GOAL: $153.42 profit per day, will spend $40,000 to get there (12)
GOAL: $153.42 profit per day, will spend $40,000 to get there
Hello Stackers!!
It has taken me a while to start a follow-along campaign. I wanted to get some of the rookie mistakes out of the way. After ~$1k spent, I feel like I am ready to start sharing this adventure. I started mid-February 2016 after joining the forum in January.
A quick note on the post title:
1. The goal number is very specific for a reason. I totally understand setting big goals (aim for the stars, land on the moon), but realistically, I want to replace the income I receive from trading 8+ hours of my weekdays. I will worry about getting to massive profits when I can focus on AM full time. For now, the goal is freedom from trading hours for dollars.
2. I started a brick and mortar service business 4 years ago that was being run by a partner in a different state. It was like a firework. Huge revenue, straight up in the sky, and then it exploded. I took a $40k bath on that venture and it didn't offer nearly the potential that AM does. SO I am prepared to invest in my AM education. The risk/reward makes a lot of sense to me.
From Charles Ngo: charlesngo.com/innergame
You know what I find weird? It’s acceptable to get into massive debt to pay for school. I know people who owe over $100,000 and they haven’t even been able to get a job.
Society accepts that risk vs. reward ratio. But lose a few hundred dollars testing affiliate marketing campaigns? Everyone loses their mind!
Tools/Networks/Traffic/Experience
Traffic Sources: Go2Mobi, Zeropark
Networks: F5, Adsimilis, ClickDealer, MPire
Tools:
Experience: I've been involved with digital marketing/web dev for 5 years. In my day job, I run a team that buys digital media for a top 5 auto group here in the US. Although this sounds like an advantage, I think I have some bad habits that will not serve me well in AM. It is interesting to me being involved in both because there is so much more discipline in AM. I've literally seen $25,000 at a time completely wasted in the auto industry. They have an amazing amount of resources and the ROI is nebulous, so there isn't a ton of accountability back to the bottom line. I've already taken some of the basic things I've learned in AM and applied them at work (mainly stat sig and proper split testing). My point in saying all this is if you are just getting started, don't let lack of experience get you down. I have some experience in digital marketing but I consider myself a complete newbie in AM. They are two different beasts.
Best campaign so far
This isn't my only campaign. I've spent another $500 on 2 other sweeps offers/geos and one direct link install offer. I'm not sure I am launching enough but I want to stay focused and not give up too early on a campaign just because it needs a lot of optimization.
Traffic Source: Mobile, Go2Mobi
Vertical: Sweeps
Offer: iPhone giveaway
GEO: AU
Payout: avg $2.50 (tested multiple offers)
Cost: $477.98
Revenue: $195.20
ROI: -59.16%
It doesn't look great off the bat, but there were multiple tests: 30+ banners, 3 different angles, 6+ landers, 7 different offers from 3 different networks. And more importantly, I found a breakout angle/campaign.
Below I've got stats from the whole test, breakout campaign stats are highlighted in the red box in the screenshot.
Breakout campaign: Banners just to get the click, popular iPhone sweeps LP with modifications, testing 7 different offers from 3 different networks.
Day 1:
Started off with 3 angles, testing 8 banners per angle, running 3 popular LPs, 7 different offers from 3 different networks. Started it following the mobile cookbook main course setup (wifi/angle, wifi/app, mobile/angle, mobile/app). Using a proven lander (ripped and then cleaned up/modified) definitely helped. It was one part of the equation I knew was proven.
ALL CAMPS
Cost: $20.99
Revenue: $11.20
ROI: -46.64%
BREAKOUT CAMP
Cost: $1.93
Revenue: $2.80
ROI: +45.08%
Day 2:
I did some placement clean-up, blacklisting high expense placements with no conversions. I was running a fairly low CPM, win rate was approx. 6%. I was just trying to push a lot of cheap traffic through the funnel at this point. I took notice of the breakout campaign on Day 2. It had converted both days on very low spend.
ALL CAMPS
Cost: $20.04
Revenue: $9.40
ROI: -53.09%
BREAKOUT CAMP
Cost: $3.14
Revenue: $2.80
ROI: -10.96%
Day 3:
Pushed more traffic through the breakout campaign and sure enough, it kept converting. I was getting conversions from the other campaigns, but they were further away from +ROI. I read somewhere on here that when you find something that works, push it. Breakout campaign was positive ROI with very few placement cuts (trying to keep volume). I also had stat sig on the 3 landers I was running and I cut 2 of them. This helped ROI tremendously.
ALL CAMPS
Cost: $48.91
Revenue: $21.40
ROI: -56.24%
BREAKOUT CAMP
Cost: $13.80
Revenue: $14.20
ROI: +2.90%
Day 4:
I added a completely different lander to test against the last winner. Completely different style. At this point, the banners were generic "get the click" style landers, so I don't think the banner->LP angle mattered as much but I could be wrong. These were message style banners so as long as there was a "message" on the LP, it seemed to work. I also cut 2 of the 7 offers I started with originally. They were below 10% chance of winning using the peak conversion Bayesian stat sig calculator.
ALL CAMPS
Cost: $43.19
Revenue: $24.00
ROI: -44.44%
BREAKOUT CAMP
Cost: $12.31
Revenue: $8.40
ROI: -31.74%
Day 5:
SOLID GREEN!! The breakout campaign accounted for all of the revenue throughout the day and was at +68% ROI. Very happy to see some solid green. At this point I cut campaigns that were at 5x+ payout with no conversions. I also did a round of banner cuts and placement cuts on promising campaigns (greater than -80% ROI since launch).
ALL CAMPS
Cost: $42.48
Revenue: $20.60
ROI: -51.51%
BREAKOUT CAMP
Cost: $12.24
Revenue: $20.60
ROI: +68.34
Day 6:
This was a good day. At this point, I had a solid idea of what was working. I was down to 4 offers. All offers were converting, but the day to day was kind of random and none had less than 10% chance of being the best.
ALL CAMPS
Cost: $39.16
Revenue: $34.60
ROI: -11.65%
BREAKOUT CAMP
Cost: $12.04
Revenue: $21.80
ROI: +81.03%
Day 7:
Third day of 60%+ ROI on the breakout campaign. At this point I decided it was steady, and did a bid test. You can see the camps labeled orig bid, mid bid, high bid. The original bid still did the best, although the other 2 converted, so I let them keep running for more data.
ALL CAMPS
Cost: $93.28
Revenue: $30.00
ROI: -67.84%
BREAKOUT CAMP
Cost: $12.02
Revenue: $19.40
ROI: +61.34%
Day 8:
Things start to come off the rails here. My original breakout campaign was part of a main course, wifi/mobile app/site campaign setup. However, 3 of the 4 were disapproved by the exchange. After chatting with my traffic source rep, she gave me some hints on what exchanges would approve/disapprove. I cloned the breakout camp to a different exchange while keeping it running on the original. I was worried that eventually they would come back and disapprove the very green camp I was running. And....
ALL CAMPS
Cost: $33.16
Revenue: $25.60
ROI: -22.80%
BREAKOUT CAMP
Cost: $17.44
Revenue: $20.60
ROI: +18.12%
Day 9:
BREAKOUT CAMPAIGN REJECTED FROM EXCHANGE. Sure enough. My winner was killed off. The cloned campaign just hasn't had the same success on the new exchange, although I am still working through the placements on that campaign. Honestly, I would have done this campaign even knowing it was going to die. I cannot believe how much I learned by going through this process. Combining action with study is a powerful combo. When I was younger, all I did was study things that interested me without ever taking action. Only later did I realize that the reading and studying are magnified by 1000x when you are taking action at the same time.
Lessons Learned
Everything below has been said by someone much smarter than me on these forums. I am going to reiterate them here because I feel like I now truly understand why they are so true.
- If you do not run traffic for at least 24 hours, your results are not statistically significant no matter what the numbers say (I believe I read that from Caurmen and wow, it is so true).
- Spy, rip, and modify/clean up in the beginning. Knowing what is working for others helps to remove some of the variables.
- Wait for statistical significance. This is an easy one to say, much harder to do when you are staring at red. I tried to do other things while waiting for data. Refreshing stats got me to emotional about what was going on in the campaigns. Malan Darras has a great article on that at malandarras.com/affiliate-anxiety. Also, check out his 2 part post on "Let the machines do the work". Seriously changed how I thought about launching new campaigns.
Questions
1. After reading this, where can I improve? Please be harsh and blunt. I have thick skin.
2. Was I doing the testing correctly? I feel like I was adding things to test, measuring, and making changes at the same time. I have a feeling this may have skewed some of my results but I am not sure. Should I leave everything else untouched while I optimize banners? Then do the same when I optimize landers or offers? I spent a sizeable chunk of money testing this campaign, and I feel like it would have been even more if I had only tested one piece of the funnel at a time. Thoughts?
3. Did I spend too much and too long letting the other campaigns run? I feel like I wasn't as ruthless with under performers as I could have been. But I am not sure.
From Dr. Ngo:
I’ve always believed that profitable campaigns are built, not discovered. - http://charlesngo.com/optimizationmindset
Where is the balance between building a profitable campaign, but also knowing when to pivot to something else? I know this is a vague question but I'm interested in thoughts on this matter.
4. If I were to try other sweeps offers but also try some app installs, would that be a good thing? In other words, should I just stay focused on making sweeps work, or allow myself to test different verticals with mobile traffic. I've also started a similar campaign on Zeropark, but that is obviously a different beast. I want to make sure I am launching enough to find success, but also remaining focused.
Actions to take
1. Launch 2 more campaigns this week
2. Keep reading Ca$hvertising and Tested Advertising Methods.
3. Rip and modify more landers for the next sweeps test.
4. Get feedback from this thread and implement.
Thanks in advance!
Mike
Wow, great comprehensive and detailed first follow along post. Best of luck with the journey Mike. Great to see one of your campaigns in the green already. Keep it up 
Thanks Eoin. And thanks for your help along the way.
So you are running a whitelisted campaign on a single exchange in AU ?
What's your goal with that ?
Even if you do a really great job it will probably be never more than a $50/day campaign. The volume is just not there. for whitelist campaigns you will need a really big geo and some really big placements to be worth your while
@deondup, no that wasn't a whitelist campaign. I set it up like any other campaign. It was a single exchange though. Isn't that normal on Go2Mobi?
My goal really was just to learn, which I did.
That's good to know about the volume though. I was wondering what the final volume could really be in that geo. (Although $50 a day would get me a 1/3 of the way to my goal
Is there a way to do volume in smaller geos?
One thing I really liked with Decisive was that you can run a campaign across multiple exchanges. With Go2Mobi you have to pick one. In smaller geos all you can really do is to run all creative sizes and bid really high. AU is very competitive but you should be able to spend $500/day if you run on Smaato and Nexage
Originally Posted by mike_tg
Wow very detailed follow along, am eager to see how things go. Good luck!
@Deondup, good to know. I haven't tried Decisive. How do they deal with different creative policies across the exchanges? Or do you have to be compliant to the level of the strictest exchange?
@nomeus, I did split test the offers. It was surprising to see how different offers, even from the same network, converted differently. I think this may have had a lot to do with load times in AU but I am sure other factors were at play as well. I didn't ask permission from the affiliate manager. Is that something people normally do? I was communicating with affiliate managers while traffic was running to multiple offers so I don't think it was an issue.
Next Step
I've been running what was working on the last campaign on a pop traffic network. I've been at -70% ROI for the most part but this is a RON campaign so I am going to try to build whitelist campaigns out of what I see working. Malan Darras sent out an email to his list (highly recommend people subscribe, his stuff has helped me quite a bit) about finding streams of green in oceans of red. That is the strategy I am going to take running on pops. I also need to try the staggered bid method that Vortex talks about. So much testing to do!
I didn't want to switch traffic sources this early (I feel like focusing will get me to my goal faster) but since I see what is working is allowed on pops, and is harder to keep running on the high-volume exchanges, I think this is a good pivot.
Here is where I am at with yesterday's stats. Starting at the top of the optimization funnel again, with low volume. There is something strangely exciting about starting with a new effort. It's kinda fun.
Questions
1. Is -75% to -80% ROI a good sign after 1 day of running traffic on an un-optimized camp?
2. Does adding a disclaimer and changing the verbiage ("You have been selected for a chance to win!" vs "You have won!") make an LP compliant? It seems like what works really borders on non-compliant and I'm wondering if walking the fine line will work.
From my experience on 2 it depends on your AM a lot as to how strict or lax their compliance is but of course if you run large amounts of traffic then things are stricter. And for this particular case I have not been able to get around that wording with my AMs.
Originally Posted by mike_tg
And second thing, how did you managed to get 0.003$ per click assuming you still use banners? What is your CPM on this campaign?
@nomeus, I'm not sure. I guess I'll keep doing it until they tell me to stop. I found that offers from the same network converted differently so I naturally would want to run the highest converting offer. Also, that .003 was from a pop-up traffic source.
So I launched another campaign this morning. Built everything out, 3 different LPs, banner ads, the whole deal. Woke up at 4:30 am to get it done before work. Took me about 4 hours (I need to get faster at that).
However, after I ran 200 clicks direct to the offer (split testing direct and LPs), I noticed the Network only recorded 2 clicks. This offer is with MPire. Anyone have any feedback on that network? They don't use the Cake marketing platform so I am having technical difficulties every time I try to run one of their offers. I don't like losing the time more than the money for traffic.
Next Steps
I will work on launching another one in the next 2 days. Tomorrow morning will be research and building, the next morning will be finishing it up and launching.
Questions
- Does anyone have any experience with the MPire network?
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