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Conquering Mobile Offers - The Journey of An Aspiring Entrepreneur (11)

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Hi arslan! I'm impressed by how organized you are. Great start of a follow-along with the amount of detail you go into.

Some thoughts...

The 2x payout rule of thumb is quite good enough. I'd set confidence to 50% for now because nothing's converting so you can't cut without being unfair to placements anyways, so may as well be really aggressive in the cutting and hopefully cut down on testing costs. Once you have a profitable banners + offer combo you could then re-test some/all of the placements you blacklisted from before - to give them a fair chance to shine.

Also, cutting by CTR may not be a good idea, simply because CR is ultimately what you're wanting to maximize, and you can't estimate CR based on CTR (often you'll see low-CTR ads outperform high-CTR ones in CR). At this point in time, you don't know why it is that you're not getting conversions. It could be your tracking, your banners, the offer, or the placements. You're already cutting placements. As for tracking - make sure that was set up correctly - perhaps try triggering a conversion yourself by downloading and installing the apps, or ask your AM to trigger one for you by giving them your campaign tracker link. Beyond these, it will come down to either your offer or your banners. I'd say try more angles and graphics (AFAIK graphics are extremely important when it comes to promoting game apps). Make the graphics more enticing (there are at least a couple of tutorials on how to do that). I don't know what the pros would suggest, but for a low payout app install if I don't get conversions after say $10-20 in spend I'd write off that angle (unless there was a bad placement or two that was eating up all the budget); then if none of the 3-5 best angles I could come up with showed any promise I would try another offer altogether.

Will attempt to answer your questions below...

As was mentioned before, you can't compare/cut anything based on CTR - CR would be the key metric to use here.

Again, the focus should be on maximizing CR, not CTR. Having said that, if your banner CTR is low, it would be good to try and figure out why. Typically a visitor's attention will be attracted by something on your banner - a power word, animation, an eye-catching image, etc. - after which they'll then proceed to "read" your banner text (more like rest their eyes on it for a second), and then if the text is compelling enough they'll then click on the ad. So in summary, high CTR = eye-catching image/design + persuasive text. And if your banners tell the same story as the offer page (and also your lander page if you're not direct-linking), and/or your banners do a good job at pre-selling the visitor, these should positively influence the CR as well.

Click loss is natural, and what's "normal" or "typical" will vary from network to network. I'll need to dig into my go2mobi stats to find out. How much clickloss are YOU experiencing?

I'm far from being an expert on the topic, but what I personally look for in a good app to promote is an upwards-trending graph, with the upwards trend having started recently (the more recent the better). The longer an app has been running, and the more times it's been installed, the more saturated it will be (i.e. chances are some of your visitors will already have installed it), and the longer your competition will have had to optimize his creatives and targetting (which will make them harder to compete with), not to mention higher payouts.

Known as dayparting, knowing which times of day / days of week the offer converts the best will enable you to pause traffic during hours when CRs are too low to make profits. The longer you collect data for before implementing dayparting, the more accurate your decisions will be.

Since profits = revenue - costs, CPM is only one side of the equation. What you need to find out is how well a particular traffic source / exchange / placement is converting at the bid you're getting the traffic for. General speaking (and there are of course exceptions!) the higher-quality traffic will cost more because people are willing to bid higher for it after seeing how well it converts, and the opposite is true as well.

I don't have very extensive experience with spying on mobile banners, but here's the best thread I know of on the topic - hope it will help you: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ide-for-Mobile

I don't think duplicate conversions will be paid for, best to check with your AM.


Thanks for a great follow-along! Will be checking back for updates.


Amy

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Looks great arslan, looking forward to following your progress, good luck! Should be running my first campaign soon!

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INTRO

Hello,

Sorry for a delayed response! The CoK campaign from the aff network is paused (and I couldn't find the same offer from another aff networks!) so I need to explore another offers (Collected some offers from some aff networks to be considered). The creatives approval from GOW also takes time and I need to make sure some technical things are working alright. I am also doing a daily job!

THE CAMPAIGNS

GAME OF WAR

Spend for the day 2: $51.83
Revenue: 0
ROI: -100%

Geo: ID
Testing: +1 angle (leadership) and testing the same offer from another affiliate network (50/50 distribution)

So I run the campaign at a different country (ID) and using the native language copy on my banners and expecting A SINGLE conversion at the end which is…. Not happening. I thought 1 conversion is a piece of cake! Expectation kills brother.. Gotta do more testing soon!

[BANNERS]
*all banners are GIF with button

QUESTIONS

1. I spotted 7 pubs that absorbed 56% of my campaign cost and not converting. Moreover the top 2 of those experienced the same poor performance in another country as well. Is this legit enough to blacklisted the 2 pubs for my future campaign? FYR, none of my campaigns has a single conversion..
2. Should I blacklist unknown (most of them are features) handsets for mobile app installs verticals? My stats shows 30% of my campaign cost was absorbed by unknown (feature most likely) handsets
3. Does feature phones works on mobile app install, sweepstakes, and pin submits verticals?
4. What are the needed technical skills to create highly converting landers? I am thinking to create some landers for my next campaigns (probably for Utility apps/pin submits/sweepstakes) and I am wondering which one is the best options between hiring a freelancer vs acquiring a partner that specialising on technical stuff (creating banners and landers) for this journey. Currently, I made all the creatives and it took quite some time

@VORTEX Hi Amy, thank you for elaborating the answers! I really appreciate it
Regarding the click loss, this pict may give you some clues. What do you think about this?

Your accentuation on conversion rate rather than CTR is an eye-opening. Even though CTR is the gate of conversion funnel, it shouldn't be the major variable to determine what's working or not working.

INSIGHTS

• I suspect different verticals has different standard of CPM. So benchmarking from a single figures on ad planner could be misleading
• Using dynamic banner could doubling your CTR

Current Tasks

• I am going to stop advertising GoW offer and I will handpick some offers to be tested soon! Any sub-category specific (Games/Dating/Utilities/etc) in mobile app install that you could suggest to me?
• After evaluating my AM journey in the past 1-2 months, it seems that I read too much (Learning new things is so addictive!) which leads to less testing. So I create recurring task calendar (with monthly reward) and targeting launching new campaigns twice a week!

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It is strange that you still haven't made a single conversion.

Before doing anything else, could you go over your tracking setup again just to make sure everything's correct?

Also, look at your affiliate network stats to make sure there are in fact no conversions (and not because you've set up postback incorrectly).

Then, try to browse to your tracking link and download and install one of those apps, to see whether you can successfully trigger a conversion (use a VPN).

If that doesn't work, ask your AM to trigger a conversion for you (using your tracker link).

Just to get that possibility out of the way. It would suck so bad if after all that creativity and effort and spend you find that it's because of a problem with your setup.


Amy

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Arslan,

Wow pretty well organized.

A little word of advice - If you spent that much with 0 conversions, and if you really had set everything up correctly (and had checked your affiliate network stats to make sure you really have 0 conversions) - pause it and move on I say.

Games are a little bit harder to conquer so do not feel down because of the lack of conversions. Try to hit your AM back up and ask for more easy going offers to learn the ropes!

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@Vortex

I already initially tested (Click, Download, and Install) the offer using Voluum tracking link and it worked alright (both aff networks). Would it be resulting the same if the offer testing is either done by me or AM? Anw, appannie shows stagnant graph, maybe the app is saturated...

@Adsflo

Thanks man!
Yes, I already get some suggested offers and collected some offers to be tested!

Does anyone know other tools/Technique (such as appannie) to show the potentitality of particular apps for mobile app install verticals?

Appreciate your prompt reply!

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Nope - as long as a conversion is triggered (by anyone) it proves that the setup is correct. I'm with adsflo on his advice regarding moving on - that is, unless you want to spend time and money to crack the gaming vertical. Unfortunately I have zero experience with gaming so won't be of much help. Was hoping someone with experience would chime-in. You may want to read some of the forum posts relevant to the gaming niche - guides, follow-alongs etc. - if you want to conquer this vertical. But testing other offers like you're planning to do would be great as well!


Amy

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A single conversion finally emerged!

This is quite strange. My GoW campaign had been stopped at August 4th but the conversion appeared at August 7th!

At least, I can tick the pessimistic goal and moving on to another offers/vertical
Mobile app install vertical seems tough, will be exploring it later I guess..
The symptoms: I have been pulling some offers lately (based on its availability at multiple networks, low payout, and availablity in my targeted countries) and when I analysed it thru appannie, to know its potentiality, most of them are showing either a saturated graphic or unstable historical rank positions at multiple geos.

Maybe to get a profitable campaign at mobile app install vertical, you gotta do it efficiently (having a list of whitelisted/blacklisted pubs) and must be the first mover.

I am thinking to explore pin submits or sweepstakes (as suggested by Caurmen), we'll see!

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Hello, back again!

So, after read several threads, I decided to collaborate with one of my friend who has technical skills for creating landers and banners. So, here we go again..

I tried sweeps at adcash and tried 2 different offer (from the same advertiser)
I use different landers for each different prizes

Spend for the day: $36.76
Revenue: 0
ROI: -100%
Geo: AU
Offer: Mobile free choice ($,1000 Supermarket voucher, iPhone 6, and iPad Air 2) and $1,000 Homeware voucher

Voluum stats vs adcash stats
SM - Model
SM - referrer
SM - Context

I am going to pick SM voucher lander (mobile free choice) as my baseline for improvement because it has the highest click. Even though, the amount of testing cost haven't reached 10 - 15 x of the offer payout, one of the thread here use 1k impressions as a rule of thumbs to make a decision and he seems did okay. Moreover, I have a very tight budget

Actions I took:
1. Blacklist tablet (it absorbs most of my budget. SM - Model)
2. Create more lander's angles. I know the landers are too generic..

Questions
1. I haven't set the adcash postback url for Voluum (I already set the token). Is it okay? I already asked the team regarding my unique postback url a week ago but haven't got any reply
2. The referrer domain (SM - Referrer) shows that "unknown" got the highest visits and clicks, what is this? How to cut this?
3. I spotted my campaign has the highest in online entertainment and web browsing context, how to cut the placement pubs? Is it possible in adcash? when I see edit dashboard, I did not see any options for pubs blacklist (only zone)
4. Voluum and aff network show the same clicks value but the traffic network (adcash) click value is zero. What does it mean?

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Hey there, best of luck moving forward.

Here's my take on the questions you asked.

1. it's okay you don't need it. This also is related to number 4, and why adcash isn't showing any clicks. They don't know because you're not sending the info back to them.
2. Unknown is exactly that, unknown. Can't really cut it, since they don't know which users to cut.
3. not sure
4. see 1.

Since you seem to be having some issues setting up tracking I would check with your affiliate network and make sure your postback is setup correctly there too. Maybe you have some conversions that haven't been sent to Voluum so you're not aware of it.

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...cking+tutorial

Watch that 30 minute video to learn how to setup tracking. I think when I first started out I watched it 3 or 4 times.

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Thank you for the answers mate. I've watched the video. I also checked the aff network stats and there is no conversion

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