I'm ready to crack this thing. (42)
What's up, I'm a long time affiliate with the worst success record. I'm here to get some insight and finally get things moving with those mad five digit days. But let's start slow.
I think I'm impatient. I want to throw $150 at a campaign and the next day turn it into 20% daily profits.
That isn't realistic is it? I think I'm framing everything wrong.
I avoid throwing 1k a day at traffic cause it feels like a waste when I don't know how to turn $150 around. But I guess that 1k would really show me the data that I need.
I take a popular offer a few good banners two good ass landers put them on a self serve network, I work with web offers, usa traffic, popular sites with proven quality.
From this I can get banner ctrs that are around 0.4, clicks around 17 cents and on a $4 payout offer I can break even. I'm actually ok at doing this since I have done it 3 or 4 times this week. After sending $150 or $200 worth of traffic, I start to slice and dice the data in different ways to find something with promise and maybe I find one or two golden banners. So I make new and fresh versions of those banners and I get the almost identical results. Breaking even.
I'm converting about one in twenty.
So I look at my data, decide I should try something else and start over. Is this normal? Should after a few campaigns I have some kinda breakthrough ?
First of all, which vertical(s) are you working in?
Secondly - in addition to making versions of your best banners, it would be beneficial to make banners from new angles as well, especially if versions of your best banners aren't taking you from breakeven into the green.
Most importantly: If you're breaking even after so little testing, you definitely should keep testing and optimizing! Once you're doing better ROI you can start scaling and that's where all the magic will happen! Why would you start over?
I wished I had your talent - you make everything sound so easy! I can't help but wonder how far you'll get with a bit more work and testing...
Amy
I'm working in dating cause, well it's what I have always went for first. Thanks for noticing my hard work but my question always feels the same. . .
To what end?
You tell me to keep testing banners, angles and pages but when do I stop? What am I looking for? Profits seem mythical, like the loch ness monster.
I'm on the boat, I'm moving along the water but now what do I really do?
Look for a banner > lander > optin combination that is profitable? Do I look for the best banner? Should I seek out the best offer first? And once I'm profitable when do i just let it run and keep it in my portfolio?
Since this is adult dating on a popular site with a popular as network I can in theory own that spot and basically run it forever right? I just have to keep rotating the best banner lander offer combination of I'm corrct.
Am I doing this right? I ended up being about $400 down on this campaign. What do you more experienced types think? The cpc isnt correct, I cant figure out how to get it to update properly, it is much closer to 0.19 cpc.
Throughout the life of this, I tried a few different banners and landing pages. This was a single placement on a popular ad network with a popular offer.
Originally Posted by oneano
1)Pause the 2nd offer - the 1st offer has won with 90% probability of being best.
2)Pause your 2nd and 4th landers (assuming you ran all landers over the same period). Your 3rd lander is very close to being cut as well (like 2% away from 10% probability of being best, as compared to your 1st lander which is the current best). (For details on how to use a split-test statistical calculator to cut landers, see this thread.)
3)Use the calculator spreadsheet which you can download from here, to cut banners - a number of them are way beyond ready to be cut!
From what I can tell, you should be near breakeven after all these cuts are made! And this is before you test campaign targetting/settings such as bid/frequency or cut by device/OS/time of day etc.
After making all these cuts - start testing and optimizing everything in a strategic fastion!
As to your question regarding when to stop testing - I would say keep testing until you hit a point of diminishing returns. Every time you find a better angle, lander, banner, offer - you increase your ROI. However, once you have a relatively stable campaign that's making money consistently, you'll probably want to devote only a part of your traffic towards testing (e.g. 10-20%), directing the bulk of it to your best creatives to maximize your profits. And if the campaign is nearing the end of its life and you have more lucrative projects to spend your time on you may decide to just let the camp ride out without further testing. Every person will do whatever makes sense to them, as I'm sure you will too.
As for which to test first - I can suggest 2 approaches (and of course you can always formulate your own):
1)Use the same campaign to test everything, but in separates stages. e.g. Pause all but your best banners and lander (and perhaps even your pause placement(s)) and mass-test offers; then when you're down to your best offer, use that to mass-test banners; when you're left with a bunch of good banners, test landers. This is the cheaper way but takes longer.
2)Use separate campaigns to test each variable, i.e. one camp using your best creatives to test offers, 2nd camp using best offer + placements + banners to test landers, 3rd camp using best offer + placements + lander to test banners. This is the quicker way but will cost more.
Tips on lander testing: For adult, everyone is basically using the same landers. If you can come up with a totally original winning concept and scale really fast you'll be able to make a killing before everyone else catches up within the same week. A good approach IMO would be to just rip all the common landers you see, test them, pick the best performing one(s), test different headlines based on different angles, pick the best angle and test different headline wording, then test different images, then test different CTAs.
Tips on banner testing: Look over your current/past banners and banner stats to look for trends - which images / types of images are working? Which angles? Which headlines? Then create more banners from what you believe are working images/angles/headlines and rotate them in. Also try to come up with new angles. Set up your banner testing in such a way that you can draw conclusions from them (for example, if you have some banners that are performing well, grab the images and headlines from all of them and mix and match to create different combinations - that way you'll know which images work best with which headlines).
Also - landers are less likely to go "stale", which is evident from the fact that the same landers have been in use for a few years now. However, banners are a different story - they will burn out a heck of a lot quicker! How fast they'll burn out will depend on how much exposure they get (which will also determine how much they'll get ripped). So once you know which angles convert, create more and more banners with different headlines / images / designs. And always be testing new angles to stay ahead. Also consider splitting your best banners into groups that you rotate in and out to make them last longer.
Testing is really not rocket science - there are only so many factors that can influence ROI, the major ones being your creatives (banners and landers), your offer, traffic type/source/placement, targetting options (including carrier/device/os/time of day/frequency/whatever else). After an initial test to make sure your offer does convert semi-well with the particular traffic source / type of traffic, proceed to test and optimize all these factors, and your ROI will gradually go up. That's optimization in a nutshell, but of course the devil's in the details, which is where experience comes in.
I don't blame you for thinking that profits seem as mythical as the loch ness monster, but I'd suggest that you dispel this type of thinking the best you can because it really doesn't serve you! It's your expectations and beliefs that are holding you to your current reality, and by changing your expectations you can change your future reality. To combat negativity, go read some threads in the "Success Stories" section.
Based on what you said in your opening post, you were able to break even with minimal effort, so your abilities and intuition are not in question.
All you need is more testing, knowledge on how and when to cut things, and a more positive mindset - these 3 things will get you there.
Hang in there pal....you're close!
Amy
Thanks for this, I have been spending my time understand the math and statistics behind what is going on. I am having some issues chopping up the data in iMobiTrax how I want to view it.
This is great insight... I know Im close I just have to push back.
This was months ago ...
I was indeed having problems with chopping data in iMobiTrax
iMobiTrax does some weird calculations with the numbers and I didnt understand them, now I do. since 7/20 my last post I have made dozens of campaigns, still loosing money with all of them.
My struggle is myself, I am doing something wrong. I dont seem to test enough, or the right way or something.
Im back to start another follow allong so here we go.
I have a top milf dating offer with a great payout that I have negotiated.
I have a second milf dating offer to test out.
I have three landing pages, Im going to just test two at a time.
I have uploaded about 4 types of banners each with 10 variations so that I can test faster.
I will be using an NTVa position with usa traffic on Traffic Junky.
Im going to start with 4 banners and let them run for about $150 a day on this single placement.
2 impressions per 24 hours
4 banners, 2 landers, 2 offers $150 a day.
Nice comeback buddy! I don't complain about much of anything but I must say I don't like iMobiTrax! I remember when we were looking at your stats together over teamviewer months back, how difficult it was to navigate through the interface. Earlier today I was doing the same with another STM member. All I wanted was to see which lander + offer combo converted the best and it couldn't even show me that! I couldn't believe it - if anyone knows how to do it I'll retract this comment - please let me know!
You're spending $150/day to collect valuable data. I would highly suggest that you switch to a better tracker so you can get more value out of that data. Check out FunnelFlux - flat monthly fee if I'm correct, and oh so versatile.
With regards to testing landing pages - why just test 2 at a time? The more you test at a time, the more money you save, because in every round of testing you're having to re-test your control. For example say you have 6 landers. Round 1: A vs. B. Round 2: A vs. C. Round 3: C vs. D. Round 4: D vs. E. Round 5: D vs. F. That's the equivalent of testing 10 landers, whereas if you test all 6 landers at once it would just be 6 landers!
Also - why just 4 banners? Why not brainstorm more angles and create multiple banners per angle? The wider the net you cast, the more likely you'll hit on a profitable angle or banner design.
Other than that - have fun and I look forward to seeing results!
Amy
To view funnels in iMobiTrax you must create one landing page per offer.
It sounds like a hastle, but it isnt. It gives me plenty of flexibility when set up like this.
I have considered other trackers, but I have spent a lot of time with imobitrax and since it works for me, I have decided that is enough.
So far, my ad spend is really low and honestly not worth reporting. But since this is a follow along, I want to keep people to see the entire process.
I have broken this sheet down into funnels to keep all of the data in one place and clear.
http://i.imgur.com/iHmMpN2.png
My banners are multiple angles and images Im testing a small combination of them. I think I have 4 designs, and 3 ad copies.
Testing is where I am the weakest because Im not methodical. Im more 'informed random' Im not testing these as a set.
I have total for this campaign about 48 banners, 4 different designs, 4 different ad copies, and 6 different models (something like that)
How could I do it differently? How could I improve?
I dont understand about split testing against my control over and over, once I test it once, I have a decent idea of the controls epc, I just compare my new data against that epc correct?
I think you've hit the nail on the head yourself, testing is where you should focus as that's not structured enough and that will lead to understanding what works and what doesn't (based on fact, no just good guessing). The fact you are getting conversions already is definitely a good sign!
Might be worth going back through any tutorials like those posted before, there's loads on here. Probably seems like a step backwards but would be well worth it.
so far I have about 100 clicks per banner I figure if it isnt converting by now, it should kill it. So I paused my only banner without a conversion (1098310091) and I am try a different version of the best banner.
I have also basically decided that I am too impatient and bumped my budget up to $350 a day. I should be able to get this profitable in just a few days if I do it right.
Traffic is really moving now and that is great.
Which do I cut first? placements or banners? What about when they are operating as a pair?
After mulling over my data I saw that I did something wrong with how I set up my campaign. Im going to have to rebuilt it and submit it again (essentially wasting time and money)
That is how the ball bounces.
Im back! I resubmitted the campaign on Sunday, it was approved, and ran most of Monday with some reasonable success. I have attached the stats in this spread sheet.
I did about 45 banners with 3 ad copies, 3 designs and 5 model images. I think I optimized this campaign too fast, because Im on day two and things are tanking.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
OK bud - finished looking over all the stats - which btw are neatly compiled which makes them easy to analyze so thanks for that! Here are some thoughts...
1)Thanks for the insight on how to use iMobiTrax to show granular data! I'll inform other users on how to do that to get more out of the tool.
2)Regarding split-testing: A split-test of a bunch of candidates need to be executed at the same time and all candidates need to be exposed to the same conditions. In other words, all other things must stay the same except for the variable being tested. For example you can't run lander 1 on Monday and compare those stats to those for lander 2 ran on Tuesday and conclude anything, because for all we know conversion rates may be better on Monday in general; another thing is that if you're receiving traffic from multiple placements then lander 1 may have received more traffic from some placements than others compared to lander 2. The best way to ensure that each candidate is subject to the same conditions is to rotate them equally using a tracker.
Also - the concept of "beating the control" is important as well. This usually only applies to landers and offers because typically your end goal would be to run one best offer and one best lander (there are good reasons to run more than one in some cases but that's a topic for another day). In each round of testing, you would check the split-test calculator every so often, and cut candidates that have a "probability of being best" of under 10% when compared to the "current-best" candidate (i.e. "current-best" doesn't mean it's actually the best! It just means it's the most promising candidate at that particular moment in time so we use it to compare to the rest of the candidates). You'd keep cutting until you're left with a single winner. Then you start the next round of testing and INCLUDE THE WINNER from the previous round, to try to beat it with your new candidates, and so on. Again, you can't run different landers in the two rounds and compare them - see the previous paragraph.
3)Plugging your offer and lander stats into the split-test calculator, Offer 1 + Blue Toon lander is the best offer+lander combo. But you must have already figured that out judging by how much more stats this combo has gathered compared to the other combos (which means you must have paused the other combos sometime ago). Actually I'm not even sure I should be comparing the combos this way, because one of the combos received so much more traffic than the others. The correct way of doing this is, all 4 combos should have been run simultaneously until the split-test calculator tells you to cut them one by one until you're left with the best combo.
(By the way - if you had used another tracker, you wouldn't have had to compare the 4 combos separately. You could have compared the 2 offers until one won, and then compared the 2 landers until one won, so you'd be making 2 cuts instead of 3. Seems like a small difference but if you were to test more landers and offers things would get out of hand pretty quickly with iMobiTrax - just saying! 
I'll stop bugging you about iMobiTrax now I promise.)
4)I've plugged your ad data into the stats calculator spreadsheet - 4 banners are ready to be cut:
Something I'd highly suggest you spend some time on, would be to look over all your banners to see if you can spot some trends on what's working well. Ideally you should have multiple banners tested per angle, multiple headlines tested per image, and multiple images tested per angle. That way you'd be able to spot trends more easily than if you were to use an image once for example. I'm pretty sure you're already doing this. So now you can formulate some hypotheses, for example this image looks like it's working better, or this angle looks like it's converting well, and basically test variations. e.g. Take a great image and pair it up with all of your best headlines, take a headline that looks like it's doing well and pair it up with all your best images etc. For the new batch of banners - you can add them to testing in either of 2 ways: 1)Wait until your current batch of banners is cut down to only profitable banners (ones that the calculator spreadsheet say to "whitelist"), and then add the new banners to the camp to start a new round of testing (remember to disregard all previous stats from that point onwards) or 2)Start a separate camp to test this new batch of banners PLUS throw in the best banners from the current camp to act as a "control". Be warned though that doing so may whisk half the traffic from your original camp, depending on the traffic source and how you set this up.
Hope I'm not making things more confusing - if I am please let me know and I'll try to put things right.
Amy
I have rotated in more banners, more landing pages, more offers. Sent a lot of traffic today and the campaign is still loosing money.
Im out of ideas...
I tried several angles, several images, several designs for my banners.
I tried 3 or 4 landing pages
I tried 3 or 4 offers.
Rotated them, tried to get this profitable but I just dont see it. I had the smallest losses on the first day of the campaign 
Is this typical?
You need to continue to split-test to improve on each variable.
3-4 landing pages aren't a lot...
3-4 offers aren't a lot...
Several angles, several images, several banners designs - aren't a lot.
This is why I stressed the importance of split-testing by running batches of stuff at the same time, and then using the split-test calculator or the calculator spreadsheet to cut underperforming candidates. That way you can keep trying to beat your control for offer and lander, and also accumulate more and more banners that are profitable.
Use those stats tools to your advantage so that you're cutting the right stuff at the right time. And especially focus on testing offers and banners for now because these are areas that can give you the biggest ROI boosts. (Landers can come later - for now you can use that winning one - for adult everyone's running similar landers and the best ones are performing about the same if I'm not wrong.)
You need to test until you have at least one good angle that you can use to continually churn out new banners to combat banner blindness. The more winning angles you have the better of course.
Again - offer and banner testing should be your priority for now.
Hang in there buddy!
Amy
P.S. Regarding losing more money: It may be day-to-day fluctuations or the aff network / advertiser scrubbing/shaving leads. While I was still doing adult I liked to run 2 of my best offers simultaneously to combat that. Everyday I would briefly look through my stats and if I saw one offer doing better than the other I'd just give it more rotation weight. This way if one of the offers starts plummeting in performance you have something to compare it with and can switch to the other offer immediately. Hope this helps!
Many people here will tell you to keep on testing banners, pages, angles, and whatever. I won't.
Test three angles/banners for 100$ and if you don't get it anywhere close to profitability. Stop. And move on to the next campaign.
If you spend a 100$ and only make 50$ it will be close to impossible to get it in the green, and then still being able to upscale wont be possible as your reach is gone. You would need to get at least to +80$ in order to make it work.
Many (new) affiliates focus to hard on the testing and too little on the upscaling. You can test your ass off and increase performance with 5%-10% or you can test multiple offers with an easy set up, and cut your losses when you see its not working. Then BOOM the ones hunderd fold that are working.
Have a very easy set of rules and testing strategy that you can execute rapidly so that you can test many offers and many traffic sources. Then focus on the "winners" and upscale them as fast as possible before the campaign performance dies out. If you spend 100$ and make 130$, start adding zeros A-S-A-P. Timing is everything.
Originally Posted by cbrughmans
When someone's first starting out it's a good idea to stick with 1 campaign as a learning experience.
However, that learning experience has to end at some point. When you're confident enough in how to create landers/banners/angles then it's time to begin creating efficient systems. Shift your focus as sbrughmans says and create rules on creating and killing campaigns. You'll be creating new landers/banners/angles while doing all of this, but at the same time you'll be increasing your reach and ability to scale.
Moving to another vertical is always an option, yes. But when it comes to trying to crack a vertical - adult, antivirus, sweeps, etc. - there's no way around having to mass-test offers and angles.
If someone was testing an app that may be gone tomorrow, then yes, I would agree that after a reasonably best attempt and several angles, it may be best to move on if they don't see any promise.
However, for a big vertical like adult, telling someone to give up after testing several landers and banners is NOT doing them any favors.
Having said that - at the end of the day, everyone will find their way eventually. There's no telling whether the next vertical you try will be easier or harder for you to profit. Some people are just better at making certain verticals work. Adult isn't the easiest game in town, so if my buddy the OP decides to explore other verticals he has my blessings and he knows this from our many conversations on skype. Not that he needs anyone's blessings.
Amy
Originally Posted by cbrughmans
I dig this but it assumes that you can make pretty decent landers and banners from the go. Is this where it becomes a numbers game and you test 10 campaigns each with just a handful of angles banners landing pages and offers then cross your fingers? That is cool but it feels a bit like a shot in the dark when you could (potential) tweak a campaign into winning. But you are saying that once you do that scaling becomes infinitely more difficult ?
Maybe you thought I had given up, but I will never give up.
Im back with a slightly different plan and strategy.
What I am doing this time is setting up goals before I build my campaign.
I have decided to test small with 5 banners, 1 landing page and 1 offer.
Im using a good converting landing page, and a top converting offer.
I am using Vortex's calculator to understand what goals I need to hit with my first surge of traffic. I will be spending $75 over 24 hours for a total of 500 clicks @ 0.15 each (approximate).
That's the spirit! We're in similar boat.
Each attempt brings an added layer of maturity to our skills/experience... at some point it's enough to tip in our favor; then you step on the gas.
Rooting for ya.
Being the first time that I have done it this way, my numbers were off a bit.
I started this campaign on the 19th I am day parting since no tests I have ever ran on Traffic Junky give me decent conversions over night, I am not running ads at all for about 5 hours a day.
I started with 5 banners, 1 landing page, and 1 offer... the offer converts about 7% of the traffic that gets to it. The landing page has about a 20% ctr, not the worst I guess. But these variables are not what I am testing right now, they are ok enough to let me test banners.
day 1 I had about 18k impressions per banner and a total spend of about $27 and 4 conversions.
Nothing really, not a thing to report on.
day 2 was a bit different... I started getting close to 50K impressions so I started checking the banners in the calculator and I had a few banners with no conversions, the calculator said
KILL so that is what i did. While I was at it, I turned on 2 banners one that was similar to the top performing banner and one that was more or less random.
day 3 is today, I was approaching 75k impressions so I checked the banners again in the calculator and even some with conversions, were showing up as kill. so That is exactly what i did, and in the process turned on 2 more banners that were similar to the top performing banners.
So, Im just running a few banners at a time, nothing great yet, and definitely not what I expected.
Right now, I have spent about $175 and my revenue of $100 so Im down $75 in a few days.
My concern is that Im going to hit banner blindness before I know anything, is there anyone with some experience in adult that can speak for or against this?
After mulling over my stats I killed this campaign.
My offer wasnt converting as well as I had hoped and that was the reason this campaign flopped.
In better news, I have made progress with understanding my metrics and how to use them to my advantage.
where can i get this spreadsheat?
Originally Posted by hangman
This is probably the spread sheet that you are looking for.
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...Banners-Part-2
After taking a lot of time off and thinking about what I did wrong in 2015 I'm back in 2016 with some fresh ideas.
I know one of my biggest mistakes of 2015 was trying to match the traffic to my offer. I had a small handful of offers that I was focusing on and I would just build a campaign for them over and over. Same geo, same placement, I moved sites around a little bit not much.
I don't know what I was expecting, but this is what has happened to me. Working in an echo chamber not getting feedback from people with experience.
For 2016 'different' is my motto , I know I will get this done.
For this campaign that I am running now, I have the same offers, the same geo and the same sites.... I did notice however that NTVa rarely has dating offers. And if it does, they do not hold that placement long. I spotted another placement where all of the ads seem to be dating.
I found some nice looking banners, got some good milf dating offers and I'm split testing landing pages.
I set this up for $100 a day. Since it is an odd placement I put in some impression capping at an odd 2/12. I figure twice a session is a decent cap.
So far I got a few conversions but Im down about 60% so far with a $45 ad spend.
I let this campaign with the new placement run for several days.
I had to play with the bids to get the volume where I wanted, but Im getting clicks around 4 cents.
This is an in video placement, so there is little intent with this traffic. But as I stated in a previous thread this is where I saw a lot of dating being promoted.
Today Im at right around 5000 clicks and 19 conversions.
These conversions are 3.75 each and my average cpc is 0.042.
I have spent $208.73 and my gross is $71.25 so I am sharply negative.
Im ok with this, I see that this just wasn't working out for me.
Im not ok feeling like I do not make progress or learn anything from my failing campaigns. I mentioned that in another thread of mine. But now, Im going to ask the community, what can I learn from this?
Im determined to make 2016 different.
Originally Posted by oneano
Take your best converting lander and look through the data to see if there are any profit pockets you can identify. The OS, OS version, device type, hour of day, ect..
Also, get back into spy mode and take a look at that placement. Document the banners you see and what they are promoting at each session depth. Example:
Impression 1 - Banner X - Lander X - Offer X
Impression 2 - Banner Y - Lander X - Offer Y
Impression 3 - Banner X - Lander Y - Offer X
Impression 4 - You
Impression 5 - You
Impression 6 - Banner Z - Lander Z - Offer - X
That way you'll know what place in the ad chain you're in and who you're up against. Rip some of those pages if you haven't already and split test them against yours. If you're not running the same offer they are, split test their offer against yours. If it's the same offer, split test different networks together or attempt to test the offer directly.
You're making sales, so obviously something is going right. Now it's just a numbers game to get into the green. Keep at it bro, you'll get it.
Originally Posted by integrity
I have some questions though.
Are you saying that since I am getting conversions that this placement has potential?
I cannot imagine that it is as simple as just split testing more, but maybe you are right. So, when do I stop split testing? Or should I never stop and do what I can to own the placement?
You mention pockets of profit, and I like the idea of breaking it down by os, etc. But with less than 25 conversions total is that really enough to make a decision on what is going to work?
Originally Posted by oneano
Think back button redirect, additional offers in the flow, or other sneaky techniques. I've had campaigns lose money on the front end but get into the black after incorporating stuff like this.
After a lot of looking at this campaign I still dont know what direction to go, but I have to do something.
I put my numbers into ad calc (http://adcalc.net/) and played around some.
If I could get a bit better LP CTR and a bit better conversion rate I still think I would be pretty far from profits.
I would need a conversion rate at 0.04 and it is 0.01 today
I would need an lp ctr that was a 0.1 and it is a 0.07 today
Are these types of improvements possible? That seems like a lot of testing and waiting, in my naive mind.
EDIT: I overlooked ctr, one particular banner converted three times better than the other banners. But had a CTR three times lower.
After playing with this placement a bit, I didnt see a way to make money from it.
So I moved to another placement, ran it for a day, I was down about 50% but I think there is promise... so I made some variations of the banners and landing pages and I am testing them out over the weekend.
I have thrown the towel in for a while.
After looking at my spend for 2015 I am over 10K for the year. All of that is loss.
Im not able to determine what I am doing wrong, so I need to stop before I go broke.
Im rolling over to break old habits and do something new.
I changed demographics. I changed tracking and I am working with a new cpa network.
I will be working with the same traffic source.
Originally Posted by oneano
Originally Posted by matuloo
This is something that I get caught up in. I get confused, I get disappointed. I am told that clicks should be 8 cents, but it doesn't seem possible. Not with TJ traffic and NTVa ... Even my footer placements that I am trying are getting 9 cents.
n
To make it more difficult is my conversions ... I would expect 10% for a hot offfer.. and they are more like 1% or 2% ... no way I can make money in cpa with a 2% conversion rate! My payout is $2.55 I would need a 10% conversion rate and a 50% landing page ctr to break even at 12 cents a click.
I dont understand how people do it. Now, of course, I can make some adjustments, but those optimizations are making more from what works right? This just doesnt seem to be working. I do not know what sort of adjustments to the campaign make a 1% conversion rate 10% ... I can keep split testing banners to get cheaper clicks, but that takes time. I can keep split testing landing pages for a 50% ctr... but I have never seen a 50% ctr on traffic junky, so Im not optimistic about that.
Am I doing something wrong? Do I come off as negative? Im not negative, I just do not understand, how these pieces fit together and I am extremely frustrated with all of it.
I know that it is possible, but I am also stuck on the idea that I am doing it wrong... and since I have never gotten it right, I have a lot of data to back that up.
Looking for advice 
Thanks
Been following this campaign and about to start a follow along of my own.
In the 6 months or so I have been doing this, I don't see how you can get 8 cents for an NTVA spot of Traffic Junky. I usually stay on NTVB spots and my cost is typically anywhere between 12-16 cents.
Typically my CTRs are anywhere between .25-.3% on this spot over a large data sample, I don't think you can really do much better on this spot unless you some some sort of "chat style" banner. If someone thinks otherwise please let me know (maybe my banners arent as good as they should be).
For example I am looking at Redtube's NTVA bids at the moment and the top 3 spots (70% of the traffic) bids are 0.65, 0.65, and 0.63. To get down to 8 cents per click you would need like a CTR of like .75% which I doubt is sustainable.
I would love to hear other people's thoughts on this.
Edit: I'm assuming you are targeting US traffic for this pricing.
I had the privilege of spending a lot of time chatting with caurmen while at AWA last month - and how to make adult work was one of the things we talked about. Below are some of the takeaways from our exchange. (Note: I hope I haven't misinterpreted anything he said - if I have I apologize in advance and assume all responsibility for any inaccuracies. Thank-you. )
1)Instead of going broad, go niche by promoting niche offers to niche placements/categories.
2)Alternatively (or if you can't find a niche offer for a specific niche), target niche placement/categories with banners etc. customized for those niches, but send all the traffic from all niches to a big generic offer like adult friend finder. Because a site like AFF has such a huge user database, no matter what niche you may be promoting, chances are there will be members in the database for that niche.
3)LGBT - especially the "L" (lesbians) and the "B" (bisexuals). These segments are underserved and gay people typically have higher income (for upgrading to paid subscriptions etc.)
Generally speaking, when you go niche your audience size will shrink, but conversion rates will increase. As smaller affiliates competing with bigger affiliates and product owners and brand advertisers, we can pick up smaller scraps (i.e. aim for smaller pockets of profits) that are overlooked.
Finch wrote a mean post about margins in adult:
http://finchsells.com/2014/06/23/dude-wheres-my-margin/
He also suggested promoting revshare offers which in the long run will generate more profits:
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...-with-Revshare
I haven't done adult in a long time. Adult dating was the vertical I started AM in and I felt like I was chucked in the deep end from the very beginning. YMMV, but I definitely found other verticals to be easier.
Lastly - one more suggestion (this one is from me): Adult dating isn't the only type of offer that will convert for adult traffic. Stuff like adult video subscriptions and male enhancement products can work quite well. Many new affiliates have the common problem of wanting to jump from thing to thing too often, but I think you're way past that point, so trying new things like you've decided to do, or at least try a different approach to the same thing you've been doing, would be a great idea.
Amy
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