3 Months Mobile Challenge Starts Now (40)
Hi Everyone,
Just a quick intro here before I get into the 3 month challenge/goals I've set for myself.
30 y.o based in Sydney, enjoy the finer things in life and working smart (a mindset I'm sure least half the community here shares... why would we be on this platform otherwise!?). Got married early this year and ready to have kids soon, so I'm hoping to achieve great results through affiliate marketing with the right attitude and approach.
Have had a little experience with digital marketing before working for retail businesses with an online presence .. comfortable money but just very frustrating business models to work with (as I'm sure those who are familiar will emphatise). My partner has been very supportive and we are ready for a BIG CHANGE.
ALSO - we'd really like to TRAVEL.
Not aiming for millions, but hoping by April next year, we'd be able to fund a EUROPE or JAPAN trip from AM'ing as a start. Perhaps a reward for the hard work and hours we have put in.
Long story short...
Got referred to STM in Jul/Aug 2015, and successfully launched my first 2 campaigns today! (yes!! took me a while didn't it LOL with all the research and what not!). I'm giving myself 3 months from today to make some great improvements on my skills with:
1. Creating angles & banners
2. Creating Landing pages (and how on earth do you do that well etc!)
3. Optimising campaigns (via blacklisting/whitelisting, research on audience, placements etc)
4. Fully grasping the key metrics to reach +ve ROI.
Most importantly, I want to see some positive ROI (no matter how big or small) in the campaigns I'm running.
And if I don't, I'd know that I haven't yet mastered the above listed skills. And it would be back to basics again.
More on my campaign deets in the next post (to keep intro separate)! 
Feel free to follow along, say hello or drop by to share your own experience or advice for me!
So campaign deets as follows:
Launched 19.10.15 (Monday)
OFFER: UC Browser - Surf it fast | GEO: India | OS: Android 2.3 and up
Both campaigns on same offer launched on Go2Mobi.
Daily budget: $24
Daily budget/placement: $1.16
2 Examples of 8 banners I did:
Reason for 2 campaigns on same offer on Go2Mobi:
1. 1st campaign (using MoPub - 99% in-app)
2. 2nd campaign (using Smaato - mix of in-app and site)
I've split them so that my 1st campaign is leveraging off the in-app traffic, and my 2nd campaign just focusing on site traffic.
Done my inventory checks before launching, so I feel like I made the right decision here to test where my angles + creatives work well.
I could test by splitting the campaigns by wifi vs. cellular since the reporting on go2mobi doesn't offer this insight, but my
Was tough while working on creating these campaigns, especially the part where I had to ensure my postback URLs and campaign URLs were right.
Also learnt that if you DIRECT LINK to offer,
Found it interesting and weird at the same time.
Let me know how all this is sounding - on the right track or soooo wrong?!
I'll update again with my results when the campaign is 24 hours old. 
btw, not attempting landers yet! But if anyone feels STRONGLY about this, please let me know too.
All the best phaeton_mka, I will be following along being a newbie myself down here in Melbourne, Australia. Joined STM mid-Oct so still starting from scratch going through all the guides but mobile seems very interesting so far.
If you're going to the affiliateworldconferences.com/asia/ in Bangkok first week of Dec let me know and we'll catch up for a beer!
Thanks for the post Pauley 
Unfortunately won't be in BKK, but definitely looking fwd to catching up if there's another!
I'm sure you'll benefit heaps from the conference, so all the best!
I'm available on skype as moonandcow if you feel like a chat!
Following along, Mobile is definitely something I'll be doing in the near future and wanna see how things go on for you
Good luck!
Update 20.10.15 (Tuesday)
It's been close to 24 hours since I launched now, and these are my stats.
(2nd campaign was running couple of hours behind the 1st due to approval lag) but you'd notice a huge difference in impressions already (surprisingly for the 2nd campaign with Smaato that I used for site inventory specifically).
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Traffic source: Go2Mobi
Targeting: India, Android 2.3 and up
Offer Payout: $0.58
Network: Appflood
Geo: India
Type: Direct linking
Creative: Mix of 300x250 and 320 x 50 banners
Average stats of 2 campaigns:
Ave Spent: $51.34
CTR: 0.50% (brought down by low CTR on 2nd campaign)
Conversions: 0
Revenue: $0
ROI: -100%
Next Steps:
Not looking good - might have to look at 'chopping and peeling' again. And perhaps pausing my 2nd campaign.
Might drill down to the placements to see where I'm getting most clicks, and re-creating banners to 'speak' to these audience who seem to be showing interest by clicking. Have also blacklisted these campaigns that have exceeded 3x payout with 0 clicks (since i've got 0 conversions anyway, i'm going by clicks!) by filtering:
1)placements
2)costs
Am also trying to stall the landing page step as long as I can as a newbie and really trying to get direct linking to work for now since this is a straightforward app install offer. May need to get myself an Android phone too, perhaps no conversions from a hiccup somewhere.
Any ideas where I'm going wrong here?
Or where I could shift my focus to?
Thanks guys!
So it seems like I might have to double check if my conversion trackings were set up correctly as I came across another follow-along that experienced a similar issue.
Just in the process of checking this with go2mobi, reached out to Grandin and she/he was kind enough to offer me some assistance there (keeping my fingers crossed!).
My appflood (network) AM doesn't seem to be familiar with this at all as I heard your AM can help fire some test conversions for you to make sure all is okay.
Wondering how I could get a more experienced AM....hmmm
Pausing my campaigns until I sort this out.
Conversion tracking aside, why did you pick this offer? Just wondering about the reasoning and research there - picking a good offer is the most important start to a campaign.
That aside, I think lot of the traffic coming out of India on DSPs is pretty poor in the context of performance - it may be better to jump to another offer in this case in a geo where things tend to be a bit more reliable.
Are the banners in the second post actual banners from the campaign? Asking because the larger banner is in Indonesian, so maybe the wrong banner was uploaded here or there was a language mixup with Hindi.
Further to Zeno's advice about research and offer selection, according to a recent article this product already has a 50% share of the mobile market in the geo for the offer, so it seems to be too late in the game for new affiliates to enter.
Congratulations on launching your first campaigns and good luck.
Looks like a good set up structure you have in mind. Only thing that will stop you from getting any valuable results is: "Daily budget/placement: $1.16"
I understand funds are limited and that's OK, you have to start somewhere. But I would rather cut back the amount of placements (and work) and hence have a higher budget/placement, which will eventually lead to valuable results and insights, than having a ton of results with 1$ spend and 1.2$ made (probably all lucky shots and not representative results you can base upscaling decisions on)
Originally Posted by zeno
Feel like you have been an amazing support with the random questions I do ask you in my messages to you, and thanks for commenting here.
It feels good that the community here actually do support each other (and not just hear-say)!
To answer your question:
1. Asked my AM (appflood) on top converting offers, this offer was consistently on the top charts
2. Within my budget
3. Has a huge inventory on go2mobi
4. Did not have to wait long or at all for creatives to be approved.
Having said that, I've since reached out to a go2mobi rep Grandin as I mentioned in my post, and it seems that this is a 'tired' (lack of a better word) offer within IN, and looks like I should shift my focus to SEA region (particularly Indonesia and Philippines) for app installs. I'm tempted to try UC browser again in these 2 GEOs, but am afraid it might return with the same results. Another one would be 360 security app.
Originally Posted by vector
Thanks for your comments and well wishes - I need it! ;P
You are absolutely right with your comment on a late entry to this offer (within this geo i targeted) as confirmed by Grandin (go2mobi rep).
I'm really thinking hard on launching the same UC browser offer in ID to see how it goes. (another online article suggested 29% market share there)
Do you think it's still worth a shot?
Thanks again for your insightful feedback Vector!
Hey Christoph,
Very good points you raised!
As this was my first campaign, I followed very closely the advice and tutorials I found on go2mobi and STm (on limiting budget spend to 2-3x payout).
I'm sure your previous experience would have led you to your current strategy of investing more for each placement to get better, more valuable results and insights! I'll definitely keep that in mind!
Thanks so much!
Update 29.10.15 (Thursday)
Am shifting my focus from looking at IN offers to SEA regions and possibly Brazil.
This is based on further research and some guidance from my go2mobi contact.
My questions however on selecting an offer:
1. Would you rule out offers with cap? If not, why? Doesn't this limit your scalability?
2. Could caps potentially suggest conversions are very high = good potential (tho' it could be indicative of advertiser's spend as well)
3. When the rules of the offer indicate something along the lines of 'quality coefficient=<0.65), what does this mean???
Any feedback/thoughts much appreciated.
Hope everyone is having a productive day - i know i am!! (except that I know I wont be able to launch my campaigns yet which frustrates me! the amount of 'homework' to do before launch seems crazy for a beginner anyways...)
Can't believe I actually had my first campaign almost exactly like yours. Same Offer/country/traffic source. What are the chances?
Anyways, if your still interested in the UC browser campaign I have these two banners that are my highest CTR (1.26%). This was from the Mofox exchange. Had 6 conversions ($2.50) on $50 spend. Maybe you can do better. Not doing that install anymore. 
Hey Conexer!
How weird is that huh! It could be the fact that it's just a tired offer as Vector suggested and validated by my go2mobi rep.
But at the very least, you had conversions coming through. I had none (via mopub exchange and smaato)!
how long ago did you run this offer? and thanks for the image references!
Originally Posted by phaeton_mka
Update 05.11.15 (Thursday)
Ok Guys, it seems like I've been away for awhile.
I've actually been doing more research, going through more offers, thought I got a decent offer to work on but got completely thrown off when it was a DDL instead of a direct link app install offer. More on that later...
Where I'm at right now:
1) Back to setting up tracking. I'm still not convinced my tracking is set up right even after going through Zeno's post on this with Appflood numerous times.
I must be confusing myself or thinking it's harder than it really is. Why? Because I tried setting up tracking with Affiliaxe, and my AM asked to replace my aff_sub with source. And I'm like ???? (I just didn't get what she meant!) So I'm still trying to get this straightened out instead of giving up and moving on to another network or back to Appflood since it's 'easier'. Besides once I've got this worked out, I can try the other offers on Affiliaxe.
2) I've taken everyone's advice on board, and have one particular person to thank since I started this follow-along. That's you Vector. Not sure how to tag you on this post, but hopefully you read this. You have shared a lot of valuable insights with me, but I most appreciate your willingness to share and respond to my journey here. It feels awful sometimes thinking you're all alone in this.
ACTIONS TODAY:
1. I have to figure out tracking and my Affiliaxe AM should be online in a couple of hours so I might stay up till late. But I'm going to figure this tracking s*** out.
2. Once above complete, I will look at offers again. (aiming to start doing this tomorrow - Friday)
3. STAY FOCUSED. Stick with go2mobi, appflood/affiliaxe/peerfly* and not 'move around' too much.
*Peerfly does not have many offers for the geos/vertical i'm focusing on which is SEA or LATAM region for mobile app installs under $2 payout. Though I won't be striking out offers with caps, I would much prefer ones that don't have caps.
Also I mentioned earlier about DDL. It says DDL offer on Affiliaxe, some other networks will label this APK? When i saw DDL, i mistook it for direct linking since it also said the conversion point was install app and open app. Was unsure so double checked with my AM to find out it was actually APK, which she tried explaining to me as direct link (which obviously doesn't make sense because it is direct download right??). Feel like I have to educate my AM here (assuming I'm right), but she's incredibly sweet and have been doing her best to guide me.
this is exactly what my Affiliaxe AM asked of me:
[[so you wanna add a global postback?
I can implement it for you.
just one important thing, we can send to the advertiser only aff_sub, so could you send under this parameter the source of your traffic?
example: http://3m56h.voluumtrk2.com/postback?source={aff_sub}&cid={aff_sub5}&payout={p ayout} except that instead of source you should insert the exact name as your system defines]]
Just for everyone's reference, the current postback I had set up was simply "http://3m56h.voluumtrk2.com/postback?&cid={aff_sub5}&payout={payout}". How do I add source in there, and I'm not sure what she means by source here. It's too generic?
If anyone can attempt to clarify this in simple English, that would be amazing! Thank you so much guys!!
I don't think the new offer will work with Go2mobi, due to their compliance rules:
Auto-download APK, direct download, DDL offers
The tracking URL seems to be missing some important information. Will PM you some thoughts.
Hey Vector!
Am binning the APK offer. Go2Mobi also rejected this campaign as I had already set it all up previously.
Update 09.11.15 (Monday)
So it seems like I've gotten quite slack, only updating my thread weekly vs daily now.
And no more excuses saying I'm waiting for approval because:
TRUTH IS I COULD BE WATCHING VIDEOS OR READING MORE ABOUT MOBILE MARKETING.
I got motivated reading this follow-along "Make $100,000.00 USD in 6 Months With Mobile Marketing" follow-along and wishing well for this affiliate as he attempts the world of mobile marketing.
QUICK UPDATES SO FAR:
• Figured out tracking setup on Affiliaxe, and Ilana was amazing and extremely patient with me. It's always hard communicating over emails or skype messaging especially when you're from different cultures. The lingo is different, communicating your issues accurately could be a big challenge but the peeps at Affiliaxe (based in Israel) seem to do great work. People over there work Sundays - Thursdays by the way!
• My AM fired a test conversion and it was successful so knowing that my tracking set up was done right is a huge relief for me.
Peerfly as well seems to offer this service. The guys at Appflood however can't do this, and don't seem as willing to go the extra mile to make sure things are set up right from the get go so... just a heads up there for newbies.
• I've applied for an offer and now awaiting to hear back on banner approvals from advertiser, and campaign approval on go2mobi. Hoping to hear back later this evening. Will stay up again if I have to. I might start diarising hours/days working on this 3 months journey to keep myself in check.
ACTION ITEMS TODAY & TOMORROW
• Launch Affiliaxe campaign (once approved) and start optimising when sufficient data flows through for blacklisting/whitelisting.
On this note, I might need to look up the low cost and high cost carriers to filter out how I can best optimise my campaigns with the different demographic groups. I will also look at split-testing this campaign from the start to WIFI vs MOBILE so I know where I should focus my efforts since wifi traffic is known to be tricky/and has a bad rep?
• Learn how to create landing page even if I'm not yet deploying them. (still confused how that should be set up, I'm with Beyond Hosting and have a VPS service with them) I could upload the lander after creating it on Adobe Muse to the server, and then use
• Scout for another offer (keeping in mind the lessons I've picked up along the way over last 3 weeks). APPLY, REPEAT.
Update 10.11.15 (Tuesday)
Not much progress today, still waiting for approval from advertiser.
Am hoping for approval ASAP, so i can least launch it by thurs/fri at the latest and take advantage of some good click throughs/conversions as we head towards the weekend, so I've listed some action items I could work on while waiting...
QUICK UPDATES:
• Subscribed to Malandarras, filled out the form, and hoping for some direct advice from him there.
• Started to scout for some other offers but very few suitable ones (and many seasoned affiliates have advised to wait instead of jumping on a bad offer)
• Saved 'Breakthrough Advertising' on my phone so I'll aim to finish this by end of week.
• Not yet started on landers
ACTION ITEMS
• LEARN HOW TO CREATE LANDERS!!!!! Stop procrastinating!
• Follow up with AM on approval of offer
• Set up tracking on other aff networks in the meantime so I can quickly launch campaign once/if I have an offer to take up there.
• Sign up to more aff networks
AIM: The above to be completed on Wednesday (if not end of week for items out of my control).
Update 11.11.15 (Wednesday)
A fairly productive day after checking off these items:
• Read half of 'Breakthrough Advertising'. Will highlight key takeaways below.
• Watched videos of how to create landers, and was introduced to Sublime Text Editor and how to use it with Adobe Muse in creating the landing page.
• Browsed other offers on my other aff networks like Furthermobi, Peerfly and Avazu.
ACTION ITEMS:
• Gain a deeper understanding and practise creating landers on my own and familiarising myself with the associated tools required.
• Find out who to register CDN with. Do I go with Beyond Hosting since I already am with them for VPS?
• Summarise and test out my learnings of copywriting on random offers.
• Update thread again when I hear back from AM on banner approvals. (getting a little impatient!)
Key Takeaways from 'Breakthrough Advertising' (also well-summarised by Phillian here)
1. Accepting the innate desires/identifications/beliefs of humans
2. Direct and channel these desires to the product through your headlines
3. Identify the level of awareness your audience have of your product (which will guide the direction/theme of your copy)
In stages of awareness, we have audience who are:
• Completely unaware
• Aware of problem, Unaware of solution and product
• Aware of problem and solution, Unaware of product
• Aware of problem, solution and product
• Completely aware
These different stages will and should determine how our approach to the content and delivery of the ad should be.
And we can use authority, celebrity, sense of urgency, or dramatisation of the problem/solution to capture the attention of our audience.
After further reading of STM forums and articles written by the super affiliates, it seems like networking is one thing that I'm not consistently working on. So in addition to this follow-along, and the 2 affiliates I've added on Skype, I will:
- work on improving my relationships with my AMs (I'm biased and only really chatting more with those who seem more helpful and seem to know what they are doing! but i need to change this mindset and find ways to engage with my AMs keeping in mind they are very busy people!)
- getting acquainted with more affiliates through this channel and exchange ideas/experiences
Just a quick update:
• Got approved on Clickdealer. Looking forward to finding some good offers there.
Any experience in this space please let me know! Thanks and goodnight everyone!
Update 12.11.15 (Thursday)
QUICK UPDATES
• Signed up to Codcademy & did some quick exercises (really fun! Am actually quite familiar with basic HTML but CSS and javascripting was fun!)
• Downloaded Sublime Text and played a little with it (good stuff!)
• Tried to download Adobe Muse TRIAL but not working for some reason. Gonna figure this s*** out!
• Applied for the same offer I was waiting on Affiliaxe on another affiliate network. Awaiting banner approval. *crossing fingers*
• Applied for a new offer on Affiliaxe (but unsure to go ahead as it's a capped offer with only stock creatives to use) but it's a fairly new gaming offer for ID, and has been promoted mostly in Asia.
Too much time has been wasted on waiting for advertiser's approval this week. --.--
Will see how else I can get productive tomorrow.
Night peeps!
Update 13.11.15 (Friday)
QUICK UPDATES
Current CPI/CPA Offers Running:
Offer 1: Hola Launcher
GEO: BR, MX, IN, ID
Payout: $0.18
Traffic: Go2Mobi (MoPub + Smaato)*
Creatives: Custom
Offer 2: Love Dance
GEO: ID
Payout: $0.65
Traffic: Go2Mobi (MoPub + Smaato)*
Creatives: Stock - only stock creatives could be used. Adv doesn't accept custom banners.
*I've split test each offer into 2 campaigns to run on different ad exchanges to test the quality of traffic and speed of conversions.
*As MoPub is 99% in-app traffic, and remember receiving a tip to block wifi and app traffic when testing, so I'm just testing this theory here.
*I'm trying to get as much data as possible from now till the weekend and with 4 campaigns essentially running at $20 each, I'll burn $100 in no time.
Is this a smart way to go about it?
Am trialling offer 2 as my AM recommended it, and honestly I just want to test the gaming circle in ID, and didn't want to spend too much time with creatives. Gaming is ranked #1 in Indonesia followed by Social and Tools so i know there's a huge market for it, just not sure if going with stock creatives is a smart move. But we shall see. Interesting though that Affiliaxe has alot of offers where only stock creatives can be used. What's the logic behind this.
CPI/CPA Offers I'm currently working on:
Offer 3: OLX Buy Sell Online
GEO: ID
Payout: $0.42
Traffic: Go2Mobi (Smaato)
Creatives: Custom
Offer 4: Swift Wifi
GEO: SG, MY, TH, PH, ID
Payout: $0.21
Traffic: Go2Mobi
Offer 5: MakeMyTrip
GEO:IN
Payout: $0.54
Traffic: Go2Mobi
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Even though I've got 3 offers to 'work on', I'm still not sure which to pick because I know I'm not going to run them all.
I just want to be smart with which offers I pick (as it is I'm not 100% sure if the way I'm picking offers are right! more on that below...) and I've got a budget to keep in mind as well. Having said that, I'm using tools like AppAnnie, and spying on images via Google with a VPN to see what other creatives might work in that targeted GEO. I'm also building a really good relationship with my AM at Affiliaxe and she's been extremely helpful with sending me offers that are relevant to my FOCUS (CPI/CPA offers, ideally within LATAM or SEA region with payout under $2). I'll treat this as an exercise, especially after completed half of 'Breakthrough Advertising' and applying the key concepts to my angles/banners.
But hey, if anyone sees something wrong or would like to share their own experiences with BR/MX/ID/IN geos particularly, I'm all ears! It's Friday here, and am tempted to reward myself with a Bond movie - Spectre. Ha!
Update 23.11.15 (Monday)
QUICK UPDATES
• Embarrassed that this post is 10 days late.
•*Was busy brainstorming angles and generating campaigns over the past week but got lazy updating it
• Launched OLX offer. Waiting for banner approvals.
• Optimising HOLA offer with newly created 320x480 banners from top 5 angles of 320x50 banners.
• Attended #MeetTheCEO of Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Would definitely attend these events more regularly.
•*FOCUS & DISCIPLINE is KEY for me here - need to work on it.
• Found out more about go2mobi's native ad inventory, and how it works in general. Youtube is your friend.
• Read go2mobi's blog post that listed top 5 performing Geos specific to each ad exchange.
• In that, Smaato and Mopub being the best exchanges for SEA region. Indonesia ranking #2 on Smaato for utility apps/mobile content etc.
• Scouted for my first possible Indonesian translator via Upwork. (did you know you can test their ability with sample questions first - did that & got some headstart/validation for my campaign)
• My 1st ever conversion happened last Friday. (still feels like a fluke but it happened - thank God! it was getting depressing.)
• Still trying to optimise better, scale better, but i think choosing the right offer is so critical and I have not yet mastered this.
•*Made very silly mistakes of testing different banner sizes on the same campaign initially and WILL NOT BE REPEATING THIS.
• Learning to master the key of clearing my head, focusing on my strategy, refining strategy through masterminding, and feedback from go2mobi team & AMs.
• Most SEA countries are on prepaid mobile plans (except Singapore but is on the rise), compared to countries like Australia.
• Watched Hunger Games. (don't judge - it was f entertaining!) #moviefanatic.
Update 24.11.15 (Tuesday)
What I'm doing today:
• Reorganise storage of image files and campaign data etc
• Have revised banners at the last minute, and that's confusing for AMs who are forwarding it on to the advertisers, so getting organised and not rushing to send banners because you just want to get it done is a good habit.
• Really need to get my hands on a 2nd hand Android phone to start proper spying.
• Connect on Sitescout and decisive to see how I can leverage these 2 other traffic sources.
• Connect again with my other AMs at Appflood, Offer7 and Clickdealer. Been too reliant on my AM at Affiliaxe atm.
• RECAP: How to pick offers (better)?, What offers are right?, What is your pre and post-launch strategy of campaigns?
• DECIDE: How long is a decent period of time to gather data (without blacklisting/whitelisting)? 100k impressions? Or $50 spend in 2 days?
• Borrowed Richard Branson's Losing my Virginity at the library today. Will aim to finish by weekend.
#knowledgeispower
Update 24.11.15 (Tuesday)
It's been a sluggish morning/afternoon but managed to start my day with a workout, decent breakfast, and some readings...
What I'm doing today/Or have already done:
• Read Taiwo's Guide on Beginner Guide to Mastering Mobile CPA - thanks for the share @traveltotokyo
• Joined a Mastermind group on Facebook
• Remember how I mentioned I needed an Android emulator/2nd phone? Downloaded Opera emulator - problem solved!
• Clickdealer has been often referred to as a good network for offers. I'll work on finding an offer there.
• So here's a revised strategy on how I'd pick offers after doing further readings and basing it on my own experience:
HOW TO PICK THE RIGHT OFFERS & LAUNCH CAMPAIGN:
1. Speak to AMs on top converting offers in your target GEO.
Newbies with smaller budgets recommended to work on Tier 2-3 countries for lower spend (e.g. good on utility apps).
2. See if offer is popular across networks or if it has multiple variations (and if possible see current network earnings) on this offer to gauge profitability or scalability.
3. If offer looks good/popular, estimate spend by this rule. If payout is under $1; low payout, spend 10 times (or more) payout per angle.
4. Research which ad exchange is best for your offer/GEO. Either from previous campaigns or talking to traffic source rep etc.
*ID seems to be best on Smaato, and generally has lower CPMs than Mopub. So more impressions for less money. But CTRs are higher on mopub. This still frustrates me because it is suggestive that in-app traffic gives you better engagement?? Either that or clicks are mostly accidental. So in other words i'm throwing away money. Read somewhere that site traffic has higher quality traffic so perhaps i should follow this logic.
5. Test on all traffic, placements if possible over Thurs-Sun (where engagement levels are higher)
Note: Wifi traffic is generally cheaper than cellular traffic (and larger apps convert better on wifi connection), so keep that in mind.
6. Let data simmer, and start blacklisting placements or banners that are spending 2-3times payout with no clicks/conversions.
*To be honest, I've only had 1 conversion after the 3 offers i've tested, but mainly due to my impatience, mix of banner sizes, and not being able to draw a clear conclusion on why campaign isn't working.
**When to start blacklisting - once I've exhausted $100?? or 100k won impressions?? Truth is I still don't know. But common sense tells me that I should start blacklisting when I'm spotting placements or banners that are bombing like some medical placement that was like $300 CPM(??!!?) after half of my daily spend is exhausted. Other than that, let the data continue to simmer.
MY QUESTION TO ALL SUPER AFFILIATES (I'm desperate to know this and since I've not heard back from some people I've contacted...):
What if there are still no conversions after 2 days worth of running campaign, should I just base my cutting back/blacklisting on the lowest CTRs and highest spends on placements that had no clicks? When you have no conversions, how do you know what the next steps are. OR SHOULD I GO BACK TO CHOPPING AND PEELING, brainstorming new angles?? I'm direct-linking utility offers now.
#knowledgeispower #53daysremaining #countdownison
I'm impressed with your detailed post. Keep it up.
Update 27.11.15 (Friday)
Action Items Ticked Off Today:
•*Launched US x'mas offer - CPA (split test to wifi vs cellular campaigns)
•*Am attempting an offer that converts on purchase so I get a feel of how it works
• US market (being tier 1) is extremely expensive to get data. An average CPM of $1.50 - $3. More ex on cellular than on wifi for sure.
•*I was testing with stock creatives to see how each ad size performs.
•*Researched deeper into US market, and top 10 states of active Christians (but that has little relevance to why/how people shop xmas gifts)
•*Created my own creatives for this offer, submited to AM for approval.
• Failed to do today: Research on another offer which I applied for. Not sure if I'm not managing my time well or just squeezing in too much in 1 day.
Originally Posted by phaeton_mka
Since you had no conversions, you have absolutely nothing to base your next decision on and there is no point in optimizing anything, except for the obvious cutting of 0% ctr spots or spots sending bot traffic but that wont help you much anyways.
You might be facing several problems here :
- is the offer even working? Often the networks pause an offer without telling you, maybe you screwed up the link, is the app accessible in the store or maybe there is some problem on the advertisers side. Ask your AM.
- are you bidding high enough or getting the bottom of the barell impressions that nobody else wants? "First" impressions are better pretty much always, sometimes the cheapest traffic simply doesnt want to convert.
- the angle might be simply bad and not working. Same for the banners, maybe they are bad, too misleading, poorly done (tho this isnt usually a proble
... creatives can go wrong in so many ways.- you said you are directlinking, maybe the app simply needs to be ran through a LP.
- maybe you are buying wrong traffic, is it matching the requirements of the offer? Carrier VS wifi, Phone VS Tablet ...
I could go on and on, but Im sure you get the idea. If its been "too long" and you dont see a conversion, there is some problem and you need to detect and correct it. No miracles happen in this business, dont wait for them.
I love real life examples so let me give you some, these are the problems I ran into when doing some new campaigns lately, I couldnt get them to convert or profit until I detected the problem and corrected it :
1. Wrong type of banners - in one particular GEO I couldnt get a PIN submit offer working no matter how hard I was trying. I was picking just the best proven sources, used the best landing pages and only proven banners and still nothing. Just before I gave up on it completely, I used a totally different type of banners (pretty misleading type that almost never works), and started to directlink without an LP and bang, from -60% I took it to +100% ROI, within one day.
2. Wrong type of traffic : I entered a new GEO, picked the desired carrier, took a set of good creatives and LPs ... -90% ROI. I was the highest bidder, traffic quality should have been perfect, but almost no conversions. I felt like Im getting too much trafic, considering I was only targeting one carrier and the GEO wasnt that big. After a closer look, I found our that the carrier also operates as a WIFI provider for that country and I was getting a ton of desktop traffic because I forgot to target just phones. A simple change in targeting solved the problem, I started to get way less traffic but the conversion rate shot up.
There are many problems that can cause low CVR or no conversions at all, find them and then continue
Good luck!
*Note on language used: I used a mix of English and Malay texts because the younger (18-25?) generation is educated and English works for them. The Malay is to target the general masses (typically older or uneducated). My assumption here would be that this offer is more relevant to the young kids and working adults so English works. And because I did feel like my banners were misleading and/or better illustrated on a 320x480 banner, I sent a new batch of banners for approval (still waiting to be approved):
Im looking at your banners now, some of the angles are not gonna work. I did a fair amount of app installs myself, I was pushing the generic battery savers, speed boosters, launchers and browsers and I can tell you first hand that the best angles were related to battery life and speed of the phone, for all the apps
Try ad copies like : Is your phone slow? Speed it up., Battery dies fast? This app will help... somethng along these lines. I also did better with plain banners without any background that just makes the text harder to read. Try different colors but dont use background, border can also help the CTR.Im glad you liked what I had to say, if you have more questions, just ask.
Originally Posted by matuloo
To get the best traffic, set CAP to 1. I like to bid manually, I always want to know what is the top bid and I run at it at least for a while to see whats the best possible performance. The I decrease it to a level that is still profitable enough.
According to my experience, translated banners always outperform english. I tested it in many geos and unless english was the official language, the native texts always worked better. There are exceptions to this, you can run with english banners in India for example, but the english language is actually official language there next to Hindi.
Im looking at your banners now, some of the angles are not gonna work. I did a fair amount of app installs myself, I was pushing the generic battery savers, speed boosters, launchers and browsers and I can tell you first hand that the best angles were related to battery life and speed of the phone, for all the apps
Try ad copies like : Is your phone slow? Speed it up., Battery dies fast? This app will help... somethng along these lines. I also did better with plain banners without any background that just makes the text harder to read. Try different colors but dont use background, border can also help the CTR.The LP gives you an extra chance to convert the surfer, definitely test some. These days you need to be agressive with app installs. you need to play it on the edge and find the fine balance between banned and allowed tactics. Make sure you dont create some long and boring LPs, focus on a short and very clear message. The best is to use an LP that can work with several angles. Lets take the two angles I suggested, battery life and phone speed ... the LP can have a statement like Speed up your phone and make the batter last longer..., know what I mean? I would test the LPs imediately, no need to wait for better angles and banners.
Split wifi and 3g traffic whenever possible, 3G is usually more expensive and wifi is often better for app installs. Your tracking should give a lot of data to analyze, try to search for the most profitable combinations and focus on them. Maybe you need to focus on a specific android version, or a specific android version with a specific phone brand ...
Im glad you liked what I had to say, if you have more questions, just ask.
It's definitely helped clear some of my doubts especially the approach I had with native texts.
I did test wifi and cellular (and yes cellular is more ex), I'm however unable to target 3G specifically on go2mobi. (or perhaps I can and just haven't figured this out yet! lol)
It's Monday over here, and time for me to rework banners and actually insert a lander for one of my offers.
Thanks @Matuloo. It's been humbling and a pleasure receiving your advice buddy!
The active campaign has a decent CTR and the ad spend has been orders of magnitude higher than the offer payout without any conversions, so unless the angles are very incongruent with the app page it's possible that there's a systematic problem. Before developing the landing pages, it may be a good idea to do a more thorough conversion test. As Matuloo pointed out, the test done by the AM demonstrated that the conversion tracking is working once the pixel is fired, but it didn't prove that the app page is loading properly or that the app is firing the pixel upon installation.
I'd suggest getting permission from the AM to do a manual install (or having the AM do it), using a VPN to follow the path from the initial link to the installation and seeing if traffic direction works properly and the conversion gets recorded. Also note the exact point at which the conversion pixel is fired and check that it's not unexpectedly being scrubbed. The conversion information can be given to the AM so the advertiser doesn't have to pay for the test conversion.
If I remember correctly this offer has a daily cap and KPI requirements, if this is correct then perhaps the AM can indicate whether or not the criteria are satisfied so that the conversion is not missed.
Update 04.12.15 (Friday)
Action Items Completed/Ticked Off Today:
• CDN service with Beyond Hosting activated at $1.50/month with 50GB.
The ease of just uploading your landers on there is just crazy. Instead of having to figure out all the intricate Amazon sign up stuff (sorry not a techie here!), my landers are up in no time. No need to pick the region(s) during set up (as you might do with Amazon?) as BH will deploy the nearest server location to the country I'm delivery my content to. Am hoping their cheap pricing is here to stay.
• Hola offer (update from previous reply to @vector on my angle )
I designed this 320x480 ad banner that I think will generate a much higher CTR and CR since it's the most relevant ad copy & design out of all the banners I've done for this offer in my opinion. Waiting for it to be approved and then re-launch campaign.
• OLX offer (this got paused and I know I can try it on another aff network but I'm going to focus on the other 2 offers below for now)
• 360 Security offer (awaiting creative approval)
• Wifi Master Key offer (awaiting creative approval)
• Practise creating more landing pages and upload them on my CDN. (Let's create 3 for today).
I'm using Sublime text, and refining a template that I already have. A post on mobile landing pages here.
• Watching Creed. Better be good.
Update 07.12.15 (Monday)
Action Items Completed/Ticked Off Today:
• Deposited funds into Decisive.
Can I just say my experience with adding funds, and retrieving a test report from Decisive was just horrible. It kept looping, and giving me error messages, and turned out it charged my card twice. Nothing was wrong with my connection so I'm tempted to say the systems at Decisive are just not as friendly and up-to-date as go2mobi. It is also taking an incredibly long time to generate a test report. I'm keen to get my Zeropark account approved to compare the experience. Does anyone have a different experience with Decisive - care to share???
• Connecting with my acct manager at Zeropark and hope to test some campaigns.
• I've had to revise my 'awesome' banner for the HOLA OFFER which I had so much confidence in due to it being rejected by advertiser. It was probably a misleading design (that looked like a notification and/or perhaps the texts were just blatantly misleading since i used the words ' free upgrade' in addition to listing the main features of the app.) So new banners are currently waiting for approval AGAIN.
• Still waiting for banners to be approved for 360 SECURITY & WIFI MASTER KEY. Lotsa waiting ardddd....
• Managed to upload landers to my CDN, and figured out how to reference the css files in my html files to make it all work. WHOO!
• Gonna get onto Codecademy and spend a little time ticking off some courses (while I wait for approvals.....)
What do you guys typically do while waiting for ads to be approved? Share it here!! 
• Deposited funds into Decisive.
Is that a wise thing to do?
Check this thread out
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ving-Bastards!
Thanks buddy (@atlmarketer), that explains so much!
Gonna see if I can get the bank to do a chargeback!
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