$100/day Adult Dating Campaign (9)
Goal: $100/day
Traffic Source: Exoclick/traffic Junky
Niche: milf/mature
About me: I'm a full time, freelance web developer programmer and I use to run a few affiliate sites around 1-2 years ago.
The difference was, they almost solely relied on SEO traffic and were in different industries (forex/stock trading). At the peak I was making around $3000 profit/month on 2-3 sales a day.
Then Google came along and banned them all....
I'm keen to get back in the affiliate game but I just don't have the time I did then to work on the SEO, plus the game has changed so I'm going to try the paid route.
I've not got a massive budget, no specific amount set aside but realistically I've got a few hundred dollars a month to test this so I need return ASAP - pointers will be HUGELY appreciated.
DAY 1
So yesterday I officially launched my first campaign. I fully expected not to make any money straight away and I've pretty much resided to losing at least a few hundred dollars testing, I'm fine with that as long as I'm close. Here are some stats:
Spent: $35
Revenue: $0
Profit/lost: -$35
CPC: $0.05
Lander
I'm using the Adult Lander I found in the adult traffic forums here.
Testing
I've already started split testing and modified the headline which improved click rate through to the offer by 13%, so money not all lost.
Adverts
I'm using two top adverts I found on the adult banner scraper, on CPC basis. Both milf focused.
Traffic Source
Exoclick
Locations
English speaking countries, not US though.
The Offer
I have a gut feeling this is where I might be going wrong. I'm running a Pay Per Sale to Upforit.com at the moment and while I got 9 leads there were no sales.
Questions
Should I be using a different offer? Pay Per Lead? I sent over 200 clicks through to the advertiser with no sales - is this normal?
I feel with some more optimization and maybe a different offer I could make money here! Any pointers are greatly appreciated!
First things first, don't start out split testing minor details such as headlines etc on the same LP when you don't even have any conversions yet. There are way more important things to test at that stage.
I would suggest you look around a bit as to what LPs are being used by other affiliates (using the STM Adult Ad SPY for example), take the 2-3 most common DIFFERENT styles and start from there. Once you have a clear winner among those after a statistically significant sample (based on conversions, not just CTR), you can start tweaking details such as images, headlines, background color etc.
IMO, 2 banner variations is way too little, start with ~5 very different variations and take it from there once you can see any trends (basically the same as with LPs).
I don't know what kind of budget you have, but I would strongly recommend switching to CPA offers instead, especially as a beginner. Your best bet again when starting out is to see if you can find trends as to what offers other affiliates are running in your GEO and get those on your networks.
This thread might also be very useful for you.
Thanks @andyvon - I agree about the testing, my landing page is similar in format to the other affiliates but I'll test a different style or two first, then focus on the smaller elements. Since I'm also paying CPC I didn't feel the number of banners was that critical yet, obviously some banners might ultimately result in more click-thrus to the offer but I felt the LP would probably have more impact. The other thing I need to do before spending any more is get proper tracking set up.
The wall I've hit at the moment is the CPA offers. Can you recommend any networks/offers? I applied to Above All Offers but have yet to of been approved. Other affiliates are running the same/similar but I'm still unsure about it them.
Here's a post with some suggestions of solid affiliate networks to apply to.
When you apply, it's definitely also worth PMing their representative on STM and telling them that you've applied - that will often speed up the approval process.
There are quite a few solid networks with a bunch of adult offers out there, some from the top of my head (haven't worked with all of them myself):
Adsimilis
Ads4Dough
Clickdealer
Convert2Media
CPA Trend
F5
MundoMedia
etc...
Some of them might speed up approvals if you mention that you are a member on STM.
As to specific offers, that depends on the GEO you are running in and I can personally only give you recommendations for stuff I run myself. Your best bet is to ask your affiliate manager(s) which offers perform best (highest volume/highest EPC) and combine that with your own research.
I'd recommend before you run any more traffic you first do your best to get into 2-3 solid networks (show initiative, call them yourself after sending in your application). While you are waiting for approvals, you can work on additional banners, LPs etc, so I don't think you will get bored any time soon 
what are people's thoughts on advidi?
@andyvon & @caurmen - thanks for the suggestions, that's a good list. I'll pick a few and get some applications done today.
I've paused my campaign for now. I want to get some tracking software set up on my server first as well. I'll also chuck a few more ads into the mix before restarting things again!
One other thing I wondered about - I've given upforit over 9 leads, I only get paid for sales but from experience do these leads ever convert to sales several days later? I imagine the dating network is currently bombarding them with marketing emails etc so hopefully they could upsel them?
Thanks for the help guys...
@jimbo2087 - They can convert later, yes. That's one of the things that makes Cash Per Sale campaigns more of a pain and more expensive to run - there's often a lag in the sales data, as opposed to CPA where 95% of your conversions will come straight away.
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