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How to Build a War Chest of Campaign Ideas (8)

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Ask an affiliate: "What campaigns did you work on last week?"

Assuming he remembers something other than playing with his balls, he'll point to a string of brainfarts that may (or may not) have made money.

Now ask him: "Why did they fail?"

You'll probably hear something about a low CVR, a bad offer, a dud source of traffic or a banner that nobody wanted to click.

Now ask him about the campaigns he worked on six months ago. Why did those fail?

Hmm.

You can expect a blank stare. "They just...did."

Here's something I find mighty confusing about our industry...

Most affiliates will be able to tell you which of their campaigns made money in the past. And they'll be able to recall - vividly and painfully - the hundreds of hours wasted on campaigns that never made a dime.

But when it comes to explaining why a failure was a failure, the memory is a blur of snap decisions protected by wafer thin reasoning: "We'll, I guess it just wasn't converting well enough."

Most of us don't bother to leave notes in the present explaining to our future selves why a campaign failed.

The profit/loss is gospel.

That's a missed opportunity.

If you're doing this shit right, your future self will be a much better marketer than you are today.

There's no reason why a campaign that fails in the present can't contribute to your five figures a day in the future. But for a failed campaign to be of any use, it has to be placed in context.

This builds from a point I raised in another thread - http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...-your-failures - you need to benchmark your results.

Yes, even in the inevitable aftermath of failure.

You don't need to understand why the campaign failed on an intellectual level. But you absolutely should record the metrics that would have guided you to profit.

These metrics are foundations of your research in the future, when *hopefully* you are much better equipped to make money.

If what you need to get profitable is something as simple as an offer that converts 30% better, or a landing page that drives through 20% more clicks, these are factors that can - and probably will - change in the future. It's why I keep a folder for every single traffic source I work with. It's not good enough to have the distant memory of the troubles you faced on a long-forgotten platform. That's not actionable. You need to record why why why the campaign tanked, on paper, in measurable terms, so you can evaluate it as an option in the future.

- How many traffic sources have you worked on in the last three years?
- How many countries have you advertised in?
- How many offers have you tested?

Too many to remember without notes, if you are anything like me.

Can you tell me the payout/CVR needed to get profitable in Germany on Porn.com if you have a banner that gets a 0.4% CTR and a landing page with a 33% CTR?

Probably not.

And yet this is something that you would be acutely aware of in that fleeting moment where your undivided attention goes to running German ads on Porn.com.

You have the data at your fingertips. Even if you can't get profitable, you've spent the money. It's groundwork. A sign post for the future.

Take some notes, record the vital metrics.

Write a note to yourself if you have to.

For many affiliates, the temptation upon leaking Porn.com monies... is to delete the campaign, set the bitch on fire, purge its tables from CPVLab and go whack one out in solitude.

You don't stop to record why the campaign failed because in that heated moment, you know you'll never forget it. The negative ROI is singed to your retinas. You'll never ever ever forget - or forgive - why you're now $100 poorer.

A lonely wank full of pity and hate soon follows.

While this is comforting at the time, it is of zero use six months from now when you are a better marketer, with better angles, and a better offer, ready to make some money.

Once that moment arrives, the data you've accumulated can be put to work.

A low-level affiliate might only spend, let's say, $100/day testing his campaigns.

Over the course of a year that adds up to $36,500 of data.

Even if he fails every day, that is a WAR CHEST of notes to his future self.

But only if he takes the time to benchmark figures.

It's a simple process, and it is free.

1. When a campaign fails, note down why.
2. Record the metrics: CVR, CTR, landing page CTR, any interesting notes. This is what you're paying for!
3. Benchmark what metrics you would need to get profitable.
4. ...
5. ...
6. Six months later, when you find something that just *works*, scour through the notes and compare your past benchmark figures to the improvements you've made.
7. Thank your past self for leaving notes rather than a smattering of wank dust in his wake.
8. Use them to make money.

Here's the thing...

When you start affiliate marketing, it's pretty much inevitable:

You will suck. Badly.

But data is data.

It doesn't discriminate. And though you may be a crappy marketer at the time, your data is still honest.

Keep it for when you improve.

The goal is to improve as a marketer. To learn new methods, find new angles, uncover better offers. This always takes time.

The more data you capture along the way, the more 'low hanging fruit' you'll have when you find a technique that actually works.

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damn good idea

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another great post,

Well that's a very challenging goal: to consume 100$ wisely for testing every day, means every day change the one of most important factors and still loose 100$,

if you can still do that even after you found your comfort zone its insane to where you can get..

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That's some "Finchy" info there Finch. THX d00d!

BTW, Fincsi (pronounced finchy or fincheeee) means YUMMY in hungarian..

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"
Here's the thing...

When you start affiliate marketing, it's pretty much inevitable:

You will suck. Badly.

But data is data.

It doesn't discriminate. And though you may be a crappy marketer at the time, your data is still honest.

Keep it for when you improve.

The goal is to improve as a marketer. To learn new methods, find new angles, uncover better offers. This always takes time.

The more data you capture along the way, the more 'low hanging fruit' you'll have when you find a technique that actually works."


Read this, and then read it again. You shouldn't leave a campaign without learning something from it. Aside from what landers, creatives worked. Record what bids allowed you to get decent volume and any details you learnt about the traffic source. Study the offers, if you split tested two and one performed better than the other, try to figure out why.

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Sh*t, I'm guilty as charged. I wasn't following through on 4 & 5!

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What a fuckin money post. Thanks finch. I'm starting a new notebook in my evernote for this.

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Yep, the volume threshold is always so important.

Even if you're losing money, it's often worth upping the bids to determine if there's enough volume to make a campaign worthwhile.

A 100% ROI on $5/day is probably a resounding loss in terms of opportunity cost.

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