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The Most Reckless Adult Follow Along Ever (39)

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Alright so here is another attempt at an adult follow along.

Little background story: Why is this the most reckless follow along ever?

I am doing something that may be considered absolutely reckless and some people may call it stupid. I am currently living with no income, a very very small savings, and have a $3,000 line of credit left. This is my last resort before I either make enough profits to keep going, or be completely bust. If I do end up bust, I won't completely quit, but I'll have to take a break to get a job and pay bills and credit card debt. So with that said I am giving myself 1 month to make it or break it. That will be a $100 spend/day for 30 days.

So I am running adult dating offers.

Traffic Source: Traffic Junky
Offers: Mobile dating offers
Current countries: US & CA
Budget: $100/day
Tracking: Just switched to Voluum today. I was using prosper202 with STM mobile before, but decided to try out Voluum. So far I love it. I love the interface and design. It is very well laid out and far easier to use than prosper. Also it seems to be very fast so far.

Currently running 305x99 banners on pornhub. I find that Redtube didn't perform as well for my campaign after a small test, but I may have to go back and test some more.

So far I have only managed an average of .06-.07 cpc. I have a hard time trying to get a better banner CTR to lower the cost of my clicks. For landing pages I haven't been able to manage a decent CTR. I keep getting around 10-15% CTR. I want to get at least 20-25% consistent LP CTR.
I have been going slowly at it for some time, but I feel like I've made some progress the last few weeks. I am hoping that posting daily in this follow along will help me to figure out what my next steps should be. When I first started I was hitting negative 90-60% ROI. Recently I got it down to negative 30-20% ROI. But that is still horribly losing.

Here are some stats from the last few days:

Date: 1/23/14 Thursday
Rev 59.5
Cost 75.04
PL -15.54

Date: 1/24/14 Friday
Rev 59.5
Cost 103.06
P/L -$43.56

Date: 1/25/14 Saturday
Rev 29.75
Cost 43.37
P/L -$13.62

Date: 1/26/14 Sunday
Rev 103.25
Cost 133.94
P/L -$30.69

Next steps: I haven't been very controlled with my testing. I am now going to develop a more systematic testing approach to try and maximize my small budget. Because my budget is so small, I cannot afford to test like a wild man. I have make new landing pages and some variations on my current banners. I have mainly been running only 5 animated banners with only testing very few. I need to test a lot more banners and improve my landing page CTR.

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Look I actually did that and..... it was the worst time of my life. Looking back now I'm glad I did it but if you can give yourself some runway it'll go a long way. Razor focus might get you through depending on your outlay. Its possible but its ball crushingly hard.

Really?? Get the fuck out of there.....

$100 a day in those markets and on TJ isn't anything like what you need unless you stick to 1 site (say tube 8 with much lower vol) and ONE ad unit. Even so I've done some decent numbers on TJ and in those markets. You ideally need $1k p/d to have even the smallest seat at the table. $100 just doesn't cut it - remember adult is a volume game that you need flow to roll.

Be smart, go Intl and DIG. There's a few pots of gold out there that can be enormously profitable if you're willing to dip your line deeper than the rest of affs.

Good luck.

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If you're working with a small, razor-thin budget, you need to make it go as far as possible, so I'd definitely not recommend going into US/CA.

I'd strongly recommend looking for smaller, softer markets, as grandtheftpixel says. Think international, think non-English-speaking - or alternatively, think niche as fuck. Less "MILF", more "foot fetishists who love latex".

You want high ROI, small volume to build up your bankroll. If you head for the less competitive markets, that'll be much easier to find.

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First thing which also came to my mind: no US/CA.
Even with the larger countries in Europe, you'll have a hard time.

$100/day is a low budget and you'll need awesome ROI to make this happen.

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I second this, if you got that razor thin budget, INTL (FR,DE,NO,SE etc) ipad

Don't think too much now, just get an offer and get to it

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Can you expand on this for a newb??

why do you need so much money? because the profits are small? and the money is made over alot of spend?
meaning the conversions suck in general?

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Thanks for the replies guys. I didn't realize my market was so bad for my budget. I applied to smashrevenue today since they specialize in adult offers. Going to give them a call tomorrow to see if I can get approved right away. I'm also going to hit up my AM to see if I can get some decent adult mobile international offers as I currently don't have any.

I have no idea how to target properly on Traffic Junky. Kind of lost on the whole channel, keywords and ISP thing. Does anyone have any tips? Surprisingly RIM carrier performs well, but I barely get any volume with that. Most of my traffic seems to be coming from iphone users and samsung users.

Some stats from yesterday: Testing a different offer with same ad placements and 2 landing pages.

Cost: $130
Rev: $56
P/L: $-74
ROI: -56.92%


Next steps: Get some international offers and start testing.

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oops sorry double post.

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i'd go against France... Traffic is quite expensive there

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One more tip: with a slim budget, keep a VERY close eye on statistical significance. You'll want to get to statistical significance, of course, but you'll also want to make sure that you're not running any losing ads beyond statistical significance: you don't want to be paying for 20k impressions where 12k would have given you the same actionable data.

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I know your pain man, I was in your situation no less than 6 months ago. My advice, follow your gut, and don't let anyone ever tell you you can's do something. Believe in yourself and work on your skills. All it takes is one good campaign and you're set man. I happened to me. Best wishes.

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Update

Got a mobile dating offer for Sweden. Pretty much just ripped banners and landing pages. Even running the same offer that connected the same ads and LPs I ripped from. Tested 12 banners with 2 landing pages. Size 300x250.

Cost: $28.24
Rev: $0
P/L: -$28.24

My ad CTR was much lower than I would get in US. Converting also seems to be difficult as well. On the other hand LPs were getting much higher CTR than I normally got.

Next step: Test some more ads. I am going to alter the ones I have. Also make some landing page variations.

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Hmm no conversions? Not sure what is going on there, try it for one more day but if you keep getting 0 conversions something is up

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Like Maynzie suggested I tried running it again for a few hours, but still no conversions. I'm thinking ad and lp copy must suck horribly.

1/31/14

Cost: $25.94
Rev: $0
P/L: -$25.94

I also created 10 305x99 banners and tried running that. Not really any volume with that placement. Also, while spying I noticed there was 1 main person running the most ads there. I did a who is on the domain and the contact details belong to a big dating company. So I don't know whats up with that.

I'm going to try running an offer with France traffic.

Next step is creating some ads and lps and do a lot of spying and studying over the weekend. Gotta wait till Monday for new ads to get approved since traffic junky doesn't look at ads on weekends.

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Were you recommended the offer? I'd be inclined to be a bit dubious about the offer after $50 spend and no conversions (depending on the payout, of course). I doubt your landers suck that badly!

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Nope I wasn't recommended it. The offer is benaughty mobile. Payout is $5.20. Offer landing page looks decent.

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Always ask about the best 2-3 converting offers and the best converting offer LP from your AM. Split test that and work it up from there.

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this

also I should mention that places like France are heavily saturated. and traffic is not cheap

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Thanks for all the advice guys I really appreciate it, and I hope you keep the responses coming. But with that being said, when I decided to back out of my original offer I had something eating away at me. I felt like I spent a lot of time and money trying to run that offer and it didn't feel right to just let it go. Yes it was stupid of me to start out in such competitive markets. But I started this mess and I need to see it through. I'm constantly jumping from one thing to the next without focusing. I haven't tried giving it everything I got. I haven't tried as many things as I could have. I know if I just back out now I will end up regretting it.

Alright I decided to go back to this offer, but now I'm at it with a different approach. I took all your responses and really thought about it a lot. That gave me a fresh approach to work with and I'm trying out another method. I may end up losing bad at the end of the month. If I don't make enough back to keep going I'll know that I will at least have learned a lot. I will find whatever way I can to save up and start again. If I can at least break even or profit a little, I think I can continue to push forward for a little while longer.

Stats for initial Test Run

Made 10 banners and ran it through 2 landing pages. Then split between 4 of the offers landing pages.

Overall result:
Cost: $97.10
Rev: $64.4
P/L: -$32.7
ROI: -33.68%

Let's break it down:

I found that 2/4 of the offer landing pages were converting better.

I found 2/10 banners were profitable. But split between the 2 landing pages certain banners converted better on each landing page. I found 5/10 banners total with some potential to work with.

My next move is to create variations on those banners, and see how they perform.

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OK, that's a pretty darn good start! ROI of -33% after no optimisation is a very good sign.

Are you split-testing the BeNaughty offer across a bunch of networks, by the way? That's definitely something to do as soon as you can - you'll be amazed how much the conversion rates differ.

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Actually it's a different offer. My affiliate manager told me the benaughty SE was a bad converter. Also it made 1 conversion 2 days after I paused it lol so they must be monitoring and scrubbing leads hard. But yea I'll have to start testing the offer on different networks.

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Update:

I ran the banner variations I made and the few banners that did well before. The original banners didn't do so well the second day. I found 3 banners with some potential to run.
Campaign started off not doing well then started picking up around evening, then I paused it around 1 or 2 am in my time as it seemed to slow down.

Stats:

Cost: $111.41
Rev: $84
P/L: -$27.41
ROI: -24.6%

The ROI was better than yesterday, but I'm disappointed the original banners I chose performed so badly. Maybe running it with the altered versions may have caused it to do bad.

Next step: Figure out how to optimize it better. I suck at the optimization process. Not sure the best way to go about optimizing. I already know about cutting non performing banners. Should I just test more images and completely different landing pages? What types of changes do people make that cause a campaign to go from losing to profit?

Currently testing a batch of 10 more images. Also going to put more thought into ways I can increase ad CTR and LP CTR.

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Fire up the STM Spy tool, and take a look at what the top positioned advertisers in the ad chain on any site are running in your geo. Thats the offer you want to test.... split test a few, find the cvrs... pick based on that.... always take what you are told with a grain of salt.

Like, I could say push Friend Finder its awesome!! (You'd google, and your search would confirm it is awesome) -- i'd withold the fact its an oversold beast meaning right off the bat your conversions will tank because many members that might apply could already have an account with them!

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2/8/14

Ran 10 new banners.

Cost: $78.59
Rev: $75.6
P/L: -$2.99
ROI: -3.81%

2/9/14

Cut out 5/10 banners and ran the other 5.

Cost: $197.57
Rev: $168
P/L: -$29.57
ROI: -14.97%


So I almost got break even on Saturday, but after I cut out non performing banners ROI became worse on Sunday. I had to be out somewhere so I couldn't monitor my campaign on Sunday, but some of the other competitors weren't running their camps anymore so I got a lot more traffic pushed to me than before. Next step is to create some more banners and see what I can do to improve my landing pages.

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Nice - keep it up, you're definitely heading in the right direction.

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Thanks caurmen. Here are some updated stats. Mainly just been testing new images and made small changes to the landers. I really need to get some different lander types and test those out. I also need to hone in on my data and really analyze it. I get a little lazy when it comes to really studying and organizing all of the data.

2/10/14

Cost: $81.27
Rev: $70
P/L: -$11.27
ROI: -13.87%

2/11/14 - 2/12/14

Cost: $183.92
Rev: $140
P/L: -$43.92
ROI: -23.88%

Overall still struggling to see some profits. Need to test different landing page types and really organize and study all the data. Need to come up with better angles.

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2/13/14

Not sure about exact stats because Voluum keeps missing 2 or 3 conversions every day. Traffic Junky analytics always has some buggy issues so I can't track exact cost for now.

Rough estimate:

Cost: $97
Rev: $60
P/L: $-37
ROI: -38.1%

Need to come up with better angle and test new landing pages.

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Could you give me more details about the missing conversions? Are you using pixel tracking? If so, then there can be a 4% discrepancy with users who have cookies disabled.

If you're using postback tracking then there cannot be a discrepancy. Perhaps you're comparing stats in 2 different time zones?

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@zeropark - yea its pixel tracking so that would explain it. I'm not sure how to properly set up postback. I just got my postback URL set up so I'm going to have it tested tomorrow when my ads get approved

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Ok cool, shoot us a support ticket if you have any issues. It's pretty straight forward.

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@mscimitar - I think it would be tough to try and merge my two angles. But now I am thinking of using the same approach I had before just with different type of girls.

@dirtbag - I haven't seen any offers really made for this angle on any networks. I've been running it to a general offer. If I were to try and find a site that fits this angle I would probably have to search outside of networks and run direct.

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yes! awesome dude!

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I'm pulling for you! Sounds like your learning a shitload from all these roadblocks but hopefully it'll give you some permanent knowledge of what works with mobile traffic..

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Thanks for the replies guys. Appreciate the tips and ideas.

@jeffs8914 - yea definitely a learning experience. seeing the types of mistakes I made due to neglect on my part. Like I should have put in 2 different sub ids for the 2 placements I was running so I can see if 1 of the placements was backing out. Instead I just used the same thing for both placements.

Now I'm focusing on an angle that will hopefully appeal to older guys. Definitely going to find some older women images to throw in there as well.

Did a quick test today and it has some potential. Although this might not be as high ROI and it might not be as stable as my other campaign.
My main concern right now is just trying to build up my bank so I can be able to scale up and test a lot more things.
Over the past 10 days since hitting profits I've barely been able to recover my loss from the past 2 months. Still not enough to really have the cash flow I need.

It's crazy how fast things change and move in this industry. Highs and lows from one day to the next.

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Alright this is my final update for this follow along.

End of month report.

March 2014

Impressions: 20,326,954
Clicks: 119,864
Spent: $4,662.85
Rev: $7,184.80
P/L: $2,521.95
ROI: 54.09%

A lot of problems came up along the way, but overall I still made progress over the last 3 months. This was my first profit month. I'm looking forward for more to come with bigger profits.
I'll admit I have been neglecting my work for the past few weeks due to personal life distractions.

This concludes my follow along. I will keep pushing forward and hope to keep making progress. My goal for April is to hit that $500/day mark and keep it steady.

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Good job mate, the progress is quite nice.

Scaling from that to $500 a day is just a matter of using more traffic sources and offers.

Please keep us updated on the situation a month from now.

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completely awesome

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Thanks guys. @bbrock - I'll post an update at the end of April as well.

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Great Job man!! Another thing to do to qualify the lead is have them choose an age (18-25 and 25+) and send the 18-25 to an offer that accepts them. Then send 25+ to the higher paying offer. Sometimes you can negotiate payouts for dif quality on the same offer. Just need to ask your AM. Good follow along! Keep it up!

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