Xentaa 's Native Ads Follow Along Entry - Pest Control (52)

Again a beautiful STM opportunity, this time I am really going for it. I am new with native so a lot to learn! I will be tackling native and Pay per call marketing. More specific, home services. Haven't seen many similar threads so I hope we get some valuable information out of it. And offcourse I want to win the first prize related to this contest! Wish me luck.

Summary of my Follow Along.

- The goal of my campaign

Get profitable with native via home related services offers. In the bigger picture I am building an asset related to everything home services. If native works for the offer I will be testing, this traffic source will be used to grow the asset (=website).

- Traffic source/offer

• Traffic source: Revcontent. (Just worried about the long approval times)
• Offer: Pay per call offer: Pest Control. Currently waiting for approval from the network if I can run this with native. Payout is $7. Will ask for a pay bump if I get some quality traffic. if not accepted I have some similar offers worth trying.
• Why this offer? Check below Google trends insight of 2015. It seems to be a good time to start running this upcoming months. Also CPC adwords is very high so I definately need a cheaper alternative. Demand according to search insights is ok I think.
  
  

• Set up first lander and get it approved by network.
• Set up tracking.
• Set up first ads @Revcontent.
• They are not taking calls 24/7. So will set up a form on the lander to catch leads @ not supported times. Also this way I can build a database with home owners upselling them other relevant offers. (Lawn care, Painting, Plumbing, Septic & Drain services, Tree Services,...). To not forget the bigger picture.
• Check and optimise the IVR (=interactive voice response) together with the network. (see also: http://blog.invoca.com/9-tips-optimi...rease-sales-2/).
• Get a system to filter out bot traffic. (I think there is enough info available at STM!).
• Check caps for this offer with the network.
• Build a backloglist with things to optimise.
• Use buzzsumo to see what related content gets clicks.

Nice start!

I would just suggest applying for a lot of different native traffic sources as possible, as they can take a long time to get your account approved and set up ... especially the ones with higher quality traffic.

try yahoo gemini it's pretty easy to get into, but the CPC floor is 5 cents, and it's mostly mobile traffic. no pub blocking features though.

Make sure you place remarketing pixels or cookies on your landing pages so that you can retarget people who have shown interest in the service but who have not converted on even lower cost channels.

Good call.

Revcontent, taboola, outbrain and Gemini all have retargeting in different ways. Gemini and RevContent are self serve, the other two you need to ask for it.

Are you running a pay per call offer or a pay per lead offer?

Lander update



I am building everything with Wordpress. With the visual composer plugin it's really easy to compose good looking landers. Also extra functionalities are easy to integrate (form capture, email auto reply, popups, social sharing,...)

1: Got a professional logo from 99designs. (with a blur filter because I don't want to reveal the site url right now ). Cost: $450
2: Upselling: I have build different similar landers with other offers for home owners. I am not sure if it is good idea to list them in this lander. Maybe it is too distracting?
3: First "call to action" to call. (Numbers are insert by a ringpool from Invoca). So basicly I get a new temporarily number assigned for every unique visitor. This is for tracking purpose.
4: Call to action copy to motivate the visitor to call now.
5: Copy to summarize what to expect.
6: If the visitor doesn't want to call right now, or the call centre isn't open I allow them to submit a form where they are promised to be contacted later. That's when the email cycle starts. After 1 day the lead gets an email to call right now to get a discount. (or something else having value, have to discuss this with the network what we can offer). 2 days later again, and a final mail 4 days later. To handle the forms and auto responders I use this plugin. integrated with Amazon SES for smooth delivery.
7: I get the location from the visitor his location by Voluum parameter with this simple code: <strong>We got you covered in </strong> <strong><script>document.write(getURLParameter('ci ty'))</script>!</strong>. I am not sure if it's a good idea because it could also freak out the visitor. "Like wtf, how do they know my location?".
8: Some visuals related to the subject.
9: Extra content opening when you click the arrow. Don't want to overload the page but also want enough content for people who like to do their research before they get in touch. I probably need more content?
10: A marketing fear appeal with a video.
11: Summary of why to use our services.
12: Blog page to add a lot of content related to homeowners. Strategy for viral content and SEO in the long term.


All feedback is welcome, thanks!

Next up:
Traffic sources, ads and the creation of a farticle. In the farticle I will be linking to the lander just showed.

Originally Posted by cmdeal

Are you running a pay per call offer or a pay per lead offer?

Originally Posted by cmdeal

Make sure you place remarketing pixels or cookies on your landing pages so that you can retarget people who have shown interest in the service but who have not converted on even lower cost channels.

I would suggest you add a few different offers into the mix.

I am not sure this is a naturally good fit here on what you are doing.

Unlike search which is a highly intent based medium, native advertising is distraction marketing. People either will have a pest problem or not. If they don't they will not click your ads, and you will get penalised very quickly on your ad distribution. You can make up for that by bidding high, but they you need to make sure that for the people who have the problem, you REALLY get them to take action. Right now your landing page is much too weak for that. Sad to say it, but fear and greed are pretty powerful motivators to people to take action. I don't see how you can play the greed angle here, so you are pretty much stuck with the fear angle, which doesn't really seem to be pushed hard enough.

Although the lander screenshot is a bit blurry and small here are a few more thoughts/tips below.

- 99designs` quality is not professional, this is a common misconception, especially amongst marketers. The quality is average at best, it's just a very broken business model which has been confirmed by...well certain individuals which I've been in touch with in the past, don't want to bash the company any further in this regard.

A professional grade logo would set you back a few k, and arguably a few months, whereas a contest of hundreds of (mostly) average designers will definitely not produce high quality results when every designer's thought is to just mash something up really quickly in the hopes of getting lucky and winning, purely relying on the contest holder's mercy and personal taste. And the contest holders are usually not familiar with design in general in order to pick the proper one, that's why it's so very broken.

That being said, the time you've spent to setup this contest could likely have been more productive in picking 1 designer on Dribbble for example, and paying them $200-$300 for that quick logo. You can generally expect better quality like so.

//99designs rant over.

On to the lander, I think you have the right elements in check, it's just the way it's structured is what bothers me. I'm not going to mention the actual design of things as the screenshot is too tiny.

- You have your logo in the presumable header, then you have the text "Pest Control" in a nice wide area which is wasting a lot of space. Either turn this text into a proper headline, or combine it with the logo, or just remove it.

- You have a perhaps main headline below that - "Pest control services", but why does it sound so plain? Below your main call number you've got a proper action-focused headline ("In urgent need of a..."), why not move it to the top?

- By the looks of it the main CTA with the call number seems to stand out, it's all over the page too, but is it enough? Maybe add some icons in there (e.g. call icon). Can't see it very well so not gonna dig in here.

- Your point 4, the call to action copy, does it seem to relate directly to or is it related to the main CTA immediately? Can't see it very well but it seems a bit confusing, as it's on the right side, seems disconnected from both of the CTAs at the top.

- You also have a video and a nice geo-targeted headline down there, might be worth doing an A/B test if you put this stuff at the top for added trust along with the CTAs.

- Point 11 - why not get these attention grabbing icons somewhere higher, even if they're smaller, it should have a better effect than sticking them at the bottom.

- These 20 or so links in the left sidebar are usually bad practice and affect landers negatively. You have this 1 well-planned goal throughout the entire lander and everything seems to be focused towards it, and then you're giving users 20 more choices, which can be very distracting. Sure you're linking to other offers, but it might be worth removing these altogether and perhaps moving some of the stuff from the right sidebar there, even from the main content area. Another thing to maybe A/B test.

- If you're relying on fear, as cmdeal mentioned above, why not use more (and bigger) images of nasty bugs and put them in more visible places. Another thing to maybe test. For a pest control lander it doesn't look very scary, if that's what you're after.

You haven't launched and tested this lander yet, I think(?), but it wouldn't hurt spending some time to improve it.

Good luck! Looking forward to your updates.

^^ Seconded on 99designs. I swear the quality has dropped over the years. All you ended up is paying for 99 really subpar designs.

Originally Posted by xentaa

Get a system to filter out bot traffic. (I think there is enough info available at STM!).

As much as I HATE raining on anyone's parade - I agree with cmdeal that the offer you're promoting may not be a good fit for the traffic. Unlike for adwords, you can't really target people who are looking for pest control services.

The closest you can get with RevContent would be to target the "Homes, DIY and Architecture" topic. But even THAT would still be a way-too-general audience. My guess would be that your conversion rate would be quite low.

Although - if you can improve your backend funnel (where as you're planning to sell other home services to home owners) to squeeze out a really high life-time value from each lead, you may STILL be able to make profits. But there are definitely other types of traffic that will give you better returns and faster.

Just my 2 cents - please take with a grain of salt. In the end only actual testing will tell, as stats don't lie.



Amy


EDIT: If you still want to give pest control a shot, consider implementing shishev's suggestions regarding your lander. Especially important are:

1)Get rid of all the elements on your lander that aren't doing direct-selling for you.

2)Use a WAY scarier image than the one you have now (for example these). Also split-test images of different common household pests: bed bugs, roaches, ants, termites, rodents.

3)Try some headlines (both for your lander and ads) that will entice people to click. For inspiration, all you need to do is go to a viral news site like viralnova or upworthy and browse their headlines. For example I just saw this headline on viralnova:

"When They Couldn't Kill The Cockroach Infestation, They Just Burned Down The House"

So maybe you could try something like:

"Got a Roach Infestation? Don't Burn Down Your House Yet!"


I once saw an article on upworthy that describes how their editors would come up with at least 20-30 eye-catching headlines before deciding on one. They're experts on writing headlines because they have extensive stats on what kinds of wording are getting the most clicks. IMO, studying their headlines is more practical than reading a hundred books on copywriting.



Also - I came across this page that has a nice format - you can consider modeling yours after it:



I'm sure you can come up with a better headline and image than what they have - but basically a 2-column format, with a headline followed by an image, then a sub-headline and then body. The list of services and respective pricing (only show if they're competitive) in the side bar is a nice touch as well - would make your lander look genuine and more interesting, plus do more selling for you.


Lastly - I've read on multiple sites that around 40% of people that try DIY methods first, end up calling a pest control service in the end anyway, so a better approach may be to capture the lead first so you could email them at a later date when they're ready to throw in the towel and call the experts. You could for example put together a list of DIY methods and set it up on an autoresponder. Then on your landing page and ad use a headline like "5 Ways to Rid Bed Bugs Permanently" and then list 2 of the methods, then say "click here for the other 3 methods" and link to a short opt-in form. Just throwing ideas out there.

Good luck!

This absolutely can work on native. You will need to spend a lot more time on your lander though. I don;t know why you want to do a separate "Farticle" >> Lander ?

Spend at least a day spying. Look at the ideas behind the most successful campaigns/landers.

You basically have to stop people cold in their tracks the instant they get to your lander. You have to be aggressive - or at least as aggressive as your compliance (with the offer and the ad network) would allow you.

Headline: "{city} Hit With The Worse Bedbug Crises in 60 Years. Is Your Family Sleeping Safe Tonight?".
Image: Kids covered in bedbug bites
Article: Write it like a real news article and in the article you should mention these local guys who do pest control at a 50% discount.

* There are some wonderful insurance campaigns running atm - the best ones I've seen pull different images based on the city/state to make it look REAL and local.

Pest Control is too wide an "angle". Pick one like bedbugs or rats ec. and make the problem real - its in their city and its making the news. Look at some of the news style articles for solar and insurance and model that.

Lastly, I think you will have much better success on Taboola or Gemini. If you still want to run on RC, target the news and lifestyle categories

Originally Posted by deondup

This absolutely can work on native. You will need to spend a lot more time on your lander though. I don;t know why you want to do a separate "Farticle" >> Lander ?

Spend at least a day spying. Look at the ideas behind the most successful campaigns/landers.

You basically have to stop people cold in their tracks the instant they get to your lander. You have to be aggressive - or at least as aggressive as your compliance (with the offer and the ad network) would allow you.

Headline: "{city} Hit With The Worse Bedbug Crises in 60 Years. Is Your Family Sleeping Safe Tonight?".
Image: Kids covered in bedbug bites
Article: Write it like a real news article and in the article you should mention these local guys who do pest control at a 50% discount.

* There are some wonderful insurance campaigns running atm - the best ones I've seen pull different images based on the city/state to make it look REAL and local.

Pest Control is too wide an "angle". Pick one like bedbugs or rats ec. and make the problem real - its in their city and its making the news. Look at some of the news style articles for solar and insurance and model that.

Lastly, I think you will have much better success on Taboola or Gemini. If you still want to run on RC, target the news and lifestyle categories

Originally Posted by deondup

This absolutely can work on native. You will need to spend a lot more time on your lander though. I don;t know why you want to do a separate "Farticle" >> Lander ?

Spend at least a day spying. Look at the ideas behind the most successful campaigns/landers.

You basically have to stop people cold in their tracks the instant they get to your lander. You have to be aggressive - or at least as aggressive as your compliance (with the offer and the ad network) would allow you.

Headline: "{city} Hit With The Worse Bedbug Crises in 60 Years. Is Your Family Sleeping Safe Tonight?".
Image: Kids covered in bedbug bites
Article: Write it like a real news article and in the article you should mention these local guys who do pest control at a 50% discount.

* There are some wonderful insurance campaigns running atm - the best ones I've seen pull different images based on the city/state to make it look REAL and local.

Pest Control is too wide an "angle". Pick one like bedbugs or rats ec. and make the problem real - its in their city and its making the news. Look at some of the news style articles for solar and insurance and model that.

Originally Posted by deondup

Lastly, I think you will have much better success on Taboola or Gemini. If you still want to run on RC, target the news and lifestyle categories

Originally Posted by deondup

This absolutely can work on native. You will need to spend a lot more time on your lander though. I don;t know why you want to do a separate "Farticle" >> Lander ?

Spend at least a day spying. Look at the ideas behind the most successful campaigns/landers.

You basically have to stop people cold in their tracks the instant they get to your lander. You have to be aggressive - or at least as aggressive as your compliance (with the offer and the ad network) would allow you.

Headline: "{city} Hit With The Worse Bedbug Crises in 60 Years. Is Your Family Sleeping Safe Tonight?".
Image: Kids covered in bedbug bites
Article: Write it like a real news article and in the article you should mention these local guys who do pest control at a 50% discount.

* There are some wonderful insurance campaigns running atm - the best ones I've seen pull different images based on the city/state to make it look REAL and local.

Pest Control is too wide an "angle". Pick one like bedbugs or rats ec. and make the problem real - its in their city and its making the news. Look at some of the news style articles for solar and insurance and model that.

Lastly, I think you will have much better success on Taboola or Gemini. If you still want to run on RC, target the news and lifestyle categories

Thirded on 99Designs. I was extremely unimpressed with them last time I tried them out.

On the Wordpress setup: what hosting are you using there? Wordpress is slooooooooooow without expert hosting or a good caching setup, and that'll cost you real money.

My usual go-to are WP Engine: a site hosted with them will still be significantly slower than a static HTML site (which I would still strongly recommend - Jekyll is a good option for building larger static sites, and you can actually set WP up to spit out a static site if you want to as well), but it'll be a lot faster than an unoptimised WP site. Failing that, install WP Total Cache and either a) spend the requisite day tuning it or b) hire someone to do it for you

Lots of great comments on this follow along.

xentaa any update and stats from your side?

Originally Posted by vortex

As much as I HATE raining on anyone's parade - I agree with cmdeal that the offer you're promoting may not be a good fit for the traffic. Unlike for adwords, you can't really target people who are looking for pest control services.

The closest you can get with RevContent would be to target the "Homes, DIY and Architecture" topic. But even THAT would still be a way-too-general audience. My guess would be that your conversion rate would be quite low.

Although - if you can improve your backend funnel (where as you're planning to sell other home services to home owners) to squeeze out a really high life-time value from each lead, you may STILL be able to make profits. But there are definitely other types of traffic that will give you better returns and faster.

Just my 2 cents - please take with a grain of salt. In the end only actual testing will tell, as stats don't lie.



Amy


EDIT: If you still want to give pest control a shot, consider implementing shishev's suggestions regarding your lander. Especially important are:

1)Get rid of all the elements on your lander that aren't doing direct-selling for you.

2)Use a WAY scarier image than the one you have now (for example these). Also split-test images of different common household pests: bed bugs, roaches, ants, termites, rodents.

3)Try some headlines (both for your lander and ads) that will entice people to click. For inspiration, all you need to do is go to a viral news site like viralnova or upworthy and browse their headlines. For example I just saw this headline on viralnova:

"When They Couldn't Kill The Cockroach Infestation, They Just Burned Down The House"

So maybe you could try something like:

"Got a Roach Infestation? Don't Burn Down Your House Yet!"


I once saw an article on upworthy that describes how their editors would come up with at least 20-30 eye-catching headlines before deciding on one. They're experts on writing headlines because they have extensive stats on what kinds of wording are getting the most clicks. IMO, studying their headlines is more practical than reading a hundred books on copywriting.



Also - I came across this page that has a nice format - you can consider modeling yours after it:



I'm sure you can come up with a better headline and image than what they have - but basically a 2-column format, with a headline followed by an image, then a sub-headline and then body. The list of services and respective pricing (only show if they're competitive) in the side bar is a nice touch as well - would make your lander look genuine and more interesting, plus do more selling for you.


Lastly - I've read on multiple sites that around 40% of people that try DIY methods first, end up calling a pest control service in the end anyway, so a better approach may be to capture the lead first so you could email them at a later date when they're ready to throw in the towel and call the experts. You could for example put together a list of DIY methods and set it up on an autoresponder. Then on your landing page and ad use a headline like "5 Ways to Rid Bed Bugs Permanently" and then list 2 of the methods, then say "click here for the other 3 methods" and link to a short opt-in form. Just throwing ideas out there.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by deondup

This absolutely can work on native. You will need to spend a lot more time on your lander though. I don;t know why you want to do a separate "Farticle" >> Lander ?

Spend at least a day spying. Look at the ideas behind the most successful campaigns/landers.

You basically have to stop people cold in their tracks the instant they get to your lander. You have to be aggressive - or at least as aggressive as your compliance (with the offer and the ad network) would allow you.

Headline: "{city} Hit With The Worse Bedbug Crises in 60 Years. Is Your Family Sleeping Safe Tonight?".
Image: Kids covered in bedbug bites
Article: Write it like a real news article and in the article you should mention these local guys who do pest control at a 50% discount.

* There are some wonderful insurance campaigns running atm - the best ones I've seen pull different images based on the city/state to make it look REAL and local.

Pest Control is too wide an "angle". Pick one like bedbugs or rats ec. and make the problem real - its in their city and its making the news. Look at some of the news style articles for solar and insurance and model that.

Lastly, I think you will have much better success on Taboola or Gemini. If you still want to run on RC, target the news and lifestyle categories

Originally Posted by matuloo

Just wanted to write a suggestion similar to yours and than I discovered your post.

This is excellent way of thinking. You can approach this in two basic ways so to speak. Either identify a problem they have or make-up/find a problem and make them believe they have it too. Then offer the solution.

Health issues is a big topic, and parents respond to it the best when kids are involved. I hate to say it since I have 3 kids myself, but yeah its true.

Pest control gives you a lot of excellent angles

1. ZIKA virus - mosquito bites spread it - latam world - there you have a huge angle. The virus is spreading north, so mexico and usa are your markets too.
2. bug bites as @deondup suggested - excellent angle
3. whatever illness that can be spread by bugs - dig out some stats and focus on it - "you and your family can be next !" ... but we have a solution
4. termites - they can take your new house down!!!! protect yourself.
5. insurance probably doesnt cover pest issues - another cool angle

I could go on and on, there is a ton of angles you can focus on.

Here is some more food for though :

http://qmobius.com/insights/survey-f...ast-12-months/

http://www.insurancequotes.org/home/...ance-policies/ - here is an awesome scary story you can use imediatelly :

One family living in the Upper East Side, one of the richest areas in NYC, also fell victim to the bed bug infestation and spent more than $70K trying to eliminate the bugs. Eventually, the family was forced to move and trash all their belongings in the process.

Here is another awesome site I found for you : http://www.pestworld.org/

More here : http://www.theguardian.com/money/201...ats-mice-moths

- While you can buy your own traps and devices to deal with certain pests on the cheap, professional fees for dealing with infestations can cost as much as £500 or more if repeat visits are required. Then there's the cost of repairing structural damage or replacing damaged furniture, clothes and textiles.

You actually picked an awesome vertical, maybe I should play with it too, the angle options are really wide here

Good luck.

Originally Posted by caurmen

Thirded on 99Designs. I was extremely unimpressed with them last time I tried them out.

On the Wordpress setup: what hosting are you using there? Wordpress is slooooooooooow without expert hosting or a good caching setup, and that'll cost you real money.

My usual go-to are WP Engine: a site hosted with them will still be significantly slower than a static HTML site (which I would still strongly recommend - Jekyll is a good option for building larger static sites, and you can actually set WP up to spit out a static site if you want to as well), but it'll be a lot faster than an unoptimised WP site. Failing that, install WP Total Cache and either a) spend the requisite day tuning it or b) hire someone to do it for you

Originally Posted by shishev

Although the lander screenshot is a bit blurry and small here are a few more thoughts/tips below.

- 99designs` quality is not professional, this is a common misconception, especially amongst marketers. The quality is average at best, it's just a very broken business model which has been confirmed by...well certain individuals which I've been in touch with in the past, don't want to bash the company any further in this regard.

A professional grade logo would set you back a few k, and arguably a few months, whereas a contest of hundreds of (mostly) average designers will definitely not produce high quality results when every designer's thought is to just mash something up really quickly in the hopes of getting lucky and winning, purely relying on the contest holder's mercy and personal taste. And the contest holders are usually not familiar with design in general in order to pick the proper one, that's why it's so very broken.

That being said, the time you've spent to setup this contest could likely have been more productive in picking 1 designer on Dribbble for example, and paying them $200-$300 for that quick logo. You can generally expect better quality like so.

//99designs rant over.

On to the lander, I think you have the right elements in check, it's just the way it's structured is what bothers me. I'm not going to mention the actual design of things as the screenshot is too tiny.

- You have your logo in the presumable header, then you have the text "Pest Control" in a nice wide area which is wasting a lot of space. Either turn this text into a proper headline, or combine it with the logo, or just remove it.

- You have a perhaps main headline below that - "Pest control services", but why does it sound so plain? Below your main call number you've got a proper action-focused headline ("In urgent need of a..."), why not move it to the top?

- By the looks of it the main CTA with the call number seems to stand out, it's all over the page too, but is it enough? Maybe add some icons in there (e.g. call icon). Can't see it very well so not gonna dig in here.

- Your point 4, the call to action copy, does it seem to relate directly to or is it related to the main CTA immediately? Can't see it very well but it seems a bit confusing, as it's on the right side, seems disconnected from both of the CTAs at the top.

- You also have a video and a nice geo-targeted headline down there, might be worth doing an A/B test if you put this stuff at the top for added trust along with the CTAs.

- Point 11 - why not get these attention grabbing icons somewhere higher, even if they're smaller, it should have a better effect than sticking them at the bottom.

- These 20 or so links in the left sidebar are usually bad practice and affect landers negatively. You have this 1 well-planned goal throughout the entire lander and everything seems to be focused towards it, and then you're giving users 20 more choices, which can be very distracting. Sure you're linking to other offers, but it might be worth removing these altogether and perhaps moving some of the stuff from the right sidebar there, even from the main content area. Another thing to maybe A/B test.

- If you're relying on fear, as cmdeal mentioned above, why not use more (and bigger) images of nasty bugs and put them in more visible places. Another thing to maybe test. For a pest control lander it doesn't look very scary, if that's what you're after.

You haven't launched and tested this lander yet, I think(?), but it wouldn't hurt spending some time to improve it.

Good luck! Looking forward to your updates.

Originally Posted by cmdeal

Lots of great comments on this follow along.

xentaa any update and stats from your side?

Originally Posted by whats1thingnow

since you are tracking on Voluum...

as per deondup from this thread..

you can look at the ISP data in Voluum.

e.g. OVH SAS - most of the spy tools use it and I guess some bots as well. LOTS of traffic from them on RC and C.ad

Originally Posted by caurmen

Thirded on 99Designs. I was extremely unimpressed with them last time I tried them out.

Important Notes :

Please try to use a width / height ratio around 3 as this logo will be used in a website header too.

I'll use your logo colors as the base colors of my colorscheme, so please think your colors carefully.

Please don't forget to deliver the transparent background version of the logo.

I always have a white/light color background so your logo should NOT have too light colors.

I Mostly like simple and **clean / modern logos** with the Logo TEXT (and the logo Tagline Iif I have a tagline) plus **a clean "vector"** suggesting what the logo/company is about.

NAME :
"++++++" which means "+++++++++++++"

TAGLINE :
"vvvvvvvvvvvvvv".

This means "gggggggggggggggggggggg"

DESCRIPTION :
This logo is for an informational site dedicated to providing girls aged 16-30 informations on blablabla.

Regarding color-scheme and style the "target" of this website are 85% women, 15% men, aged 16-30, who wants to blablabla.

Based on the Input I got so far I created a second version for the lander. I will create multiple versions to a/b test based on this one. Feedback is still welcome.



Things I tweaked:

1. More authentication by adding bio from Author
2. More authentication by adding live visitors.
3. Images to Identify with fear
4. Visual call to actions regarding pest control. Might add pricing and call icon in next version.
5. Social sharing (Using social warfare plugin for this).
6. Article to to warm up visitor about dangers. (ordered 4 star quality article via Textbroker, cost is $10).
7. Make clear prevention is key.
8. Call to action to call our Pest control experts.
9. If they don't want to call, they can fill in the form. They get follow up emails after this. (first goal of the lander is to call, 2nth goal is fill in form, 3th goal is social sharing). Shots regarding follow up mails soon.
10. Some extra content elements. Will play with those in upcoming versions.

• Create ads in Yahoo Gemini and Mgid. Will post creatives here in the weekend.
• Set up retargeting (via Google, Facebook and Native adworks).

Caching solution: looks decent but I have one suggestion.

Given you're not particularly concerned about comments, you can gain a lot of speed - almost static site speeds - by adding nginx as a front-end, and configuring it to aggressively page cache everything apart from your admin section. If you're running pretty permalinks you can tell it to ignore query strings too, which will also harden the site a bit. You'll need to manually delete that cache if you update pages, but the speed increase will be huge and it's a very simple solution.

Given you're running WP with all its hilarious security issues, you may also want to do something very aggressive to prevent people accessing your admin directory, like flipping permissions on the directory so it's not global-readable via SSH whenever you're finished editing. (Note - I've not tested this approach and it may cause bugs. However, if it doesn't cause WP to have a crapout then it's a solid hardening approach.)

Wordfence is a good security plugin for wordpress - might be worth checking out, never had issues with it running big SEO sites for years.

Xentaa - that new lander looks 100 times better than the original one! You're a big action-taker. Looking forward to seeing how it will do.

(Just noticed a typo in your headline: "Crisis" not "Crises" - you DID mean to use the singular correct?)


Amy

way to go taking action man!

Originally Posted by xentaa

More authentication by adding live visitors.

Ok, got my first stats in Yahoo Gemini.

The bad news

No converisons so far, being sad because it doesn't give me usable data to work with.

The good news

Found an ad with a ctr of 1.53 %. Which is a great start I think. Also got 4 people filling in the form. This is offcourse nothing compared to 160 EUR adspend. By adding the facebook remarketing pixel I also have a custom audience I can target upcoming weeks. Let's test if this gives any conversions.



The ad with 1.53% CTR



Questions:

• With 160 EUR testbudget no single conversion. What do I do? Give the campaign more budget, try another traffic source or just try another offer?

Are there any more stats from Gemini you can narrow down? Placements, demographics, etc?

If not, that's such an appalling performance I'd be inclined to move on from either the traffic source or the offer. But hopefully there's some drilling down you can do first.

The fact that you only got 4 form completions is interesting too. From a thousand visitors that's pretty low - if they're real visitors. Can you /are you checking for partial completion?

Finally, with these stats I'd do a bot check. What tracking are you running, and can you check carrier names?

You should definitely try a few other different offers.

This will be tough to get this specific offer + this specific channel + this specific funnel profitable.

On optimising Gemini, you may find this thread useful: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...e-Yahoo-Gemini

I would strongly suggest that you start testing this on Taboola. If you can't block placements on Gemini you are just wasting money because the chances of finding an offer that works "everywhere" is very slim. So, either get a rep on Gemini or more to another traffic source.

When you test a campaign like this that's not a "proven" niche you will most probably need to spend a fair amount. There are a lot of moving parts to a campaign like this. One of the big problems with PPCall is the time limitations of the call centers. You really need to find a compelling way to grab these people but I know that Taboola can do day parting

Originally Posted by caurmen

Are there any more stats from Gemini you can narrow down? Placements, demographics, etc?

If not, that's such an appalling performance I'd be inclined to move on from either the traffic source or the offer. But hopefully there's some drilling down you can do first.

The fact that you only got 4 form completions is interesting too. From a thousand visitors that's pretty low - if they're real visitors. Can you /are you checking for partial completion?

Finally, with these stats I'd do a bot check. What tracking are you running, and can you check carrier names?

something i learned from finch..

the first 3 things to optimize are

1) offers
2) angles
3) landing page type

this is assuming placements are not junk

in this case, seems like we CAN'T even do anything about the placements - so that's out of the question

so, that goes back to the offer and angle

that ad with a better performance could be telling you that's a winning angle...

but like the other guys said, 4 form completions from 1000+ visitors is low... this could mean the offer is a dud

do you have the lander to offer ctr metric?

Originally Posted by whats1thingnow

but like the other guys said, 4 form completions from 1000+ visitors is low... this could mean the offer is a dud?

I have a friend, Chet Rowland, who's been in the pest control business for close to 40 years, maybe longer. He lives in Tampa, is an excellent direct response marketer (he actually created a pest control marketing kit for other pest control owners, featuring direct marketing techniques), and his website would probably be worth studying: http://chetspest.com/

That being said, one thing he told me about the pest control business is this: it's incredibly hard to get new customers. Once you get one, you put them on a route with regular service, and they'll stay with you until you royally screw it up. He told me pest control businesses are usually sold and valued by the number of routes they have, and the best way to get new routes is to buy an existing pest control business. Even the best direct response marketing is hard to make work, and Chet's done it all.

What that means is, while you can test generating leads on native ads, this will be very hard to make work-- when someone has a pest problem they either call their existing exterminator, go to the yellow pages (still), ask a friend for a referral, or search for a local pest control service on Google. The problems also vary by geography-- you'll have termite issues in Florida, but not so much in Texas where you may have roach issues. This makes this a very difficult offer to promote on native, so it'd be a good idea to test offers that are less challenging to make work on native.

Wow, great advice keeps coming. Thanks @Caurmen @Johna5150 @Whats1thingnow @Cmdeal @Deondup. Based on your comments I decided to change my gameplan.
The homeservices market I am trying to conquer might be indeed too hard via native and will require a significant budget and many angles to test. Since this contest is
only 1 month and we want to see some results, this is wat I am going to do:

The main goal of what I am doing here is not running a single profitable campaign but building a longterm asset. The asset I am working on is a connection hub between homeowners and anyone who is providing services for them. (Garden, Roof, Cleaning, Refinancing,...). All of those work very wel via search but this gets very competitive, the reason why I am reaching out to native. Offcourse user intent here is much lower compared to search. So I also have to lowerd the barrier to get something back for the traffic paying for:

• I will build a home value calculator where visitors will be asked questions like 'What kinds of floors do you have", "Do you have a garden", "What is your street", "Are you having trouble with Pest", "How old are you",... . They get the estimate once they fill in their phone and email. If this works I get a very worthfull database where I can create many very personalised email lifecycles and offer the right services.
• Not reinventing the wheel here but I think this will work much better for the offers I am running via the Native trafficsource.
• Some examples: Redfin , Zoopla
  

I think the idea of building a general site around homeowner services is great. Nice one.

Having said that, the home value calculator feels like another "specific need" thing. Mostly, you care about the value of your home when you're trying to sell it, or when you're getting your insurance updated. Otherwise, it's of curiosity value only.

What about a "risk analysis" tool? Something where you can input some details and get a list of potential homeowner disasters that you're at high risk for? Burglary, flooding, broken appliances, subsidence, even global-warming-related flood problems? (Actually, that last one is a great tool to promote all on its own).

I'd expect most homeowners would be at least somewhat interested in that sort of evaluation.

Originally Posted by xentaa

• I will build a home value calculator where visitors will be asked questions like 'What kinds of floors do you have", "Do you have a garden", "What is your street", "Are you having trouble with Pest", "How old are you",... . They get the estimate once they fill in their phone and email. If this works I get a very worthfull database where I can create many very personalised email lifecycles and offer the right services.
• Not reinventing the wheel here but I think this will work much better for the offers I am running via the Native trafficsource.
• Some examples: Redfin , Zoopla
  

Thoughts?

Originally Posted by vortex

If you want people to fill out a multi-question questionnaire, you'll need to offer something people desperately want or they won't bother.

Ok tried another offer. No Succes .

Gemini, 179 Clicks, Cost = $20, Calls = 0
Mgid, 113 Cliks, Cost = $10, Calls = 0
Taboola, still trying to get in.

The lander and offer:


Next up:

• Will try out 1 more Pay per call offer: Home Insurance, Broad Angle: "How To Get The Proper Home Insurance in 2016".
• Will set up a first lead generation test based on the feedback I got.
• Analyse traffic I got for offers I tried, see if there's any bottraffic.

So I changed my initial plan a little. Instead of focusing on the direct Call I take a few steps back by just collecting the email using a simple incentive.

After researching some popular topics regarding "carpet" I decided to go for the Angle "7 Carpet Cleaning Hacks You’ll Wish You Knew Sooner". I used Buzzsumo to see what's currently working.

Why leadgeneration for a topic related to carpet?

• Usable volume in search for carpet services. (For example: Carpet cleaning 110 000 searches a month, clicks in Adwords go up to $10).
• Many different offers to market via email. Pay per call offers: New carpet service ($21 payout), carpet cleaning ($8 payout). CPS offers: carpetvista.com, amzn.to/1MVYZzm ,...
  

• Stats from Mgid and Gemini.
• New angle for this leadmagnet.

I'm still not sure the niche is appropriate for the traffic type, but your lander and ads are looking good! Looking forward to seeing some data soon!

(One small detail - on your opt-in page your "fluff" is missing an f. )


Amy

Awtsch , contest is already over! Damn! I will continue this follow along but give now an update what I learned so far, thanks to everybody who replied!

• Apply to multiple quality native sources when starting out. It takes time to get approved.
• Use remarketing pixels or cookies. Might be important especially for Pay per call, where it's not always the right time for the visitor to call. (Remarketing possible with Revcontent, Taboola, Outbrain, Gemini,Facebook, GDN,...).
• The offers I tried promoting might not be the right fit for native. I tried promoting Pay per call offers related to home services where customer intent is very important. Given the fact native advertising is distraction marketing I took a difficult route to start with native. However, in the long term I am pretty convinced it can work for lead generation related to home services by just finding the right angles. This is where I will continue testing. I did a first test with the angle "7 Clever Cleaning Hacks for Your Carpetfloor." I got me 12 leads with a budget of $30 at Mgid, without optimizing anyting. (not blocking bot traffic, didn't try it with other traffic sources,...). Once I got this flow rolling it gives me a targeted database to be marketed in the long term.
• 99 Designs quality is not the way to go if you need a design. All you end up is paying for 99 really subpar designs. It's a better idea to pick 1 designer via Dribbble. You can generally expect better quality like so. Also worth trying: You can get by hiring 3 designers on... Fiverr.. .(see reply from wiifmdude).
• Don't put distracting links in the lander. Focus on the 1 well-planned goal.
• If you are relying on fear, use big images people really get scared of.
• A/B test everything design related. I just implemented a plugin https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-page-tester/ . Bought the premium plugin. Didn't have the time yet to properly do A/B tests.
• There are different opinions whether or not my chosen offers can work with Native. The only way to get an answer is testing and relying on the data. I can't say yet if it's possbile. Have to test much more.. I learned I have to be way more aggresive. Don't rely on a single opinion!
• Don't use Wordpress, however I am still using it . Why? Because It's easy to setup popups, autoresponder for email, drag en drop landing pages via visual composer. Caurmen gave some very good tips in this folow along how to optimize Wordpress! Gold! Try Wordfence for security.
• A/B test "live" visitor numbers. People's bs-meter might go up.
• In an unproven niche you need to spend a fair amount before seeing great results.
• Get to know your market! See the reply of Johna5150 explaining why pest control might be a very difficult offer to run on native.
• Much more if you read everything posted so far!

• I am finally approved for Taboola, I suspect quality is pretty decent. The goal is to test more angels via this traffic source. I will focus on lead generation instead of closing the direct sale.
• Implement more of the great recommendations I got here. A lot of inspiration now!

This is an intesting journey. I wasnt sure about native for Pay per call. just due to the lack of targeting. But i like the lead gen form idea.. will be watching this.