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Anyone here running Admob campaigns? (30)

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I burned a few hundred today running some mobile optimized offers on Admob, I got insane amounts of traffic but when it came to conversions I got a big fat 0

Here are the two offers I ran:

• Mobile WAP - comScore - Market Research - No iPhone
• Mobile WAP - Contractors.com - Lead Gen - NO SCRUBS

Does mobile traffic convert this bad for everyone or am I just doing it wrong?

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ComScore is a good solid offer. Not sure about Contractors.com.

Did you keep track of your clicks & where they came from?

What often happens on mobile is that one non-converting publisher will have so many impressions/clicks that it eats up your budget before any converting publishers have a chance...

So part of running traffic on admob or any other mobile ad network is limiting your budget at first and seeing where the traffic is coming from...and then blocking non-converting traffic before you continue to test.

It's actually pretty easy to do that with admob.

When you start your campaigns, track by:
1) operator
2) device
3) channel & publisher

To track by operator, you'll have to separate your campaigns by the carrier (ex: ATT, Sprint, etc.) and place that in your subid to track.
For device, use %phn% in your subid. For channel and publisher, use %pa%.

Example: &SUBID=admob,Verizon,%phn%,%pa%

You'll get back the values & be able to optimize.
Might need to get a hold of an ad rep to do some exclusions (blocking) for you, but often you'll notice combinations that go together...like a certain publisher with a certain handset on a certain carrier that's sucking up all your budget. And then you can just turn off that handset and you're good to go.

Funny, when I see "no scrubs" I think about the song..."so no, I don't want no scrubs, a scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me..."

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is this RON traffic? how are you targeting just by cell phone type etc? no keywords?

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Liane as always you're the best.

Quick question do you know how much international inventory admob has?

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Thanks, I didn't know you could track it that much, I'll definitely start I got the same campaign running right now but the only difference is that I unchecked the "entertainment" channel and I'm seeing a steadier flow of traffic, maybe people were accidently clicking on ads while playing games?

Is there any mobile networks that allow you to choose your publishers without an ad rep?

I'm not sure what RON means but with admob you can only target by age, phone, and location. Edit: Oh yeah and channels

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For the most part, unless you're running on Google adwords, mobile's not going to perform well with keywords (you won't get any impressions). The choices you have are:
-carrier
-device / device type / OS / device capability
-region (geo targeting)
-category / channel / keyword - this is where one of your options (in certain networks) is RON, or "run of network" traffic.
-demographics: male/female, age group - really limits traffic to specific publishers like mocospace, mobile friendster, hi5 & other mobile social networking sites...
-publisher / publisher site

Hmm...no, but this might help:

http://metrics.admob.com/

Kind of old, but still, you get the sense that they've got inventory pretty much everywhere.

1) You definitely want to turn off APPs if you have that option. There's an abundance of APP impressions and 99% of the time they don't convert. It's worst on the iPhone...don't ever run APP traffic on the iPhone. Not sure if Entertainment = APPs though? Usually there's a separate setting.

2) Re: publishers / ad reps...All the mobile networks currently are "blind" networks. Unless you're running on Google Adwords and selecting mobile devices. My admob ad rep hinted that pretty soon admob will allow you to adjust pubs on your own...not sure if/when that will happen though.

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I've been dabbling with AdMob lately and I gotta say, the beast is hard to tame. I'm currently running "Free iPad" offers but haven't got much success yet. I was wondering, where do you guys select the categories or cut the app traffic? I'd like to do that but I don't see where the option is. Also, what would be the best way to get a rep there? Do you guys have any experience running that type of campaigns?

Thanks a lot!

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Anyone certain that "Entertainment" = App traffic?

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Categories on admob are called "Channels" and they're located where you edit the text or banner ad, all the way at the bottom below your bid.

You click on "Channels" and it opens up your options.

Regarding APPs...I don't think there's a way to turn that off in admob (except not to run iOS). Just sent an email to my ad rep...so I'll let you know for sure.

Either way, always be sure to turn off iPods.

I don't know if you can get an ad rep currently. My ad rep used to take people on who could spend at least $15k / month. Then she said they couldn't take on any more people because of the transition to Google...but she could do inclusions / exclusions for a few people.

I'll find out more soon.

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Its not, I just figure most apps would be in that channel. I've stopped using admob though, I think adwords mobile ads will convert way better. Setting up some campaigns and I'll let everyone know how it goes.

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Thanks for your answer, I really appreciate it. I was wondering, I look on some sites and see the minimum bid on AdMob at 0.05 when it 0.15 on my end, am I doing something wrong? Did you get some news from your rep about the iPod thing & if she's willing to take on new advertisers? You can tell her show won't regret it

Also, I only tested the iOS and Android phones on AdMob so far, how are the conversions usually for the "other" phones? Much worst or?

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K I found my own answers, 5 cent clicks are for the other phones. As for the results with them, I'll let you guys know

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Also, a good way to remove iPod traffic is to kill WIFI traffic in Admob's option.

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1) So here's the answer regarding whether there's a way to turn off APP traffic:

"No, unfortunately there is no way to do that. The majority of our traffic is in app, so you would not receive very many impressions or clicks."

2) Every carrier / handset / publisher converts differently...and depends on the offer.
Test!

That, and more. Different carriers, and many other different options affect minimum bid price. Sometimes choosing 2 countries raises it, while choosing all countries lowers it...click around, unclick, and see how it affects the minimum bid (it'll update automatically on the right).

Good idea. But doesn't kill iPhone APP traffic.
One other good way is to use Demographics (male/female & ages). That limits their impressions to places that can provide that information - like mobile social media sites.

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Another update, response from my ad rep:

"I can continue to do inclusions and exclusions for existing advertisers, but I can't take on new clients. Our structure has recently changed, so any client that is not already assigned to an account team goes through our self-serve platform. If they spend $100k/month or more then we can consider assigning an account team on a quarterly basis.

We hope to be in the AdWords interface in the next few months, which will allow you to take these actions on your own."

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Adwords rejected all of my ads and banned my account lol, don't do dating offers on adwords. Lesson learned.

I got another adwords account and I'll probably do something related to education or finance.

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Does the same rules for regular adwords apply to adwords mobile?

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I don't think so as there's a lot less advertisers, you can't have partial nudity, gambling, etc.
I had some really big tits so I had it coming.

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^ LOL

Honest man right there.

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I've run a fair amount of ads on Admob, even since before Google bought them. The best success I've had is using CPA offers with signup pages that I can navigate well enough on my (Android) phone, make a little mobile-friendly LP and some short mobile ads. The ad reviewers don't usually look past the LP so the ads are usually accepted. I'll even include some text on the LP letting the viewer know that they'll need to scroll to the right (or whatever) to enter their information. Using this approach, I've been able to use some higher-paying versions of some offers that pay half as much when using the mobile-optimized versions.

For the US, I usually target iPhones and Android phones with offers like this, and be sure to use 3.0 or better versions of the phone software to make sure they are capable of browsing properly. I've had good success targeting UK viewers, but it seems a lot of the traffic from there is on the RIM/Blackberry, sometimes even more than the iPhone.

The downside is that I've found Admob traffic to be very unpredictable. Some days I 2x or 3x my ad spend and other days I get no conversions. Could have something to do with the display inventory from non-converting vs. converting publishers like Liane mentioned. If Admob allows publisher selections in the future that would be a great improvement.

As far as keywords, yeah they don't have keyword targeting, but since it's CPC you can achieve a lot by writing ads that target your audience's mindset well. I like to think of it like the guys standing with signs at the airport baggage area. You've got an extremely diverse audience streaming at you, but it doesn't cost much until someone likes what your sign says (or fat-fingers their Angry Birds screen).

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Is there anyway to get AdMob to append tokens (looking specifically for the carrier token .... AT&T, Verizon, etc)? Do they pass any info like Jumptap does?

Thanks

G

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Just wondering if there is an update regarding ad reps for admob? I have one campaign that's performing well under one publisher in a certain channel but in that same channel I have other pubs that are sending non-converting clicks. Am I shit outta luck with this one or is there a way to kill these specific non-converting pubs yet?

FWIW this is all iPhone traffic so I can't really optimize by phone type

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Nah, they pass channel/pub, device, and two other variables - uuid & timestamp.
For carrier, you'll just have to split it yourself...

Offermobi sent out an email with a document the other day: http://goo.gl/Sp2LH
(that's the actual link in the email that redirects to the document).


Probably SOL - but I can ask my old ad rep whether changes are going to happen now with the admob / adwords split.

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awesome link up there. thanks Liane! you're my savior when it comes to random mobile questions.

it would be great if you get the chance to ask your rep so we can be better prepared when the split happens. thanks again!

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Ok, looks like...

1) My old ad rep is still willing to do one-off inclusions and exclusions for me (which doesn't help you), and...

(drum roll...)

2) "hopefully this will be built into the interface in the next 3-6 months."

(wild cheering).

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***YAY*****

hahah, thanks for asking Liane appreciate it. hopefully 3-6 months is realistic!

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3-6 months? I thought the AdMob inventory would move to Google Adwords within the end of the month?

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Only their web inventory is moving to google the app inventory (inferior) stays

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anyone already tested the mobile web inventory through adwords?

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Hmm...yes, but a few months ago, and on someone else's (non-banned) account.

It's super-targeted & great for the higher-payout campaigns (and for the paypercall campaigns).

Used to be there was no inventory on Adwords mobile...but then Google went and bought a bunch of traffic (and for a while affiliates couldn't figure out why they couldn't get any inventory) & got people to download their search app...so now inventory's pretty decent.

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