Home > Adult Traffic (NSFW) > Follow-along Campaigns

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Ready To Kick Butt In 2016!!! (45)

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Hey guys I'm relatively new to this forum and have been working in the adult space for about 6 months so far. Haven't been really successful at it, so I hope that a follow along will help me to understand how to do things better.

Campaign Details:

GEO: US
Offer: Adult dating - SOI - Desktop
Traffic source: Traffic Junky (as of now)
Payout: $4.00
Daily testing budget: $150-200

Right now I am currently testing 5 banners, 1 lander, and 1 offer

I am kind of starting this follow along mid-campaign as I have been working on this for a couple of weeks now.

Hopefully I can get some insight and some other people can learn from it as well.

Hope to kick butt in 2016 and thanks for following!

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02/01/16

Cost: $107.79
Revenue: $56.00
P/L: -$51.79
ROI: - 48%


So for the first day of the follow along I already identified 1 banner that did better than the rest. I uploaded 4 additional banners in the same style so hopefully we will see how it goes tomorrow.

My LP CTR was pretty low at 24%, I think I made a LP tweak that should improve this.

Hopefully we get closer to break even tomorrow!

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Good stuff!

Are you running RON or on a single placement?

You've got some solid data flowing in - looking good!

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very nice dude.

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I am running on a single placement on a single site. No RON traffic.

Thanks bro

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This is a good approach when learning the ropes. TJ is also solid when it comes to quality. For me, TJ has always been the easiest source to reach breakeven point pretty fast.
I would suggest to test more LPs and also test the different offer URLs, even tho its the same offer, their various landers will show different results. Also make sure you have enough new banners to test.

Good luck

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^ yah for sure rotate a few offers on the back end. You might find a higher converting offer, and then you can focus more on getting a higher banner CTR. Ad Burn out is real with adult, if you are not a photoshop/design guy you might try https://www.canva.com/ or just have someone on fiverr make some templates for you.

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Thank you for the input. I am definitely trying to learn the ropes on TJ, hopefully I can get to break even soon!

Thank you for the input. I will definitely check that website out!

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02/02/16

Cost: $112.19
Revenue: $48.00
P/L: -$64.19
ROI: - 57%

I think I ran into some technical problems today which unfortunately I didn't catch for the first 1/3 of the day. However once things got back on track I still didn't really get anything going.

I did change the lander I was using and things were looking a little better towards the end of the day.

Hopefully see some better results tomorrow.

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02/15/16

Cost: $175.23
Revenue: $96.00
P/L: -$79.23
ROI: - 45%

Hey guys sorry I got distracted for a bit with some other work stuff but I am back at it! I have also been trying to study a bit more instead of just blowing through money on traffic and I feel I did learn a few things that I'm going to try to implement.

So today I started the campaign back up today. Same offer, but I did move to a different traffic spot. I know this spot has quality traffic so I'm hoping I can get my funnel right and then up the volume.

I started the day with 6 banners but after running traffic I narrowed it down to 2. These 2 banners were break even/slight winners, so I'm going to create 6 more variations for tomorrow.

I am also adding another lander. It's the same as the one I ran today, just with a different picture and headline.

Hopefully I can get this campaign to break even soon and then run some decent volume to hopefully get a pay bump. Right now I'm just at a street payout.

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02/16/16

Cost: $202.31
Revenue: $108.00
P/L: -$94.31
ROI: - 47%


So today at the start of the day I launched a bunch of new banners that absolutely flopped. I thought I had an idea that would be "fire", but it ended up not being so hot.

So I went back to the original angle that was "somewhat" working and launched new variations of that. I also cut 1 lander out of the 2 I was testing.

So as of now I have 6 banners => 1 lander => 1 offer.

Hopefully tomorrow is a little better.

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What is your LP CTR are at now? You make want to focus on getting that up. Some big changes need to be made in order to get to profit.

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My LP CTRs for yesterday were 28.97% and 25.64% for my landing pages.

Any advice on getting LP CTRs up?

I seem to always hover around the 27-30% mark for my LPs.

I know it's a "well it depends" question, but is there generally a good LP CTR that you like to see?

Thanks in advance.

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LP CTR around 30% is good in adult for desktop traffic, it can go up of course but you will rarely go past the 40% mark so you need to learn ho to be profitable in that range. Generally speaking, if I see 30-40% with desktop traffic, Im usually satisfied with it. I have campaigns running with LP CTRs below 20% and they are still profitable so it also depends on the traffic price and other factors. Just to make sure, we are talking about dating LPs, right?

One of the biggest factors to influence is the imagery - the chick AND the amount of questions or other obstacles that the surfer has to go through. Play with the images, try to remove a question or two, or just limit the amount of possible answers ... dont overdo it tho, surfers who take their time to fill out more forms and answer more questions are also more motivated to finish the signup process. This is especially true with DOI offers.

I dont think your main problem would be the LP CTR tho, 30% is usually good enough.

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Hello Matuloo yes I am using landers for dating offers. Thank you for the insight, I will definitely focus on what you said regarding tweaking my LPs

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02/17/16

Cost: $201.31
Revenue: $104.00
P/L: -$97.31
ROI: - 48%


So today started off tough but I did find a banner/LP combination towards the end that seems to be about break even.

I created 6 new variations of the banner which I will be running overnight. Hopefully these new versions will have a little better CTR and lower my cost a bit.

Looking forward to a better day tomorrow

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You will need to make some dramatic changes to some part of your funnel. You said you had 1 combination that was around breakeven. The sad truth with dating is, that once you isolate this combo and push it more, it will loose the performance. What you need is to find something that jumps into the profit and then make variations of it. I will bet my arm that the variations of the breakeven banner will loose again.

You need to come up with as many variations of LPs, banners etc as you can effectively manage to test and something has to come out green at some point. Thats your winner and thats what you have to clone, tweak ... abuse to the max. Dont settle for breakeven combos and hope for a miracle, its not gonna happen.

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Thank you for the advice I think you are definitely right.

I will start testing more variations and hopefully find a winner.

When you say "find something that jumps into profit" are you referring to when you immediately launch banners and LPs?

So say for example I launch 10 banners and after a couple of days I don't find anything that turns a profit, does that mean I toss the angle and just start completely fresh?

In other words if you don't hit something right off the start the angle probably isnt good?

Thanks in advance.

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It works like this : when you start out as a newbie, you will usually come up with poor angles/banners/LPs, so everything will be greatly negative. As you get better, the negatives should become lower and lower. The more experienced you are, the better the results should look right of the bat. When we launch new campaigns now, it has to be close to breakeven straight away, if its not, I know we fucked up somewhere or the offer is not working. So we try different offer, if its still poor, I know the creatives suck and ditch them. This was simply put, but Im sure you get the idea.

When searching for the first working campaign/angle/whatever, you need to search and test until you hit the first green combo, thats like seeing the lighthouse for the first time. This doesnt have to take days, depends on the budget. Lets say Im testing 10 banners - I already have proven LPs so that step is out for me. I throw traffic at them and watch the campaign in real time, I get the first lead on some banner, then another one on another banner, then suddenly I get the 2nd lead on the first banner and I know I've hit something with potential. I dont stop anything, its too soon, but I know there is at least one banner in the mix that has the potential do deliver multiple leads and it probably wasnt just some random lead. The more some banners stand out the better. I have to wait until the data sample grows enough and even thou I ended up negative, there usually is some banner or two that has better performance than the rest, in the ideal case at least one banner is green. Then I know there is someting about the banner and I can start playing with that particular layout, try to tweak the LP more etc ... But I need to find at least one banner that was profitable for at least a while, if I dont have it in this batch, I need to test again with another batch. I simply need to find a banner that is at least around the breakeven point, if they are all -50%, there is almost no chance to optimize them into a decent profit.

Of course you need to be careful when looking at the banner performance - you must be sure that all the other factors are in order - traffic is real and not bots, LP is good, offer works etc ... but the point Im trying to make is : its not a good idea to spend too much time on the same set of banners and LPs when they are still in big negative. There is some problem with the funnel and it will not suddenly improve, miracles dont happen in AM. You need to search for something that will work and its only possible to find it by testing more

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Thank you Matuloo I really appreciate the time you are taking to help me with this

A couple more questions please:

1. How soon do you cut banners? I notice people say if there is no conversion after 2-3 times offer payout to cut it.

2. What do you consider a decent sample size of a "winning combo"? 500, 1000, 2000 clicks etc?

Thank you again.

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I dont go by rules all that much, but it is true they really help in the beginning, to help you stay organized.

The general rule for cutting something with confidence is 2 times the payout spend. Im cheating this sometimes tho, especially when I see lets say 3 banners of 10 giving multiple leads, while the other 7 didnt make a single one, well then I sometimes cut the rest sooner than they spent the amount. I would like to emphasize that to do this, you need to know the traffic source/spot and the offer, so you can predict trends sooner. This is where experience is needed.

As for the decent sample size, hard to say how much clicks it is again, depends on how well it goes and where Im buying the traffic. With cheap sources like juicyads or plugrush, it will be several 1000s, while with trafficjunky for example, couple hundreds will give me a decent idea about the performance. It also depends on whether you are pushing a SOI or DOI offer. If the campaign looses heavily, I will start to optimize something faster, to find out whether it is optimizable at all... if its like -10% I dont mind to run for a day, two or longer to get the most accurate data. I really dont want to give you any number for you to follow here, it depends on too many factors.

Also keep in mind that in order to really understand any given campaign, you need to run for a longer period of time. You can do optimizations based on smaller data samples, but you will need to run 24/7 for a few days to really spot the trends and patterns.

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Thank you for the advice.

I think you are right I need to launch more creatives (I think I don't do this enough) and make a major overhaul to my funnel.

I appreciate you taking the time to help me on my journey

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Sometimes its ridiculous how much you have to test in order to find something that works, its literally painful at times The only ones who are happy about it are the traffic networks. But thats how it is unfortunately

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Hello it's been a while since I updated this thread but would like to start fresh. I am going to start with a new offer and the details are below:

Campaign Details:

GEO: US
Offer: Adult dating - SOI - Desktop
Traffic source: Traffic Junky (as of now)
Payout: $3.50
Daily testing budget: $150-200


I will be currently working on just 1 placement. I have been working on this offer off an on for about a month now, but haven't gotten it to the green yet. So I wanted to post here to try to be more accountable and hopefully find out where I'm going wrong.

I believe I have narrowed things down to the best LP and offer LP, however I think I am struggling with my banners.

I think creating good angles and banners is something that I am really struggling with, and I think it's what's keeping me from being profitable. It seems when I get a high CTR banner the CVR is low, and when I find a good converting banner my CPC is through the roof!

So my focus is really going to be on angles and banners for the next month, and hopefully we seem some results!

Campaign Day 1 Setup:

10 Banners (2 different angles x 5 each)
1 Landing Page
1 Offer Page

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So here is day 1 stats of the new campaign:

06/29/16

Cost: $197.89
Revenue: $157.50
P/L: -$40.89
ROI: -20.5%

I woke up this morning to find 2 out of the 5 banners with a slight profit. So I cut the other 3 and left the 2 running. It was doing ok for a while and then the CPC starting increasing quite a bit (went from about 11cents to 14 cents) so I paused the campaign until I could upload new banners in the morning.

I took the 2 banners that were doing the best and made 2 new variations of it (only different colors), and another 2 new variations (changed subheadlines/color). I am hoping this helps me bring the CPC down a little bit.

LP CTR: 33.66%
Offer CVR: 9.8%

I seem to be getting good CTR on my lander but the CVR could use some work. I'd like to possibly get it up in the 13-15% range.

Hopefully these new banners work a little better tomorrow.

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Change the females on the banners too, very often it's all about this in adult dating. Test a ton of girls and then some more

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Test more offers first and find the best one, man. Then find the most profitable angle.

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Yes I think developing a sense for the "right girl" is something I haven't picked up yet. I can't seem to find that girl that converts.

Yup I will be doing that for sure. I have tested a few offers already for this follow along, if it doesn't work out with the one I'm on I'll try again.

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06/30/16

Cost: $101.00
Revenue: $63.00
P/L: -$38.00
ROI: -37.7%

So today I only got a half day in as I had to wait for banners to be approved. The banners I created didn't do so hot, but I did find 1 banner that was hovering around the + 12% ROI over about 400 clicks. Not a lot, but it's a start I guess.

I feel like I'm almost there, but I'm just missing something. I am using a "Rules Lander" which gets a good CTR and I know I am promoting an offer that converts well. I know you shouldn't based things on CTR, but most of my banners seem to be generating an LP CTR of about 33-40% so at least there is some user engagement? However I'm still converting at around 8-10% and I feel like I need to get this up to about 13-15%.

I feel like I'm having a hard time choosing the right images for my banners. When I find a "winning image" and try to replicate it with other similar images (ie brunette milf etc) the results are wildly inconsistent. Not only in terms of conversion, but also how they impact my CPC for the banner. I guess this is just a sense I have to develop.

So right now I am running that single winning banner and am going to try to find new images for it to see if I can squeeze some additional ROI out of it.

Any suggestions are welcome

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You're on the right path I would say. You just need to find the right combo. At this stage, the only thing that can help you is more testing and maybe a bump from the network.

The LP ctr looks good, the CVR is not bad either. You just need a small improvement on all fronts - a bit better banners ctr, a bit better offer CVR and you are there.

Also make sure you test various lander variations of the offer itself.

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After some further studying and research on my end, I actually decided to pause this campaign. I just think right now the math isn't going to work out for this campaign.

I am continuing this follow-along though but I'm going to switch to a Tier 2 Geo. I just think the margins are too small in the US with the traffic prices and payouts I have.

Maybe when I get a little more advanced I may come back to the US, but I think as of now there are easier opportunities out there in other Geos.

So I wil update this thread again tomorrow with my new campaign.

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Day 11 Stats:

Cost: $30.31
Revenue: $58.50
P/L: $28.19
ROI: 93.0%

Campaign Total So Far: -$273.09

So as stated in the previous post I pivoted to another geo. It is a tier 2 geo and the details are as follows:

Geo: Tier 2
Offer: Adult Dating SOI
Payout: $6.50/lead
Traffic Source: Traffic Junky

So basically I just took the banners/landers from my previous US campaign and got them translated into the right language. It was nice to hit profit today, though I think I was just "running hot". Also it is a much smaller geo than the US, so I think finding traffic may be an issue moving forward.

I am currently running on 2 sources at the moment, but I did raise my bids so I think I should get more traffic tomorrow. Hopefully I can continue on this trend.

For me I made the switch to a different geo as the math just wasn't there. With the way current US traffic prices were and my current payouts, I just didn't think I could make it there. My hope is since I was able to get pretty close to break-even at times on my previous campaign that with less competition in a smaller geo I could get to profit.

The payout for this campaign is a lot higher, though I am sure the offer is probably harder to convert. However overall with these numbers I think I should be able to get profitable with just "good" creatives as opposed to having to "kill it" to make it in the US.

I guess lets see how it goes.

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Day 12 Stats:

Cost: $61.09
Revenue: $32.50
P/L: -$28.59
ROI: -53.2%

Campaign Total So Far: -$301.68

So today profits swung the other way. I actually made a technical error that caused a big chunk of the loss. Basically I woke up and thought I discontinued all the unprofitable banners, but later when I checked again I noticed that they were still running. So chalk it up to human error.

Also I got more volume today, but for some reason today a few other advertisers jumped in to my traffic source which drove bids a lot higher.

Still not a whole lot of data to go on so Im gonna let this run a little more.

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Day 13 Stats:

Cost: $100.97
Revenue: $122.40
P/L: $21.43
ROI: 21.2%

Campaign Total So Far: -$280.25

Sorry been away for a couple of days. I was really evaluating how I was doing things and felt like I was going in circles.

I ended up switching to another offer/geo (yes again!, sorry) as I couldn't get that much traffic for the previous geo, and I felt I was doing a lot of work for very little possible reward.

So new offer details are as follows:

Geo: Tier 2
Offer: Adult Dating SOI
Payout: $6.80/lead
Traffic Source: Various

Reason I switched was really because I read this STM thread here (and related threads):

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...xxx-And-Beyond

Basically it came down to scaling and how much work/time/effort I was putting in to a campaign that didn't really have much potential in my opinion.

Even though I'm struggling to get profitable, at the end of the day I looked down the road. If I'm putting all this work into this campaign, if I do in fact get it going, can it be huge?

Even this new GEO is still relatively small, but it was twice as big as the previous one, so if I get it going it may not be a monster but it'll at least be worth the time.

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Great Follow Along! subscribing to this

Good luck!

$6.8 is pretty high for a SOI lead in tier 2 dont you think? its high for a tier 1 for sure...
Are you sure that its really a SOI offer?

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Thanks for following, hopefully we can both learn from this follow-along experience

As far as your question, yes it is a Tier 2 SOI offer. There are quite a few Tier 2 SOIs floating around at this price if you check various networks.

Obviously they are not super easy to convert, but they still convert at a reasonable rate.

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Got it.

Wouldn't you prefer to try a lower Payout offer with a higher CR? that way you could gather more data quickly and help you improve your funnel...

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I have tested other offers in this geo and settled on this one.

In these geos there are only a handful of offers, and the lower paying ones I would have to convert at an obscene rate given the traffic prices.

This offer shows promise given my initial tests and Im hoping with a little optimization I can get in the green.

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Fingers crossed

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Day 14 Stats:

Cost: $104.13
Revenue: $102.00
P/L: -$2.13
ROI: -2.0%

Campaign Total So Far: -$282.38

So today was not bad. Still gathering data.

I am currently on 4 spots for this geo right now.

Haven't really started optimizing yet, but so far it looks ok.

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Day 15 Stats:

Cost: $124.94
Revenue: $149.60
P/L: $24.66
ROI: 19.7%

Campaign Total So Far: -$257.72

So back in the green today which is nice. I am hoping that this wasn't just because of the weekend.

I feel like I can get this campaign profitable, but I'm not sure about how to scale it as it is still a pretty small geo.

I am going to test out some new traffic spots tomorrow, so hopefully I can continue to build on the success.

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Hey guys due to time constraints I have to discontinue this follow-along. In short I was able to get this campaign profitable to about $50-100/day, as well as a few other campaigns. I am by no means an expert, but I wanted to at least close with a summary of tips that I hope will be helpful to some. I think it may be easier to just have a summary of what I learned to anyone who has been following this.


Tip #1: Offer Is Everything

I think the most important part of any campaign is finding an offer that converts. Nothing else matters if the offer sucks. In the past I've been guilty of trying to "force" offers to work, but if it doesn't convert, it just doesn't convert.

It's important that you split test a TON of offers before even attempting to optimize. Find a legit traffic source (ie Pornhub, Redtube, Youporn etc) and use some proven banners/lps (ripped from something like Adplexity) and then run some traffic. Usually if you test 3 or 4 offers at a time one will start to stick out.


Tip #2: Don't avoid low paying offers

More often than not low paying offers convert much better than high paying offers. And with some good volume/quality you can get paybumps to decent payouts that will put you into the green. I'm always wary of offers with higher payouts as they tend to not convert as well, though with anything split testing is key.

Tip #3: Hit an offer hard ASAP if u can

One mistake I made in the beginning was "going to slow" on an offer. For example over a month I would gradually try to build the amount of leads so every day I was sending maybe 30-50 leads trying to get profitable, but recently my strategy has changed. Lets take an example:

Affiliate A: Builds slowly at 30-50 leads/day losing about $30/day = $900/mo loss

Affiliate B: Sends 200 leads/day for 7 days at a loss of $120/day = $840 loss after 7 days

So what's the difference? Well after a month there's a good chance Affiliate A will still be at the same payout (or maybe a slight bump), while Affiliate B will be on the radar for networks and likely get a good paybump.

So after day 7 Affiliate B is already on his way while Affiliate A is still spinning his wheels. Both lost about the same amount of money, but one is in a much better position in a lot faster time.

Now this assumes that maybe you have some history with the affiliate networks. For me I've been workin for a while with networks so they no I'm a legit affiliate not sending fraudulent leads. If anything just ask your affiliate manager, as sometimes they may recommend a more gradual approach as every advertiser is different. Some may want leads to mature while some want all the legit volume they can get.

Tip #4: Think long term

Yes getting profitable asap is ideal, but there's no point in getting profitable if you get booted from the offer. Adult dating is a give and take relationship. If you only think about your pocketbook, you will for sure not make it. So do what you can to make the advertiser money too.

This may mean sticking to only quality sources (no RON or pops) and even running break-even/slight loss on some traffic sources just to mix in high quality leads in your overall pool. I'd rather take a little less profit and stay on an offer for months as opposed to making bank for just a week.

Tip #5: Explore other traffic sources

Most newbies stick to just Traffic Junky or Exoclick. There are tons of other traffic sources out there with far less competition, so explore! Sure the user interfaces may be crude, and they are a pain to learn, but the profits can be huge.

Consider other places like TrafficForce, TrafficHaus, JuicyAds, Ero-Advertising, Reporo, and Adnium just to name a few.


Tip #6: Build good relationships

Having a great relationship with your Affiliate Managers and Traffic Sources can go a long way. Don't ignore this! Also conduct yourself in a professional manner. Sure getting kicked off offers suck, but don't berate your affiliate manager or be that guy constantly asking for pay bumps. Being polite and professional goes a long way not just in this industry, but in any other industry and life as well.

Tip #7: Don't reinvent the wheel, but still innovate

By now you know everyone rips everyone else's banners/landing pages in adult. That's fine, but if you're going to rip something, at least modify it a little. Change the images, headlines, colors, CTAs etc. so that it's something fresh. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, but you at least need to change it up a little

Eventually though you want to get to the point where you are the person innovating what's out there. I went from the "ripper" to the one "being ripped". When I fire up Adplexity now I see a lot of my old banners floating around, and that's fine. They still may work, but the people using it are getting left-over profits

It's not that hard to innovate. Think of some angles and fire up photoshop. Once you get more experience you will see that it's not that hard and by having stuff that's fresh you'll always be one step ahead.

Tip #8: Don't fall in love with campaigns

This is something I've been guilty of. If you can't get a campaign to work, often it's just better to move on. Just because you've invested a ton of time and money into a campaign, if it doesn't work, well it just doesn't work. Be realistic in your judgement. If after several rounds of optimization you are still nowhere near at least break-even, it's probably time to move on (assuming you are on a legit traffic source and using decent creatives)

Tip #9: Understand the math

This one tip can save you a ton of money. When I say "understand the math", I mean if you get something working can it even be profitable?

For example if your offer only pays $1/lead and you're paying $0.10/click, you're probably not going to be able to get this profitable.

There are just some traffic source / offer payout combos that just won't work. So do the math before you even start.


Tip #10: Develop a system

Something I've worked on a lot is developing a system or sort of blueprint to get profitable. Anybody can hit a random profitable campaign, but can you do it over and over again?

When I first started it felt like I was just throwing shit at the wall hoping something will stick. A better way is to create some sort of systematic approach that you can repeat over and over again.

This may be starting by testing 3-4 offers, or maybe 10 different angles etc. But you need to create a systematic approach you can do to get from point A to B.

That's it for now, if I think of more I'll come back and post. Thanks for following

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Good job and great tips!!

Hope this symbolizes 2017 for you...

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I'm glad you found success and I'm pretty sure you will be able to increase your numbers this year! Thanks for sharing your story and tips, solid stuff that many people can benefit from. Keep rolling

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Thank you for all your help Matuloo. I hope you have a prosperous 2017 as well!

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