Zero To Hero Follow Along (14)

I've been doing SEO for a living for the past 5 years. I've been very successful with the use of pump and dump sites. While I've had good success earning from these type sites there has always been something lacking. My general mode of operation up until this point has been to put a site rank it and see if it earns. The glaring omission here is that I've never properly optimized those pages for conversion. While this may seem to be an obvious step for most of you here, I seemed to have completely overlooked this. My pages do earn ad at the top for a weight loss supplement with a pic and spun text. . . apparently I completely missed the bus on the pre-sale angle. In looking back on my pages that have ranked well for highly competitive high paying offers I almost feel sick on the amount of money I left on the table by missing this.

I've been reading a lot of the follow alongs in this section ad after reading cyberdelicstudio's I decided it would be a good idea to start one of my own in efforts to hold myself accountable.

So here we go.

I apologize in advanced for poor grammar etc as most likely I've been reading this forum to long or working to late

Here is what I've done so far in terms of setup;
-installed prosper202 on my own server. I'm thinking about signing up for the hosted one however for the geoip aspect that the free (self hosted version) is missing.
-applied and was approved for A4D (and actually contacted my AM)

I decided starting with email submits would be a good place to start due to the fact that I'll be omitting a landing page at first and link directly to the offer. I feel this will give me a good idea of understanding the traffic. I am starting with 7search as the traffic is cheap.

DAY 1:
Per the post here; http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...hlight=7search I contacted 7search support and had them enable 'SubID Bid Overrides and Blocks'. I did use the list that andyscraven posted;
73232
73113
71603
65285
64226

As when I was setting up prosper202 and testing it I sent some random traffic direct to some random offers (just so I could gauge and understand prosper a bit more and verify that it was working) and saw this 73232 subid come through. In the Spy view I saw the referring site and it seemed to be a bit lacking.

I setup two campaigns for emails submits for a Sephora offer on A4D. I created two campaigns.

Sephora Campaign #1
Direct Linking To Email Submit
$10 a day budget
Added as many Sephora keywords as I could find as well as related makeup words.
US traffic as mandated by offer


Sephora Campaign #2
Link to a quasi landing page using clickjacker. So my site loads sephora.com in an iframe

then drops the offer over it.

I figured this would add a bit of validity of the offer as the offer matches the page perfectly.
US traffic as mandated by offer

The ad copy of the above 2 campaigns I copied from ads I saw using the POF spy tool. Not an exact copy but very similar.

Here are the stats after 24 hours:
Campaign #1 - 9,164 impressions - 29 clicks - conversion 0 - cost $2.02
Campaign #2 - 6,023 impressions - 26 clicks - conversion 0 - cost $1.70

After running that for a day I reached out to my AM on A4D (very helpful). He recommended two offers that were converting well now. So I created two campaigns.

Ipad Campaign #1
Direct to offer
Ipad related keywords


Ipad Campaign #2
Direct to offer
Every keyword I could find. My thought here is get 500 - 1000 words with a very low bid like $0.03 and see what actually generates traffic at that price. My thought is that people searching for an ipad may be a bit smarter then someone searching for fart jokes. Once I see what is clicking to refine them down. I used the same ad copy for Ipad Campaign #1 & #2

Here are the stats after a few hours hours:
Ipad Campaign #1 - 11,873 impressions - 6 clicks - conversion 0 - cost $0
Ipad Campaign #2 - 60 (started later) - 0 clicks - conversion 0 - cost $0

So as I check my stats on an almost nutty frequency I noticed that I have 2 conversions in A4D ($2.40 total) however prosper is telling me it's one conversion and that it's from a test campaign I wasn't even sending to A4D. While I'm glad for the $2.40 (w00t) it's worthless to me as I have no idea where it came from . . .that being said I know its from 7search just not sure which campaign / keyword.

few mins later . . .
Ok figured out the problem. I added only the postback URL and not the pixel. Should have read the instructions more carefully. Updated now so hopefully by morning (fingers cross for more conversions) I'll have usable data.

One question I have how does the 'website category' affect the traffic if I'm bidding on keywords?


^^^Small Image Here^^^

@caurmen thanks for the recommendation on the STM Mobile Tracker.

I've got it setup and am now loading my campaigns. It's a good thing I did as I found an error with the campaigns settings on my previous setup of prosper202. My affiliate links to A4D we're missing &s1=[[subid]]&c1=[[c1]]&c2=[[c2]]. I had it setup to grab ###AFFID###-###RID###&c2=###SUBID###&t202kw=###KEYWORD### from 7search.

I'll update results once these new campaigns run for 24 hours.

First of all, nice work on getting started!

Regarding the postback URL and pixel, I normally just use the postback URL, but with the regular Prosper, you're going to get some "blank" subids being passed through. Since they're blank, the postback URL or pixel won't be able to tell prosper where the conversion came from. Check your subid report, you might notice that the other conversion has a blank subid.

Caurmen suggested the STM Mobile Tracker.. it's not just for mobile and will solve the problem of blank subids being passed through.

@JasperP awesome thank you. I have STM Mobile Tracker installed now and until reading your post had the posback and pixel. I'll update to keep just the postback. One questions what about the postback time? I entered 10ms as I was unsure what to put in here.

postback delay? I usually leave it blank

Day 2

Think I maybe missing something. Now that I'm all set up with the STM Mobile Tracker (orgionally on self hosted prosper202) I am noticing a discrepancy between my traffic reported by 7search and my tracker.
Example:
Campaign Sephora #2 CF DL
7search Says: 35 hits for $2.80 Tracker Says 7 for $0.56. While this margin isn't too large it with such a small amount of traffic. I'm worried about switching to a larger network with a larger volume of traffic is there is going to be this large of a margin of error. When working with e-mail submits that only pay out $1.20 per conversion a difference like this will but my figuring way out of line. Even checking the filter clicks for that campaign i see 4 (which I assume means they came from the same IP)

7Search Report:

Tracker Report:


Other then that I signed up with adfly and purchased 1000 US visitors for $5. Im sending through the mobile tracker directly to the offer - only about 100 clicks so far with 0 conversions.

Frustrated that I have no conversions beyond the two yesterday I cant track back. I need more data to make changes and optimize however I'm just not getting it. . . I want to stay with 7search buy may need to switch to another provider do to the low volume.

Today's Accomplishments;
Installed New Tracker
installed maxmind db (not sure if its working)
Reset up campaigns
Looked at about 1 million 7search ads (all which mainly redirect to offer and no lp)
singed up for adfly and configured campaign
created a test google campaign (but just by creating one google skews my stats in the tracker and now shows a $14 loss when it's just google)Seems the tracker filter it but still adds the cost in ... need to find out if I can remove it)


I just wanted good tracking so i can lay some serious campaigns down . . . so frustrated

Discrepancies between stats reported from your traffic source and your tracker aren't unusual, sad to say - it's best to track on ROI rather than anything else for just that reason. Prosper / STM Mobile Tracker has some click filtering built in, so that may be one of the reasons why you're seeing discrepancies.

7Search also doesn't have the best reputation: you may want to try a test campaign on Bing or somewhere else and see if you have the same problems.

Also, is your server a dedicated server or VPS? I'm guessing so, but it's worth checking, because shared hosting can really mess your tracking up.

Much sympathy! I remember how much of a pain tracking was the first time I set it up. Good news is once it's running it mostly works!

I've switched over to CPVlab and I'm loving it. The tracking is now working and I've configured a few new campaigns. I am sticking with 7search but am adding on zeropark.com. Im currently test full network with direct links to offers. My hopes is that I will be able to find something that converts then start narrowing it down from there. I am currently running their "RON" campaigns from DK and USA. I'll post my updates and results as I have them.

Damn awesome, I don't think we've had a 7search follow along so gonna watch this one!

Keep the progress coming so the familiar 7searchers can help ya mate!

Ok need to focus again. I did try Zeropark.com and got a ton of traffic but no converts. I don't think it was a result of their traffic. . . i was getting impatient with 7search and wanted to see volume. After re-reading the getting started guides Im back to focusing on 7search.

I have setup a campaign split testing coupon offers (1st page email submit) for two different offers on two different networks. I have not done a landing page yet but my thought is that direct link to two offers and see which converts. From there I will build up the landing pages to increase CTR.

I found this tool;
http://7search.com/Scripts/Advertise...ordSuggestions
to be very helpful to see the adds that appear for a keyword then to see the landing pages. What I find to be interesting is that a lot of the / most of the ads in the "coupons" vertical seem to be direct linking so I can find something that converts I will be able to improve my success with a lp. I also notice that some words/phrases the bids are way out of line with the others and I need to check those out as well.

So here are my questions:
Question #1
I know how to pass the ###AFFID###-###RID### via prosepr202 however with CPVLab I'm not sure I have it right. Under traffic sources I created 7search like this;

and when I create my campaign it autofills like this;

and then my url looks like this;

is this correct?

Question 2:
Can I upload a cost per click report in CPVlab like I can for Google Adwords. Right now I have all my keyword bids the exact same so I can keep track in CPVlab however I want exact numbers and not 100% how to achieve this.

Lessons learned;
Don't switch around to traffic sources without flushing your ideas out. I when through $50 so fast and gained nothing no conversion, no insite, nothing. I do want to explore ZeroPark some more after 7search as the volume was amazing but for now sticking with 7search.

You can upload reports in the reports in the "upload reports" tab. Just set up a report template under settings

Question 1: Mostly right! URL append should be

&suid=###AFFID###-###RID###