Go Big with Mobile or Go Home! $$$ (39)
Wassup guys?
After 6 months on POF, learning all the basics and making it profitable, I decided to move into mobile and make it big!
My current background
My situation since I've started my last POF FA haven't changed much, I am still short on budget, still motivated to make it big, still working like a mad dog, still learning. I've also made decision to sell my e-commerce business which had solid revenues but almost zero profits to get at least $50-70k budget for my affiliate journey. Someone could think I'm crazy, but I am here to take some risks and make it BIG, and for that, you need THE BUDGET. Local e-commerce biz wasn't making me feeling alive, it felt like a regular job, lots of work for almost nothing. Doing affiliate campaigns make me feel alive, everything is always changing!
Mobile, mobile and mobile!
I've started running first campaigns 14 days ago, till today I've tested like 15 offers, already learnt lot of things. Rest of the story will be below.
Tools:
WiredTree Dedicated Server
Photoshop
Coda 2
WRW
Budget:
At the moment only damn $2500, so I'm stuck at $50 / day spend
Target:
App Installs
Pin Submits
Game installs
Traffic Source:
Decisive
Stay tuned for day 1 later today
Originally Posted by satori
Spend a bit more time planning and your $50 a day will actually bring some actionable data. Don't hurry to burn your budget, analyze your performance closely and keep hacking - don't write them off too early. With that kind of budget I suggest you don't run wide. Try to get as much data from your AM. Badger him/her for anything you can get - which ISP/carrier, OS version, handset, resolution, connection speed... performs better. Sometimes you'll get it - sometimes not, but anything that you do get will double your chances in turning that MF profitable.
Subscribed!! Good luck with your follow along!!
Day 1
So yesterday, I was running security app install campaigns in Taiwan, it's like one week old campaign and started new one in Brazil.
I always run offers split to four campaigns from the beginning: wifi/site, wifi/app, carrier/site, carrier/app
I do direct linking + 3 landing pages for each campaign (calling out visitors devices on all of them).
TW - antivirus app install $0.50 CPA - this campaign is running for 7 days now and some of the four is profitable each day, but still can't make this offer to go green in overall. I should probably focus on Landing pages and play with them more deeply.
spend: $10.74, rev: $5.5
BR - antivirus app install $0.50 CPA - alright, this is new one. Lots of volume in Brazil so I decided to give it a try and it looks promising from the start. For the start I used creatives from WRW and my top creatives from Taiwan campaign (yeah english ones). Till now, it looks like portuguese language works better.
I've started just with one campaign because I was short on budget due to some other offers testing. Here are the stats for the first day:
spend: $18.72, rev: $10.5
MY - security app install $1.50 CPA
spend: $5.19, rev: $3
MY - antivirus pin submit $3.50 CPA
This day I've also started with Malaysia pin submit offer to split test it with CPI campaign. I was interested to see the difference in performance. I started two campaigns for carrier/app and carrier/site. The app one was eating my budget too fast and didn't show such promising stats as the second, so I paused it for now. The carrier/site combo looks promising and it is in profit from the scratch. Yeah, I used all my best creatives from other campaigns for solid baseline. Unfortunately I fucked up tracking, so no screenshot stats for today.
spend: $4.95, rev: $7, profit $2.15
My to-do list
- main focus on the profitable campaign, extend it to carrier/app combo and cut the fat
- rip some new landing pages and improve them
- create new unique angles and creatives, till now I wasn't much original, just tested things that seems working for others to get some performance baseline
Great start to both your follow along and your campaigns mate!
Campaign Taiwan is looking good - ad CTRs are decent but conversion rate is letting you down. Has it had much optimisation yet in terms of placements. Also, what language is the offer in? If your ads are in English then definitely move toward testing Mandarin and Taiwanese Hokkien.
Your BR campaign is also off to a good start as well!
I think you should focus on this antivirus pin submit - test other landers, angles and see what you can make of it. Since you're running it in multiple geos you can immediately port winning angles/landers/ads over.
Since you're strapped for cash it would be wise to focus more of your testing on one geo where you are getting more traction and this could be Malaysia, but give it a little more time to gather data.
If you do decide to focus on MY, use it as a springboard for later campaigns in BR/TW/everything else.
@zeno, thanks for your priceless feedback! Yeah, my ads and LP's are in english, I'll try to translate them and split test languages. In regards of focusing to one things.. yeah, I was actually thinking about the same thing.. let's focus just on that pin submit offer for now!
@stanislav Thanks mate for advice, I really appreciate it and it makes much sense. Now I'm switching my focus to single offer as all of them are very similiar and I'm only loosing my short budget and focus of newbie on them. I'm looking forward for all of your advices!
DAY 2
This day was beautiful, my top revenue / ROI day in mobile and I felt really happy as I saw all the potential here. But still, it's a bit overwhelming for newbie like me to focus on so many offers/countries, so I'm going to stick with pin submit offer till I make it work.
TW - antivirus app install $0.50 CPA
spend: $12.31, rev: $8.5
BR - antivirus app install $0.50 CPA
Some potential here, but I'm putting this on hold for now. Let's figure out pin submit campaign and my budget boost first.
spend: $24.67, rev: $18.5
// UPDATE: I've just checked my landers CR stats and decided to keep this campaign running, as the stats shows, I could get profitable by sticking to DL for now.
Direct linking: 3%, LP1: 2%, LP2: 2%, LP3: 1,1%
I think the reason, why DL works better here is that my banners are in portuguese and my landers are in english. Yeah, I just put them here to see, how Brazilians react to english landers. But both banners and LP's proved that they prefer portuguese. So I hired translator on Fiverr and going to translate these LP's to compare their CR. I'm really looking forward to these stats.
MY - security app install $1.50 CPA
spend: $16.68, rev: $10.5
status: putting on pause before I figure out pin submit offer to be profitable with solid ROI
MY - antivirus pin submit $3.50 CPA
I've resumed second campaign for this offer for carrier/app combo. IN the proccess of cutting low CTR (under 1%) site/app placements. CR is under 1 % on both campaigns, so there is probably room for an improvement.
spend: $17.74, rev: $24.5, profit $6.26
What's next?
- I'm going to fully focus just on MY pin submit offer and just make it work with stable positive ROI
- today I'm going to put another 4 LP's into pin submit camps rotation
- I'm going to hire someone for Malaysia creatives translations (thanks Zeno!)
- I'm going to create 4 unique angles. Then create unique banners and LP's for each and put them into separated campaigns to see, how people react on specific angles.
Looks great so far, good luck!!
It seems that your testing is very effective, you are able to get actionable data just for few dollars a day which is great,
You might hit it big even without selling your prior business..
Cheers!
Looking good!
Malaysia is significantly English-speaking, so I wouldn't completely abandon English banners there. However, it's definitely worth trying Malay too.
Looking forward to seeing how you get on as this develops!
DAY 3
MY - antivirus pin submit $3.50 CPA
Ultimate mobile offers bad luck strikes again. So my profitable campaign got fucked up because of advertiser made some changes on it. 2 profitable days and yesterday just 0 leads with two times bigger spend and better CTR's. I asked my AM what's going and and she said that I' not the only one having problems and recommended something else...
So I'm in the process of getting some alternative offer.
BR - antivirus app install $0.50 CPA
Not a lucky day for this campaign too, improved my CTR to around 3 %, but CR sucked hard.
I decided to resume carrier/app combo as it shows better CR potential and realised that app placements do better with direct link. I have only little data on this fact, but it makes sense to me. Who wanna see browser opening when is in his app? Brazil campaign ended up with like - 40% ROI yesterday. I'm still in the process of getting landing pages translated to portuguese.
Btw, till now I focused just on cutting creatives and app/site placements. I feel like it makes not much sense to cut carriers/devices/OS versions before I get solid creatives / placement CTR's.
How do you experienced guys approach this on Decisive?
Not sure I understand your DL + App theory - a browser is going to have to open a URL regardless of the destination.
As for your MY offer, definitely find something else to test on the backend but don't give up on the first offer - try to get it back asap and put it back into the mix!
I thought it opens Google Market app as the Brazil offer is Google Play app install, I personally don't have Android, but this is how it works on iOS and offers on iTunes. So when you switch from app to another app, it's less pain than go to the browser to show you some "warning: possible virus" message. Why I should see warning in browser, when I was playing my flappy bird.
But maybe totally wrong theory, don't know.
And hell yeah, I won't ever give up!
Yah my bad, totally thinking of normal offer landers e.g. for your PIN submit.
For your app install if it' direct-to-store I can see the DL having advantages there.
Check clickdealer, they have a MY av offer that converts. A lot of the pin subs now convert after store installation and the user confirms their phone number like wechat.
DAY 4
MY - antivirus pin submit $3.50 CPA
Tried new offer in the mix, 0 leads. I realized that this campaign is far away from being optimized well and I need higher payout to make it work again
BR - antivirus app install $0.50 CPA
Still around (-30%) ROI.
DAY 5
The best mobile day for me yet!
BR - app install $0.50 CPA
Decided to go direct linked before I get my translation for LP's. Damn that Fiverr girl is slow!
I'll probably rip some landers today just to be able to test things as I can't wait to get this into GREEN.
Spend $45, rev $44,5
At the moment I'm running just carrier/app, carrier/site combos. As soon as I get landers to work and move it to the profits, I'll start running Wi-Fi combos too. Yeah, budget is a bit limiting at the moment.
I think i know both offers you're running and they both are top offers. I'd stick with them and keep hustling.
Are you using a landing page?
At this point i'd split test 1-2 landing pages (get creative), and a whole bunch of new banners. Possibly 1-2 smaller less known traffic sources as well, because you've got the main idea and the offers so far to make it work.
@stackman Thank you boss for helping me out!
Just added 2 LP's into rotation and 5 new banners and waiting for approval. What's the ideal number of banners to run? At the moment I have like 10-15 active.
I know that on POF the burn out come fast with <4 banners, how it is e.g. on Decisive or in mobile in general as I can't set frequency cap?
Any smaller sources you could recommend?
10-15 is pretty ideal if all the banners are completely different concepts. The idea is to vibe out which type of banners work best, then make more around that style/type etc..
The right banner and landing page combo can take you from the break even point you're at to 80% ROI. So at this stage its about working hard and testing new ideas/angles for the banners/landing pages.
Examples: Maybe a virus survey, maybe an amimated lander, landers with pops, banners that look like linux, or windows 95. I'm just spit balling ideas, they all might work or fail.
This is the grunt of testing you need to do to find the winning combo which can take you from $25/day to $2500/day.
For traffic sources, i truly recommend finding a list. Opening up 10, scanning through, signing up to 5. Choose 2-3 and launch the campaign you have on Decisive and see what happens! This is exactly how i do it myself.
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...obile-Campaign
I'm following man. Very good follow along. How can you get this very low CPC ?
^^ HIGH CTR CTR and bidding CPM.
Originally Posted by romubrug
DAY 6, 7, 8
wild days... Split tested offer across 4 networks, got fucked up three nights in row by network cap limit and was wondering why is my campaigns performance so low during certain hours (during my sleep). Also split tested 3 LP's without any significant results yet. Spend like $50 every of these days with - 20% ROI.
Today I'm closest I've ever been to profit. LP's getting significant data and I'm breakeven (around -5% ROI). As soon as I get results of testing my three LP's, I'll put it to another split test rounds with two totally different LP styles. Also going to make variations of my most successful banner angles. My spend is going to be like $ 100 today, I'm getting lots of data, which is good, on the other side I have to loan more money as my budget is almost empty, all my money fly between networks.
I'll keep on creating/testing creatives & LP's, but can't I do something even smarter?
I' thinking of two methods for getting into profits faster on my mind and need to discuss them with you guys...
1. I can try to make groups of banners / LP's by angles to separate irrelevant banners / LP's combos. Is it worth doing?
2. I'm thinking of doing some pool system like @bigeasy123 does http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...high-x-xxx-day . I'm not sure if it's a good idea. Let's say I have many profitable placements and I'm sure if I can somehow separate them into different campaign, that campaign could be profitable off the bat. But how to separate profitable placements? Let's say I have two dominant variables: Banners and Landing pages.
Taking only profitable banners and combine them with profitable placements? When I combine this, I should get uber profitable campaign as the worse placements/creatives affected stats of all profitable campaigns too. I could also bid more and get higher volume.
What would you do guys?
Hope I can report some little profit tomorrow!
1. Yes, absolutely. Generally you want your funnel to be consistent, i.e. banners that play a specific angle don't go to a lander that's really suited for another. To do this you can just make separate campaigns in your tracking system for each angle > use different campaign URLs for the banner sets > set the rotated landers for that banner set.
2. It's up to you but it is definitely a smart approach. Take a campaign/banner set that is doing well. Make a new campaign using that angle/banner set and the high volume placements that are profitable or close to it. Then focus your budget/time on optimising banners for that set of placements, culling off outlier handsets and so on that seem to be performing poorly.
Allocate a smaller amount of time to testing the less profitable placements that could become profitable with enough testing.
Just systematise it and make a clear plan so that you spend minimal time mulling over how to go about it.
@Zeno thanks Zeno, I'll do it, I am used to it from POF, just needed the confirmation 
DAY 9
Spent: $91.7, rev: 83.04 (173 leads)
Profit: -$8.66
What have I done?
- got results of split testing networks, one gave me my own leads cap, so it allows me to keep camps running during the night, this network has also best performance
- realized that my current LP's performance is just slightly better than DL, put another three LP's in to the rotation, I need at least double the DL CR to see some interesting ROI
- analyzed top designs and hired my graphic designer to create variations
- cut some Devices/Carriers for the first time.
- got Rackspace CDN to host css/images from my LP's
- got some solid depression again
Today's plan:
- put new banners into action
- split my current camps into angle groups
- split testing CDN powered winning LP with non CDN version
- get a $5k loan, I'm confident to do that as I'm not losing much, but most of my money fly among the networks
Just some advice on depression: I find that exercising and meditating everyday can reduce depression a great deal. I have been meditating 20 min/day and exercising one hour everyday for one year and now I rarely get depressed.
Seems like you are getting close to breakeven. My sense is that if you look at the data closely enough and just take out some variables that are not working, you should get to breakeven at least.
However, I am not really sure getting a loan is a good idea ... it is much better to work and save some capital first. Furthermore, a loan plus depression is a bad combination.
In this game, you need to make sound and rational business decisions, not rash and desperate ones. This is hard to do if you are using money that you can't afford to lose.
@cmdeal True words about desperate decisions mate! I think that applies for any business and as I'm in internet marketing since 2006 I've already made too much stupid mistakes to do desperate decisions. As I said in first post, I'm in the process of selling company, so I'm expecting at least $50k on my bank account this year. I'm breakeven now and my POF campaigns are still in profit, so it's not so bad at all, I just need to support my cashflow now. I don't want to see my camps paused, I have to learn.
@avn_0903 Thanks mate, I'm hardcore fitness & healthy food geek since my 18, meditating for last 12 months almost every day. I realize how much are these things important to stay sane. My only problem is that I just gave up caffeine after 10 years of hardcore usage and withdrawal symptoms aren't easy to handle. But it will definitely worth it in the end. Great read on this topic here: http://www.menprovement.com/benefits...caffeine-free/
I'll be def in profit in one week, I promise guys! 
DAY 10 - first little profits
Campaigns stats:
Camp 1 - spent: $22.73, rev: $15.3
Camp 2 - spent: $25.74, rev: $18.87
Camp 3 - spent: $25.91, rev: $28.56
Camp 4 - spent: $22.39, rev: $24.48
Total stats:
Spent: $96.77, rev: 87.21 (171 leads)
Profit: -$9.56
What have I done?
- improved LP's CTR
- got 3c paybump to $0.51
- cut lots of fat
- loaded money to another traffic source, waiting to get money there to test diff platform and it's performance
- managed it to increase my budget without getting a loan (legally, lol)
Question
For banners I've noticed that their performance correlate for sites and apps combos, connection looks like not making difference here. When you cut devices and OS versions, do you think that devices performance vary in each combo (wifi/site, wifi/app, carrier/site, carrier/app), or is there any correlation between content or connection type? What's your experience?
Woo, nice!
My gut feeling would be that performance varies in each combo, although I don't have hard research to back that up. It would be an interesting thing to test!
Looking forward to your Day 11 update
Congrats getting closer to profit.
Keep tweaking and you will soon have a profitable campaign and a lot of experience gained.
Thanks guys for the support, I can feel how much I learn every single day!
And sorry for not updating these few last days, I felt like there was nothing exciting to say, let's sum it up...
DAYS 11-13
Campaigns are doing still pretty same like were during my last update. I'm still cutting some fat, CPM raised double, so although I doubled my CVR, profits aren't any bigger.
This is why I just tested testing 10 new banner designs, 4 of them showed up with potential to double my current CTR -> GOOD.
Yesterday submitted new batch of banners to split test copy on these designs. But Decisive slow approvals slowing me down, sometimes it takes over 24 hours to get new creatives approved. The worst thing is that the whole campaign get on pause with that...
Other problem with Decisive is that I can't use "Creative" tab in live reports, it loads from xx seconds to minutes for me, blacklisting is impossible. I use "Creative ID" tab for this, is much faster, but I feel like disconnected by checking visually what works and what not so I have to generate classic reports to check it there at the same time to see, what banners I am actually cutting.
Today, one really weird thing happened. My domain registrar regtons.com BLOCKED my landers domain, yeah, totally blocked. I can't do anything with that domain. The only luck is that I've noticed that immediately after it happened because I was working on new lander. I have no idea why that happened, they haven't even sent any email, notification, nothing. I wasn't running anything extreme there. So I've got new domain from goddady (you can get .com just for $1.99 there with coupon cjcrmn199) and setup uptime monitoring for my landers domains hoping that this won't happen again.
Has any of you guys similar experience?
Woah, registrar blocked your domain? What do you mean? What was displayed when you loaded the domain?
I have never heard of regtons but it looks like some sort of reseller-focused... thing.
Do youself a favour and only work with a trusted registrars like NameCheap or GoDaddy.
There is little point in using others unless you are buying a lot of domains and want to cut costs.
Domain just stopped working, it is showing nothing, like domain doesn't even exist. I used to have like 300 domains with them and they were cheaper, going with them for 4 years without problem. But yesterday's accident convinced me to switch back to GoDaddy.
ugh...try namecheap. godaddy is so shady.
I like NameCheap as well.
In the end, your registrar doesn't do much other than point to your nameservers and propagate that info to completely independent 'databases' around the interwebs.
Just to keep you guys updated on my progress, this week I was busy with my e-commerce business sale. Also been playing with three new angles for my first offer, nothing have showed more potential than current one. So I decided to stick to current angle and expand it to other traffic sources as one of my combos is profitable around 20% ROI. New traffic sources will be my main focus for the next week, I really struggle with scaling on Decisive.
Yesterday I also started new pin submit campaign in Asia, based on my current profitable campaign. Not much success yet, being around - 60% ROI after 2 days, but got some good data to work with.
Btw I've had some problems with Buzzcity, adding funds took about 100 hours and now when I want to add CPM campaign, on step2 after uploading banner it always sends me to this "You are not authorized to view this page" instead of second step. Their support is terrible too, any idea how can I fix this problem?
Next week main focus
Testing my profitable campaign on 3-5 new traffic sources to get more profit out of it, $5 a day isn't enough!
Brainstorming outsourcing scheme for my affiliate workflow, I feel like I'm wasting my time while doing routine work that could be easily outsourced.
What geos are you looking to scale your profitable campaigns in? Different sources are stronger in different areas.
Yeah, sorry, forgot to mention it... At the moment I need Brazil traffic.
I've heard from another STM thread that Huntmads are strong in BR. In general it seems that BR traffic is pretty thin on the ground right now, though.
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