Let's do this! (the appetizer) (5)
This is my first foray into the world of mobile marketing. I will be following the mobile cookbook.
Introduction
Traffic source: Decisive
Vertical: Mobile App Install
Offer: Skout Android - I selected this offer because I have some (limited) experience in dating
Geo: US
Payout: $0.65
Budget: $8/day per campaign
Bid: CPA goal of $1 (using SmartCPM)
Angles: Meeting girls right in your own neighborhood
Campaign structure: Followed the appetizer: Wifi/App, Wifi/Site, Mobile/App, Mobile/Site
Banners: I am a total photoshop noob. Big thanks to vortex for her tutorial.
Spied on some banners for ideas. Submitted 8 of which 6 were approved - included a few animation as well as static banners.
Landing pages: Direct linking for now
Results: Launch + 3 hours. For some reason only 3 of the 4 campaigns were approved right away still waiting on that last 1.
Spend for the day: $3.09
Revenue: 0
Net profit/loss: -$3.09 (-100% ROI)
Actions I took:
- Launched campaigns
To do:
- Wait for more data to come in
- Blacklist placements
Thoughts/Questions:
I know it's too early to have any significant data but I just wanted to get started on this follow along.
I'm happy and excited the traffic coming in but I am just a bit concerned about not getting any conversions after 600+ clicks.
I am still totally clueless so I really appreciate any insights/feedback.
I'll be updating constantly so please check back in. Thanks!
Update
Results: Launch + 4 hours. Got my 4th campaign approved. More traffic, still no conversions.
Spend for the day: $4.24
Revenue: 0
Net profit/loss: -$4.24 (-100% ROI)
Actions I took:
- Tested to make sure my affiliate link was working/registering conversions
To do:
- Wait for more data to come in
- Blacklist placements
- Brainstorm new angles and lander ideas
- Stop constantly checking traffic
Thoughts/Questions:
Still no conversions in 800+ clicks. Tested my link and it's working fine so that's not the problem.
I'm thinking a problem may be that my banners/angles do not match up with how skout is advertising their app. My angle is more dating/meet women whereas skout frames their app around meeting new friends. May have to take a different (perhaps much more focused) angle and/or add a landing page. I think I have some good ideas. Also I am finding myself constantly checking stats which obviously is not a very productive use of my time. Gotta stay focused on taking real action and not wasted motion.
Update
Results: Launch + 6 hours. 2 conversions nice!
Spend for the day: $5.50
Revenue: $1.30
Net profit/loss: -$4.20 (-76% ROI)
Actions I took:
- Blacklisted skout app
Thoughts/Questions:
Absolutely thrilled to see some conversions. I have noticed however that the traffic has slowed down to a bit compared to when I first launched this morning. Wondering if this is typical.
Thinking about going with flat cpm and/or raising daily limit for the site placement campaigns because I don't think I will get close to spending $8 per day at the current rate. Also I have the budget to be a bit aggressive.
Update Launch + 8 hours. Carnage, basically.
Spend for the day: $26.04
Revenue: $3.25
Net profit/loss: -$22.79 (-87% ROI)
Actions I took:
- Ramped up spends via flat cpm to get data quicker
To do:
- Think of new angles and lander ideas
- Make new banners
- Spy on some landers
- Create landers
- Research new offers in t2, t3 geos
Thoughts/Questions:
So I was impatient and decided to get data faster via flat cpm and raising my daily limits. The results pretty much confirmed what I had suspected from the beginning. That this combination of offer + angle + geo + payout + direct linking is not going to work. Sure I could burn through another 25 bucks but honestly I feel like that would be a waste of money. 5 conversions in 4000 clicks tells me more than enough (please correct me if I'm wrong). Though I could be biased. I'm from an industry where conversions are usually in the 1:20 range so 1:800 seems absolutely atrocious to me. But I don't want to give up on this offer just yet. I think I'm doing ok in terms of CTR. Converting those clicks seems to be my problem. Hopefully a better angle and a lander will be the solution. Back to the drawing board.
Getting started is the hardest part; looking forward to see your progress with this - I'm getting started with running my own aff marketing campaigns, too.
It depends where those conversions came from. If 3 or 4 of them are from the same placement that happens to have good volume, it's very possible to run $xxx/day off that alone.
I assume you've checked this already, but food for thought regardless!
Update Interestingly I got 5 more conversions while my campaigns were paused. Definitely did not expect that. Does that even count towards calculating effective ROI? It should, right?
Updated results of the first test
Spend: $26.04
Revenue: $6.50
Net profit/loss: -$19.54 (-75% ROI)
So maybe this offer does have some potential. -75% ROI with absolutely no optimization + direct linking doesn't seem too bad.
Still working on new angles, banners, landers and setting up
Actions I took
- Updated my banners with my new angle
- Signed up for mobile ad scout and "borrowed" a lander layout and put my own twist on it
- Signed up for rackspace cdn to host my landers. BIG BIG thanks to Iamattila for his cdn setup as well as optimizing landers guide
- Signed up and configured
Voluum thanks to Zeno's awesome guide, thank you!!! - Submitted new ads for approval
To Do
- Launch ads when they get approved
- Continue testing more angles: create more banners and landers
Thoughts/Questions
Just continuing to put in the work every single day. Really happy about setting up
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