Fb or pof (15)
Hey guys,
I wanted to get your opinion on whether you would suggest FB or POF as a traffic source. I been readying a lot of discussions about FB and how hard it is to get accounts ads up and running for a while, the ban hammer coming down, and other issues.
I've tried POF in the past and learnt how to create campaigns, began testing, but never got profitable. Due to financial constraints, I had to give up pretty quick.
Well I'm back now and financially ready to commit to this once and for all. I want to give it 100%, but wanted your opinion on whether going forward from August 2013 you would recommend FB or POF as a traffic source for dating. I've been reading up on FB a lot and have seen some pretty impressive follow alongs as well. I'm really leaning towards FB and want to stick with one traffic source for at least 30 days and then expand from there. Your feedback in pointing this noob in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
if you're leaning towards FB, go for it. Run it until your account gets banned. Then decide if you want to figure out a way to get back on (assuming you got profitable), or if not, end up on pof, but that has it's own learning curve and almost nothing that you learn on fb is transferable to pof in terms of gaming the traffic source
Personally I'd go for POF, but it depends on your tolerance for stress and hassle. FB can be huge, but you have to be prepared to deal with the random bans, bugs, uncontactability, and generally annoyance.
I'd recommend POF for any beginner level affiliates simply because it's easier to focus on learning the marketing aspect (easy to get in contact with Ben and Cyndi).
I mean it's a different game. In some aspects, I'd say FB (international) may be slightly easier to get profitable (and it has a lot more scale). But, the game you're playing is gaming FB as a traffic source. Finding ways to avoid getting banned, cloaking, different tricks for bidding/getting high CTRs, etc. The crappy part is none of that "skill" you build is directly transferrable to other media because it's so specific.
With POF, it's more competitive because the marketplace is more efficient for affiliates. So, each traffic stream is always relatively well monetized already. Though, that's broad statement, as marketplaces change every day, the traffic changes every day, offers change every day, and affiliates come and go every day, so there will always be inefficiencies. You just have to beat the other affiliates who aren't monetizing as well.
Not to mention, POF doesn't sell all their inventory to affiliates. They have unsold inventory through their self-serve, that's when you see Google ads on the site. So, not every call for an ad is answered, and it can't be THAT competitive. Still, a lot of affiliates get in, and can't become profitable. The ones that really work at it 100% and actually stick to it though, most have succeeded that I've come across.
I'm relatively new and decided to start with Facebook. It can be a hassle, as my account was banned the first day. After three "this decision is final emails", somehow my account got reinstated with a spending bump. If you're starting with Facebook, get ready for the wild ride.
This one is SUPER easy.
FB
Scale, Scale, Scale I think they're around a billion users all over the world. Tons of targeting options.
Sure it's more difficult to get ads approved and has more rules but in the end the potential is MASSIVELY greater.
Since you have experience, and are leaning towards facebook, then Facebook it is.
Your best plan is to stay compliant (atleast at first), and try to get some longterm campaigns going.
A) Find smaller niches, and test a bunch of unique stuff with less competition and smaller targeting. This will usually be cheaper to test a lot of stuff with.
B) Target the large whitehat niches and try to outdo others, just be ready for tons of competition and expensive clicks
I'm still trying to confirm my account with legit details. I'm starting to consider other traffic sources eg. mobile, pof.
You can do a lot of volume on PoF, don't let it's smaller audience compared to FB fool you. We're running huge amounts of volume to dating from POF, and of course a lot from Facebook too. personally would start out with a niche dating offer such as Senior People Meet or Mature Dating Only on PoF. Once you have profitable campaigns there, go onto FB.
You sound like you have basic experience but since you never made money I'd hesitate to recommend FB off the bat. I mean if you've never had a profitable campaign than you don't really get yet what makes it work, except in a conceptual way from reading articles. FB is by far the best option once you are good though because you can run 2 ads and make 1k a day. To make 1k profit on POF you have to work damn hard, at least the way I ran my stuff.
The benefit of POF for a noob is that it's slow, it's hard to lose money quickly. With FB you make a bad mistake and you lose $700 in an hour.
But, POF is a horribly frustrating platform for me now, since I was around when they used to let you run normal pictures. It's just not easy to find a great image of a girl in a knee length skirt, hardly any cleavage, that can get a good CTR. Their ad approvals are whimsical, inconsistent, and fairly obnoxious. They don't like 2 images out of 10 that you sent in? Reject them all. They just got much more arrogant and self-righteous over time, and prudish to an laughable extent. FB has always been arrogant and ridiculous, so it's been easier for me to accept their small changes along the way. If you are new to the platform though, those approval and image restrictions probably won't bother you, since you never witnessed the halcyon days. That said, FB can be just as frustrating, but in very different ways. The fact you can't even talk to anyone yet you are spending 2k/day on the platform is pretty obnoxious. I don't know of any business that would fire their customers that are giving them $700,000 a year without at least trying to figure out if they could work it out first. So yeah those account bans can be horrible, especially if you weren't doing shady stuff. I mean if you are cloaking I get it, but just banning someone for a few mistakes is pretty rough.
So here's what I would say, since FB is more of a beast in terms of traffic and volume, I'd train up on POF till you at least prove you can make a profit. POF is so much better for learning I think. Then as soon as you get that first profitable campaigns pop on over to FB and try it over there. Then do both at once. There is no reason to have to decide between them. Eventually though if you start getting the big money is on FB, you will just naturally not want to work that hard on POF.
Also, I think most will disagree with me here, but I think you should avoid the POF Pro software at the very beginning. You simply won't get a as good of a feel for your ads if you are using it. When you do everything manually it gives you a very strong sense of what ads are working and why. POF pro is probably awesome though for automation once you have a good feel for successful images and copy.
Hey since I pretty much gave up on POF, I'm gonna be posting all the stuff I never shared before over on the POF forum today. I'm sure there will be something in there that will help you. Good luck.
Originally Posted by jblint
It's worth noting that you don't have to use POFpro's automation tools. I don't use them at all, in fact - I probably should start, but have never gotten around to it
@jblint with the exception of not using POFpro :P, everything else is super on point and terrific advice.
As @caurmen said, you don't have to use the automation functions, but it does allow you to avoid a lot of initial time wasters (figuring out rotations, figuring out how to use Excel to match creative ROIs, figuring out passing custom tokens, etc.). For a beginner to be able to click "Create Campaign" and actually just create the campaign that is ready to run should actually allow them to focus on creatives and copy.
Thanks for the advice guys. I hear you all. After doing further research I will be taking my chances on FB. I'll be planning out the campaign within the next few days and will be posting up a follow along.
Nice, start off with a very whitehat niche.
ie: something safe that will get approved. Learn the system, then you can start getting a bit more greyhat with higher risque images etc
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