Journey to $1/day profit (39)
Hi, guys. I wanted to start my AM journey here and document my process. I'm Misha, from Toronto. I'm relatively new to AM, but I've made a commitment to dedicate myself to reach profitability.
I have a programming background, but these days I have a day job managing a software development team at a startup. It's a nice gig, but I truly want to be free and live the kind of lifestyle where I can travel on a regular basis while running an online business.
After trying to figure out where to focus in the huge AM world, I decided to go with mobile app install offers.
Here's what I've done so far:
- installed Photoshop
- installed Muse
- signed up with mobile ad platforms: go2mobi, decisive (I'll start with go2mobi)
- applied with affiliate networks: AppFlood, Avazu, Tapgerine
Tip: go2mobi gave me a $50 top up bonus for signing up with them (after filling out a quick feedback survey) and the account manager seems nice and offered a one on one call to better explain all the features of the platform.
Lastly, I wanted to say that my experience with STM so far has been quite positive. I've already made some new connections and people are generally very friendly and willing to help. It's my intention to give back to the community, as we all pursue our goals together.
I'm still waiting to get approved by the 3 affiliate networks I applied for. I thought it would be instant, but it looks like it takes a few days.
I also realized that I applied to the wrong place for one of the networks: Avazu. I applied to Avazu DSP Mobile, but I think I should've applied for Avazu Private Exchange. I've done that and am waiting to get approved.
I've got a call setup with go2mobi tomorrow for them to walk me through their platform, so I'm looking forward to that.
While I'm waiting to get approved, I'm going to look into spying and reading the following guides that look quite interesting:
iAmAttila's Ultimate Spying Guide for Mobile
Say goodbye to HMA .. Spy on your competition for FREE!
Small accomplishment today: I got approved for my first affiliate network! Avazu APX gave me the green light. Their minimum payout is $1000 USD which I thought was kind of high, but I agreed. I'm going through their offers and deciding what to start promoting.
I still haven't heard back from AppFlood or Tapgerine, but it's only been about 2 business days since I applied.
I also had a very good conversation with go2mobi yesterday, about how to best use their platform. My account manager gave me some great follow up articles to read to get the most out of optimizing my campaigns:
Optimization Webinar
Optimization Tips
Remarketing articles (Knowledge Center)
I have the same with the Avazu min payout - thought it was a little high too but upon seeing this I'm pretty sure it's standard. Good luck man get launching, I'm in for the journey!
That is quite high for a starting payout, but probably not high enough to be too concerned about. Looking forward to hearing how your first campaign goes!
@stitch Thanks! I'm following you on your journey, as well. And congrats to you on your first break even day!
@caurmen Thanks! I'm just in the process of launching my first campaign.
I've been going through the offers on Avazu and trying to find something relatively low payout without caps/restrictions that's not based in Tier 1 countries. Found UC Browser offer that looks promising. Checked with App Annie and the rankings still seem to be steady. Will be starting to create my angles and banners.
Will be reading caurmen's thread: Three Ways To Great Angles - Using Method Acting
I got my 8 banners done for my campaign. They are pretty shitty! But hey, I need to start somewhere. Now that the banners are done, I need to get them approved and translated.
Over the last couple of days, I had some inner fears to deal with - the fear of losing money day after day, when I start my campaign. I know it's not rational, but I guess it slowed me down and seeded some doubt. I've started doing some visualization to help me focus on the end goal. Was experimenting with visualizing my Paypal/bank account getting a deposit of $x,xxx. That actually motivated me to keep going and work through the fears.
I'm trying to get my banners approved with Avazu but I'm not sure what the process is. The offer says "Creative & Landing Page Approval needed" but I don't see a way to submit my banners for approval.
I've got a lot on my plate right now (including a full time job) and I think it's making me feel a little overwhelmed. I think I need to focus on getting this biz running - to get to my first profitable day. Maybe that means cutting out some things in my life that I want to fit in.
Tasks for this week:
- translate ads
- submit ads for approval
- start campaign - within 24 hours of approval
Best of luck! I'm just starting out too 
A little late to the party, but following along now - looking forward to this one!
It’s interesting to see everyone go through the exact same issues and the way they deal with them (juggling life and AM, stressing about throwing away money etc).
I like the idea of visualisation to get you through it. I often think of it as just paying my education fees - paying to learn the ropes (my AM education bill was a hell of a lot less than my actual university bill!)
Just know that everyone here goes through the same thing - if they can make it, so can you. It’s all about persistence.
You'll need to get in contact with your Avazu AM to get your ads approved - awesome bunch of people there so get friendly with your AM as you’ll need to be working with them a lot.
Looking forward to the next update!
Misha, I want you to know I'm definitely rooting for you
If there's anything I can do to help you get started, let me know. I completely empathize with your situation, but I hope you know that you have a massive support network rooting for you. We all want to see you succeed, and you will if you try. Don't let fear get in the way of your goals.
Don't think about what could go wrong. Think about how good it will feel when you're free to travel the world at your own discretion.
Thanks so much for all the support, guys! I'm going strong! Finished my banners (3rd round, after getting some feedback) and have submitted them for approval to go2mobi. I got them translated to Indonesian, so these aren't the actual banners I'll be running, just the English equivalents.
@Ruby Tunes - thanks for the more experienced perspective. Yeah, I figured I wasn't the only one dealing with these issues and it's great to know there's a community of people that wants me to succeed. I would love to give back any way I can one day.
@go2mobi - thanks so much for the words of encouragement, Grandin! I'm ready to start my campaign.
@laurencestanley - thanks! Best of luck to you, as well.
Questions:
1) Does it matter what affiliate network I start testing with? I'm with Avazu, Oasis, Tapgerine. I'm assuming I shouldn't test all 3 networks at the same time.
2) What's the best way to track my campaign with go2mobi? I know there's a lot of material written about tracking and I'll be getting more details from go2mobi directly, but I figure that other newbies could benefit from this, too. I don't have
3) I was going to test my affiliate link by changing my proxy settings on my browser, but was wondering if it's better to just subscribe to Hide My Ass or GeoEdge.
Here are my banners, which I'm sure could be a lot better, but I figure I'd run the test with them. As you can see, I'm testing 4 images and 2 headlines, which gives me 8 combinations. One of the banners is an animated gif.
Originally Posted by gomisha
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ll-Video-Guide
It might seem overwhelming at first, but keep at it, it starts to make sense. And before you know it, you will find yourself using it for everything.
Question for you...your flashing banner was approved by go2mobi?
I like this approach of starting with a small goal initially and building up from there! Best of luck to you!
If your goal is only $1/day profit then I'd advise you to not use a network with 1k minimum payment.
OK, I got
I wanted to test a full conversion by installing the app on the phone, from the geo (via Hide My Ass VPN running on the phone). After navigating to the
I tested the postback links separately on the desktop (from all 3 aff networks) and they work (see attachment). So now I'm confused why I don't see a conversion registered in Voluum (or on Avazu) after I did exactly what I want people to do. I tried installing the app a second time on the phone, after clearing out cookies in Chrome on the phone, but the same thing happened - the clicks were registered but not the conversion.
@webdev - thanks, you're right. Now that I focused on tracking, I'm starting to see the sheer power of it to test/track so many variables. For instance, I can now test multiple affiliate networks with the same offer, to see which one converts better. Before, I thought I would just go with the one that had the highest payout, but I see that that's not necessarily the best strategy and I can test that easily with a tracker. And yes, my flashing banner was approved by go2mobi.
@cmdeal - thanks! Yeah, I'm starting out with a very modest goal - just to get to profitability and then slowly build from there.
@thedudeabides - thanks! I know the min payout is kinda high but the $1 profit/day is just a starting point. I wanted to aim for something that seemed somewhat achievable for a newbie. I plan on revising my goal after I get there 
For testing conversions Peerfly (an affiliate network) is great , they have got a tool to fire conversions in order to check if the tracking works.
That's how I made sure everything is setup fine in the beginning
Good luck, I know you'll make it and hit some nice profit till Vegas if you stick to the process!! 
@kepe95 - Thanks! I applied to Peerfly and am waiting for approval. Yes, looking forward to meeting up again in Vegas. You're an inspiration and glad that we crossed paths in Bulgaria.
This is a little frustrating because I'm ready to turn my campaign to live, but because the conversions weren't recorded when I installed the app on the phone, I can't be 100% sure it's fully working - even though all the tracking and postback links work fine when tested independently. Will continue hunting for solution...
Try installing with a couple of your other networks and see if any of them pick up the conversion. If so, go with them for initial testing!
@caurmen - thanks, I tried that, but after my last post, I noticed another anomaly - I couldn't navigate to my offer pages, when pasting my
After spending the weekend debugging and testing different scenarios, I found the reason - the newest version of Chrome on Android (42.0.2311.107) for some reason, wasn't navigating to the offer page. One of the things I tested was using a different browser, so when I tested my offer links with the Samsung browser on the S4, it worked! So then I rolled back Chrome to an earlier version (33.0.1750.517) and then I could navigate to my aff links! So I was happy that I found the problem, but somewhat concerned because this meant that people clicking on my banners from the latest Chrome browser wouldn't be taken to the offer page!
As for the conversion tracking, I had a friend install the offer using my
Despite not being sure that conversions were 100% working, I turned the campaign on yesterday - just to get out there already!
I now have one day of data and my first (and only) real conversion - yes! This was a cell-app campaign (running on cell networks, ads displayed within apps). I cloned it and will run a wifi-app campaign to see if the wifi makes a difference.
I was a little lost/unsure of what to do next, after I got my first set of data. I got 2 conversions from my first ever campaign, after spending almost $30 and generating almost 900 clicks. Definitely poor results, and I thought of calling it quits on this campaign. I wasn't sure if I should look for a new angle or for a new offer.
I'll be honest - it was a little tough after that first rush of turning a campaign on, seeing your first conversion, and then realizing that you're not making any money, but you keep spending and spending. This is where it gets a little harder - to keep spending money for testing, even though you're not seeing profitable results.
Then I got a testing idea. I made a report in go2mobi, of the placements that had a 5% or better CTR. I white listed them, and turned the campaign on. Just to see if my conversions are better if I blacklist the really bad CTR placements. It's just a hunch, and maybe this offer/angle is a loser, but I'm willing to do another day of testing.
First image is what my campaign results currently look like - 2 conversion and almost 900 clicks with about $30 spent. Definitely not great results.
Second image is the report I generated to show me the list of high CTR placements, so I can white list them. There were about 25-28 of these placements for each of my 2 campaigns.
Let's see how the next round of testing goes!
Hey dude congrats on launching! Also it's pretty great that you saw conversions on your first attempt. There's so many moving parts in AM that need to running in harmony for a campaign to work.
However I want to caution you that it's not all about banner ctr, and in fact you probably white listed a lot of those placements prematurely. They will drop as more data comes in. The sample size is too small to make any decisions really. Stick to cutting placement's when they've hit 2 or 3 times the payout without converting.
Look at the overall picture of what banners are performing. Can you figure out why? Can you pick elements to make a better banner? Is there a banner lander combo that converts? Try to figure out where the conversions came from and exploit that. Keep at it!
Thanks, @ssmarkters! I was happily surprised to get 2 conversions on my first campaign launch, but that quickly transitioned to confusion about what to do next.
I appreciate the advice about not cutting placements too early. In go2mobi, there's a way to limit the exposure for each placement (see image). So that's exactly what I did in that first launch - I made the limit of each placement $1.50 (roughly 3x offer payout), so I wouldn't be over exposed to any one placement.
That's an excellent idea. And a really neat feature!
OK, time for an update.
I got the results back from my 3rd and 4th campaigns (I'm counting the same offer but for App/Wifi and App/Cell as 2 separate campaigns because that's how I set it up in go2mobi) as another no go. 1 conversion out 962 clicks, but the CTR was higher than the first 2 campaigns, around 3%, which is what I expected.
The difference between campaigns 3 and 4 versus 1 and 2 was that I whitelisted the placement that had a high CTR (>= 5%) from the first 2 campaigns. So, yes, the CTR was higher, but that doesn't mean the conversions will be better. The upside to launching campaigns 3 and 4, was that it cost me less to find out that it wasn't working because of the higher number of clicks.
So I'm not quite ready to call it quits with this offer. I'm going to launch my 5th and 6th campaigns for the same offer (App/Wifi, App/Cell). This time, I'm going to change the banner images to use Indo women instead of the mostly white women that I used previously. Want to test if using women that are more "local looking" will make a difference. I'm going to use all placements again, so this will be a head to head test against my original two campaigns.
Just wanted to post a quick update. I spent my morning biz hours reading kepe95's amazing follow along. It gave me many new ideas/insights and just sheer motivation to keep going.
I feel like it's time for an update to my strategy.
I'm working full time at a day job, so I can't devote 12 hours days to this, but I can improve my strategy. So far, I've been able to put in about 15 hours/week into this. I think I can bump this up to 20 hours/week. Another thing I want to do is launch more campaigns regularly. That means more money for testing and more failure. There's no getting around the fact that you need lots of feedback to make adjustments. I've already talked to my traffic manager at go2mobi and asked for faster turn around times for approving my banners and he said he would help make that happen.
I've also committed to getting 2 campaigns launched this week. I'm sure it's a very low number for many people, but for me this is a number I can do and that pushes me to keep putting stuff out there.
I'm also thinking how I should devote some of my 20 hours/week to reading/learning - that would mean more reading of the STM forum, books about success, advertising/copywriting, biographies. There's just so much material out there that I would love to absorb but just don't have the time.
Secretly, I'd be happy if I lost my job because then it would give me the freedom to pursue this with full force. As it is now, I get up at 5 am most weekdays, and work on AM for about 3 hours before going to my day job. I could easily put in 12 hour days if I could work on it all day.
Anyway, back to the day job I go...
Another day, another test result back. Another failed campaign It's kinda getting into a rhythm.
Spent: $31.67
Revenue: $0.50
Profit: -$31.17 (-98%)
Got about the same CTR as when I used white women and only 1 conversion, whereas before I had 2.
I spoke with my Avazu AM today (she was nice enough to check up on me cause she noticed I was sending traffic to the offer) and we had a good discussion. I asked her if the offer was still doing high volume and she confirmed that it was. That invigorated me to keep going and testing more angles/images/traffic sources. She suggested to test with a different traffic source.
She even offered to look at my banners. She kinda laughed at me and said "you're not promoting a dating offer", after seeing them. The images were of hot and sexy women prompting you to speed up your browser. Probably not the best angle, but hey, it was worth a test. So then she gave me a couple of other banners for the same offer with a totally different angle and image. She said she wasn't sure if these were high converting banners, but it gave me a great new perspective on how I can test new angles.
So now I've come up with 8 different angles I can test. Not sure if I should also use a different image for each angle, or stick to 2-4 images.
As a bonus, she also tested (on her end) that my
Off to make more banners and launch another campaign. I'm kinda liking this quick feedback rhythm of:
a) get shit out there
b) see if it works
c) make adjustments
I like your attitude - gotta keep pushing to make it work.
I swear a lot of the time the only difference between the guys that make it and the guys that don’t is that the successful ones don’t give up.
Sounds like you have a good AM at Avazu!
Keep testing as much as you can, you’ll eventually get a feel for what works and what doesn’t. Angles, pictures, etc.
Have you tried out any landing pages yet…?
Thanks, Ruby! I have an accountability partner that I make commitments to on a weekly basis and put money on the line, if I don't follow through. I find that helps keep me on track and taking action.
I haven't tried any landing pages yet, but that's where I'm heading after the latest test results.
So I ran my last test with the following strategy:
- be more business oriented in my creatives, since it's a browser, not a dating app
- create many angles with the same image, instead of (like before) many images with one angle
- test a couple of the banners that my Avazu AM showed me against my banners
Results:
Spend: $21.21
Revenue: 0
Profit: -100%
Conclusions:
- this test taught me the importance of angles. One of the banners significantly outperformed the others, in terms of CTR. And that had to do with a very local angle. Another thing about angles that I'm learning is to cast a wide net at first. Some of the angles I chose were just shots in the dark, and I didn't think it would get a relatively high CTR. But some did, and now it gives me the idea of digging deeper in that angle, combining it with something more local to the geo.
- from a previous campaign for the same offer, when I black listed poor performing placements, my CTR was well above 2.5%. It was 3.24% for app/cell and 2.74% for app/wifi. And that was for over 950 clicks, so I think the sample size was large enough. That tells me:
a) I should have a systematic way to cut bad placements, after the initial test
b) add a lander, after cutting the bad placements
Next Actions:
run a test with:
- landing pages for my top angles/banners
- white list of good placements with decent CTR
Are all these results with the same offer?
If so, I'd recommend dropping that offer and trying a different one, or trying the offer in a different geo / traffic source.
You can have the best angle in the world, but if the offer sucks, you'll get nowhere fast.
Thanks a lot, caurmen! Your reply made me pause and think twice about my next step.
Yes, all this testing is for the same offer. I've spent about $95 up to now. Not a huge sum, but not a tiny sum either, for an offer. Since one of my affiliate managers told me that the offer is still doing high volume in that geo, I felt I was doing something not quite right and that I should continue testing it. The other affiliate manager said the offer doesn't have high volume. And a third affiliate manager (from App Flood, that I just recently joined) also said the offer was doing high volume.
So I felt that maybe if had a landing page I'd get more promising results. But now you've got me thinking that maybe I need to test other traffic sources and geos, too. Wasn't ready to abandon the offer yet.
Can I ask what is your reasoning for switching traffic sources?
It can often be beneficial to stick on one and get to know the ins and outs of it.
Hi, Ruby. Here was my reasoning:
- I have an offer that is doing high volume (according to a couple of AMs that I spoke with)
- I'm not getting a lot of conversions with direct linking, after testing many different angles
- Therefore, try other traffic sources to see if that will yield more conversions
I was also going by what caurmen previously posted about trying a new offer/geo/traffic source. I thought of trying a new traffic source.
What would you suggest? Testing different offers with the same traffic source? Testing the same offer on the same traffic source, but adding landers?
I'm a little unsure of what next step to take.
As long as the offers are in the same vertical, it will be easier to switch offers than traffic sources in the beginning. Different traffic sources are also always a good idea, but it adds another variable and right now in your position it's smart keeping the changing variables at a minimum. I'm sure there are a lot of more things you can try to make the current offer work.
Thanks, kepe95! That really clears things up for me!
OK, I'll stick with the same traffic source but will try the following:
- testing landers
- testing more offers from the same vertical (utility apps)
@gomisha, on the side there is another problem when swapping affiliate networks - your income (commision) is spread here and there. Sorry if it is too prozaic to mention, but imho important for beginner (like myself).
Just got this too: Finch's 2015 Premium Posts
Yep, agree with Kepe95.
You want to keep the variables to a minimum. A new traffic source can be a whole new game. You've only just started mastering this one
I would definitely try landers first.
I've been busy (and distracted) this past week. Lots of things to deal with at the day job, including having to fire an employee and managing different offshore software development teams for a project. I've been working on AM but not as much and this has caused me to reflect a little.
I got 4 different landers created (mostly from ones I've spied on), but it took a lot longer than I expected to get them ready and I still have to figure out how to incorporate them into my funnel with
Been thinking of hiring outsourcers to help me create my banners and landers for my tests. I could still create the angles, but I'm finding it takes a long time to do the creatives. Might also hire someone to help configure servers, CDN, domains, etc. I'm trying to be most effective in the time I have outside my day job.
Maybe it's too early for me to start hiring outsourcers, but I'm used to doing that a lot at my day job and at a previous business, so I'm comfortable with that process and finding good people. I think it would help me run more tests, to get more feedback and learn quicker. Right now, I feel like I'm moving too slowly.
@Ruby Tunes - thanks for the tip. Yeah, I'm sticking with the same traffic source (go2mobi).
Impressive that you're still managing to get some affiliate work done, keep it up
Your situation sounds similar to how I used to be - spending far too long trying to work out coding landing pages etc and in the end not getting much done.
It's key to work to your strengths and outsource your weaknesses, I would therefore say that getting someone else would help your process tenfold. If your budget allows you to outsource these tasks then that's perfect
In the end it's down to how many things you can test!
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