Getting in the kitchen: My first Mobile campaign (23)
Hi all,
so thought it was time I post a follow along.
This is for my first mobile campaign and I am using the appetiser blueprint for it.
I am signed up with Decisive and have got some offers from f5.
Offer - Mobile browser install, converts on install and open
CPA - $0.22
Targets-INTL - I have chosen to go with Australia for this test
Angle I have chosen - Improve browsing speed, this browser is faster etc.
I worked my way through everything and created 8 320x50 banners all pretty different but based around the same angle.
It is now all set up and has been running since last night so probably about 14 hours now (not that I am counting)
I've spent about $10 so far overall with no one campaign reaching over $2.50 yet.
I have had 1 conversion but am going to let it all simmer until the $15 initial targets have been met.
Now wondering if I should get on with another angle for this offer or launch a campaign for a different offer while I wait.
Now that I am in the Simmering phase I am checking to see if any apps/sites need to be blacklisted.
On the app side of things Grndr has had $3.33 of my total $11 spend on the whole campaign. It has not resulted in any conversions as yet.
Would I be right to blacklist this now? Or let it run for a while longer?
Any advice appreciated
Looks good!
Yep, I'd definitely kill that app right now. Indeed, you probably want to be killing things a lot earlier than that - that's reached 15x payout. With such a low payout you can pause placements earlier - about a dollar fifty or so.
Thanks Caurmen, I've paused that now
Also had to take one of my banners down as the advertiser didn't like it. Going to let it simmer and keep checking the individual spends.
Now to start another angle/campaign!
So after getting rid of Grindr the traffic to the ads dropped overall.
Following some advice given in another mobile follow along I decided to play with my bid level and moved it up from 1.5x payout to 2x payout.
This seems to have had the desired effect as I am now seeing more traffic and had another conversion.
I'm going to continue to let this run as no campaign has hit the $15 level yet, keeping an eye on placements to blacklist any I need.
My AM also sent me the details for another very similar offer to run in India with It has a CPA of $0.12
I have set campaigns up for that again following the appetiser blueprint and launched those this morning.
Again the angle is about faster browsing etc.
What I did change was one creative which I specifically mentioned watching films in as I noticed that in the Decisive planner for India all the top browsed sites are streaming ones for TV series/films etc. Be interesting to see what effect this has on clicks etc.
Just had my first conversion on the new offer!
Nice work - keep on testing!
For a CPA of $0.12, you can probably reduce the initial campaign spend a bit. Test it with $8 of traffic or so per campaign (keep a VERY VERY close eye on placements) and see what your initial results are.
Good thinking on the creatives. Matching your creative to your placement even a bit can be very powerful.
So the new Campaign has been up for a day and is responding well.
As per Caurmen' s suggestion, I've set the campaign budgets to $8 before I start optimising. I am not there yet but have had 7 conversions in total so that is a good start.
Certainly it is much better than my other campaign, I am still leaving that to get to $15 for each bit as per the blueprint before i make the final call.
So situation now is:
Campaign 1 - Browser/app install
Australia
CPA: $0.22
Spend: $18.27
Revenue: $0.66
Campaign 2 - Browser/app install
India
CPA: $0.12
Spend: $15.02
Revenue: $0.96
I think it's time to launch a new campaign now. I am wondering whether to test the first offer in a different country or go for something completely different
Also, what do people use to track their spend? Is there a handy spreadsheet template?
thanks
Everyone tends to develop their own template. Provided you've got the basics in there (ROI, spend, profit, on a per campaign if not per creative basis) you should be fine.
So all my campaigns have now pretty much reached their $8 limit (set lower as payout is only $0.12). I've been culling placements that have taken more than 3x offer payout etc.
I'd like to start optimising this now but wanted to check that they are worth it...obviously nothing has made near $7, here are the current stats from Decisive:
Originally Posted by caurmen
Sorry not trying to bump this.
Just to check I am looking at the data correctly!
For the first campaign in that screen grab:
Payout $0.12
Conversions 7
Spent $9.46
Revenue $0.84
CPA $1.35
ROI -37.78%
Does that look right or is my maths wrong?
Thanks!!!
hey Rascale,
Look at your ROI again:
ROI = (payout - CPA) x 100 / CPA
= (0.12 - 1.35) x 100 / 1.35
= - 91.11%
Cheers.
ahhhh payout....not revenue....I get it now!
That is why its looking wrong!! and why I checked!
Thanks so much!
(Dunces hat award for me!)
Sanity check:
For a -50% ROI,
You'll have to spend $9.46 and get back $4.73 as revenue (lose $4.73)
Since you've got back less than $4.73 as revenue ($0.84 in your case), your ROI should be worse than -50%
Yup I thought is seemed wrong.
So based on those (now correct) calculations my stats are thus:
Mobile Site
Payout $0.12
Spent $9.46
Conversions 7
CPA $1.35
ROI -91.12%
Revenue $0.84
Wifi Site
Payout $0.12
Spent $6.28
Conversions 0
CPA #DIV/0!
ROI #DIV/0!
Revenue $0.00
Mobile App
Payout $0.12
Spent $7.30
Conversions 5
CPA $1.46
ROI -91.78%
Revenue $0.60
WiFi App
Payout $0.12
Spent $6.78
Conversions 6
CPA $1.13
ROI -89.38%
Revenue $0.72
and therefore not very good.
Time to test more offers/angles
Yah if these stats are coming from many placements, chances are your angle and/or the offer are duds.
If the offer is working well for others, its more likely your angle (or the traffic!).
Thanks Zeno, I thought as much.
While, I am in no doubt the angle could be improved I think in this case it is the offer.
Going to go back to my AM and see what they recommend.
Quick update time:
So after the London meet up I got very inspired and launched 2 new campaigns.....to find a whole 6 hours later the actual offer had been paused.
FAIL!
So I spent all of the weekend making banners for new offers, which pending approval I hope to start to day.
I feel like I have been a bit slow on testing new angles so I am starting 2 angles per campaign/offer - One general angle and one very niche angle to test which converts better.
(Thanks @Caurmen for the tip at the meetup, I've made some banners to test that angle as well!)
As a general note, while I have yet to have a profitable campaign yet, I do feel like I am learning a lot. Whether its been how to set up decisive or teaching myself how to make gifs (I do NOT come from a design background!)...it is all bringing me one step closer to where I need to be!
Another quick update (keeps me accountable etc):
Holidays for 2 weeks meant I have not launched any new campaigns. I did however have some running over this time which I managed to check in on.
Was doing quite well with one optimising placements etc and had it down to -56% ROI, the client have paused the campaign though so I can't continue on this one. My AM says that it will come back with a lead cap so will save creatives and learnings etc until then.
In the meantime its back to the grind. Launched a new campaign yesterday and waiting for creative approval on another one today.
Was interesting to read @stackman 's thread on his mobile campaign and just how many offers he tested to see success, definitely brings home how much of a numbers game it is and how I am nowhere near close to having tested that number!
Sooooo
New year, new start to this follow along.
I have been plugging away and had been seeing some (small) success, in that I had managed to get +ve ROI on a couple of campaigns.
Sadly I was not able to scale them before the offers got either paused or the payout lowered so the ROI went back to -ve.
A few lessons I learnt during all of this and what I want to try going forward:
1. It's a numbers game.....I saw this success after testing 5 offers in a 2 weeks period. I need to maintain those sort of numbers.
2. Making creative's really holds me up.....it is not that I can't design them myself but I have a feeling it is taking me longer than it should and holding up launching stuff. I am thinking of trying something like bannersandlanders on a couple of campaigns to see how that works out (any advice on this welcome!)
3. Landing pages....thus far most of my campaigns have been DL, I need to test more landing pages so they will be added into the mix for future campaigns
4. explore other traffic sources...by which I mean test away from Decisive as I feel it is rather saturated at the moment.
That's it...hopefully this will see me back on track to a +ve ROI again and get me some campaigns I can fully scale up.
Its one of my new years resolutions to update this regularly so watch this space!
If you can identify creatives as a heavy time sink then definitely try outsourcing. Same with landers. You can always take landers and use them as templates for later.
Definitely test other traffic sources too - they aren't all cut from the same cloth and on the same notion don't get trapped in the mindset of only running classic 320x50 banners on mobile DSPs - there's other ad formats out there that you can give a whirl!
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