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First Shot at StartApp (Interstitials) (13)

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Hi all,

I'll start with a bit of background about myself. I have been doing out AM for about 3-4 months now. I started out somewhere in October last year.
Started out with Go2mobi(mainly banners) promoting mobile app installs mainly anti-viruses, speed boost etc.
And have recently got stuck...

After researching and talking to my colleagues I have decided to try out a new traffic source( Startapp) and a new form of creatives.

So there is what I have done so far:

• Research on Adplexity
• Which let me to realize most traffic are from Startapp and Millennial Media
• Signed up for Startapp
• Launched 2 Campaigns
  
  Here are the creatives I used:

Geos:
Philippines and Ghana

Campaign Budget:
Daily: USD$10
Total: USD$30

Bid(Cost Per Click):
Philippines : $0.007
Ghana : $0.01

Payout: $0.15 per conversion

I launched the on the 3 Feb till 8 Feb when the campagin budget has been used up and here are the stats:

Both campaigns came back with -90% roi and below.

Moving ahead:
I am planning to change up the creatives and test out a few more creatives and geos.

In the mean time I am just wonder if any one on STM are on Startapp and promoting using interstitials. I am also having a hard time trying to figure out the reporting tools on Startapp. As for Go2mobi, it is possible to see individual placements, creatives that are performing and it is easier to optimize from there.
Please also give me some feedback and let me know what I can improve on.

Thank you!
Darryn
Acepower Marketing

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Hey,

welcome to AdPlexity and congratulations for taking action.

Creatives you used are run by advertiser itself, most likely on unsold traffic (RON)

Here is how you spot such campaigns:

1) It's running in bunch of countries, for a very long time. I have yet to see affiliate campaign run for 7 months in so many GEOs


2) If you check landing pages, campaign is direct linked, and there is no sign of affiliate networks


We are adding feature which will help filtering out such campaigns, but for now you will have to use some common sense

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Thank you for your reply King.

Will take note of the pointers that you have mention

APM Darryn

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Have gotten a reply from Startapp support regarding their reporting tools and what I was told is that they do not have a daily individual reporting for creatives and placements. The only way I could get the report is thru email.


This restricts me from being about to optimize the campaigns that I am running and also slows the process for optimization.

Anyone else facing the same issue?

APM Darryn

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Today I decided to do more research on Adplexity to see what are the top verticals that affiliates are promoting and where they are promoted.

Startapp:
I realized that a lot of affiliates are using Enriched Ads promoting utilities app installs.
Such as these.


And on other traffics sources a lot are promoted using pop ads.

Is anyone still currently using banners to promote app installs?

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Hi Guys.

So I have been reading a lot on STM and adplexity doing research on what verticals and thru what means are they being promoted.

So here are the stats of the follow along threads that have been started in the past month:


What I have noticed is that about 77% of of follow along done last month were on Sweeps?
That got me thinking if it was time to switch vertical.
I starting talking to my affiliate managers and they informed me that sweeps are doing well at the moment.

From Adplexity, what I notice was that most of the app install creatives were on pop traffic and with aggressive landers.
EG:

Most banner traffic are "play button" or "download button" EG.

That got me wonder... Are promoting app installs thru whitehat methods not working anymore?

Dilema:
Thinking if I should stick to app installs or move on to test out sweeps?
And if i were to sticky with app installs maybe moving towards pop traffic with a more aggressive approach?

Thank you for reading and I hope to get some feedback and suggestions

APM Darryn.
Skype: apmdarryn@gmail.com

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Looking at what follow alongs where done most is probably not the best way to judge a vertical.

Yes, you have to look at "what's working" and talk to your AM's about hot offers but on top of that you need to start with something that YOU feel you can be good at given your skill sets.

I've been doing AM for 8 years now and sweeps was the very first thing I ran (back in the day when Adwords still allowed it - lol) . Its not going anywhere BUT it always has ups and downs - like any vertical.

IMO Startapp's traffic is a pile of shit. They buy cheap pops and sell it to you as "premium inventory". Yes, there are some good placements but you will spend a lot to find them. Its probably not the best place to test cold. By all means, take profitable campaigns there to scale but start on a proven traffic source.

The formula is really quite simple:

TRAFFIC + OFFER + STRATEGY

Those 3 things need to work perfectly together for a killer campaign. Even with just 2 of the 3 you can still be profitable.

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So I took your advice and started talking to my AM's and decided to stick with what I have been doing that is utilities app installs.

However I switched to Pop traffic instead and tested it out yesterday.

Here is what i have done:

Vertical: Anti-Virus App install
Geo: PH
Traffic: Popads
Budget: $5
Below are the stats:


Vertical: Anti-Virus App install
Geo: Ghana
Traffic: Popads
Budget: $5


Both campaigns came back with a positive ROI after $5 spent. Without any optimizations.

Things to do:
1. Test multiple offers on PH and Ghana
2. Test 10 more geos
3. Spy and rip more landers for testing

Qns
1. I read that it is normal for click lost on Ruby's guide for Pop. My qns is, how do I know if I am really making a profit? Is there a way to tally the costs?
2. Since Voluum's stats aren't 100%. What are the placement cutting rules? Do I buff the cost by 20-30%?

Hope to get some advice and comments on how to improve
Thank you for reading.

APM Darryn.

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Pushing Anti Virus feels and looks so scammy. If I keep seeing people making money off this I might have to start too.

I'm new to this but I can't understand how the generic banner ads "download" would work. "download what?" is all that comes to mind when I see those. I can only understand if it's on a site like mediafire. congrats on the greens.

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From my understanding, these banners most of the time leads to an aggressive cloaked lander. Like that one I have posted above.
These banners are everywhere hence it gives the affiliate promoting it the chance at better results. Law of large numbers. This is from my knowledge. I may not be right.

APM Darryn.

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Interesting follow along, I had a hard time scaling on StartApp a proven MDSP campaign & LP, so no wonder you got some shit results too with something unproven.

Regarding your current antivirus offer, beware that most of them (e.g. 360, etc) have very strict Retention Rate rules.

As for tracking the costs you just have to use a spreadsheet, or if your tracker allows it, to update the costs manually each day.

Cheers,

PS: so you're using the "broken googlebot" LP? I tried it on popcash in BR and it bombed completely, like only 1.5% CTR...

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Was trying antivirus offers in multiple geos, issues I ran into: from spying it looks like all aggressive landers, then the account managers won't approve them to be able to run traffic to the offers.

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Yea. I am actually asking for a refund from startapp now. Lol.

I was on 360 when I started and wasn't able to convert after they set the retention rates.

I tried doing that yesterday. Trying to tally the cost from Voluum and popads on a spreadsheet. Still figuring out how it works.

Yes I am using the something similar "broken googlebot".

Most of my landers are RIP from Adplexity. Maybe you could try looking for some there?

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