Mobile - the journey begins (20)
Hi STM. This is my first post 
Although I'm new here, I'm not new to internet marketing. To make this short, my background is in Facebook viralness, I know PHP and can code almost anything, I'm decent at Photoshop and I don't like HTML/CSS and designing layouts (I wish I did).
I'm going to make this follow along to keep me focused (since I expect things to become profitable very fast and waste a lot of money too fast and get bored too soon...I know, perfect qualities for affiliate marketing yey) and also get some feedback from you guys.
So let's start...
1. Offer to promote: US Email/Submit
Why? Because I've earned a lot of money with this one before, I know it converts well for mobile too, I have a direct deal with the advertiser and can get the maximum payout (no middle man and fair negotiation based on the quality of the traffic).
2. Traffic Source: Decisive
3. Tracking: Decisive
Why? I'm doing direct linking.
(For my next campaigns I'm going to use
Now the campaigns...Actually I did some changes during the day, and don't remember exactly when, but I'll try to make the information as close as possible to what happened. And I can't generate reports, there's some bug on my panel at the moment.
Day 1:
Campaign setup:
- 4 Campaigns: wifi+app,mobile+app,wifi+site,mobile+site
- Smart CPM: 1.5 x offer payout
- Budget: $15 x 4 Campaigns
Day 2:
Campaign setup:
- 4 Campaigns: wifi+app,mobile+app,wifi+site,mobile+site
- Smart CPM: 0.6 x offer payout
- Budget: $50 x 4 Campaigns
I changed the budget from $15 to $50 at some point because I was feeling the data was gathering too slow.
Day 1 & 2:
Spent: ~$200 ($60 + $140)
Earned: $42
ROI*: 21%
*100% is 0 profit 110% is 10% profit (Since I'm using a different metric than the ROI I saw around the forum...I think)
Observations and actions:
- For this offer (and for email submits) it doesn't make sense to split WiFi and Mobile since it's not that important as it is with downloads. The data proves it.
- I only got leads from 3-5 sources.
- I made another campaign only targeting those profitable sources.
- All conversions happened within the first 100 clicks
- Sources with more than 100 clicks and 3 x offer payout spent had no leads, so I'll remove sources with 200 clicks, no leads and 1/2 x offer payout
Day 3...on going:
- From the "BEST OF" campaign only one of the converting sources seems to be profitable. I blacklisted the others to see how much volume I can get for it. I bid $1 CPM to try and win all the traffic because my profit is big enough.
- Made another "BEST OF" campaign where I bid very low. I know the sources convert, just need to get traffic cheaper.
- The rest of the campaigns are running. I'm checking them from time to time and blacklisting bad sources.
I'm hopping to find more sources that are profitable and make "BEST OF" campaigns with them. It seems that good sources for the offer convert right away. So it seems it's just a game of finding those ones. Since there are hundred of sources it's basically impossible to test each one properly, so you need to make some cuts as fast as possible (even if you cut some good sources), so you get traffic from the most sources with your budget (I assumed traffic should convert right away, within few clicks, so that's why it makes sense).
What do you think of my approach?
Any other suggestions are welcomed!
Day 3:
Spent: $110
Earned: $38.5
ROI: -65%
I've chosen a new offer.
Payout: $7
Country: SG
Type: PIN
Offer 2: Day 1
Spent: $2.68
Earned: $0
ROI: -100%
I've spent $15.32 today so far (day 2) and no leads. I'm thinking this offer converts less because it charges users around $25 per week.
Questions:
1. How well do usually PIN convert?
2. Should I have a bigger budget per ad campaign? (In the mobile cookbook it's recommended to spend $15 on each ad campaign for offers with payouts <$2)
3. I got 1200 clicks and no conversion. I'm assuming at least one person would've entered his phone number. Should I kill it? I'm undecided because even on the email submit offer 90% of the leads came from 1 source.
4. Should I focus on finding the best sources for every offer and just use those?
1. PIN submits are usually harder to convert than most mobile offers.
2. At a $7 payout you will need to get a bit more data than for a $2 payout. So far you have spent $15 and that's really not much when 2 conversions would bring you to break even.
3. Yes, kill. 1200 and nothing is a red flag - offer not working, or your angle/campaign specifically.
4. Sources as in placements? I wouldn't recommend filtering to a list of placements and always hitting them, but they could be your starting point for testing new campaigns!
Also, does that offer really charge them $25 a week? That's an astronomical amount. More importantly, a payout of $7 is tiny in comparison. This might suggest they have a massive drop off rate or are shafting affs!
Anyway, ditch the offer for now.
@zeno Thanks for the feedback.
I'll definitely kill the offer.
As for the sources/placements I was only going to hit them with the offer that works great on them, not always. When I'll test a different offer I'll start the process from 0 and try to find the best sources for it.
Offer 1, Day 4:
Spent: $41
Earned: $10
ROI: -75%
Offer 2, Day 2&3
Spent: $30
Earned: $0
ROI: -100%
After 2,200 clicks and zeno's feedback I killed this offer. The offer is from an incent oriented network, so I guess it should be used for incent.
New offer: Offer 3
Country: US
Type: email submit
Offer 3, Day 1:
Spent: $13.57
Earned: $0
ROI: -100%
This offer is from the same network as Offer 2. I had conversion with it and another traffic source, but it's not uncommon for advertisers to start shaving leads later on. I'll let it run for one more day. If no leads, I'll kill it.
New offer: Offer 4
Country: PH
Type: email submit
Payout: $0.03 (I'm counting on the fact that I'll get super cheap traffic)
Offer 4, Day 1:
Spent: $0.2
Earned: $0
ROI: -100%
Today I spent $38 on Offer 1 and earned $28. So cutting down all those bad placements really pays off.
Questions:
1. My banners are straight forward: "Click here to get what I promote" type. Since users click it, I guess they are interested and the only reason they don't complete the offer is that it doesn't seem legit enough to them. Is that right, or are there a lot of curious people clicking around?
2. Considering question 1, should I make a landing page for Offer 1? I'm thinking of making a survey to make visitors more engaged and feel like they did something for the prize (the offer promotes a money voucher). What do you think?
What banner sizes are you using?
If they are interstitials your can get a lot of misclicks, but if they are standard 320x50 then a high CTR is usually indicative of a good banner performance, at least in terms of clicks!
You most certainly want to use a lander for offer 1, it sounds like sweeps? Also, be aware the offer might just suck... consider getting a better offer from a non-incent focused network...
@zeno Thanks again for the feedback.
I'm using the standard 320x50. Offers 2&3 are from an incent network and I killed both. Actually Offer 1 is a direct deal with the advertiser, and I know it's the best out there because I've been promoting it for 2 years and I was never able to find a better one, not even close. And yes, it's a sweep.
I'll first try to get another landing page (for the offer, not mine) where users have to answer some more "difficult" questions and not the usual age and gender to qualify. I always promoted offers directly and I don't feel like creating custom landing pages is my strong point, so I think this idea is worth a shot.
Offer 1, Day 5:
Spent: $65
Earned: $47
ROI: -27%
Offer 3:
Spent: $13 + $15 = $28 (day 1 + 2)
Earned: $0
Offer 3 - KILLED
Offer 4:
Spent: $0.2 + $0.42 = $0.62 (day 1+2)
Earned: $0
Offer 4 - KILLED
This offer was only paying $0.03 per lead.
Conclusions:
- The cutting of placements really payed off on Offer 1. From a ROI of -80% I got it to a ROI of -27%. (I only sticked with this offer because I've banked big with it in the past and knew its potential)
- The placements that generate leads are on profit. I'm on negative ROI because there are tons of placements that spend a few cents a day and don't generate leads.
- These placements are going to generate profit or be cut down. I think this is how you play the mobile game and that's why you need a budget of at least $1000. I thought I was going to have profit without spending not near that much, but now it seems very logical and reasonable.
- I'm going to stick with the advertiser I know and try more landing pages for Offer 1 and also try other niches/offers in sweep as well.
Any feedback is appreciated
Looks good so far! Test more, but if you have placements in profit already that's a very good sign.
Yep, I do.
Now it's just a game of killing bad spots and discovering new placements that convert. Am I getting this right?
The only thing that sucks is that decisive is a bit lagy and a lot of times it has problems loading the live stats making it imposible to see placements and blacklist them. I'm thinking of looking into other sources for mobile traffic. I didn't search on the forum for recommendations yet, so if someone has a link at hand I'd appreciate it.
Exactly so!
You may want to break the converting placements out into their own campaign or campaigns so that you can more precisely adjust bids, and also see how they're doing on their own more easily.
Seeing stats - I make heavy use of Decisive reports, which don't have the lag problem.
I had problems with report generating as well, but after I emailed them, the support at decisive seemed to fixed it. The problem will still persist because I can't order the placements by volume (it loads forver), so I still won't be able to blacklist them.
Yesterday I wasn't able to optimise the sites because of that.
Anyway...
Offer 1, Day 6:
Spent: $77
Earned: $53
ROI: -31%
My laptop broke and I'm using a borrowed one, so I won't be able to make new campaigns for a week until they fix it. I'll only optimise this one.
Offer 1, Day 7:
Spent: $30
Earned: $28
ROI: -7%
I'm still not able to cut bad places because of the loading issue of stats. Decisive team is looking into it. Hope to have it fixed soon.
Great thread. Looking forward to following along!
Offer 1, Day 8:
Spent: $7.7
Earned: $7
ROI: -9%
Traffic was low, I assume because the weekend. I was able to kill more placements. Hope they fixed the loading problem for real so I can optimise daily.
I'm going to try and move this campaign to Sitescout. I'm familiar with their system since I already burned $1k or so a year ago without any leads (yeah 0), but I now relise it was my fault. I feel that they are more flexible for auto-bidding and that they have more volume.
Any suggestions regarding this?
Beckslash! great job man!
I don't love SiteScout myself, but if you have budget already sitting in their system, it might be worth a test.
I've had the same loading issues with decisive. Super crappy programming IMO. I've tried all different types of browsers pc/mac etc. some days are better than others but i usually just leave the tab to do its thing and come back to it in a few minutes.
@jordanfan20 Thanks, but I'm not in the green yet.
@constantin Yeah, they need to invest in more server power or do some caching. It's clear that live stats are not worth the downtime.
@caurmen Actually I thought they were crap because I spent $1k with them last year and didn't get a single lead. I mean come on...Although I admit I didn't really invest any time to choose the best campaign and optimise at all. I was banking big with something else and didn't really care.
Why don't you like them? Their system or the traffic? I didn't add any money there yet, so if you have other recommendation I'd appreciate it.
Offer 1, Day 9:
Spent: $5.89
Earned: $5.25
ROI: -10%
Traffic still low. Even if I'll have positive ROI I'm sure I can't scale. I have 4 campaigns with $30 budget each and it only spents 5%. I'll increase the the CPA goal to see what happens (I'm using Smart CPM for these campaigns).
I'm only using 320x50 banners. Any reason why the other sizes wheren't recommended in the cookbook? Do they bring in less quality?
320x50 is simply the most common size in mobile for smartphones = lowest chance of issues of low volume.
Offer 1, Day 10:
Spent: $8
Earned: $1.7
ROI: -78
I'll pause this for a while to think on what to test next since it's going nowhere.
I'm going to increase the bids, since the traffic is too low.
I'm going to test other banner sizes because everyone seems to use the standard 320x50 one, so maybe less competition on the traffic. And I don't see why they would be worse.
I'm going to try another traffic source since everyone seems to start mobile on decisive. I'm going to choose one where the entry point is higher, so that beginners won't feel confrotable to start with that and cause the price to go up.
I'll come back with an update in a few days when I think things over and make a new plan.
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