$100/Day Goal Mobile Noob Sing Along (14)
Tried my hand at Facebook and failed miserably (couldn't really even set up an offer b/c of Facebook's banhammer). Tried with POF and had some success but ain't nobody got time for that shit (ad approvals took too long, didn't fit my schedule).
Now I'm back to fuck up another campaign on mobile, so hide your phones.
How this is going to go down:
I'm going to start completely from scratch/square one (maybe square two, I've got a domain for tracking already). Hopefully this will help out future noobs, since the logistics of setting up a campaign have caused me endless aggravation so far. This means I'm going to go step by step:
- Selecting an Offer - Think I'll stick to two-three offers in one vertical, either dating, games, or app installs.
- Planning Split Testing/Campaigns - Ad groups, starting bids, countries etc.
- Creating Ads - Make the ugliest banners you've ever seen.
- Creating Landing Pages - Make the ugliest landing pages you've ever seen.
- Creating Campaigns - Setting up offer URLs and postback URLs for
Voluum and other traffic sources (this has been my biggest headache). - Tracking and Optimizing - Cut the shit and boost the performers.
I will try to post daily reports; hope to see you around, and if you have suggestions, please tell me!
Heh, This one sounds like fun and self-deprecating humor is always fun to read! Ill be following this one closely because I am just getting started into mobile myself and even though I do well with other traffic, mobile makes me feel like I am kind of starting from scratch. So to see it through your eyes will give me the kick in the ass I need to keep going with it myself. Good luck!
You've got a solid plan, and a sing along will always outdo a follow along, so we're on point here!
Few things:
- Sticking to 1 area/niche is a good idea. For example there's a bunch of virus and whatsapp campaigns doing really well right now. You can test SO much with 1 of those niches that it's silly to jump to something else because just those 2 niches alone are pulling in $xxx,xxx/day on some networks. So stick with 1 thing and make it work, jump countries if you need to, but thats all.
- Test a lot of different angles/styles for that 1 niche you're targeting. An angle can completely change your conversion rate.
- Ugly is known as good, but don't ignore really nice looking pages especially when it comes to mobile. Modeling a page after an APP can do wonders for CTR & Conversion rate. Test out both sides, and see what works best for your campaign.
Sing on my friend, sing on.
Originally Posted by trev513
On a more serious note, I'm looking at offers now. I'm picking offers that are available on both affiliate networks I'm currently working with (Peerfly and F5Media) because it's easier than signing up for some new networks and really doing this right. But, with at least two networks I can rotate offers and networks and basically play a shell game that I probably won't be able to follow once I fuck up tracking somehow. Assuming I get the tracking right, this should give me a ton of data.
Offers
Broad Dating (Peerfly & F5Media; payouts $1.20-1.80):
- Mate1 Mobile US UK CA IR NZ AU
- Mate1 iOS US UK CA IR NZ AU
- Saucy or Sweet Dating Mobile US UK CA IR NZ AU
- Saucy or Sweet Dating iOS US UK CA IR NZ AU
Dating for the Elderly (Peerfly & F5Media; payouts $1.40-2.00):
- Mate1 Mobile 40+ US UK CA IR NZ AU
- Mate1 iOS 40+ US UK CA IR NZ AU
- Saucy or Sweet Dating Mobile 40+ US UK CA IR NZ AU
- Saucy or Sweet Dating iOS 40+ US UK CA IR NZ AU
Gaming (F5Media only, Peerfly doesn't have a lot of mobile game offers; payouts vary wildly):
- Candy Crush
- More Candy Crush
- Italian Candy Crush
- Candy Crush with Pets (Pet Saga)
App Installs (F5Media only, Peerfly doesn't have a lot of app install offers):
- Antivirus
- Battery Saver
Conclusion:
Seems relatively clear to me to go with dating at a bare minimum - most offers with the most capacity to compare between offers/networks/devices etc. Gaming might be interesting but it would mostly be a test between different countries and variations on candy crush, which isn't terribly appealing since any ads we create will have to be reviewed and approved by the CPA network before even trying to get them by the traffic source, which just seems like a headache.
People much smarter than me wrote this post, and you should read it. However, I'm mildly retarded so even that amount of handholding wasn't enough, so here's the noob sing along version.
Setting up an Offer URL in
Peerfly:
Go to the offer page and get your affiliate link. Take the link, it will look like this: http://trkur.com/trk?o=xxxxx&p=xxxxxx
Go to
I've set my tracking up like so: http://trkur.com/trk?o=xxxxx&p=xxxxxx&s1={campaign.id}&s2={clickid}
Setting up Postback with Decisive & Voluum
Super simple, your postback is http://win.crwd.io/convert/{externalid}; you'll have to set up Decisive as a traffic source but Voluum makes that pretty straightforward and there are guides on both Voluum and Decisive about the tokens available to pass on during your tracking.
Mostly the only thing I did tonight was set up my tracking, successfully tested conversions, checked the page was there, etc.
I settled on my offers:
Mate 1 Mobile and Mate 1 40+ Mobile. Using F5Media and Peerfly, tracking with Voluum and running on Decisive. Working on banners and landing pages now.
Day 1 Update
Launched a baseline campaign for Mate 1 Broad iOS and Android, used the provided Mate 1 banners; seeing okay CTRs but impressions are so low it's meaningless right now.
One small thing I've noticed with Decisive lately that I think is interesting: my campaigns spike on launch, I get 5k impressions in like ten minutes, then bidding/impressions drop significantly. Anyone else notice this?
Looking good so far! Very interested to see some data start to emerge.
Have you tested the loading speed of your landers? That's definitely worth checking, particularly for mobile.
Originally Posted by caurmen
I created a Google Doc to track my results, you can see the spikes I'm talking about with Decisive in there.
Nice 
Check your loading speeds anyway, just to be on the safe side - server setup issues can slow down the leanest lander.
Update:
I've got 250+ clicks on my ads so now I've got a decent amount of data but have no idea what to do with it. No conversions (really frustrating).
All ads are paused currently while I figure out how to analyze the data I have and plan next steps. Should I analyze on each variable? What should I be looking for right now since I don't have any conversions?
How many offers have you been testing over those 250 clicks, and how much have you spent on each offer relative to that offer's payout? Also, how many landing pages?
I wouldn't worry too much about not having any conversions initially - it happens sometimes!
Originally Posted by caurmen
Hmm - honestly, my recommendation at that point would be to dump the angle and move on to a new one.
Were you running both those offers with both networks, or just with one? If just one, I'd recommend testing them on the other network if you can.
Also, my usual suggestion: sign up for more networks!
Make sure you're creating separate campaigns for each of the following traffic sources on Decisive:
1. Carrier + Sites
2. Carrier + Apps
3. Wi-Fi + Sites
4. Wi-Fi + Apps
All the best!
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