XXX + (_!_) + (*) (*) + STM = $$$ - Let's make money (40)
Hey guys
I've started another adult marketing campaign and when I've seen the stats after letting the campaign run for a weekend my reaction was like:
This is the reason why I want to start again a follow along to learn what my obstacle are this time.
>>> Please click here to see a screenshot of my CPV Lab Stats <<<
My Questions:
1.) Should I just wait now to collect more data?
2.) Should I pause all Landing pages except LP3 (and maybe create 2 variations of it?)
3.) What about the offers? Enough clicks to pause?
4.) What about the ads? Enough clicks to pause?
I pay for each click $ 0.07 - 0.12.
Thanks for your suggestions. I really do appreciate it.
Andreas
Ok i think it is to early to make any decisions.
With that many creatives/landers/offers...you will need to spend way more for actionable data.
Let me make a suggestion....test your angles first "better than craigslist" "your wife will never know" (5-10 ads with dif angles) etc....with one generic lander and multiple offers.
Spend 100 bucks and see what happens. Once you know what angle is the best for that source and you narrowed down an offer.
Then make multiple ads around that angle.
Then you can build a lander around that offer/angle. Test the different styles like" rules" "geo" "3 questions" etc... Make sure to separate your traffic and send only 25+ to main offer for good quality. Send 18-24 to offer that accepts it. Doing this will get you higher payout on main offer after quality check.
Also are you running Mobile? Web? I suggest just doing web for now.
Your only -47% just starting so dont make that face. Not enough data though to even have a clue what this campaign is going to do yet.
Anything i run off the bat with no optimizations @ -50% or better i know i can get positive.
The key is to send solid quality to advertiser so you stay on the offer. Its getting harder and harder now a days to stay on the good offers. So start it off right.
Good luck
Completely agreed. You don't have enough data yet, and you're probably testing too many things at once.
Read the Getting Started Guide, Chapter 10 and 11 ( http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...TION-AND-INDEX ) and use the statistical significance tools there to determine when you have data that's actually actionable.
If you want to minimise spend, try testing ads in groups of 10 or so at once, letting them get to significance, then cut the ones that aren't working and repeat.
Hope that helps!
Haha yep, WAY TOO EARLY MY FRIEND!
You have a tonne of variables here, $38 spend is not even scratching the surface, like marketone said you have to just let the data do its thing man, open up your budget and spend at least $100-$150
Yes it feels bad to feel like you're losing money, but you're not, its the WAY to make campaigns work. Seen it time and time and time and time and literally time again, the progress skyrockets when people just accept that you must spend money on data and just let it go, then come back and we will help you analyse your data.
Go sit on the balcony and soak up some sun, get outdoors while your data rolls in bro 
Thanks a lot for your answers
I've created 2 more angles. It was maybe looking like I was having a lot of ads but thats not entirely true. I'm sorry for the confusion.
I do have 3 angles now and 6 ads per Angle. Now my issue is that I don't get too much traffic. I've set my CPC only to $ 0.065. I have two options here:
1.) Raising my bid to 0.482
2.) Adding tablets, too (I was targeting Web only, like Desktops)
I didnt disable or enable ads again I just leave it running so I can show you the stats later ;-) I have only $ 111.42 in my account so I will just let that "burn down" and then I will add again $ 300 - 500 to my account.
@ marketone: Okay thanks a lot, that makes sense to me. I have 3 different question landers (3 step landing pages).
Question: Should I remove the bad landing pages and just add 2 new landers with different styles?
@ caurmen: Thanks a lot for reminding me what I'm doing wrong. I will read it again and act accordingly. But this time I want to document every step here because I seem to do something wrong and I just want to find out whats the reason.
@ Maynzie: I would like to spend more money but I don't get more traffic. I could spend a lot more if I raised my bids. I just have spent until now like:
Today - $ 6
Yesterday - $ 15
I need to raise my bid a lot to get more traffic. I'm not sure if I should raise that bid that high but waiting for months isnt helping either, right?
Thanks for your advices. I have to do some exercise again (to lose some belly fat) so I guess I just do that "while waiting" :-)
Have a great day guys, thanks for your help. Every input is very valuable to me.
See you ;-)
Andreas
A little update: I'm spending for this campaign like $ 5 a day. I decided to raise my bids from 0.065 to > 0.1 - I hope this will change the things a bit.
The CTR is terrible but I think the first goal is to see which angle has the most potential. if I don't get more traffic tomorrow then I will raise it up to 0.4. I got today 2 conversions and some combinations look promising.
Hmm... yeah that is very low spend and its not possible to get any higher? Only reason I am asking is because if you're capped at this spend, you're not gonna see data fast, nor will you have the ability to eat your greens once you're profitable because $5 spend you might make $3 back. You're better off learning in an environment that allows spends of $50/day minimum.
Nice work on the 2 conversions though man, at least you know it converts!
Hey Maynzie
Yeah you're totally right. I increased my bids a bit and spent now $ 29 and got for it 247 clicks, my overall CTR was 0.16%.
About the GEO & Platform: I've chosen a 2nd tier country and if I was bidding a bit more I could actually get lot more traffic. I'm paying only per click and therefore I wanted to slowly test the waters. Maybe I just should dive in fully and cut whats not working. But I can say so far that the original angle was working the best so far. But my landers suck.
Since I tend to optimize too early I just decided to let it run. I will post the campaign CPVLab data tomorrow ;-)
Thanks, Andreas
You're welcome man I am excited to see some of the future data keeping an eye on this one
Hey Maynzie
Thanks for asking. I will burn my last $ 10 and then I will post the stats. I will add funds then again. But I can tell it looks a bit better but all of my ads have an incredible low CTR (0.09, 0.10, 0.15, 0.19 etc.).
Read you ;-) Thanks!
Andreas
hmm kinda low, but like its been said CTR doesn't make you money, its a decent metric but the banner to offer conversion rate is the focus maybe you're running a night tight angle but yeah let us know the data when you get it bro!
Do you have a big budget? Are you confident at the lps, offfers and traffic source? If you answered yes to all of these then simply start spending a few thousand and then optimize. A few hundred in adult isnt much at all.
Hey vidivo,
No I don't have. I'm trying to make this adult campaign work for 7 months now. The highest profit level I was achieving was like $ 15 a day with a swiss campaign but it burned out quickly.
Hey Maynzie,
Thanks for helping me ;-)
Now these are the stats from about 2 weeks ago. I killed a few ads because there CTR was like 0.02 and there was no point in waiting for clicks because it would have taken ages to get decent amount of clicks.
The red lines mean that I have cut the ad because of a really bad CTR or they didnt convert.
here is the report:
http://indexping.com/screenshots/campaign2blurred.jpg
I disabled the bad landers and added 2 new ones (I changed the big image of the 3 rules lander with the girls who converted.)
And here is whats driving me crazy: Every time I announce its working well (or better) then the next day its just a really bad day.
The ads with clothed sexy teens worked the best (I checked every ad) and therefore I added the batch (2x00) with only clothed sexy teens but its not converting well anymore.
Ah yeah, traffic source is trafficfactory. Just have again $ 280 available ;-)
Thanks for your advices & help,
Andreas
PS: I also do have $ 80 in exoclick. I know its nothing but maybe ok to start testing when finally something would work. 
What changes between the good days and the bad days?
Is it CTR, CVR, something else?
If you can figure out the metric that varies, then the next step is to figure out why it varies. Figure that out, and the Intarnet Monies are yours!
Hey caurmen
Thanks for your answer. I'll analyse it and hopefully I find something.
I had a banner set who had all weak click through rate (banner CTR like 0.09 to 0.18 %) and then I used the same template but added a messagebox (gif) and then I got more clicks, better CTR (0.19 - 0.29 %) but they dont convert that well.
My landers are all kind of the same style so I would now add new lander styles and just use the one landing page who converted the best (plus a few new styles). One was really better than the others.
Would that be a good idea or not at all? Thanks
What's the difference in CVR between the best-converting lander and the others? If you just used the best-converting lander, what would that do to your bottom line?
I'd tend to avoid the messagebox unless your lander is customised to keep that flow going.
I have tested 3 initial landing pages, here are the stats (sorted by conversion rate)
LP 3:
Views: 873
Clicks: 162 (CTR: 18.56 %)
CR: 1.15 %
LP 2:
Views: 811
Clicks: 199 (CTR 24.54 %)
CR: 0.62 %
LP 1:
Views: 339
Clicks: 71 (CTR 20.94 %)
CR: 0.29 % [Note: Thats the reason why I've shut it down after about 180 clicks by lowering the share rate]
None of these landers above are profitable per se. It depends on the ads. While some convert for lander 2, some do for lander 3 and a tiny amount converts for LP 1.
Whats the difference between LP 3 and LP 2 / LP 1:
LP 3 is the typical grey 3 rules landing page with the famous big image of the blonde rather amateur girl. She's blonde, has big tits and is probably something between 28 - 34 (I suck at age guessing) [Good design]
LP 2 has a white background, the big image is a cartoon, the buttons are yellow [Looks kind of amateurish]
LP 1 style has been converting the best for me on switzerland. in the background is a young girl (teen fetish) showing her front and another pic of her on the right side showing her back(ass) [Looks hacked together, design is bad]
Another facts:
1.) As you mentioned (Caurmen) the conversion rate dropped as soon as I added the message boxes (they're small but they have an effect on the CTR)
2.) Low CTR ads convert generally better than high CTR ads (which means 2 - 5 Conv. Rate versus 0.40 Conversion rate.)
Issues: High CTR ads cost me per click about approx $ 0.13 while low CTR ads cost me $ 0.48 (and sometimes higher). These are the click prices so I still get decent amount of traffic. On a CPM Platform (TJ) I'd pay about $0.556 for 13 % traffic share.
3.) I used different 3 offers from different networks
I'm going to suggest something heretical here.
I guess that all of those landers are Rules Landers?
Try something that isn't a rules lander.
There's a reason that rules landers are standard, but it's important to test widely.
Also, how much have you been varying the text, number of questions, format of questions, scarcity appeal, headline specifically, etc?
And do you have a clear winner on the offers yet?
Hey Caurmen
Ok understood. I just used the landing page headline "You may know someone on this site, etc." << the typical one. But I'll try different styles as you suggested. Thanks. I'll post results.
I didnt do much varying because I wanted to test out the angles first, tried 3 angles and the one I started with worked by far the best.
About the offers. I have a very great candidate found after each offer had between 150 - 178 clicks. I'm not quite sure if it would be premature optimization to disable the other 2 offers already since a good landing page would change everything (again).
What do you think?
See you,
Andreas
DEFINITELY test different headlines. In fact, probably do that first - if you've only tested one headline style, that'd be top of my variant list to try.
Ok thanks, I just took the best lander page and created 4 headlines, and I test the landing page headlines now ;-) (orig vs 3 new ones)
I'll let you know how its working out. Hope I understood it right so far =) I'm very excited.
Hey ;-)
Another update. It was looking promising in the beginning but after a while not anymore:
>> Click here to see the report <<<
After caurmen told me I should rather test headlines first of the lander then I just paused all landers except one which was the best at that time: N LP1 (ORIG) I added then 3 more headlines and as you can see H3 is a bit better but not really that much.
I didnt inject any new ads.
About the ads:
btb_02xxx << they have a blinking message box, too. the Clicks are a lot better but the conversions aren't going well
others << tend to convert better but they have usually a really low banner ctr like 0.09 - 0.13% - What should I do in this case?
I've also done this in switzerland, germany and now sweden and the path is always similiar. On a few days quite close to profits and on other days extremely away from the goal, but sweden seems to be more stable.
I'm revealing here my geo in hope that it helps you better helping me ;-)
Looking forward to read your advices,
Andreas
Originally Posted by swissfactor
Also - running in smaller geos you're probably not pushing enough volume to balance out the ups and downs. It's quite normal in my experience that smaller volume placements will swing quite a bit form day to day. On profitable campaigns I've seen my stats jump from -$15 one day to +$40 the next and everywhere in between. Unless you're hammering hundreds of clicks a day from one placement I don't think this is abnormal.
On this ^ for the amount you're spending a day (seemingly $40 or so) I would pick an offer that seems to be performing decently from the data you've already gathered and run it solo then concentrate on finding an LP that works for it.
Or if you're not confident in the offer you could do it the other way round. Keep a solid LP and split-test offers.
Testing too many variables with small volume / money is tedious and probably not giving a true insight as to what's going on.
In terms of your LP dramas: as caurmen mentioned earlier just switch it up completely. Try something new. You've established changing headlines has little affect on CTR/CVR so do something different. Test completely different LPs until you find something that fits.
The same probably is true for your banners. Try completely new designs / angles / types of images. Don't start optimising through little animation tweaks and colour changes if the concept itself isn't working.
Sweden: English or Swedish? If you're advertising in Swedish, have you had your headlines proofread?
caurmen, I was collecting the data from the adult spy tool and just rotated these for a start. Changed the colors and stuff a bit and extended it but from what I've seen is around I could get that. But whenever I use something new I will use a proof reading service. But I'm kind of impressed because the conversion rate is a bit better than my switzerland & germany campaign and I speak in these languages fluently.
Was this not a good idea?
prof, thanks for your ideas. I'll think about it and how to do what you suggested in a structured way.
Spied banners and landers are good to get a baseline from, but once you've got that baseline, you need to try your own original stuff to beat that.
I'd definitely get some original translations done, then test those against the results you're getting from the spied ads. Beat that baseline and you're on your way!
Ok caurmen thanks
I just compared sweden to switzerland. Both campaigns are at the same stage of optimization. What I've seen is that they're nearly equal regarding performance.
The question is what I should do now. Volume died in sweden. so Sweden & Switzerland have the same amount of volume. Click prises in sweden are approx 0.11 and in switzerland about 0.13 - 0.14 *but* the payout in switzerland offers are $ 6.40 & upwards while they're in sweden about $ 4. Sweden is mostly SOI while I do have only 1 offer from F5 which is SOI in switzerland.
The big advantage is that I can translate & test stuff without paying one hour translation when I go with switzerland.
EDIT: I don't want to jump around but I started out with switzerland and switched to sweden because I thought it wouldn't be that competitive and therefore probably easier but overall it seems pretty equal.
I'd optimise in Switzerland in that case. Focus on making the best use of your home field advantage
Ok guys I'm back... this post is going to be embarassing for me but I will tell it anyway again because it's important.
I was talking to my account manager and asked him if he could give me top offers for my country and he has given me a rather low payout offer.
Now, SOI $ 2.5 vs SOI $ 6.40 makes a big difference. The low payout offer caught my attention suddenly and I was testing it. (I already had data from my other offers)
The results were stunning... I'm finally getting conversions again and it seems pretty stable. It's also a lot easier to test banners this way.
While writing this I realise also that I've done a lot right but I've done the most fundamental thing wrong:
TESTING OFFERS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING AND IT SHOULD BE INVESTED A LOT OF TIME TO FIND THE BEST OFFER.
(There is a reason why some offers have a higher payout and others a lower payout)
Yes I know I did the mistake already twice (about 8 months ago) so it should stick now. It has also shown that I suck at remembering processes and decided to write more detailed and write down a process. So I have to write down more here in order to form a process ;-)
Eliminating the most important variable first:
- Spending enough time / money to test offers, even if the landing page is mediocre.
- Don't take shortcuts when trying to find better offers
Banners:
I've also figured out that my current set up doesn't work at all as it should. I've found that low CTR banners usually convert a lot better while high CTR banners need more clicks to convert at all. If I put them all together into a campaign then I have the issues that the high CTR banners get a lot more attention on a CPC based network. So I've figured out a solution for me.
The new setup is simple:
1. Testing banner campaign
2. Bucket with higher bid (campaign) << here I will put all banners after 2x - 3x payout spent if they're converting well but the CTR sucks (based on EPC)
3. Bucket with lower bid (campaign) << here I will put all banners after 2x - 3x payout spent if they're converting "ok" but the CTR is really great (based on EPC)
Note: If it's unsure if they even can be sustain in Bucket "lower bid" I will kill them entirely because they just drain the budget otherwise.
The campaign buckets I will check every 2 - 3 days and see if the results are still good.
The testing banner campaign is only there for testing banners. I expect out of each iteration of 7 banners I will get 1 - 3 banners which will continue to work.
Controlling:
If the campaign buckets aren't green (roi) then I've put the banners too early into these or did a decision mistake so I know I can hit myself in the face.
I have tested first 2 banner images and 2 big image categories to see which type (teen or milf?) works better. That was the reason why I didnt write for 2 days now.
But overall, using the new offer I have:
1. Stable conversion flow
2. Finding profitable banners in less time/money (more money for testing more banners)
3. I can sleep at night again
The funny thing is that I've figured that all out while I was watching an computer science algorithms course and implementing the algorithms.. I guess my subconscious mind tried to find an algorithm which would work for my setting.
Next steps will be done as following:
- Creating the campaign buckets
- Transfering the banners from the testing campaign to the bucket campaigns
- Adding new banners after analysing what worked best generally
What do you think? thanks for your feedback.
Originally Posted by swissfactor
Now you have a solid offer you can start to think about the the things you were getting into earlier - testing angles, LP styles and what not.
It really is different strokes for different folks with how you go about that. Your bucket idea is interesting as long as you don't make the maintenance too complicated. But when optimising I'm sure pretty much everybody works differently so it's all about finding a method that works for you.
Start weeding out the rubbish and develop a consistent flow.
Nice work! Your continued willingness to think and learn is what's going to make you succeed.
The bucket plan looks interesting - looking forward to your next updates.
Thanks for your answer caurmen.
The bucket plan idea still has to show some proof. I got excited about many things and you know it ;-) I've sent you quite a few pms but I realized that if you want to optimize shit then all you get is optimized shit.
Anyway, no stats for today. One banner of my first batch was good enough to put in my first bucket. I added new banners. 4x teens, 4x milfs. The winning category competes against another category, the losing category will be killed.
My landers worked actually quite well. One is slightly better than the other one but there is still not enough data.
I also started to create a conversion matrix excel sheet of the converting banners with all the attributes the pictures have.
Some attributes are:
- clothed / naked
- old / young
- hot / ugly
- thin / thick
- boobs size
- hair color
- angle of image
- EPC
I'm not sure if this will help at all but it's interesting to find out if there are some correlation between the "features". I dont think this is can be used for everything but is rather campaign based (ie. angle, demographic, etc.).
My possible room for improvement (my new ads got activated yesterday evening):
- the best ad has a conversion rate of 13 %, my worst 2.38 %
- the best landing page has a conversion rate of 4.55 % (22 clicks), the other one 3.42 % (234 clicks)
- the overall offer conversion rate is 8.8 %
There was some shortage of traffic/impressions today in my geo therefore I've set my bid a way too high than I could ever "afford" but I want to test quickly.
2014-07-29 spending report:
Spent (til now): $ 25
Earned: $ 30
2014-07-28 spending report:
Spent: $ 28
Earned: $ 9
2014-07-27 spending report:
Spent: $ 37.62
Earned: $ 18
I still have other things to use as an improvement:
- day parting, idea 1: Lowering cpc by not showing ads when the people don't feel to click (certain hours per day)
- day parting, idea 2: this is known, showing ads only when at the hours when they seem to convert
- eliminating non converting categories
- duplicating campaigns for more traffic
- no exit popup
- no enter popup (grabs their attention because the focus is my landing page then)
I don't want to optimize these things. It's just a little status quo report. If I'm going the wrong path then please tell me.
Thanks,
Andreas
PS: The offer selection was the issue no 1.
Campaign looks good - get more ads to your top CVR and you're on a winner!
Hey guys I'm back
I tested square banners and my log looks so far:
It represents pretty well what my issues are. I was testing daily 10 new banners but they burned out pretty quickly and the next day after I've cut the losers
I actually made a bit money but overall it's just not working out as I expected.
My last option is day parting but its' also hard to find out what works & whats not. Chatbox gets me a shitloads of clicks but they don't convert too well.
Bump
9/10 things you test (if not more) won't work in AM!
It's about testing, seeing if you can make it work, if not, you test something else.
Is it time to keep testing this campaign or to move on and try something new?
Hey stackman
Thanks for your answer. Yeah you're right. I've found an offer it looks like I should test either:
- Banner styles, OR
- angles (but the angle is pretty good, 8 - 12% Conversion Rate)
I think I must go crazy with banners... there is a guy who has a ridiculous high CTR but a low CPC. I really think I can get this working once I've overcome the CTR problem.
Are there any resources out there or any ideas guide regarding my issue?
The CTR drop is pretty heavy: 0.25% (day 1) --> 0.20 % (day 2) ---> 0.17% (day 3)
Can you post a few of the banners you've been testing? Chances are there are some things you're doing the same every time, and we can probably help you find them.
Hey thanks I'll post them later ;-)
PM Sent to you caurmen
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