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Anyone made decent money with pop traffic? (35)

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Hey guys,

When I look at the pop prices, the payout for the offers, the cost of tracking/servers/CDN etc. it seems almost impossible to get profitable.
And even if you are profitable, I doubt it will be that much.

Are there any decent success stories with pop traffic?

Thanks,
Dennis

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Mega open ended question. What kind of pop prices are you looking at? Which geos? What verticals? What offers? Is the cost of tracking too expensive? It can be free you know (and server cost should be the least of your worries). What kind of revenue do you do in total? What sources have you tested on?

Not going to prove anything here, or start a discussion, but the fact of today is: you're super wrong

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You can make serious money with pops. Very serious.

As equadox said, there are many variables.

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OK, let's say I buy pop traffic from popads in the UK.
To get some traffic going you need to pay about $0.00380 per impression. ($3.80 CPM).
My testing gave me a CTR (landingpage to offer) between 0.50 and 1%.
So 1000 impressions / 1% CTR = 10 people to the offer.
When the CR is 10% you made back 1 conversion.

I started with an iPhone 6 offer in the UK that pays $2.10 for a SOI.

If I want to make this campaign profitable I can do a few things:

1. Increase the CTR from the lander to the offer. But even if I double it , the margins are very low and to risky.
2. Get a paybump. (But it seems this won't help that much either)
3. Promote offers that have a WAY higher payout like pin submits

Since I'm starting out I decided to go with a GEO I can read and write to speed the testing up while not having to wait for translations all the time.
But if I want to scale on the same source and get more traffic I need to bid higher. But the margins are so freakin bad already.

4. Increase the CTR from the lander to the offer to at least 3% or higher. (not even sure if this is possible though)

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made a lot with pops, it got harder lately tho

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How many pop traffic sources have you tested, did you launch a couple of campaigns on different traffic sources or just looked at the numbers after spending $10?

UK is harder for me (lots of volume but I can only make a small % of the pie work for me, vs smaller countries where I can a much bigger % work and hence make more than in the UK) but I make 100-200 there a day off a SOI paying me half of yours, iphone 6 too... Maybe yours scrubs a lot more though... Anyway yes you can make money on POP, maybe go to non english countries as next step?

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Ask yourself why those prices are so high.

You only get high bids for as long as somebody is making money.

For affiliates who don't want to run Facebook or Google, popup traffic is one of the most viable methods to build instant volume in to a campaign.

The prices are a testament to the heavy competition and the serious money being made from them.

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Improve that. I've tested LP's that easily get 10% + (even seen 20 - 30% with the shadier techniques).

With Pops, only the aggressive survive. (mostly!)

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Dennis,

I can see where this is coming from. Being someone who has made money only from Pops, let me pitch in. (Not Super affiliate kind of money, but decent enough to see a potential).

- 1% CTR is way too low. You should be getting at least 5% for ANY lander on PopAds. Only last week I got 25% CTR for a non aggressive lander on PopAds. Remember that all the ripped landers have run its course. Say you are browsing a porn site regularly, you know there are going to be pop-ups or pop-unders. What do you do? You close them even without reading them. Now you will have to do something DIFFERENT and NEW to grab that user's attention.

- You stated "Since I'm starting out I decided to go with a GEO I can read and write to speed the testing up while not having to wait for translations all the time.". Dont you think that would be the philosophy of most people? Switch to a Geo that's cheaper and use Google Translate. Forget professional translations for now.

- The payout of the offer has nothing to do with profits. Not linearly anyways. I made quite a decent stack from running offers that paid just 0.25$-ish on pop traffic. The advertisers price it so because they are easier to convert.

Just focus on a better lander and a test out more angles. Its possible.

- Arun Basil Lal

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You guys saying about aggressive Pops, what do you use?

So far I am only using a "entry" alert to the user. My AM from the traffic source said it's not allowed to do loop alerts. Do you take the risk?

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What does "it got harder" mean? Harder compared to what?

If you used to do pops, and you think it is harder to make money now than it used to be, the answer to this is simple: it did not get harder. It got different. Pop traffic have only seen a steady increase in traffic over recent time. So saying it got harder means you either stayed on the same campaign, geo, offer or angle for too long. Or even the whole vertical.

It's like when you hear someone say AM is "dead". Or that there isn't money to be made anymore. Those who say this never succeeded in the first place or failed to adapt to an ever-changing industry.

In fact I'll argue you that it even got easier lately... (interpret as you see fit).

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So many amazing points have already been made - so I'll be brief - some thoughts/experience:

-A team mate of mine just did a little experiment a few days ago - saw a really low payout offer (I mean ultra low - something I would never have even touched!), ripped a lander he saw in the wild, set up a test camp and started making 3-figure profits overnight. We're now busy scaling it to 10-20 other pop sources. So you can throw all that math out the window!

-As was pointed out, aggressive is the way to go! Tips: write off offers that have a bunch of stringent requirements for pre-landers (unless there's indication that it will blow all other offers in its class out of the water!). Go aggressive with offers that don't require lander approval, and for those that do require it, push the boundaries as much as you can. If your AM is at all experienced, s/he will tell you how aggressive you can get without getting into trouble.

-The best approach is to cast a wide net, and to continuously improve on all variables. You have pop traffic sources, landers, offers, and placements. A good strategy I'd recommend that is serving me well:

1)Ask AMs for around 3 of the hottest offers in the same vertical

2)Spy and rip 5-10+ different-style landers and add CR-friendly elements to them (entry pops, exit pops, audio, backbutton, what have you)

3)Pick a traffic source that converts OK that has a lot of traffic for testing

4)Test ripped & modded landers with chosen offers and pause all but the best offer (assuming that offer is converting somewhat decent - otherwise test new offers until finding one that converts at least OK)

5)Continue to use that offer to mass-test landers until you find one or more doing good CR

6)Translate that lander into multiple languages and mass test offers (pick like 5-10 geos to start, multiple offers for each geo preferrably)

7)Once the best offers are identified, keep testing landers to increase profits further (optimizing should never stop!)

8)During the testing stage, only cut placements that are very obvious budget-drainers. Don't fixate on ROI too much - you need that traffic to speed up your testing!

9)At any point in the process, if you see a lander + offer combo doing consistently high ROI, scale to all other traffic sources. Don't be afraid to pause camps that don't show promise - it's MUCH easier making something that already works to work better, than to make something that doesn't work out of the box to start working.

10)For remaining camps that you haven't cut - play with bids, cut placements as they reach stat sig, cut carriers/models/etc., daypart - and work whichever other camp optimization tricks you have up your sleeve. And of course, never stop testing landers and similar offers! Allocate most of your traffic towards the winning lander + offer combo, but always leave a small percentage of your traffic for testing new landers and offers to continuously try to "beat your control".

Summary: Cast a wide net, test to improve all major factors, scale promising lander + offer combos fast and hard, aggressively cut camps that don't show at least some promise initially, optimize remaining promising camps to increase ROI further.


Reminder: Before scaling on an offer, be sure to ask your AM for a lead quality check! The last thing you want would be to scale and be doing big volumes and be told your lead quality is sh*t so you won't be getting paid. If your AM tells you your lead quality is good, that would be a good time to ask for a pay bump as well! ("I'm around breaking even with this offer, but if I get a pay bump I can scale this to at least 10 other traffic sources!" I can't imagine any AM saying no to that! It's a win-win! )

There is TONS of money to be made in all major traffic types and verticals AFAIK based on experiences people are sharing with me. Don't let talk of "[this or that] is dying!" deter you from giving 100% effort in making something work. Having said that, some verticals / traffic types are more suited to a person's skills, so if you've tried your reasonable best at something and it still isn't going anywhere after a while, don't be afraid to pick up and move onto something new. However, allowing yourself to believe that what you're doing is "dying" is the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot.

I lied about being brief...but hope this will help someone!

Amy

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what amy said above is good. There is tons of money to be made in pops. It's a huge traffic source with alot of very big players. I believe propeller sells like xx,xxx,xxxUSD a month worth of pops. i imagine most of their customers are performance marketers looking for a positive ROI.

but you gotta find your edge. either a better deal at traffic source. a better payout, an exclusive offer. or something.
you won't make money promoting du battery booster with street payout and ripped lander. guaranteed.

without some sort of edge you will definitely not make any real money. and unfortunately creatives are the weakest edge.

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Completely agree with that.
So the question is... How do you get your edge.

1. Try to go for quality leads only. Do a quality check and get a bump.
Cons: Most aggressive landers for let's say the iPhone aren't delivering good leads at all.
Some guys tell people they have already won. What do you think the response is if they finally find out this isn't the case?

2. Bumps aren't that great either most of the time. The network might think an extra .10 is worth it, but it reality it's not.
But again, if the quality is there they might bump you just a little bit higher.

3. I'm not sure about the traffic price though. In adult you can easily buy some flat-rate deals but I have no idea if this is possible with pops also.
Maybe there are flat-rate companies for pops?

I think the only way to get going is to get notized by either the network or the offer owner.
I see a lot of people copy/pasting campaigns and I simply doubt this will get them anywhere except some quick profits (until the quality check).

And finally... what's the exit strategy when we are doing pops and mobile advertising for the upcoming years?
Most of us don't build any asset and are basically building someone elses company.
Sure you get paid for the leads, but that's it.

So back to the initial question of this post: How do you get your edge?

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How can you say an extra .10 is not worth it?

What if it is a simple SOI or app install offer, that can do volume of say 2000 installs/leads a day, split across a few geos?

That's an extra $200 per day for asking for a bump.. It all adds up.

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Anyway, you should be looking for bumps if you can actually make the campaign convert.. and help your ROI.

Most offers should be able to turn a profit even at street payouts, if the right combination of traffic/lander/offer is gained. Your bump will probably not be your "edge".


In answer to 3.. look at what traffic sources are sending most traffic to an offer. Flat rate deal might be possible, but more often than not affiliates will be buying traffic from Adcash, Propeller, Gunggo, ZP etc

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I mean it's hard to get a campaign profitable with that extra bump.
So let's say I bring in quality leads but at a lower CR.
Then my edge could be the payout, but not with just a 0.10 extra.

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Yeah, it is hard. No one said running pops was easy!

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I think this is a case of overanalyzing - which we all get at one point or another.

It's really not rocket science, and there's really no secret sauce.

There are a few variables we can play with: Landers, Offers, Traffic. The game we're wanting to play is to have a system in place such that the combined effect of these main variables will result in profits for us.

This can be achieved by continuously improving each variable. i.e.:

For landers: There are so many landers out there, that at any one point in time some must be working better than others! But there's no way to tell which ones are working unless you test them! Rip and mod and test. Seek out all related threads on STM and come up with your own angles and designs and throw them into the mix. You don't need super-innovative ideas (although those are always nice!) - you just need to find a decent lander that performs above average! Look at how bigeasy123 was able to take a ripped lander to 170%+ ROI after some minor mods - and this is just one example.

Try to do split-testing on different landing page elements too - and after a while you'll KNOW what works and what doesn't, which will enable you to be more and more effective in modding landers.

Your "edge" here: Your knowledge of which lander elements will increase CR, and knowledge of which lander styles are working in any moment, because you're willing to test more than affiliates that test 2 landers + 1 offer and give up saying pop doesn't work!

For offers: Again, only testing will tell you which offers are the best! Once you have a lander that converts decently, mass test offers in different geos. This will not break the bank if you set a low bid and cut offers that don't show potential in the beginning. All it takes is finding one good offer that converts with your lander and you can optimizie that camp further and scale! And that pay bump will help too!

Your "edge" here: Your willingness to test more offers than the average affiliate, and the pay bump you'll inevitably get from your AM because of how impressed s/he will be seeing how many offers you're willing to test - more importantly, the volume you're able to bring by scaling!

For traffic: Cut the worst placements that drain your budget without fixating on ROI during the testing stage, because you need that traffic to test. But once you have a profitable camp, you can duplicate it to 10/20/50 other networks, cut the ones that don't show promise, and tweak the ones that do to increase ROI further. Doing larger media buys and negotiating traffic deals and all that - yes that will help but it's not necessary to turn a profit! Remember - you don't have to be better than all your competitors on a traffic source - you just need to be better than enough of them to get your own slice of the pie!

Your "edge" here: Scaling hard and fast once you find something that works, to maximize your chances of finding traffic that converts the best for your particular lander + offer combo. (Having statistical tools like the ones in my signature to cut placements etc. will give you a small edge as well.)


Caurmen, in the "Banquet" thread of his "Mobile Cookbook", said:

Although he was referring specifically to mobile traffic, the same applies more or less to other traffic types too.

And if you've read enough threads here on the STM - you may have noticed how some of the best affiliates have succeeded by simply 1)having a system, and 2)testing massively. Stackman here is the perfect example:

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...obile-Campaign

The same approach, when applied to pop traffic, can yield success as well!

Many newbies feel discouraged thinking they need some type of secret sauce to succeed - direct deals with an advertiser, special connections with affiliate networks to unlock super-secret exclusive offers, be a big spender on traffic networks in order to get special deals, be the first one to discover a new traffic source that works, connections with the best most knowledgeable affiliates in this industry...

It's true that all these things will help, but it IS possible to make profits without any of that. Without faith that this statement is true, a newbie can't get very far - because it's so easy to give up and place the blame on conditions:

"I just don't have the right connections with the right people..."

"I'm just not innovative or creative enough...."

"I don't have the 5-6 figure budget required to pull off a media buy..."

And pretty soon...

"I'm not smart enough....I wasn't born under the right stars...I must have been bad in a previous life..."


When actually, if he would just stop thinking so much and spend that time to test more - more angles, more landers, more offers, scale to more traffic sources - he would be enjoying profits instead of leaving AM believing in fallacies that just ain't true.

To balance out all the doubt, I'd suggest for all of us to hang out more in the "Success Stories" and "Follow-Along" subsections, to see examples of people that have found success just by testing enough things (some using pop traffic exclusively). Remember: Whether you think it's possible, or not, you will be right. So the question is: which would you rather believe?


Thanks for the interesting discussion!


Amy (off to replicate some winning camps to 20 other pop sources...)

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You are completely right man. I was focusing all my efforts on utility apps and they def got worse compared to say one year ago. I can't say it was all wrong as I made a solid stack and experience. Pops are pops and it's up to us what we will run there. As someone said here, as long as people buy it, it makes money.

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Great responses here , thank you all very much!

I'm currently working with ZP and PopAds to test some campaigns/angles.
Would you advice testing more traffic sources at the beginning or are these 2 good enough for the initial testing phase?

Second, my mind is completely focussed on creating new landingpages/angles etc without looking much at the competition.
The main reason is that I believe that WHEN I have something working it would be worth much more (until I got ripped heavily of course).
Would you agree this method is smart or just the opposite, very stupid?

How many people have seen the same landers/angles over and over again?

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ZP has a TON of traffic which makes it the ideal testing ground! PopAds has less traffic but it converts pretty decent. So both are great choices and should be more than enough for testing (unless you're targetting a really small geo).

As for being creative with landers vs. ripping - I personally do both! I try to get creative on my own, and also test a lot of ripped landers to see what's working. Then I combine the two to get the best of both worlds. (e.g. I will take a ripped lander that's already working well and put my creative spin on it to make it that much more lethal!)

However, if you're more creative than average, then by all means do your own thing instead of ripping. Even then though, it may help to still rip some landers to see how yours compare. I rip a lot because I kinda suck when it comes to coding, so....

Don't worry about getting ripped. Focus 100% on beating your own control again and again. Keep a test campaign alive always - even after you've found profitable landers and offers and have already scaled. Whenever you see an interesting lander or a great lander idea comes to you, rip/create that lander and add it to the test camp to see how it compares with your current best lander. That way you're always evolving and continuously improving. Stay focused on making yourself better instead of letting your energy drain with thoughts of how people are ripping your stuff.

And the reason we're seeing some of the landers over and over again is because they work (not always, but often). Human psychology doesn't change that fast. Many tactics that worked in 2011 are STILL working today (e.g. see STM threads on sweepstakes dating back all the way to 2011 and you'll see what I mean). You just need to make it look different to combat "lander blindness".

Hope that helps! I'd also be interested in how the more-experienced people will answer these questions - so please chime in!


Amy

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i tried to be "creative" i came up with a 100 landers and cool angles. alas. nothing beat my ripped control.

if you're beating the competition you should innovate to hold your dominance. If you are being beaten, you should steal to catch up.

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Amy

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Amen brother!

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A motto to live by :-)

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Imitate, then innovate.

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Another quote to the mix:

"Good Artists copy, Great artists steal."

Pablo Picaso

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So hlyghst, why do you think nothing beat your ripped control? How could you figure out exactly why it works as good as it does and improve upon that?

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Really awesome posts here in this thread, but I still have 1 question I couldnt find any answer to.

I am focusing on pop traffic and have problems with initial bidding strategies. I only do mobile CPI offers with like $0.3 payout and want to switch to higher payout offers in the range of $2 - $5.

I tried to be top bid with a low payout offer and the campaign went from +60% roi to -50%, but I think with these kind of payouts it is worth to be in the range of top bid to get traffic from all placements, right?

I thought about two different stratgies and would be really happy for some feedback. The trafficsource I want to master is PopAds.net.

Strategy 1:

• Be in the range of top bid, so I can get traffic from every placement zone (mostly really high like $10+ cpm)
• Collect data for $50
• Set the bid exactly half and test for another $50
• Based on the data I decide If I can bit lower to get a better ROI and still get decent volume of traffic, or I got it positive ROI and am able to bid higher to sacrifice ROI for more volume.
• Rinse and repeat, till I get the perfect bid which delivers a decent roi with enough traffic.

This strategy seems to be really pricy tho and dont know If I really gather enough data if I only spent $50 with such a high CPM. I know that not every impression will be that expensive, but still I am unsure if its enough to be statistical significant.
Would you recommend this strategy even for a beginner if budget isnt unlimited?

Strategy 2:

• Start with 2.2x offerpayout and let it run for $50
• Duplicate the campaign twice. 1 low bid where you bid %20 less than initial bid and 1 highbid bidding 20% more than initial bid. Spent $50 spent each to gather data again
• Find the best campaign which shows the most expected value giving traffic/roi available.

I dont know if I lose value with strategy two, since we didnt even try out placements, that could potentially really big winners. Somehow I think that Strategy 1 is overall best, but you need to be prepared to lose a couple $100 on each campaign for the initial start till you get them profitable.

What do you guys think about this approach? Any tips and thoughts are highly appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance!

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Whilst I agree with this top down approach to optimizing, I would argue that, you should definitely hop in and make sure there aren't any keywords you're using that are chewing up your budget fast and not converting.

You can always test those later on when you're dialed in and wanting to scale, but first, your focus should be on getting conversions / proving the funnel first, without bleeding out your budget.

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From the affiliate's perspective, this illustrates the importance of testing offers from different networks - even if its the same offer. You never know if you're running a brokered offer with another middleman taking part of the revenue.



Amy

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app

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There is no black and white in this business. I've seen so many time cases when running the offer through the middleman is much more profitable than running it directly. And it is not promoting myself as a middleman, lol It is more about relationship with you and your AM, in most of the cases it is everything that matters. If your manager sucks it won't work even if the offer is from direct afv, but if you AM in aff network do his/her best to assist you, then you'll rock. Because he will share the risk with you, while direct advertiser can cut you immediately.

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I used to arbitrage traffic between 2 pop companies, bought tier 1 countries and nordics at remnant prices and sent it to the other pop company at much higher rates. Typical month was $13,000-15,000 profit.

You don't need to re-invent the wheel to make money people :-)

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For sure!

And that relationship is mostly based on past track record: Lead quality and volume.

And then there are important considerations outside of just payouts: Scrub and shave rates for example.

But all else being equal, the direct advertiser will be able to afford higher payouts. Of course if we're comparing collaboration with a new direct advertiser offering street payouts vs. an aff network with good relationship and long history of good quality leads and high volume, that would be a different story.

Or, if an aff network would be willing to make thinner margins on the same offer in order to bump the payout - but then there'll always be the risk of shaving/scrubbing to "make numbers work" in the end.

As always, at the end of the day, every situation is different.



Amy

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app

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