other countries. If I scale it to other traffic sources maybe it will be possible to reach $50 a day, and potentially much more if I find another converting country.
If you haven't done this yet, I'd strongly recommend doing some load time tests for your various campaigns from your target countries. Load times directly translate into CTR, as I proved a while ago in a case study here. IMO it's even more important in mobile.
For global load time testing I'd use Uptrends: http://www.uptrends.com/aspx/free-ht...heck-tool.aspx . It's very simple to use and might point out some serious bottlenecks.
I used this tool but results were different every time I used it. I used it again today for one country I'm targeting (it's cool that they added an option to test only one checkpoint) and here are the results (I tested it 4 times in a row):
server:
1: 1.8 sec
2: 2.1 sec
3: 0.74 sec
4: 0.74 sec
average: 1.345 sec
CDN:
1: 1.5 sec
2: 1.4 sec
3: 0.74 sec
4: 0.74 sec
average: 1.095 sec
So I guess CDN is around 20% faster for one of the countries I'm targeting which is a huge improvement. My LP is 45 KB so I'll try to reduce the size of the image to make it load even faster. Do you think that 1.095 sec is still too slow?
Day 59 (October 2, 2013) - progress report
Another fucked up day. I'm tired of this shit.
Metrics
Spent: $32.19
Revenue: $7.60
Profit/loss: -$24.59
ROI: -76.39%
I tried scaling my working offer to another traffic source. I already know what landing pages, banners and targeting work. This targeting didn't work at all on another traffic source (ROI was -80-90%). Since I already optimized almost everything I could (besides for constantly trying to improve LP and banners) this offer definitely won't work on another traffic source (I'm bidding minimum bids and I still need about 20% conversion rate just to break even). I asked several other traffic sources about their inventory and it will be very hard to get decent traffic for $0.03 or less (payout is $0.38 so I need at least 8% conversion to break even). I really thought that it's possible to do something with this offer but since the payout is so ridiculously low I don't think I'll be able to do much with it. I'm going to ask for a pay bump and if they decline I think I'll have to give up with this offer, it's incredibly difficult to work with such numbers.
Country #2
Spent: $13.77
Revenue: $4.16
Profit/loss: $-9.61
ROI: -69.79%
ROI was positive for traffic source #1 (laughable $0.10 in profits) and -81.12% for another traffic source.
Country #3
Spent: $17.18
Revenue: $2.66
Profit/loss: -$14.52
ROI: -84.52%
Negative on both traffic sources and I only spent $1.53 on traffic source #1.
I'm constantly testing new offers but nothing seems to work. I have no idea what's going on and what to do. Could you give me any tips? What kind of offers should I test? How should I test them? I already tried several approaches (testing with direct linking, testing with 3 angles and 3 LPs, testing different types of offers and countries) but I really can't afford sending 500-1000 clicks to an offer without any conversions. I'm now testing some game subscription offers with direct linking (because supposedly they don't need a landing page to work) and simple banners "download games here" but it doesn't seem to work as well.
I'd definitely try and get load times down below 1 sec. My mobile lander target tends to be closer to 300-400ms.
Feel free to PM me if you like and I'll have a look at what you could do to speed up your landers.
@caurmen - thanks, but I don't think it will be necessary...
Day 60 (October 3, 2013) - progress report
Metrics
Spent: $12.59
Revenue: $1.9
Profit/loss: -$10.69
ROI: -84.91%
The offer I was promoting died on the current traffic source. After optimizing everything I just can't get more than 50 clicks a day and even that doesn't convert well.
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Month 2 - progress report
Here are metrics for my second month of mobile marketing:
Spent: $858.10
Revenue: $549.52
Profit/loss: -$308.58
ROI: -35.96%
If I didn't include my best period when I was making money seven days in a row ROI would be -72.52%, much worse than during my first 30 days when it was -30.07%.
Here are metrics since the beginning:
Spent: $2574.21
Revenue: $1749.60
Profit/loss: -$824.61
ROI: -32.03%
Trend is negative:
---------------------------------------------------------
I decided to take a break and reconsider what business I really want to build.
I'm considering giving up with mobile marketing and any other type of CPA. Not only because of lack of results (I know that it takes time to start making money and I'm no longer a person who's constantly jumping from one thing to another without dedicating full attention to it) but also because of lack of legit offers (which is very important for me). I can't promote offers that make money off naive people who don't read the fine print because it doesn't agree with my ethics. There are very few mobile offers that are legit, and if they are available, they are available only on networks with no real support such as MobPartner.
Moreover, I'm just extremely tired and burned out. For the past two months I've been working up to 16 hours a day without any real results. I stopped sleeping well (I fucked up my sleeping schedule to the point I was going to sleep at 5-6 AM and waking up at 2-3 PM) and I'm constantly stressed. I can't even enjoy an occasional evening out because I constantly think how my campaigns are performing (or rather how much money I'm losing). That's not the kind of a business I want to build and the kind of lifestyle I want to live. CPA takes a huge toll on my health and lifestyle in general and I can't bear it any longer. Before I started with marketing I spoke with a guy who made a great living with POF. He told me he decided to stop doing it because there's too much micromanaging involved. I didn't fully understand what he was talking about. Now I understand him well. CPA is just an extremely time-consuming day job which can be incredibly frustrating.
I'm thinking about starting an e-mail list and buying traffic to get subscribers. Then I won't have to run campaigns 24/7 and I'll be able to provide value and control everything - including promoting legit things and building a legit business with a list of customers. This approach will combine my past experience with email marketing (I had some newsletters in the past but back then I didn't know how to monetize them properly - I only knew how to build a relationship with a subscriber) and my experiences with mobile marketing (things that I learned will greatly help me get subscribers and track performance of my marketing efforts).
I hate to disappoint some of you, but I don't think CPA is for me. I dedicated past two months of my life to it, focused on it full time (you can read most of my experiences here) and I think I experienced enough to realize that it's probably not my kind of business. I'll give myself a few days to take a break, recharge my batteries and make a decision what I want to do.
Definitely take a break. My big first success with AM came after taking nearly a month off - I suddenly came up with a campaign idea (for a legit offer, incidentally - games), it worked, and suddenly I was significantly cash-flow-positive.
There's no reason you can't combine AM techniques with list-building techniques, at all. I use stuff that I've learned on STM to promote my own products all the time - indeed, I'm working on a pretty major campaign for a new film using all the approaches we teach here right now.
At the end of the day, advertising techniques are advertising techniques: there are advantages to going with CPA offers, but there are also advantages to CPS, and there are advantages to building your own product too. And as you say, list-building does reduce the ups and downs of the business somewhat.
Looking forward to hearing what you decide to do next!
I am sorry you did not make it dude, i was pumped up until this last page by your determination and persistence, that doesn't mean that i will given up too, but of course it would have been nicer if you would've made it.
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