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On 1xx-2xx / day now, cant seem to get past it, need help (16)

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Here's my story, I'm pretty much primarily on mobile pops now focusing on a single vertical.

After launching and crawling like mad, with dirt still stuck on my fingernails..finally, seems like one of my geo is doing pretty good. Launched (over a period) on several different standard sources, PopAds, PopCash, Propeller, Zeropark etc etc.

After optimising all of them, cutting out ISPs, placements etc, I'm making a total of around 1xx-2xx a day, mostly the former.

One of the sources is currently holding 40-50% of the revenue. Im counting around 8 sources. Some doing $10 a day, some $15. Some are erratically between $10-40 a day etc.

Payout is slightly below $5.

I feel like this campaign definitely has the potential to blow up, but I just can't seem to find out out. Been trying out on new sources over and over, even tried incorporating banners (way more traffic there too) but ROI seems horrendous even after trying to optimise. If I base it on Zeropark's volume for good measure, there's 9 digits in total volume. This isn't a small geo.

Example PopAds, after optimising and cutting a ton of placements that either has 0% CTR > 200 clicks, or 1x PO, I'm making a pathetic $10 - $20 a day, sometimes even -$5.

I wouldn't be seeking for any magic pill here, if someone has some guidance as to where to look for, or tweak, or advice for me I will really greatly appreciate it

Thanks a bunch guys

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Each vertical has different characteristics but if a big geo on PopAds is doing only $10-20/day profit for you, your campaign just simply isn't that strong. It could be your angle, could be your offer, could be your payout, could be your hosting and/or tracking that is not quick enough. Basically, you have to find ways to improve your ROI to improve your volume, not just find more traffic in other places.

Hope it helps!

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Well to give a better perspective, on PopAds without much filtering, just the basic settings it's around 12-18k total impressions on position 1. Just feels weird why ZP gives such a skewed impression. But do just wanna give an idea that this isn't some 2million population area or something

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What's the ROI / revenue on those profits? Is simply the volume lacking, or is your ROI bad?

If it's the ROI continue optimizing - if you've already optimized to death then maybe there's just not more possible.

From my experience some GEOs / traffic sources simple don't allow for scaling it big. You already mentioned all the big ones like Popads, Propeller, Popcash, Zeropark ...

For optimizing further and new traffic source suggestions I'd recommend the "DOs and DONTs for pops traffic cheat sheet" that was published a few days ago it's great



When I had X.XXX/day campaigns on pops, I was doing the exact same thing I did when I found XXX / day campaigns, but I was lucky enough to hit a GEO/traffic source/offer/lander that has huge volume or is very effective and the majority of the competition had not figured out the same yet.

In the pops/redirects landscape it's all pretty transparent now, the traffic sources you mentioned as well as all the big volume GEOs are covered by AdPlexity, every newbie can rip and run campaigns that used to make me X.XXX / day profit a year ago.

Certainly you can increase your ROI - but my advice for the big $$ would be try to find what very few people are doing, to innovate somehow. Trying to bring your campaign to display traffic is along this line of thinking, less people are going to do it because it's more work, display is not as transparent as pops are, the restrictions are stricter you'll have to figure that out.

I'm not saying that display is the way, I honestly don't know what the way is, and if I knew I wouldn't tell and run it myself

It could also be an exclusive new offer, a new angle or new lander, a new traffic source or one with high barrier to entry, better technology or who knows ..

It sounds like you know all the basics, now try to take this knowledge and apply it to something "different/new/harder", the bigger the "barrier to entry" is the more likely it'll be good profit once you crack it


PS. I've not been running many campaigns in the last half year, so take my advice with a grain of salt, maybe someone else can chime in regarding the "standard pops campaigns" specifically and how much money can be made there right now.

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12-18k impressions per day sounds really low for PopAds on 1st position bid. From your initial description and what you are saying now, sounds to me like you cut way too much traffic for a decent geo.

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This is what you have to do : now you have the best converting placements and targets, you know they send real trafic and that it converts. So the next step is to work on the LP as you can stop worrying about bots and other placement related factors. Once the CVR goes up, you can start loosing up the targeting a bit and brining in placements you had to cut previously. This should give you some more volume. But its still possible the GEO simply wont give you more due to factors you cannot control : competition, available volumes etc ...

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Improve your lander and funnel.

Retest placements and carrier that you've already cut after your funnel is converting better.

Test new pop sources that are not mentioned on STM in every second post.

Scale to new GEOs. If you tackle 5-10 you will find one that works. If you're lucky even more.

If that does not work, don't waste time and move on to bigger and better things.

Rule of tumb, if you need to cut down to $ xx in big geos, the camp is not a winner.

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Great stuff there Kepe!

Thanks for chiming in! Will start working on my landers!

Appreciate it man, just started relooking all my campaigns now and seeing what I removed too early or too much.

I've also actually dropped you a PM.


Also another question, more or a framework sort of question.
When you guys introduce (example) 10 new geos in, do you test it out all on 1 traffic source, or immediately spread them out throughout all your sources? (Which is going to be an extremely hefty amount per day)

Example launch 10 geos on 10 sources. 100 campaigns. Then start blacklisting, picking landers etc, and then you pick up the green campaigns from the 100 and close the rest?

Be keen to hear different lines of thinking here, and is the above considering a wrong/right approach?

Thanks guys

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This thread is turning into a depository for gold nuggets!

Regarding your question: I wouldn't recommend using multiple traffic sources to optimize your funnel. As you've pointed out that could get real expensive real fast. It would make a lot more sense economically to test more geos with that money instead.

Since you're very experienced with pop already, you must have 1-2 "go-to" sources that you've had consistent success with - you know their traffic quality is decent and are very familiar with how the source operates. I would suggest to just pick one and use that for testing.

For initial testing for a new geo, I would also suggest to test several different bids (by running for example 10-20x payout to each) to find out which one can give you the best ROI, and use that one for hardcore offer and lander testing. You can save money that way - if you're testing 10 geos, savings can add up. You can also look at the initial stats to see which traffic segments are giving you the most traffic volume and/or the best ROI and focus on them. I've given a very rough outline on testing multiple geos at the end of this post here:

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...l=1#post263761

I'm sure that with your level of experience you can draft a way more detailed strategy than that. Have fun and best of luck!



Amy

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What have you been doing for the last six months Kepe?

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Amazing stuff as usual Amy!

This just literally just hit me. Let's say I'm testing 10 geos in traffic source A. What exactly am I testing for? I already know these offers are doing serious volume, it definitely works. And if it doesn't do well in source A, it HAS to be doing well on other sources right?

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Definitely agree with what you're saying! And yeah this is an interesting way of looking at things!

I'm just going to think out loud here...

If you know for sure an offer is doing volume, AND you know most of that volume is done on pop...

Then you know the traffic is probably from the biggest pop networks because of, well, volume!

So we'd be looking at zeropark, adcash, propeller, popads, popcash, wiget, exoclick, plugrush...

The approach you're suggesting is take all the offers that are doing volume on pop, and just set up campaigns for them on all of these sources.



I think this is doable - but there would still be unknowns that you'll need to spend money to find out about:

-Which landers work. Although with all the spy tools around, chances are if you test enough ripped landers you'll find some that work.

-What targeting options to set the campaign to. You'll still need to run enough traffic to find out which traffic segments (e.g. OSs, carriers, etc.) are converting the best. Also need to collect enough data to set up dayparting etc.

-What the best bid is. And this will be dependent on how well your lander works, whether or not you're targeting the best-converting traffic segments, whether you've already blacklisted the bad placements, etc.

-Which are the bad placements. You can only find this out by throwing money at the placements.



So, in the end, we're back to the strategy I suggested in the post above - because even for proven offers, you'll still need to do the necessary testing to make them profitable, and testing landers etc. on all those sources wouldn't make sense in terms of budget. But the point you brought up is still a great one - for proven offers, it may be worth the trouble to test them on multiple traffic sources even from the beginning.



You'd be testing to see which geos would be the easiest to get profitable, and optimize those. For any given vertical on any given traffic type/source, there are geos that are easier to profit from than others. It's better to test several geos and pick the most promising one to optimize, instead of testing one geo at a time and when the initial ROI is -90% you're faced with the question, "do I optimize or abandon?"

And testing multiple geos at the same time is actually faster than testing them one by one, because you can do things in batches. e.g. You go to Adplexity and rip 10 landers for each geo, go to 5 AMs with a list of geos you want their best offers in XYZ vertical for, you modify all the landers at the same time, load all the offers and landers into your tracker, and set up the camps on the same traffic source. Doing things in batches is always faster than going through the entire process for one geo and then repeating for the next geo.


I'll stop here before I rant on further. Thanks for your idea - got me to think from another direction.



Amy

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Technically, you could test any amount of GEOs on any amount of sources at the same time, the problem is the resources and cash to fund those campaigns. Unless you're a superman with a super brain, you cant effectively manage more campaigns than certain amount - # depends on your experience - you will get lost in the data. You also probably dont have enough money to fund so many campaings as the initial loses would be pretty large.

When scaling, I pretty much always take the funnel and try the same GEO in a different source first. I know its a good funnel and a good offer, so I just need to optimize the new source. Of course every source shows different performance, but having a funnel that was proven to work somewhere else, is a huge advantage.

When I want to scale into new GEOs, I start on the initial traffic source - the one where I made the offer profitable first, or the one I know the best. This way I know what placements to target to get the best traffic from that source or at least what placements are too bad to even try them. If a placement is flooded with bots in usa, chances are it will also be the same or similar in canada, mexico or whatever GEO. This doesnt have to be correct 100% again, sometimes the botters target just limited amount of GEOs, but the advanced botters will simulate a common GEO mix.

Scaling to a different source should be easier than to scale to a different GEO. When approaching a new GEO, you might need a different offer, the flow could be different, the people will react in a different way since its another nationality etc ...

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Could you please explain one thing?
When you move your profitable campaign to a new source, do you start the same: Best performing landers + RON + 3 different bids, and then just repeat the same process that you did the first time?

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I dont use the "3 different bids" strategy almost at all. If Im really comfortable that the funnel is solid, I start the test with the top bid, or close to it. Based on the result, I adjust the bidding. If Im not so sure, I start low and the increase to a level that gives me "decent" traffic, then run it for a while and act accordingly. Once Im getting enough traffic to see some trends, I decide what to do with the LPs. Its hard to make any universal recommendations, because every source is unique, but Im sure you got an idea about how I do it.

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It could be the countries you are targeting. Like some others have suggested maybe try to change your funnel system or try another vertical. The biggest issue i have heard from affiliates running with only mobile is that the way they are approaching the user. Are you using custom creatives or ones that the network supplies you? Are you capturing other information like e-mails? You can always use that to try and increase ROI with other campaigns by building an e-mail list.

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