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My campaign setup checklist (10)

08-15-2015 04:42 AM #1 egorpe (Member)
My campaign setup checklist

While setting up my few first campaigns for the follow along here I came up with a following checklist to follow.

I (still) have a day job so Monday-Friday time is very limited and I need clear tasks to complete ASAP in the few hours that I have. I created this checklist so I don't have to think about what to do and just follow the steps and set up that campaigns. It's been designed for Decisive and sub $1 payouts, so adjust the Smart CPM and daily spend accordingly.

Hopefully it will be useful for someone else. Fell free to suggest changes and improvements.

Pre-conditions: offer and traffic source are selected, only one creative size is used

Milestone 1: Research product

Use similarweb.com and record the target demographics, traffic sources and overall traffic
Use alexa.com and record the target demographics, traffic sources and overall traffic
Use compete.com and record the target demographics, traffic sources and overall traffic
Use sitedossier.com, ipinfo.io and builtwith.com to find the hosting location, domains in the IP range neighbourhood and technology
Use semrush.com to find their AdWords ads (if any), top competitor domains and top ranking keywords
Use ahrefs.com to find their top competitor domain, top ranking keywords and top domains that are direct linking to them
Follow the conversion path (download app, sign up for a service).
Check if the offer is direct or brokered. Find out the actual supplier.
Check the offer on OfferVault for a higher payout (for future scaling)
Using all of the above, wild guess the potential customer avatar (sex, age, location and timezone, occupation, income, problems they have that offer solves)
Search Google for product reviews and testimonials. Write down positive and negative qualities that stand out.
Find one or more backup offers to switch the traffic over in case of offer caps or shutdown

Milestone 2: Competitor research (using proxy in target country)

Wild guess a few keywords that potential customer may be using (or use ones found in milestone one)
Use wild guessed keyword above and product name keywords to search Google images for the creatives
Save all creatives that are directly related to the offer and are not obviously bad or non-compliant
Download all offer related creatives for the affiliate network
For each of the above creative, use reverse image search to find and record places where this creative appears
Click on found banners and find if the offer is direct linked or a landing page is present. Notice if emails are collected in between by an affiliate.
Scrape and save landing pages that aren’t obviously bad or non-compliant

Milestone 3: Creating angles (minimum 2, maximum 4)

Follow caurmen’s fifteen step angle generation checklist to create an angle(s)
Use the customer avatar from the milestone one to create an angle (talk to the customer's wants and emotions)
Steal verbatim or steal and adapt the competitor’s angle from the milestone two
Write down all angles but pick only one (that makes sense or at random if stuck)

Milestone 4: Banners (minimum 4, maximum 8)

Pick up at least one banner from the creatives provided with the offer
Pick up one or more competitor banners (if any)
Translate the above creatives to the target language if necessary
Write copy and pen-draw a static banner using an angle from milestone three
Create one static banner using the above
Write copy and pen-draw a two frame animated banner using an angle from milestone three
Create one animated banner using the above
Repeat the above steps until minimum 4 and maximum 8 banners are obtained with al least one original banner among them

Milestone 5: Landing pages (minimum 2, maximum 4)

Note: skip in case of direct linking

Pick up one or more competitor landing page(s) (if it makes sense)
Translate the landing page to the target language (if applicable)
Replicate the selected landing page(s)
Register a Google Tag Manager and add to the landing page
Add Google Analytics tag
Add Piwik Analytics tag
Add Google AdWords Retargeting tag
Add Facebook Audience tag
Add traffic source retargeting tag (if applicable, could be a different traffic source from the one the offer will run on)
Test all the tags
Implement back button hijack on a landing page (if applicable)
Write a copy for a landing page using an angle from the milestone three
Pen-draw a sketch of a landing page
Implements landing page in HTML/CSS
Register a Google Tag Manager and add to the landing page
Add Google Analytics tag
Add Piwik Analytics tag
Add Google AdWords Retargeting tag
Add Facebook Audience tag
Add traffic source retargeting tag (if applicable, could be a different traffic source from the one the offer will run on)
Test all the tags
Implement back button hijack on a landing page (if applicable)
Test landing page on a real device
Repeat the above steps until minimum 2 and maximum 4 landing pages are created with al least one original landing page among them

Milestone 6: Testing and tracking

Register a traffic source in Volluum (if not already registered)
Set up conversion pixel for a traffic source in Voluum (if not using postback)
Set up traffic source tracking variables in Voluum (if not using template). Pay attention to the variables that track creatives (banners)
Add an affiliate network to Voluum (if not already added)
Set up global postback for an affiliate network (if supported by affiliate network and Voluum)
Set up an offer in Voluum (manual payout if postback is unavailable and auto otherwise)
Register a Voluum conversion postback in the affiliate network
Set up each landing page for an offer in Voluum. Make sure all necessary variables (like IP, geo, ISP, etc) are passed to the landing page.
Set up campaign in Voluum (set redirect to 302, geo targeting and average CPM or auto if the traffic source is able to pass costs to the tracker)
Set up pixel or postback URL to the traffic source to pass the conversion from Voluum to the traffic source
Register all landing pages or use a direct links with equal weight
Using a proxy in a target country, paste the offer URL to the browser on target device and test a clickthrough to the landing page and an offer

Milestone 7: Traffic source setup

Create a campaign using all banners targeting WiFi and App traffic, link to tracking link
Bid “Smart CPM” with a target CPA goal of 1.5 of offer payout and daily spend $8-$16
Set up conversion postback of pixel from Voluum (if applicable)
Create a campaign using all banners targeting WiFi and Site traffic, link to tracking link
Bid “Smart CPM” with a target CPA goal of 1.5 of offer payout and daily spend $8-$16
Set up conversion postback of pixel from Voluum (if applicable)
Create a campaign using all banners targeting Mobile and App traffic, link to tracking link
Bid “Smart CPM” with a target CPA goal of 1.5 of offer payout and daily spend $8-$16
Set up conversion postback of pixel from Voluum (if applicable)
Create a campaign using all banners targeting Mobile and Site traffic, link to tracking link
Bid “Smart CPM” with a target CPA goal of 1.5 of offer payout and daily spend $8-$16
Set up conversion postback of pixel from Voluum (if applicable)
Test all campaigns with geo-targeted proxy using target device
Wait for approval
Unpause campaigns and let them run

08-15-2015 05:30 AM #2 kowisoft (Member)

Wow..... this is a hell of a checklist. Brilliant...

One question though: Especially in the research phase, have you purchased access to all these services?

08-15-2015 05:56 AM #3 egorpe (Member)

Originally Posted by kowisoft

Especially in the research phase, have you purchased access to all these services?

Nope. I use free tier for now. It's enough to get an overview.

Like today I researched sweepstakes and got million ideas just from analysing one offer.

One thing, for example, that came out is "watch free movies" sites are a biggest source of traffic for "online lottery".

Why? The light bulb went on that the target group is people who want something for nothing!

So, to get sweeps in Australia right, I know now that I need to use avatar of an average Aussie housing commission dude who is on Centrelink payments, doesn't work but have latest iPhone to keep him busy between beers because he's bored out of his mind.

The whole thing came just from using free tier of simlarweb.com on offer site and a few sites that are top traffic sources for the offer site.

PS. If you do hardcore SEO, Ahrefs subscription is a must. If you do SEO and AdWords PPC, SemRush subscription is a must. In my opinion.

08-15-2015 07:04 AM #4 kowisoft (Member)

Cool, thanks for your answer. I also really appreciate your willingness to share your findings

08-17-2015 06:42 AM #5 egor (AMC Alumnus)

Hi! I see you add Google analytics, piwik, AdWords, Facebook audience tags. How do you monetize retargetting? Do you do anything with that data? Also I think all these tags *might* slow down lander by quite a lot, have you tested speed on pingdom?

Great post! "Checklist guide to AM"

08-19-2015 11:15 AM #6 egorpe (Member)

Originally Posted by egor

It will definitely slow things up even though Google Tag Manager uses asynchronous loading but data is priceless.

I add Piwik to test against Google Analytics just as a habit from good old SEO days.

Why Analytics? Let's say, some pop traffic source won't tell you the target URL, just give the ID but they do register as referrals in Google Analytics so you'll know.

This is only one type of data you get.

I also want to know things like common screen sizes of mobile phones in the country I am targeting and pull some demographics data as well.

At the moment I do not monetise retargeting. Focus is on making one thing work first and then scale and squeeze more dollars from each visit.

Why retargeting? Because you pay ten time less on AdWords display and Facebook. Simple as that.

08-19-2015 12:58 PM #7 caurmen (Administrator)

This is a GREAT idea.

Checklists are pretty much a superpower. Every study of their use I've seen has shown close-to-unbelievable productivity improvements just from assembling them and using them regularly.

And this one's really thorough. Nice one!

08-22-2015 12:45 PM #8 lagartin (Member)

Thank you, adding this to bookmarks

03-04-2017 03:00 AM #9 nzbryant (AMC Alumnus)

egorpe, that's a great list. It does my head in a bit though - if one went through ALL those checks for every campaign, one would never launch. I think there is a lot to be said for taking action and risk taking, else one gets analysis paralysis and has no real data to go off.

08-12-2021 08:45 PM #10 gringotts (Member)

Thank you, this is gold.

This is also good if you want to outsource your business or build a team, just give checklist to your freelance/employer.

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