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Starting up with Mobile - First Campaign (14)

12-23-2015 09:49 PM #1 dr_doom098 (Member)
Starting up with Mobile - First Campaign

Thanks to STM - after spending 2 weeks reading the ton of information here, I'm ready to launch my first mobile campaign. Since I just have a full time job - which pays around $500/month - I have a really low budget to put in AM. But trying hard to cut costs from everywhere and invest into my campaigns - atleast around $300/month. I know that this is "really nothing" when it comes to AM, but that's the best I can do at this moment.

I am still not fully aware of how to use the Spy tools - this is something which I guess I should be looking at in a later point of time.

Here are the things I've done so far :


I am planning to start with 3 offers - putting $100 in each and optimizing and selecting the best one to continue for the next run. 2 of them are app installs, and one of them is Mobile PIN submit. I will be updating the thread along with any significant progress that happens.

These are the things I'm planning to do :

In the meanwhile, it would be really great if someone can give feedback on what can be done better / What I shouldn't do .

12-25-2015 10:45 AM #2 vortex (Senior Moderator)

You said you've checked your aff link via several locations - are you able to reach the offer page successfully? If so, try emailing Mmedia back to tell them so, and attach a screenshot of the offer page. In most cases this will get your campaign approved. Have a Merry Christmas!


Amy

12-25-2015 11:48 AM #3 dr_doom098 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by vortex View Post
You said you've checked your aff link via several locations - are you able to reach the offer page successfully? If so, try emailing Mmedia back to tell them so, and attach a screenshot of the offer page. In most cases this will get your campaign approved. Have a Merry Christmas!


Amy
Thanks for the response vortex. Sure, will send them an email right away along with the screenshots.
Merry Christmas to you too.

01-02-2016 07:02 AM #4 vortex (Senior Moderator)

Also, I need to focus a bit on the testing now - since the previous offer I was running wasn't actually working - getting stopped at the last URL - so never reaching the Google PlayStore.
Hope you can resolve this soon! If you need help, do provide more details and we'll figure it out together.

Great progress so far!


Amy

01-03-2016 04:42 PM #5 wiifmdude ()

Very quick tips:

- get and read Cashvertising (to get better angles)
- read about color theory and font usage, your banners are... very very hard to read due to poor matching colors / fonts (e.g. RED+GREEN are a big no-go). I would suggest not getting too crazy with colors and fonts unless you know what you're doing: keep it simple and READABLE (so good contrast, and readable fonts).

Cheers,

01-04-2016 07:58 PM #6 vortex (Senior Moderator)

So I am thinking of angles around local languages (India has 100+ local languages - so converting to that and targeting that location) . + using a bit of local slangs . Adding to it, a couple of angles from news, politics, entertainment (masala) and education.
That sounds really lethal! A very good strategy for newbies to avoid competition is by going niche and doing more work, which is exactly what you're trying to do here.

Regarding angles - here's a suggestion since you obviously don't mind doing more work: Segregate the mobile sites you're getting traffic from by website topic/type - to use your example you can identify news sites, political sites, entertainment sites etc. - and create banners relevant to each. e.g. Target celebrity news sites with a banner that says "£270,000-a-year Coronation Street star Anne Kirkbride left just £104,000 in her will" - except look for juicy celebrity gossip about Bollywood celebs.

Regarding your banners - I agree with everything wiifmdude said. You can always play more with colors and fonts after you've found a working angle (headline and maybe image). Remember that people will only glance at your ad for a portion of a second (IF even that!) so if they can't get the gist of it during that brief moment, they won't click, so the banners have better be easy to read.

So yeah, tonight I'll start the campaign in Bangalore (India) - where I've found the offer to be working, using Go2Mobi. Once it works, I can narrow down to which exact age group, gender and time durations the ad works the most and work on it further.
Last time I used Go2Mobi it didn't have age group or gender targeting. That type of demographic targeting is offered at FB but not mobile dsps such as Go2Mobi. However, there are lots of other targeting you could look at: mobile carriers, apps vs. sites, device types/OSs/makes/models, and of course you can do dayparting as you suggested. However, be sure you have enough data to make sound decisions before cutting anything that is responsible for a substantial portion of your traffic, or else you'll have no traffic to test your banners with.

Great start! Looking forward to updates.


Amy

01-24-2016 02:44 PM #7 wiifmdude ()

Quote Originally Posted by dr_doom098 View Post
In the meanwhile, a quick question - when you see that you're running a offer and none of your clicks are converting - how do you optimize ? and narrow it down.
For example, in the screenshot below:
Easy answer : you can't...

To optimize you need :

- conversions
- and hopefully with a conversion distribution amongst placements (or carriers or brands or GEOs or whatever you can target with your DSP) which makes it possible to white list a placement/carriers/brands/GEOs. e.g. you get 100 conversions but actually they only come from 7 main placements which got 10 conversions each, the remaining conversions being split over 30 random placements.

Cheers,

01-24-2016 07:34 PM #8 vortex (Senior Moderator)

I'll start working on new offers from tomorrow. Also, I figured out that running an offer with the default creatives and banners might not be the best thing to do.
That's a good thing to discover! The only times I use default creatives is when I'm testing a lot of different offers and want to save time (the approach is not recommended - because I'm essentially throwing money away to compensate for lack of time). My thinking is that if an offer can convert EVEN WITH default creatives, then it must be one heck of a kick-ass offer (yup, most of them are THAT bad LOL!)[/QUOTE]

In the meanwhile, a quick question - when you see that you're running a offer and none of your clicks are converting - how do you optimize ? and narrow it down.
wiifmdude has summarized it perfectly.

When you're not getting conversions it's usually due to one or more of the following:

1)Your offer doesn't convert.
2)Your angle doesn't work for the offer and/or traffic.
3)Your traffic is wrong for the offer and/or traffic quality is low.
4)Technical issues such as incorrect tracking link setup, slow page load times...

I'm assuming you're still running UC Browser on Mmedia? If so, the offer and traffic sources are solid, and are a good match for each other, which rules out reasons 1) and 3) above.

So we need to look at 1) and 4).

First of all - have you gotten ANY conversions in this camp so far? If not even one conversion has registered, I would highly suggest that you re-examine your tracking setup. Try to use a VPN set to your target geo, paste your campaign link in the browser, and download and install the app, to see if a conversion is recorded in your stats. Failing that, try working with your AM to trigger a conversion for you using your campaign link. This is important to verify before spending any further money on running traffic.

Are you running landers? If so, checking the page load speed would be a good idea.

After ruling out technical causes - the only other reason I could think of is 2), your angle. Have you tested that list of angles you posted before? How much money have you spent so far? If you've tested lots of angles and spent enough money, then perhaps it would be a good time to explore another offer, or another geo.



Amy

01-28-2016 02:13 PM #9 dr_doom098 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by vortex View Post
That's a good thing to discover! The only times I use default creatives is when I'm testing a lot of different offers and want to save time (the approach is not recommended - because I'm essentially throwing money away to compensate for lack of time). My thinking is that if an offer can convert EVEN WITH default creatives, then it must be one heck of a kick-ass offer (yup, most of them are THAT bad LOL!)

wiifmdude has summarized it perfectly.

When you're not getting conversions it's usually due to one or more of the following:

1)Your offer doesn't convert.
2)Your angle doesn't work for the offer and/or traffic.
3)Your traffic is wrong for the offer and/or traffic quality is low.
4)Technical issues such as incorrect tracking link setup, slow page load times...

I'm assuming you're still running UC Browser on Mmedia? If so, the offer and traffic sources are solid, and are a good match for each other, which rules out reasons 1) and 3) above.

So we need to look at 1) and 4).

First of all - have you gotten ANY conversions in this camp so far? If not even one conversion has registered, I would highly suggest that you re-examine your tracking setup. Try to use a VPN set to your target geo, paste your campaign link in the browser, and download and install the app, to see if a conversion is recorded in your stats. Failing that, try working with your AM to trigger a conversion for you using your campaign link. This is important to verify before spending any further money on running traffic.

Are you running landers? If so, checking the page load speed would be a good idea.

After ruling out technical causes - the only other reason I could think of is 2), your angle. Have you tested that list of angles you posted before? How much money have you spent so far? If you've tested lots of angles and spent enough money, then perhaps it would be a good time to explore another offer, or another geo.



Amy
Hello Vortex,

Thanks for the response. Thanks for the point on custom creatives.

One of the issue I have right now is - the tracking looks kind of correctly set up.

So, when I do a Test Conversion now - it works and shows as a conversion. But when I try the same thing with a VPN, it does not work (even when the VPN I use is the same location where the offer is supposed to run) .

I am now moving to PIN submit instead of app installs - maybe better chances of getting conversions. Tried so far with 4-5 app install offers, but no conversions - spend is around $20-30 on all the offers.

01-29-2016 03:46 AM #10 vortex (Senior Moderator)

Quote Originally Posted by dr_doom098 View Post
Hello Vortex,

Thanks for the response. Thanks for the point on custom creatives.

One of the issue I have right now is - the tracking looks kind of correctly set up.

So, when I do a Test Conversion now - it works and shows as a conversion. But when I try the same thing with a VPN, it does not work (even when the VPN I use is the same location where the offer is supposed to run) .

I am now moving to PIN submit instead of app installs - maybe better chances of getting conversions. Tried so far with 4-5 app install offers, but no conversions - spend is around $20-30 on all the offers.
How was the "Test Conversion" done?

Yeah - using a VPN is hit-and-miss. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

With pin submits, triggering conversions can be even more of a problem - some offers will only accept traffic from certain mobile carriers, for example. So even using your VPN wouldn't be enough.

If you like, I could verify your tracking for you. I need to see:

1)The offer's settings in Voluum.
2)The postback you pasted into the offer settings at the affiliate network.
3)Your tracker's campaign link.

You can scratch out a part of each link to avoid revealing your full links. All I really need to see are the tokens at the end of all the links.

Other questions I have for you:

1)The "4-5 offers" - are they in the same vertical? Same geo? It would be better to choose a type of offer and a geo, and test several offers and lots of creatives. If you just half-ass each offer and jump from vertical to vertical and from geo to geo, your experience will be fragmented (as well as the data you'll collect). Most campaigns are only profitable after testing multiple offers and creatives. It's very rare for a camp to be profitable during initial testing. So I would suggest to stick with one vertical and one geo and learn the entire campaign optimization process and go from there.

2)$20-30 spend - was that for each offer, or the total for all 4-5 offers? It's important to spend time on each offer, and try your reasonable best before moving onto another. That way you don't jump around and keep scratching the surface.



Amy

02-23-2016 04:40 PM #11 Mobidea (Veteran Member)

Hi dr_doom098


Don’t have loads of money to waste?


Wanna avoid making a bunch of silly mistakes?


Then just check our Mobidea Academy and find all the info you need!




The Mobidea Crew (TMC)

02-25-2016 09:31 PM #12 dr_doom098 (Member)

More Updates and More Conversions:

Running 2 campaigns at this moment. The overall result has been OKish, but I am happy with it, and I'm able to slowly bring down the losses. I hope in the next few days the ROI turns positive.

Just to give an overview :

Day2 :

Spend : $35
Revenue : $13
Profit : -$22

Day3 :

Spend : $16.27
Revenue : $16
Profit : -$0.27

Hope I get to see Profits in green soon. Working on optimizing the landers, enabling day parting, choosing specific devices which are giving more installs and so on.

Any tips are highly appreciated.

02-28-2016 04:09 PM #13 vortex (Senior Moderator)

Hard to give advice without more information, e.g. which vertical, which traffic source (at least traffic type), how many offers you're testing, how many landers, lander angles, banner angles (if you're using banners), geo, etc.



Amy

03-02-2016 02:32 AM #14 dr_doom098 (Member)

Thanks for the reply Amy.

I was working on a dating offer (SOI for mobile) in Germany + App Install (Shopping App) in Middle East. I moved from display ads to pops and using Popads and Exoclick as the traffic source.

In the start I noticed that tablets were getting converted than normal smartphones, so I targeted all my traffic only to tablets, but slowly it's not working now. Since it's around $4 per conversion, I donot have enough data to do better optimisation.

Would you suggest me to leave the dating SOI and focus only on app installs so that I have bigger set of data to analyze? Also, what do you think of the POP traffic for both SOI and App Installs?

I have also started using Adplexity for spying, but even then now, the conversions from banners is not that great. I am just using 1 angle - 1 ad as of now due to the small budget I have. Would you also suggest using LP for these offers or DL?

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