The Mobile Cookbook: Introduction And Index (25)
Introduction
2014: the year that mobile exploded.
Mobile has been a bigger part of affiliate marketing every year since 2010 or so. But 2014 is the year when it has really hit the limelight.
With prominent affiliates posting $xx,xxx success stories, everyone wants to know how to get started in mobile.
And that's what the Mobile Cookbook is here to teach you.
What's the Mobile Cookbook?
Because mobile is growing and changing so fast, no two affiliates approach it in quite the same way.
It's like cooking: everyone has their own recipe for success.
Some people are cooking Jambalaya. Others are cooking Fish and Chips. Others are cooking Nasi Goreng.
But at the end of the day the results are all delicious - deliciously profitable.
So, rather than take any one person's approach, what I've done is extensive interviews with Stackman, Mr Green, bbrock32, and Maynzie about their individual approaches to mobile success.
Then I've taken the common points in each of their approaches plus my own knowledge.
And I've boiled them down to three recipes which any affiliate can follow to mobile success.
Why Mobile?
So why are we getting so excited about affiliate marketing on mobile at the moment? There are loads of reasons we think that mobile is a really promising area right now, for newbies and experienced affiliates alike:
- Tons of traffic and growing fast - Mobile Internet is growing extremely fast, all over the world, whilst desktop traffic isn't growing nearly as fast. That means that there's tons of volume to scale into, and also that the costs of impressions are very low.
- Spying is harder - Unlike desktop, it's quite hard to spy on mobile campaigns for a number of reasons. That means campaigns last longer and there's more space to develop unique approaches because people can't just steal your hard work.
- More similar sources to scale to - There are dozens of mobile advertising companies out there, each of them offering very similar inventory. That means that once you've got a campaign running well on one source, it's easy to scale to others.
- Loads of offers - The app market is exploding and people are figuring out how to make mobile work for their businesses - which means that there are dozens of new offers appearing every month, and generally a lot of offer choices.
- Access to new markets - In many countries, people don't use the internet on a PC or a Mac - they use it on their phones. With mobile advertising we can tap those markets.
- Low-payout high-conversion offers - Many mobile offers have high conversion rates and low payouts, meaning that they're cheaper to optimise than higher-payout desktop offers.
- Less restrictions - It's still the case that there is more mobile inventory than mobile ad buyers, meaning that there are far less restrictions on what you can run and how you can run it than on desktop.
The Recipes
- The Appetiser: A simple way to get started in mobile with maximum action and minimum complication. Designed for less experienced affiliates. Simpler, but it's still very possible to get to profit using just these techniques. Read It Here »
- The Main Course: A solid approach to mobile using more complex techniques. Requires a bit more investment and more technical elements. A very solid way to start and see success with mobile, even up to reasonably high spends.Read It Here »
- The Banquet: For experienced affiliates with a higher budget who want to hit the ground running. This is the blow-out approach using outsourcing, rapid scaling, and higher spends for faster learning.
What do you need to begin?
For The Appetiser, you need very little background or technical knowledge. You'll just need a graphics editing program and a budget for testing.
For The Main Course, you'll need to be familiar with HTML and have a VPS server and a tracker, as well as have a budget available.
For The Banquet, you'll need to be an experienced affiliate with contacts for outsourcing, as well as a powerful server and a considerable testing budget.
What Else Is In The Cookbook? (coming soon)
If you're an experienced affiliate coming from Web campaigns, Converting from Web to Mobile is for you. It's a quick summary of everything that's new in the mobile world for experienced Web affiliates.
And there's one thing that doesn't change no matter what recipe you're using - the mindset you'll need to succeed.
The Mobile Mindset covers the more metaphysical side of the game. Read this any time mobile marketing's getting you down!
Let's get cooking...
Awesome Intro! Thank you Caurmen for putting this together (are you Gordon Ramsay in disguise? 
and thank you Stackman, Mr Green, bbrock32, and Maynzie for your contributions!
Originally Posted by caurmen
Originally Posted by krisicash
Lots of apps are running with 3-4 different mobile networks, but usually only 1 ad shows at a time. So you could be running multiples ad formats/sizes across multiple networks and dominate your market.
Instead of it seeming like your competiting it against yourself, it can be looked at as you're completely dominating the market.
If you are buying the same placement with the same targeting on exchange traffic from dsps then you are competing with yourself.
Highest bidder wins on exchanges. It doesn't stagger it's the impressions down to 2nd, 3rd bidders etc like you see on sources like Adwords.
Originally Posted by Mr Green
I see that that most DSPs and RTB-based self-serve sources charge similarly, i.e. they take a cut on the CPM, but am not sure how much variation there is!
like to check, when will the main course out? this week?
thanks
Originally Posted by ubergeek
thanks
Yep, indeed. This week or early next.
caurmen, will you use
^ I think he is using some in-house ninja tracking software
The Main Course is going to assume a bit more knowledge than the Appetiser, so I'll be giving more general recommendations. You'll be able to use it with any traffic source and any tracker, whether that be
...
... something else.
Hi there,
Any Idea when " the banquet" will be released?
Can't wait to read it!
I'm hoping this week or next.
Hey @caurmen,
Any update on The banquet?
@dpol - yeah, sorry about the delay on that.
I'm aiming to put it out in the next week or so. (I'm aware that I may have said that before - but for real this time ).
Smells good :d
Can wait for the banquet
Any news on the banquet?
Epic thread @caurmen - I actually used this a while back as a basis to start my move into mobile. So big thanks.
Malan D - Very cool! That's great to hear!
Londoner - The Banquet is here. Enjoy!
Thanks for the plug Malan D.
Awesome I am getting very eager to start in Mobile offers thanks
Hi!
First of all! I love this forum! Its great information but sometimes i am getting crazy! 
I want to start with the easiest thing there is! Mobile looks the right place, but i read so much the last 2 weeks that i am going crazy! Please help me!! I know i am going to sound stupid, but i have learned there are only stupid answers and no stupid quistions so there i go!
You are saying in post before that you have to focuss on 1 thing... Thats what i wanna do! But i still get really confused with the verticals and traffic sources!
For example:
I can put adds on Facebook (traffic source), but mobile is a traffic source also!?!? Isnt it that "Facebook on a mobile" is the traffice source?
And verticals... Whats the easiest vertical to start in for mobile (if i understand the above). Because in this forum i see somethings like Adult and pay per call. Isnt the vertical adult and you can choose for pay per call in this vertical...?
HELP!!! haha going crazy!!!!
@Caurmen I think i got my quistion above...
I am going to focus on "Mobile" and targeting it true "Facebook" and focus on "protein products". Is that a smart move? I read somewhere "Facebook" is hard to get?
Anybody?
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