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Trying my Hardest for Profits: 10 Days worth of Stats (19)

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I didn’t want to start a follow along series from day 1 only to see it fade out after a couple of days, so I am starting this follow along with about 10 days of stats. The reason I did this was so people could see my progression from launch to optimization in one post.

I am very depressed in my affiliate marketing journey so far. I don’t lose money, but I never make money and I feel there is something wrong where I cant cross the barrier to making money. Maybe you guys can help.

Stats are for Two Camps that started on May 1st using a DSP to target SMAATO placements. I am using creative that were split tested to be the winners so the LPs are already optimized. I am bidding straight CPM, not optimized CPM and this is a first for me. So, I don’t really know what I am doing.

Day 1
Camp #1
Cost: $14.09
Leads: 2
Revenue: $4.02
ROI: -71.47%
CPM: .27

Camp #2
N/A

Day 2
Camp 1
Cost: $67.03
Leads: 10
Revenue: $20.10
ROI: -70.01%
CPM: .26

Camp 2
Cost: $14.03
Leads: 6
Revenue: $10.56
ROI: -24.73%
CPM: .40

Day 3
Camp 1
Cost: $83.12
Leads: 19
Revenue: $38.19
ROI: -54.05%
CPM: .30

Camp 2
Cost: $30.56
Leads: 18
Revenue: $31.68
ROI: 3.66%
CPM: .32

Day 3:
Camp 1
Cost: $43.83
Leads: 22
Revenue: $44.22
ROI: -0.90%
CPM: .22

Camp 2
Cost: $11.69
Leads: 7
Revenue: $12.32
ROI: 5.38%
CPM: .30

Day 4
Camp 1
Cost: $62.12
Leads: 20
Revenue: $40.20
ROI: -35.29%
CPM: .27

Camp 2
Cost: $16.17
Leads: 7
Revenue: $20.10
ROI: -23.80%
CPM: .38

Day 5
Camp 1
Cost: $59.16
Leads: 38
Revenue: $76.38
ROI: 29.10%
CPM: .25

Camp 2
Cost: $25.06
Leads: 8
Revenue: $14.08
ROI: -43.81%
CPM: .41

Day 6
Camp 1
Cost: $48.75
Leads: 28
Revenue: $56.28
ROI: 15.45%
CPM: .24

Camp 2
Cost: $36.28
Leads: 18
Revenue: $31.68
ROI: -12.68%
CPM: .34

Day 7
Camp 1
Cost: $48.92
Leads: 25
Revenue: $50.25
ROI: 2.72%
CPM: .24

Camp 2
Cost: $22.44
Leads: 19
Revenue: $33.44
ROI: 49.02%
CPM: .36

Total Accumulated Stats
Camp 1
Cost: $438.98
Leads: 164
Revenue: $329.64
ROI: -24.91
CPM: .26

Camp 2
Cost: $164.83
Leads: 86
Revenue: $151.36
ROI: -8.17
CPM: .36

Some questions: How can I lose money quicker instead of spreading it out so long? Do I increase the CPM? If I do that, wont some placements spend too much and still get too little data to properly cut, meaning I cut them too soon?

All my money is spent on testing. If I ever make profit, I lose it all on the next camp testing. Its so aggravating.

I cut placements after 3x payout in spend and 0 conversions, CTR lower than .75 after $.50 in spend so my CTR's are really good. I can get conversions. I just cant make profits.

1. Cutting placements on 3x the offer, if my CPM is too high, I will not get enough clicks to see if it would convert right?

2. None of the placements have multiple conversions, so I cant whitelist anything. Do I just keep running negative until I have got rid of all the placements that burn 3x the payout?

3. If the goal is to burn through the placements that will not convert, would increasing the CPM higher get the data faster, or would that take placements that would have been profitable and stopped them from getting enough clicks?

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OK - I'm going to start by saying something out of love, so please don't take it as criticism.

It's natural to want to vent and I'm glad you did, because where else can we vent but here where there're so many people in the same boat as you? We've all been there (at least most of us!) - spending money on campaign after campaign, offer after offer, with nothing to show for it, and nothing seems to be breaking through. (See how easy it is to complain? Now I'm doing it too!)

I personally am a big believer in the law of attraction. (You can find out more about that here.) If you want to make money, you've gotta stop saying stuff like "I never make money", "If I ever make profit, I lose it all on the next camp testing", and "I can get conversions, I just can't make profits." This may be the current reality, but if you don't believe that you'll break through one day soon, then you'd just be holding yourself to that sort of negative vibration which will make your reality difficult to change. Again, venting occasionally is OK, but I hope that you're still staying positive most of the time, and again, I'm saying all this out of love and the understanding that we've all been there!

My friend - you've been at this AM thing since Jan 2014 (I'm assuming - based on your join date) and STILL haven't given up. You've been active in this forum (200+ posts! That's 100 more than what I have). You've been thanked 73 times which means you must have shared insight that other members have found useful. That's indication of dedication - something which will inevitably be rewarded - as long as you stick with it for long enough!

And really, I'm sure many people will agree with me on this - at least half the battle is taking something from negative ROI to break-even point. You've already accomplished that! So IMO you deserve a big pat on the back! You've managed to do most of the work, and right now you're not even under the tremendous pressure of watching your budget drain. You're cruising along collecting data practically for free! With some luck and more work, success may be just around the corner - at least that's what I'm sensing.

And not every offer will work out either ("yeah Amy tell me something I don't know!"). Even stackman, with all that experience under his belt and all his connections and information channels in this industry, had to test 30 offers to find 3 that had potential (see this thread here). We just need to keep our heads down and keep testing until we get there.

"OK Amy - enough new age mumbo jumbo - you got more practical advice or not?"

I'll start by trying to answer some of your questions (and hope that more-experienced people will chime in).

I just wrote a post a couple days ago on how to cut placements based on statistic principles - see this thread. If you wouldn't mind telling us what your traffic source is, I'm sure somebody could give you more guidance in terms of bidding strategy. It's hard to give advice without knowing which network we're talking about, because each one has a different bidding and placement setup.

It would depend on how "high" of a CPM you're talking about. I would start by checking out what the average CPM is for your target geo. Ask your traffic source support for this information. Alternatively, you can get a rough idea from the ad planner on other traffic sources, e.g. Decisive's ad planner which you can find here.

And while you're contacting your traffic source's support regarding average CPM, also ask them for advice on how you could get more traffic. They may just say "up your bid" but you may get other tips as well - won't know unless you asked!

Another thing to check would be what you've set your daily budget to. You may already have a daily budget that far exceeds what you're spending daily, but some traffic sources are weird like that - if you move your daily budget up, you may get more traffic. So that's something else to try.

Next - my turn to ask YOU some questions!

I'm not asking you to out your offers, but could you at least tell us which vertical(s) they're in? You mentioned you have optimized landing pages, but are your banners optimized? And were they optimized specifically for this offer or from a previous offer? Have you split-tested between direct-linking from banner to offer and having landing pages? Sometimes for free app installs, a banner is all that's required to convert a visitor.

Also - if you could talk more about your testing strategy - for example how many angles you've tested, how many banners per angle, how many landers, how you decide what to cut, etc....and maybe even post some stats if possible, I'm sure we can give you more input!

Thanks for starting this follow-along and I look forward to seeing some updates! Hang in there pal!


Amy

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Thanks for the motivation, and yes my attitude is teetering on negative, but I fight it. I have found that my mood changes throughout the day based on how well my camps are doing. So, I emotionally tied to them, which is probably not the best thing.

Here are some answers to your questions.

Traffic source is Avuzu. Im setting and monitoring my CPM based on the win%, trying to get enough traffic. On camp 2 for instance, that one is in the USA, so even though the CPM is higher, I am winning less than .20% of bids. I also run unlimited budgets on all camps (learned that from Decisive).

My offer is an Ipad sweep offer for both campaigns - just two different GEOs.

Also, I had already bookmarked your thread and emailed it to myself on Friday because it was exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks

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Wow that was a quick response!

I've never used Avazu myself (that $50 initial bonus is still in there untouched!) so maybe other people can chime in here. I DID come across this post regarding bidding model:

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...l=1#post211862

Sweeps! That's a hot vertical right now. I assume you're using both banners and landers then?

Again, without further and more specific information, it'd be hard to give advice. But if I were you, I'd do my testing on pop traffic networks first to optimize my landers, then take my best lander to display networks (like Avazu) and try to optimize my banners there for that best lander. There's certainly no lack of pop traffic which can potentially speed things up for you and solve THAT problem.

Once you have a decent banner + lander combo, there are other ipad sweep offers around that you can test also to find the best one.

Sweeps is a HUGE vertical with TONS of offers in TONS of geos! And if your creatives are generic and have broad-appeal, you may be able to use the same ones for different geos!

It takes a LOT of testing to find winning creatives, but once you do, you can scale very quickly across different geos using the same creatives (again, if the angle is generic enough).

Do a lot of spying. Pick out entirely different landers and test them. Then take the best landers and make versions of them and test those. In the later stages of your testing, try to vary by a single element - for example test 2 landers that are completely the same except one has audio and the other doesn't. That way you know what works and what doesn't, and your lander will improve over time - it can't not!

Also, do a search for "sweeps" here on STM and you'll find lots of threads on the topic - some dating back to 2011. This one, for example, is gold:

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ighlight=sweep

If you compare the advice in those old threads to what you're seeing when spying, and also to your own test results, you'll find that things haven't changed that much at all over the past few years! Much of what worked then still works today. This means that potentially, your efforts will be rewarded for a long time once you get profitable.

For additional tips, see this success story - Andrea dropped a lot of gold nuggets in this one!

Good luck!


Amy

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Wow what a great response to a thread!

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The great cmdeal has given me praise! Way to make someone blush!

To fishin: Another thought just occurred to me - is there any particular reason you're tackling an ultra-competitive geo like US? If you can make US breakeven I'm pretty sure you can take a tier 2/3 geo to profitability relatively easily. US has a ton of traffic for sure, but there are other goes that also have a ton of traffic but less competition - e.g. IN, TR, BR.


Amy

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I test everything using Decisive. So, I test scores of LP designs and angles and banner creatives. I then take the winning LP/Angle/Banners and run them to try to recover my losses in testing. Now, I am trying to take them to a different traffic source, which is Avazu.

I have never bid straight CPM so I am confused on mechanics.

Yesterday, I took the sites that were converting, but at a higher CPA than payout and put them in their own campaigns, blacklisting them from the main campaign. Well, this is what happened. No more adspend.

Camp 1
Cost: $7.38
Leads: 8
Revenue: $5.87
ROI: -32%
CPM: .22

Lost all my volume.

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Did you see that post I told you about?

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...l=1#post211862

Apparently Mr. Yaz had success bidding "optimize by CPA" instead of CPM. That's something you can try if you haven't!


Another question: Do you have a banner + lander combination that can generate consistent profits on ANY network?

If the answer is no, then I would find a traffic source that I'm already familiar with, that has lots of traffic, and just keep testing until I have a profitable banner + lander combination. Then I would scale to other networks. Trying to tweak campaign settings to squeeze traffic from an unfamiliar network, when you need traffic for testing, just isn't fun.

And while testing to find better banners + landers, try not to even look at the ROI, and just focus on spending money to make your banners + landers better! This is especially true for an evergreen vertical like sweeps. There's no need to consider ROI when you know that once you have good banners and landers you'll make it back 1000 times over! (You'd still want to cut absolutely dreadful placements that drain your budget etc., but the focus shouldn't be on ROI is what I'm saying.)

Another thing you CAN do is ask Avazu support for tips on how to get more traffic by putting in a support ticket. Alternatively - Dina from Avazu is a member here on STM - you can try contacting her:

http://stmforum.com/forum/member.php?4096-avazupx

I feel that you're close! Keep your chin up bud!


Amy

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Yes. I do my optimization through Decisive. Only after I get a winning combo do I try on other networks. Its the bidding that is my problem.

As far as bidding with the CPA, I dont want to. I want to learn how to bid CPM so I can scale to traffic sources that do not have such a crutch.

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Here are my stats from Avuzu for last month.

Conversions:487
CTR: 2.43%
CPM: .24
CPA: $2.16
Spend: $1,054.16
Revenue: $1,174.22

I paused all the camps. Even though I ended up with a positive ROI, at the end, I was only spending a couple of dollars a day. After cutting placements, I had no volume. So I made my money back, but had no chance to make any further money. This is where I feel I am missing something in AM.

The above numbers represent about 10 hours a day everyday for $120. I enjoyed it a lot, but I dont see how to make a full time income off this. Props to you guys who do.

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You are literally ONE STEP AWAY from making a solid income...don't quit now!

The hardest part of this AM game is getting from negative to breakeven - if you can get 11% ROI, with further improvements you can most certainly do better!!

You have ALL THE BASICS down - the hardest part is already behind you! You owe it to yourself to at least take one more shot at this.

I have some suggestions for you:

1)Here's what I would do right now if I were you: I'm assuming all that revenue you did over the past month was with the same offer. That's more than enough to ask for a pay bump! Tell your AM that you're at around break-even and would like to do some serious mass-testing to optimize this campaign and scale on this offer, but need a pay bump to minimize testing costs. Chances are you'll get that bump!

2)Look over your placements stats and make a list of placements that achieved -30%ROI or better, and start a campaign with these. Only use your best banner(s). Use this campaign to mass-test landing pages you find through spying - try to find ones that look/work completely different! Look through STM threads to find landing page elements such as entry/exit pops, buttonbutton redirect etc. that will improve CR (big tip: seek out recent threads by hlyghst and andrea1987 and also posts that talk about increasing lander CTR and CR such as this one). Add these CR-friendly elements to the ripped landers and test them. If you're not sure an element will actually increase your CR, split-test them (i.e. have 2 landers that are the same in every way except for that one element). Also, check with your traffic source first to see if they allow certain elements (pop alerts / button redirects etc.) You can also do a search on recent posts by me - I've talked about lander optimization many times already. This will improve your lander which will improve your ROI.

Note: The -30% ROI is just an approximation - the idea here is so you'll have enough traffic to test and optimize your landers. Feel free to move this threshold up/down as you see fit. Your goal here isn't to make money - it's to improve your landers as quickly as you can without breaking the bank.

3)Start a separate campaign using the best lander you have right now (and you can replace this anytime with a better lander you'll find through testing using the first camp above!) and those same placements that have done -30% ROI (or whatever your cut-off was) or better. Use this campaign to mass-test banners! Again, do some spying. Seek out tips here on STM. Come up with your own angles. Throw every idea at this camp... There are numerous threads on how to test banners so I would go into that here. This will improve your banners which will further improve your ROI. Note: Whenever you find new banners that work better than your old ones, swap those into the other camps to decrease testing costs!

4)Do some research / talk to people to find out which networks have the best assortment of sweeps offers (I would suggest including Mundo and Adsimilis). Make a list of all the sweeps offers you can find for your current geo. Start a third campaign with your current-best lander, current-best banner(s), and the same -30+ ROI placements (or whatever your cut-off is). Use this campaign to test those offers. Once you find the best offer, replace the one you're using in the first 2 camps with this one to further decrease your testing costs! (Optional: If your budget allows it, you can also start campaigns to test offers in other geos! If your creatives are generic enough i.e. not geo-dependent, it should work for some of the other geos as well. At any rate, you will want to venture into other geos at some point, preferrably after you have used your first geo to find good landers and banners that work well consistently.) Finding better / the best offer will further improve your ROI!

5)After a couple / a few rounds of testing, you will have much better creatives that work well with a good offer. Once things have improved to the point where you're doing consistently good CR and ROI (I'd say 50% ROI and above), scale that campaign to 50 other mobile networks. They probably won't all be profitable, but some will be out of the gate and others can be tweaked further to be made profitable, and of course you can pause the worst-performing ones. And don't forget that you'll be continuing your testing to optimize your creatives even further - never let the testing stop! Every time you uncover an even better lander or banner or angle - add them to all your campaigns across all the networks to give yourself an instant pay-raise! Scaling promising camps to lots of traffic networks, cutting the losers and keeping (and further tweaking) the promising ones, will massively boost your total profits. This is why you can't look at that $120 and see it as just $120 - because with proper scaling you can turn that into 4-5 figures! You just need to have better creatives and a better offer so you won't need to cut nearly as many placements before you can make a camp profitable!

Important Note: While you're testing, don't fixate on ROI - rather, focus on improving your creatives and on finding the best offer! The profits will come!

I'd be really grateful if other people can help out with more advice as well!

Hang in there buddy! You're SO close....so damn close that it would be the biggest shame of the decade if you don't try just once more and push through!


Amy

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P.S. I'm going to end this post with a quote and a couple links that will hopefully keep you going for another little while - at least just enough for you to see your first success!

Don't be the guy that gave up on digging for gold when he was only 3 feet away from the motherload!

http://www.evancarmichael.com/Home-B...your-goal.html

Bob Parsons (founder of GoDaddy.com) on how he almost sold half of his company for $5k, just several months before the business took off in a big way:

http://www.bobparsons.me/archive_art...hp?entry_id=65

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wow amy, those are some really amazing replies. You're a really nice person.


fishinseo, just so you know. it's not really your fault. right now display sweeps is very saturated. especially avazu. i know. i spent damn near 60k just this month just on avazu just on sweeps. it don't convert like it use to.
Unless you have some sort of edge, sweeps on avazu (or decisive) will most likely not work for you.


You could try niche angles, something different from the fake fb lander. You could try a different vertical on avazu. they just opened up mobile native ads on a few exchanges, those are just for apps. but it might be some virgin territory.

you could try sweeps in unorthodox sources.

creativity in your strategy may be more important than creativity in your banners.

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Aww.....thanks! The compliment means a lot coming from someone like yourself who has so generously shared the secrets to your success with so many people.


@fishinseo: Well there you go! You've managed to do positive ROI on what apparently is one of the toughest networks to get profitable on when it comes to sweeps! If that doesn't deserve a big pat on the back I don't know what does. I haven't been doing mobile for the past couple of months, and haven't tried display networks for sweeps yet, but if you'd read some successful follow-alongs or successful stories I bet you can find some less-saturated traffic sources. Here are a couple of lists I have bookmarked that you can go through as well:

http://appflood.com/blog/list-of-mob...-february-2013

http://gulyani.com/complete-list-of-...rks-companies/


You can basically use any traffic source that has sufficient traffic to test and improve on creatives and test offers - except testing on certain sources will be cheaper than on others.

Now go get 'em!


Amy

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My god, these are amazing responses.

OP listen to vortex!!!

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Haha I would but I think you've got this one extensively covered ;-D

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Wow, I have a lot of reading to do. Thanks Amy!

One thing I should mention. I only target sites. Not apps. I have never had success targeting apps. So, I might be limiting myself right there.

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Holy smokes Vortex!

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Vortex delivers! Amazing responses Amy!

@fishinseo - Amy just handed you a blueprint on a platter, if I was you I'd get straight out there and take action on it!

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Wow you guys! The compliments have me floored - thanks!

Fishin is such a big action taker and is so close to success. Not a lot of people have the kind of perseverance he has demonstrated. I just don't want to see someone like that give up right before things take off in a big way for him - which I can feel will happen soon enough!

That's really odd! I haven't done a lot of CPI offers but usually it was the other way around for me - I had more luck with apps. But yes, I suspect you may be right about limiting yourself by not targetting apps. By all means give them another try - if nothing else, the additional traffic will speed up your testing two-fold!


And did you know about these blacklists Mr. G got for us from Decisive?

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...sive-Blacklist


I know different offers will convert better/worse for certain placements....but my reasoning is since there are so many placements available, I could safely blacklist all these from the very start and still have lots of traffic to play with. But then again I may just be lazy. Also, I always blacklist Grindr and all flashlight apps from the beginning - the nature/purpose of these apps makes them intrinsically bad for conversions.


Amy

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