Home > Paid Traffic Sources > Mobile

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Mobile Day 1 (19)

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Background: A few years doing SEO / Link Building, Dabbled in Adwords and Bing, Spent last 2 months trying to make PPV work
Mission: Become a Mobile Master this year - It's cheaper to test, massive volume, and it's the future
Goal: Make this $$$
Budget: $19k to make it work, if I can't do it within that budget, AM is definitely not for me

Network: A4D
Offer: Flirchi - SOI - India (Dating)
Payout: .31
Source: Decisive (man that interface couldn't be easier)
Tracker: Thrive

I don't know shit about mobile. I know how to do basic research, launch, and test campaigns. But I've never really gotten anything to work. I've used Prosper and/or Subids all of my career, so a lot of this is a learning process for me. I intend on taking a few hours a day to learn some basic photoshop, html, and css and all that. I don't mind outsourcing, but I hate having to wait for shit. I'm trying to make this $$$ fast, and I need to launch shit fast.

Decided I'd launch only one campaign to learn some of the tracking set up, data, and pretty much what I'm looking for.

I set up a campaign in Decisive using the Mobile Cookbook.

I decided only to test 4 creatives (using the advertiser stock creatives) and launched 4 campaigns, segmented into apps/sites/mobile/wifi as suggested by the Cookbook.






I'm pretty sure these creatives are ass, but as I mentioned, I'm solely using the first 3-5 campaigns to get a feel fore launching mobile stuff. There's so many variables to test.

Each campaign has a budget of $15. I set the Smart CPA to $1. I didn't mess with any of the device, browser, or any of those targeting settings. I set it to India and that's it. The offer didn't have any restrictions on this.

Deposited $150 and now waiting on Decisive to approve.

I set this up in Thrive with just the Direct Linked Option (still getting a feel for the tracker, but I must say, it is quite a step up from P202, once I get comfortable with it)

Just signed up for Lynda and about to get my photoshop, dreamweaver, html, css, php game good enough to make some $$$ so I can hire PT/FT folks to do all this. Wish me luck!

Btw, is there an easy tool out there where I can just plug the offer URL, set a geo, and see what the offer looks like in certain devices? I found a few websites that would display the offer IF it was a US offer. Obviously other geos require "that" geo to load the proper offer.

Thanks!

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I would split those banners into 2 campaigns on Decisive, as #2 either won't get approved or will limit the placements your campaign can be shown on. But banners 1,3,4 are too clean and probably won't do well. Start making your own ASAP.

As for a tool to view offer page you can get Firefox/Chrome proxy extension + Google "[country name] proxy". There's also paid tools like HideMyAss but widespread coverage will cost you big $.

Watch out for this. It sounds like you've jumped around between SEO, PPC, PPV, etc. Set realistic expectations and be determined, so you don't get discouraged, quit, and bounce to another thing.

Good luck

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By splitting, you mean a banner per campaign because a single banner may keep the whole campaign from being approved?

Thanks for the feedback, I think mobile is something I can surely put all my eggs in right now

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After 2 days, finally got my ads approved on Decisive. Here's what I've learned so far about creatives:
1.) Can't flash more than 3x, so learned how to reduce animation count in Photoshop.
2.) Can't use deceptive ads/creatives (so the Facebook looking one was a no-go)

Now I'm starting to get some clicks and data, but I'm guessing tracking variables aren't be passed properly. I'm using Thrive. Here's the tracking link I used:
http://xxxxxxx.xxx/path/lp.php?trvid=10010&trvx=a02ffa83&campid={{{ad_name }}}&creaid={{{ad_id}}}&placem={{{placement}}}&cate go={{{category}}}&ctcode={{{country}}}&device={{{d evice}}}&useros={{{os}}}&usrisp={{{carrier}}}&imgi ds={{{creative_id}}}&subcat={{{subcategory}}}

I just put that link into Decisive hoping that it would pass whatever I'm supposed to see. However, in looking in Thrive, I'm not showing any of the data. See below:


Here's what I'm seeing in Thrive



Also, how do I track which actual ad generated the click? In Decisive, it has the option to upload multiple creatives. I can see the Ad/Creative ID


But in Thrive, I only see the "Creative ID" that corresponds to each campaign (not the actual ad id)


I'd like to make sure I get this tracking thing figured out before I launch my next campaign. This offer had no restrictions, so I left all the carrier/device/etc... settings open

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Well, your creative ID is passing properly at least which means the tokens are working!

As for the OS/Device Type being listed as unknown, that's a bit concerning. If you load the link yourself does it detect your OS?

Also, if you want to use Decisive's conversion tracking you need to pass the {{{bidhash}}} token somewhere so that Thrive can later send this value back to Decisive.

The video I did on Decisive > Voluum should help as Thrive and Voluum are similar in terms of postback/tracking setup.

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You need to improve those banners! Browse around the forum to see what kind of banners work for dating

300x250 has very limited inventory

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Also, the creative id is in the live reports (under the graph button on the side of the ad) so you know which creative generated the click/conversion.

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thanks deondup, i only launched this campaign with these creatives b/c it was my very first mobile campaign. Just wanted to get a "feel" for launching mobile, looking at the data, Thrive, and decisive. All this is new territory to me!

i actually got some really good ctr for those banners, though (1.2% - 2%), i'm assuming that's good at least, no conversions (but I think the offer page wasn't loading right)

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i simply took the decisive pixel and placed it in the network's pixel area. my network has both my tracker's postback url and decisive's pixel...is this ok?

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i recommend getting some landing pages set up asap. i know you're just doing some initial testing and getting your feet wet, but i think a landing pages are crucial for dating offers.

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Everything seems to be tracking a lot better, but I had a question about using the Decisive pixel. (Forgive me if this question I'm about to ask is extreme noobish). So I obviously placed my Thrive Tracker's postback as the offer's postback.

But if I want to use Decisive's pixel, can i also just place it as a pixel in the offer like below?



Also, I'm guessing that I also place the Decisive Tracking pixel as is into Thrive, like below? (The Voluum video was slightly confusing to me as it used the extid)



I'm showing 1497 clicks in Decisive and only 1141 clicks in the network...so around 24% click loss. Is this a lot? how do I go about checking to see what's causing the click loss?

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Bro use more amateur pictures for dating. Profesional ones don't work to well from my experience .

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I launched 2 more offers today. 2 gaming offers from AAO
Network: AAO

Offer: Brave Frontier Singtel Android SG WAP (Gaming)
Payout: 6.5
Source: Decisive
Tracker: Thrive

(The other offer was very similar).

I picked this offer because it was me getting a feel for certain restrictions. The offer doesn't allow any outside creatives or landing page URLs, so I thought it would be a good fit for me to just get a little more "practice" in simply launching an offer. The offer was restricted to only mobile display, and android, so I liked that it pretty much told me that I can only direct link, use their creatives, mobile display, and android devices.

Here are the stats for the creatives. I wasn't expecting much, but I did blow through like $40 between these offers, so I could've learned this process cheaper.



I still need to get the jist of setting up offers and tracking. The mobile funnel and tracking variables are a new world for me, so I need to get that part down.

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Takeaways so far (based on this thread and my hands on experience)

- Getting the tracking and URL test set up right
- Apparently I need to upgrade my VPS, so need to figure out what the right amount is. I was hoping I could stay under $70/month for this cost, but this may not be the case
- Using cheaper offers to test/learn the set up/offer launching process
- A few more hours in photoshop and polishing up my html/css skills
- A few more hours learning Muse
- I have like 23% click loss, so I need to figure out how to identify why I'm losing clicks. Using cdn or analyzing page load speeds and etc.. is something I've never had to concern myself with before, and this is a big deal in mobile
- Need to figure out a way to update the cpcs for each variable individually for Thrive. Is there an easier/quick way to do this? Or do you have to manually go through each variable and update the cpcs accordingly?

Since I'm using Decisive, I think I'm going to narrow my focus to:

- Dating (non-adult) and preferably international
- App installs

Hopefully I'll get the hang of one of these niches, and start focusing in on one of them.

I have $19k total budget to make this mobile marketing work. I'm going to stick to a $1200/month plan to cover ALL expenses (including advertising) and spread this out for as long as I can.

Month 1 Costs
Thrive - $100
VPS (hosts Thrive exclusively) - $60/mo (although the guys just told me I should upgrade, I'm currently on 1gb ssd w/ 1gb of ram)
Decisive Deposit - $150 (burned through $51 so far)
Separate VPS to host domains/lps - $40
Lynda.com - $40 / mo - gotta learn some basic skills
Stm - 100 (yup)


$410

ASW Spend (I'll count this separate) - $1150

This is a lot better than my old self, as I would normally have no disregard for money (thanks Ngo for keeping me in check)

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So I hear basic and ugly works, first 350x250 banner, just scraped something together

Talked to Decisive, they recommend I stick to pin submits and installs, so I guess that narrows down my focus. I'm going to stick with Decisive until I can make it profitable. I've bounced around a lot in the past so I'm going to try to break this habit.

Re-launched some of the older campaigns after testing the tracking URLs and landing pages (thanks zeno!)

Spent 2 hours on photoshop tutorials

Time to find some pin submits and install offers

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Working on some banner skills, the tutorials are starting to pay off a little bit. Wow, this is such a noob-follow along. Anyhow, deciding that I'm gonna place focus here:

Pin Submits/App Installs in the following Geos
- India
- Russia
- NZ

Found an offer in Neverblue that I started doing some research on



Looks like users subscribe and get custom wallpapers for their whatsapp messenger. I sent some of their creatives and the LP over to one hour translation to make sure I understand what they're saying.

I'm starting to get the idea of angles, did some research on whatsapp reviews to get ideas:

Tired of those Boring Wallpapers?
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Facebook Giving You Trouble? Easy Install WhatsApp Wallpapers
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Pick Exciting Wallpapers for Your WhatsApp Friends!
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Also gonna focus on the following creative sizes:
300x250
300x50
728x90
480x320

These are the creatives that I'm getting the most impressions on in Decisive.

Got one creative up so far, going to create this angle in different sizes


It doesn't get uglier than that.

I probably need to get a hold of some mobile lander templates for these types of offers.

Got a few conversions for my Flirchi India Dating offer, but they didn't show up in Decisive, weird.

Anyways, this is going to be a very slow follow-along, but i'll make it.

Journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step!

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Getting the hang of angles. Just threw up some of these





I'm guessing the one with the girl may be considered misleading, but oh well.

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A small tip. When you are creating animated banners where the call to action is flashing, make sure that the last frame is one where the call to action is visible. (This way people will still see the cta after your banner loop is finished)

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Why would you upgrade the VPS? You're not running anything even close to volume. Upgrading is not going to help your click loss which undoubtedly stems from your server being in the US and users a long way away.

Re: CPCs, no, there is currently no easy way to do this for any tracking system really. This is why you should also use traffic source conversion tracking to assess P/L for specific placements, banners etc.

As for other advice... I would move away from WhatsApp stuff. Traffic sources are clamping down on this because everyone is using WhatsApp angles for everything, and it's misleading + Facebook owns WhatsApp, so you can expect virtually every mobile DSP to eventually deny you on any campaigns using WhatsApp logos/offers. Much like what has happened with Google, Android logos, etc.

It's better to focus on what will be sustainable and offer scalability.

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