Adult Mobile Help. Started from the bottom and still there! Can't get a profitable. (10)

I've been doing mobile adult for about 1-1.5 months now and can not get a single profitable campaign. I have joined this forum to get some advice, get some help and have someone point me to a right direction.

My strength is that I am a Software Engineer so I can create and modify landing pages, ads and set up things really fast.
I am good with photoshop, html/css, PHP, MySQL, ruby on rails. I hope that pays off and gives me an advantage.
Side Note: I am thinking about writing a web app that will be a medium between landing page and offers page to capture leads. Why lose all that user data to an offer when you can have a database of all the leads' information as well? Not sure how legal that is but it's a different topic all together. Ok back to the regular programming:

Ok so my basic blueprint goes like this

Test each variable times the offer payout per each item
Example
If the pay out is $1.50 then $1.50 * 3 = $4.50 to spend to test each ad, landing page, and offer.
Testing 10 ads = 4.50 * 10 =$45 bucks

Steps I take to test each campaign:
1) Rotate 10-15 banners with 1 LP and 3-4 different offers. Pick the best performing OFFER!
2) Pick best performing ads and modify them for different angles (Test Milfs, Girls Next Door, Ugly girls) and use same 1 LP from Step 1.
3) Pick best angle, start testing more creatives while also explicitly saying the angle in your copy and ads. Make sure the 1 LP matches the angle from the creatives.
4) Start rotating multiple LPs and make sure LPs match the ANGLE.


Website that I buy traffic from:
Exoclick.com

Website for offers:
F5media.com

The offers I got is by contacting my Account manager and asking what are some good offers.
The 3 offers that my account manager gave are..

[WAP] Shagaholic - SOI - US - CPA - $1.50
[WAP] NaughtyFlings - SOI - 25+ - US, CA, UK, IE, NZ, AU - CPA - $1.60
[WAP] UpForIt - US - CPA - $1.60

As you can see the payout is low but I have no leverage to negotiate a higher one since all the campaigns I started are negative ROI and get about 3-4 leads a day.


Daily Budget I can afford: $20
I usually use SmartCPM and bid: 0.15-0.5 cpm
Sites I advertised on

Imagefap.com banner size 300x100
(Don't think it was quality traffic but got some leads)



I, at one point, realized that US traffic had too much competition so I started using NaughtyFlings had a better conversation rate for me and started advertising in Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, UK.

My banner ctr at first was: 0.10%-0.16% when using 300x100 banner on imagefap.com
which I realized is too low so I then started testing banners that were working for others, swiping, modifying and different size/sites
300x250 on sites
redtube.com
youporn.com
pornbub.com

Current Banner CTR is anywhere from 0.36-0.40%+ which is really good I think
Landing page CTR: Now I swipped a lot of different Landing pages, modified then, even used some images from offer page to match the landing page but highest LP CTR I can get is 10%-19% with CR up to 6% and CV up to 0.71% (seems low?0



My goal is to make $100 a day.


Below is a sample of one of my 6 day MILF ANGLE campaign with all the notes (Most of the data is in the screenshots attached so check that please)
campaign_part1.png (57.6 KB)
campaign_part2.png (65.1 KB)

Notes from screenshots:
Total Converstions: 8
Total Spent: $72.57
Total Made: $12.80
Total Roi: -80.37%

Notes and my thoughts during those days:
11/11/2014 - Testing 2 banners - 1 Banner has 0.40% CTR. So leaving it and pausing 0.30% CTR banner
11/12/2014 - Turning off Ireland and 300x250 - Interstitial placement from youporn.com. Uploading 4 new ads because I think that one ad is just a click bait for free videos (it contains a picture of girl getting banged and "FREE VIDEOS" call to action). Might not be good for converting. Half way through the day cut out pornhub.com and left justredtube and youporn.com since pornhub ctr is much lover and cv is lower. CUTTING OUT ANDROID. Ios is converting way more
11/13/2014 - Taking out 4 steps Question LP - Mixed lander and Rules - MILF out of rotation. Leaving only 3 highest CTR banners 2 of which have best convertions. Removing UK and leaving only Australia and New Zealand. UK has lowest CTR% and Converstion rate.
11/14/2014 - Not getting enough traffic after turning off UK. Leaving only redtube.com Upping the budget to 50 bucks. Bid is from 0.16 0.55 cpm
11/15/2014 - Leaving only 2 Highest converting Landing pages. One is 10.36% ctr + 0.78% CV and one is 18% ctr and 0.54% CV
11/16/2014 - Lowering cpm bid to 0.2. Adding youporn.com and pornhub.com back on. Banner ctr is 0.39% and 0.30% MILF ANGLE




I need some advice/guidance as to what to do next in terms of Mobile Adult since every campaign seems to be negative ROI. No matter how much I test, I can never break even/get profitable.

@iamaflex

I think the most important point in your post was your “Kojak paragraph” (oh, by the way…for those who remember the old tv show).

“Side Note: I am thinking about writing a web app that will be a medium between landing page and offers page to capture leads. Why lose all that user data to an offer when you can have a database of all the leads' information as well? Not sure how legal that is but it's a different topic all together. Ok back to the regular programming:”

There is a huge market built on user data, and if you look at companies such as Info USA and Melissa Data, they are in the list compilation and aggregation business, with a mind boggling number of selects. Moreover, I also believe both of these companies are really resellers of Donnelly, the company that compiles all this data and has done so for years. So, not only are they selling data retail, they’re buying it wholesale!

What they do is compile it and resell it over and over to local marketers, literally an example of buying by the case, and selling by the shot. So, while they compile it on a national level, local area realtors, mortgage brokers, insurance agents, retailers, etc. use it generate direct mail lists and mail (badly) to them (very badly). There may well be a similar mobile data compiler you can sell the data to or you can run desktop where you can certainly capture email as part of the process.

Take5 media (http://www.take5s.com/ ) does that with email lists—they run a bunch of surveys to generate opt ins, then sell email broadcasts to those names, marketing to them over and over. They are clearly in the data business.

More important than that, however, is the ability to communicate with leads after you’ve paid for initial traffic, say by email, direct mail, phone call, etc. One of the most valuable things I ever learned about direct marketing was “people buy when they are ready to buy, not when you are ready to sell,” and really, no matter how good your copy is, you still only get the people who are at the emotional point where they are ready to buy or sign up then.

Good copy can widen that number to an extent (which can turn losers into winners) but if you can’t follow up with leads, you are leaving an enormous amount of money on the table because at some point, a decent percentage WILL be at the emotional buying point and you will miss out on them if you’re not in front of them (and you already paid to be in front of them).

Dan Kennedy once told me the story of how he was working with an infomercial company who threw away the leads they couldn’t close on the phone. Dan made a percentage of profit deal with them in exchange for all the leads, and started sending them follow up direct mail, cassettes with the infomercial soundtrack on it, etc. and wound up generating a substantial amount of revenue. So many of the leads were close to the emotional buying point, but just not there yet, and follow up, even months later got a lot of money out of leads that had already been paid for that otherwise would have been lost.

In my business, it seems I see sales on a daily basis from leadsources I haven’t advertised on in years, and some that have even gone out of business—I outlasted them, and so did the customer.

On a more specific affiliate marketing point, I have, in the past, paid for opt in emails from advertisers who were running a lot of traffic to dating related offers, but capturing no opt ins. I made them a deal where I would pay them per email submit (we put the form code on their landing page, and in one instance made it part of the “sign up process”) so they got additional revenue they were missing out on, and I got leads at a fixed cost from good traffic sources. It worked until they started “stuffing” my opt ins with leads that had no chance of buying (females, people from outer Mongolia, dead email addresses, etc) and I had to run them off. It was a classic case of killing the golden goose, but there was gold there before short sighted greed (and probably financial trouble) took hold.

Hell, I’d make the same deal again to anyone running male dating traffic in English speaking countries (desktop) and we’d both profit…a deal like that can turn unprofitable traffic sources into profitable ones for everyone (anyone doing that, PM me and we’ll talk).

It’s a case of data capture with the ability to follow up, staying in front of leads until they reach the emotional point of buying. Way more money is made on follow up than on sales in the moment, because no matter how good an offer is, only a certain percentage of people at that instant in time will be at a buying point. Capture the data and communicate with them, and you have thousands of opportunities to get offers in front of them catching a percentage every time who are ready to buy.

So, don’t disregard the data, there’s money there…and I’ve paid for it before, and will happily do so again in the future.

Originally Posted by johna5150

@iamaflex

I think the most important point in your post was your “Kojak paragraph” (oh, by the way…for those who remember the old tv show).

“Side Note: I am thinking about writing a web app that will be a medium between landing page and offers page to capture leads. Why lose all that user data to an offer when you can have a database of all the leads' information as well? Not sure how legal that is but it's a different topic all together. Ok back to the regular programming:”

There is a huge market built on user data, and if you look at companies such as Info USA and Melissa Data, they are in the list compilation and aggregation business, with a mind boggling number of selects. Moreover, I also believe both of these companies are really resellers of Donnelly, the company that compiles all this data and has done so for years. So, not only are they selling data retail, they’re buying it wholesale!

What they do is compile it and resell it over and over to local marketers, literally an example of buying by the case, and selling by the shot. So, while they compile it on a national level, local area realtors, mortgage brokers, insurance agents, retailers, etc. use it generate direct mail lists and mail (badly) to them (very badly). There may well be a similar mobile data compiler you can sell the data to or you can run desktop where you can certainly capture email as part of the process.

Take5 media (http://www.take5s.com/ ) does that with email lists—they run a bunch of surveys to generate opt ins, then sell email broadcasts to those names, marketing to them over and over. They are clearly in the data business.

More important than that, however, is the ability to communicate with leads after you’ve paid for initial traffic, say by email, direct mail, phone call, etc. One of the most valuable things I ever learned about direct marketing was “people buy when they are ready to buy, not when you are ready to sell,” and really, no matter how good your copy is, you still only get the people who are at the emotional point where they are ready to buy or sign up then.

Good copy can widen that number to an extent (which can turn losers into winners) but if you can’t follow up with leads, you are leaving an enormous amount of money on the table because at some point, a decent percentage WILL be at the emotional buying point and you will miss out on them if you’re not in front of them (and you already paid to be in front of them).

Dan Kennedy once told me the story of how he was working with an infomercial company who threw away the leads they couldn’t close on the phone. Dan made a percentage of profit deal with them in exchange for all the leads, and started sending them follow up direct mail, cassettes with the infomercial soundtrack on it, etc. and wound up generating a substantial amount of revenue. So many of the leads were close to the emotional buying point, but just not there yet, and follow up, even months later got a lot of money out of leads that had already been paid for that otherwise would have been lost.

In my business, it seems I see sales on a daily basis from leadsources I haven’t advertised on in years, and some that have even gone out of business—I outlasted them, and so did the customer.

On a more specific affiliate marketing point, I have, in the past, paid for opt in emails from advertisers who were running a lot of traffic to dating related offers, but capturing no opt ins. I made them a deal where I would pay them per email submit (we put the form code on their landing page, and in one instance made it part of the “sign up process”) so they got additional revenue they were missing out on, and I got leads at a fixed cost from good traffic sources. It worked until they started “stuffing” my opt ins with leads that had no chance of buying (females, people from outer Mongolia, dead email addresses, etc) and I had to run them off. It was a classic case of killing the golden goose, but there was gold there before short sighted greed (and probably financial trouble) took hold.

Hell, I’d make the same deal again to anyone running male dating traffic in English speaking countries (desktop) and we’d both profit…a deal like that can turn unprofitable traffic sources into profitable ones for everyone (anyone doing that, PM me and we’ll talk).

It’s a case of data capture with the ability to follow up, staying in front of leads until they reach the emotional point of buying. Way more money is made on follow up than on sales in the moment, because no matter how good an offer is, only a certain percentage of people at that instant in time will be at a buying point. Capture the data and communicate with them, and you have thousands of opportunities to get offers in front of them catching a percentage every time who are ready to buy.

So, don’t disregard the data, there’s money there…and I’ve paid for it before, and will happily do so again in the future.

OK, first things first: I'm going to ask a bunch of questions!

1) Did any of the offers do better than any of the others?
2) Are you signed up with any other networks, and can you split-test offers between them? F5 are great but you should always split-test across networks.
3) Can you show some of the landers, or screenshots of them, that you're using? There's likely to be some improvements we could suggest.
4) Likewise with the banners, can you show some of them? There may be something you're doing that's lowering your CVR.
5) Have you tried creating your own landers and ads, or just using ripped ones? I'd always recommend just using ripped landers and ads as a starting point.
6) What angles are you using here?

Having a quick look at your data, my initial feeling would be that your angle, placement or offer probably aren't working. I'd recommend going back to the drawing board, picking a small geo that's ideally not English-speaking, a lesser-known placement or three, and testing some new angles there.

However, if you can give the info above, I and the rest of STM may be able to give more detailed advice!

Originally Posted by caurmen

OK, first things first: I'm going to ask a bunch of questions!

1) Did any of the offers do better than any of the others?
2) Are you signed up with any other networks, and can you split-test offers between them? F5 are great but you should always split-test across networks.
3) Can you show some of the landers, or screenshots of them, that you're using? There's likely to be some improvements we could suggest.
4) Likewise with the banners, can you show some of them? There may be something you're doing that's lowering your CVR.
5) Have you tried creating your own landers and ads, or just using ripped ones? I'd always recommend just using ripped landers and ads as a starting point.
6) What angles are you using here?

Having a quick look at your data, my initial feeling would be that your angle, placement or offer probably aren't working. I'd recommend going back to the drawing board, picking a small geo that's ideally not English-speaking, a lesser-known placement or three, and testing some new angles there.

However, if you can give the info above, I and the rest of STM may be able to give more detailed advice!

Your setup is good so far. You are testing banners / landers correctly from what I see.

What you can still do is optimize placements on EXO ( use their pixel ) and split test more offers.

Keep us updated!

Originally Posted by bbrock32

Your setup is good so far. You are testing banners / landers correctly from what I see.

What you can still do is optimize placements on EXO ( use their pixel ) and split test more offers.

Keep us updated!

You need to place the Exoclick pixel at your network in order for Exoclick conversion tracking to work.

You can also set up the Exoclick pixel as a third party pixel in Voluum which I personally prefer over adding it to the affiliate network. See this post: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...l=1#post164881