Ups and downs of a mobile marketer life (26)
Part 1: The Great Escape
In the end of June I quit my job at an affiliate network to focus on my own media buys. How naive I was seeing affiliates making a fortune and thinking how easy it was, but hey all affiliate summits can show some good stuff going on in the industry 
So I poured some money into MobFox and other ad networks and tried to run a couple of tests on offers like Lovoo and saw some success in direct linking from banners. Several conversions came in, although not profitable - well screw that lets try other offer - that was my flow of work in the beginning...
First thing first after leaving a job is of course a chillax time (read: complete waste of time). Long before I knew STM existed I wanted to try a couple of small sources which do not require to produce banners. After 4 unsuccessful campaigns I direct linked a very well known brand game on iOS in UAE and "voila!" 900% ROI. Ok how would you make a million from that? This was the first time I failed at scaling a campaign as the traffic source was super small and even though the ROI was very impressive I started making around 20 bucks profit on it daily which is kind of "peanuts" for most of the guys here but it makes a person laugh that after weeks of hard work you finally see green numbers. Eventually the smile disappears from my face when my AM tells me the advertiser needs to evaluate campaign KPIs and quality of traffic a couple of days after launch...
Moving to Thailand
Great expectations. I went to Thailand (Ko Samui) for 3 weeks with my former client - a media buyer from Russia. Mate is a Web gaming pro and promotes local games. On a side note: if you have never promoted offers in Russia, you should definitely take a look. Industry is big there - local conferences, local affiliate networks, traffic sources etc.
After 3 weeks of semi-working I am still to find a profitable campaign being desperate again. -100% ROI, 0.0x % banner CTR, 1% lander CTR , red, zero, nada. At this point I was thinking am I that shitty at making and creating creatives? I was using pixelmator to make stuff which is a great alternative to photoshop on Macs! Lesson learned: sometimes its not about creatives but some offers just won't ever convert as well as don't always trust your affiliate manager. I have been in the industry for not such a long time to discover that some people just don't have a clue and some can make you fortunes. Pick your AM wisely or kindly ask for somebody else in case you see that the AM is not that competent.
Good morning Vietnam!
Leaving Ko Samui and great food behind me after spending 1 day in BKK with my Tinder date and heading towards Saigon, this time to visit friends, who are working on an educational start-up there. Staying at a place with hard-working environment (and constant Shisha on a table) can create miracles.
AM informs me about ICQ being available in their network. I jump in quickly. System:
- Offer allows most types of the traffic = testing pops and interstitials
Network: Glispa
Offer: ICQ Brazil Android
CPI: $0.56
Type: Direct-linking
Traffic source: Pops / MobFox
Tracking:
Comment: Running over at night due to time difference in Brazil with day and time parting
Woke up the next morning and my eyes couldn't believe it - numbers were green without any optimisation or lander!
I quickly created 1 angle and small varieties of changes on the LP like a pop-up, image and split tested 5 different types and got 1 obvious winner:
Lander had a javascript popup saying user had an unread message beforehand. As most of you would notice - this LP is widely known but still can be profitable. I as well added a "Ooh Ooooh" sound after tapping on the ok button of a popup.
After cutting unprofitable pubs I was left with around 100 bucks profit a day and was thinking how to scale this stuff as much as I can. And here comes my second failure - scaling again. I ran the same lander and banners on other networks like MobFox, Buzzcity, Decisive, InMobi, LeadBolt I only managed to make it profitable on Mobfox and increased my profits to around 150 USD / day without understanding how to actually get volume from other sources. When you cut unprofitable placements, banners, landers, pubs, carriers, OSs, devices there is only so much left of inventory and I am still struggling with the same thing to date...
Eventually the offer was cut due to advertiser doing quality check again. Its funny though - pops apparently can give some good quality as well as I got great feedback from the AM on my traffic and retention rate of app users or maybe it was only me who got cut?
To be continued... In the next episode: How I went to Singapore and met Kokofai, trip back to Europe and x,xxx / day campaigns and aspirations. I promise less text and more numbers and campaigns!
Update is posted below.
very interesting. keep it up
Are you coming back to Vietnam?
Nice, ICQ was a great offer!
Great. Glispa has weeklies?
Great write up! I will be following this one closely!
Oh man I remember that "Ooh Ooooh" sound, brings back some emotion!
Looking forward to chapter 2!
Originally Posted by Alexandre Moura
Great post! Looking forward to the sequel.
Love it, Post 2 Post 2 god bless Kokofai haha!
Keep it up champ
@Alexandre Moura - Actually for weekly payments its 10k at least as far as I know. The threshold for getting paid is at least 1k and you have to invoice them as they do not issue credit notes.
@avn_0903 - Unfortunately not this year, but I will need to make another trip to Saigon for sure
thanks for the kind words everybody!
Originally Posted by tapguru
Great post mate! Also ICQ was a damn good offer
Waiting for part 2 now
Originally Posted by ohaiguyz
Quality content before quantity!
On the edge of my seat here bro! 
Awesome. Can't wait for the sequel.
Today is now tomorrow 
Looking forward to part 2
UPDATE 3/9/2014
Part 2: Dude, where is my ca$h?!?!
I made a mistake of not reserving the post below so I will continue here:
Waving my hands like a kid who just got his first lollypop I was happy I finally had a pretty profitable campaign and was looking forward to Singapore. I have never been in Asia before and I was just amazed by sheer amount of specific culture, food, architecture, different people around in Saigon, BKK and Ko Samui. So I arrived @ Singapore at midnight and went to my friends place where I opened my laptop and message came that ICQ was being stopped. "Fuck, that sucks..." As they say nothing lasts forever. Beforehand I have spent 1 month looking for an offer with similar profit / ROI. I smelled desperation coming and getting into my head.
In the next several days, Mr. Kokofai held a seminar in Suntec conference center where he discussed the basics, intermediate and advanced tactics of mobile cpa marketing. So I ended up with new inspiration and motivation to continue forward. In general I think this is something that gave a lot of perspective on whats going on in the industry in combination with a guest speech from a guy I never heard before: Eddy Kuah but I will definitely will remember him till the rest of my life... So without disclosing specific stuff and thinking about general lessons learned (I hope Ben won't find this thread and won't crucify me (: ! ):
- At the time when you are having fun, somebody is working much harder than you and using the opportunity to earn some money from campaigns you could have been working on. I think it as well can be summarised in this video:
- The balance offers / affiliates / traffic sources is tight and inefficient. In relation to the line above - taking action will get you much further than any kind of luck or talent.
- CPA is a very opportunistic market. Constant adaptation to changing conditions be it Google restrictions, or just different system or niche is necessary to survive
- Being uncomfortable and do scary shit (or in other words as the say - making calculated risks). I didn't pour all of my savings to CPA marketing fortunately, but at the end it requires a certain investment to learn this stuff and that is the lesson for this part which is outlined at the bottom. As more exposure to campaigns I have put, the more I learned...
Now before you get all angry and tell me in the comment that you've heard about all of this stuff - take a look in the mirror and tell me that you have implemented every single thing you have just read since the very day you heard about it first? Yes, I am talking to you! I am calling you out! If you did, good for you! I certainly didn't and as they say in my home country: "Repetition is the mother of wisdom" - it takes a while to create habits. Easy to create bad ones (smoking) and quite hard to create good ones like gym routine or constant campaign launching.
As I am fanatic about motivational videos - I will through another video of Will to make your evening / morning even better
Person who works the hardest - wins
I failed miserably in my first 100 campaigns. First 50 were launched without any knowledge or optimisation whatsoever. Second 1/2 was launched with a basic knowledge and 1 lucky success of finding the right campaign. Since my return back to Europe with a short stop in Russia where I spent 2 weeks miserably trying to find another lucky offer I figured that there are certain patterns that you start to follow once something works. So I have a pop source where I test all my offers before I start them on display and if it works there - I usually move them all over mobile ad networks out there and see if I they scale.
In the last couple of weeks I have been constantly launching campaigns which were not exactly well distributed but I see that the more campaigns are launched quantity wise, there is more confidence about certain variables of the whole process. There is some kind of system and gut feeling that hey - this campaign seems to work well - I bet it has potential lets put it on another source. At the end data shows everything relevantly but lately I started "culling" campaigns under a certain ROI / Revenue threshold. It might not be the right approach but it so far worked for me as I have been finding big winners much quickly than spending weeks on average winners.
The best example and allegory I can find is there are different approaches to life / investing / relationships and many other things in life. There are people who are willing to be more conservative and wait till profits come, some are more aggressive - I see the same approach in affiliate marketing.
Here is a small case:
Testing pops and interstitials first - in this case - Mobicow gave me 400% ROI (I know ROI is bullshit but if something will shoot like that straight away you know you have a winner) - direct linked - imagine what can be done with a lander...
Network: Glispa
Offer: Injustice iOS
Countries: Tier 3 - RU/SG/AE/BR etc.
CPI: $1.2
Type: Direct-linking
Traffic source: Mobicow / MobFox / Millenial Media
Tracking:
Comment: Offer is gone btw.
Here is a banner I used (same type / different sizes / yes thats the official one - I was still lame):
Offer had huge potential as Warners are known to get rid of budgets quickly (experienced that before with a web campaign) as well as everybody knows Batman and Superman = known brand = conversions = $$$!
Milking milking milking
Thanks for your patience!
P.S. Big thanks to Kokofai for introducing me to STM + if you guys are in Berlin and/or London in the next couple of days ping me on skype - I would be happy to meet STMers in person!
P.S.2 I will be creating a small mastermind group for scaling mobile campaigns. I will post it in a separate thread.
I will continue this quasi "Follow-along" only with campaigns and short insights from now on. Stay tuned!
Awesome dude. Looking forward to your follow along
"Attachment 3362"
Why cant I see attachments? I click on them and it tells me the link is invalid. It does it a lot on this forum.
Just re-uploaded it, it should work now
Sometimes creating a sink or swim situation, is the best way to make it happen. When you jump off the cliff, you're forced to fly. You don't have to go as extreme as what is outlined in this video, but sometimes the problem behind goal setting is, exactly that, you haven't set a pressure behind you to force change.
Who do you think will get to their goal faster? A person who simply sets a monetary figure, or a person who lets out the pitbulls and is FORCED to run.
Kokofai is a champion, you have a great mentor there. Hopefully you can make London and help spread the positivity!
Originally Posted by maynzie
Kokofai is an amazing guy. If you are lucky enough to be mentored by him, you are in good hands.
Originally Posted by maynzie
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