CHEATSHEET: DOs and DON'Ts of Optimisation (15)
Optimisation. It's hard, but that's because it's key.
Here are 14 tips and a bunch of resources to help you get from "I think this campaign has promise" to "I'm buying my next Lamborghini now".
Optimisation: Dos and Don'ts
1) DON'T just go with your gut (unless you're a stone-cold expert). Unless you're a Stackman- or MrGreen-level expert, statistical math is MASSIVELY more accurate than going on feel for what to cut when.
2) DO run tests to statistical significance. Cutting placements, landers, banners and campaigns too early is one of the surest ways to fail at AM. Doesn't matter if it LOOKS significant, do the math!
3) DON'T run tests beyond statistical significance. There's no point spending $100 on a $0.20 payout that doesn't convert. Once you know for certain that an ad won't work or a lander's not the best of the bunch, stop and test something else.
4) DO use Bayesian testing wherever you can. Here's our guide to Bayesian testing for landers. It's both cheaper and doesn't build up errors compared to conventional split-test calculators.
5) DO split-test offers against each other. 80% of AM success is finding the right offer / traffic source combination.
6) DO split-test the same offer across different networks. Yes, I know it sounds weird, but trust us - testing the same offer on several networks is usually one of the biggest optimisations you can do.
7) DON'T Cut On CTR. Usually. CTR isn't a very good predictor of how successful a landing page or ad will be. Here's Finch's guide to why. You should almost always cut on CVR.
8) DO eliminate ads on CTR if they can't possibly generate a profit. If the maximum likely CTR from your data would give you a CPC so high that you can't make a profit (here's how to calculate that), there's no point continuing to run the ad. No need to wait for CVR.
9) DO run a bot test. Cylons won't sign up for your life insurance product. A simple bot test can save you a lot of time waiting for placements to reach statistical significance.
10) DON'T freak out if you hit a bad day. Campaigns go up and down. A single day's bad ROI might just mean there was a national holiday or a good TV show on.
11) DO try to run 24/7 to get representative data across the day and week. Conversion rates vary a lot by time of day and day of week. Try to get as broad a sample as you can, and don't make decisions based on a single day's data.
12) DO analyze the data closely and look for possible profit pockets defined by device, OS, carrier ... So your campaign's not in profit overall - but that doesn't mean it doesn't have pockets of profit. Look for individual placements, OSes, carriers - anything that's making money.
13) DON'T avoid testing ideas because they're weird. If it's a super-strange idea, but there's no reason it definitely won't work, test it. Weird ideas often lead to great campaigns.
14) DON'T fall into a rut with your creatives. It's very easy to do the same thing over and over again and think you're testing something new. Vary your design, your fonts, your image sources, your image framing, your copy, your CTAs, everything. Every so often, review all your recent creatives to be sure you're not repeating the same mistakes.
15) DON'T EVER STOP TESTING. Ever. EVER. There's always more improvements to be made.
Optimisation Resources
- How Do I Know When To Stop Running Ads? What Is "Statistical Significance"?
- How Do I Know Which Landing Page Is Working Best? Do I Have Enough Clicks Yet?
- How To SEEK AND DESTROY Bot Traffic To Your Campaigns
- The Math You NEED To Make Money From Your Campaigns
- How to Cut Placements, Landers and Banners - Part 1
- How to Cut Placements, Landers and Banners - Part 2
Another great post from caurmen! I'll be referring to this post often - now that all the best tips are in one place.
Amy
(P.S. I stickied the thread - hope that's OK!)
Great post ! thanks
Pure gold, thanks a bunch!
Thanks Caurmen,
6) DO split-test the same offer across different networks. Yes, I know it sounds weird, but trust us - testing the same offer on several networks is usually one of the biggest optimisations you can do.
Does the above mean that a given offer on affiliate network A and affiliate network B should be tested through both the networks via the same traffic source? If yes, then why? Could you please elaborate on this one?
@vishal100london - yes, that's exactly what I mean.
As for why - because you'll find there are often HUGE differences in conversion rates. +-100% level huge differences.
Why is a complex question - hardware, loading times, scrub rates, all sorts of things - but the differences are there, real, and can make you a lot of money.
Originally Posted by caurmen
Also Caurmen, the optimisation cheatsheet is awesome but is there any best order in doing all the optimization tasks - as in start with cutting banners first, or placements first - when I read about statistical significance it talks about running statistical significance after you have cut bad placements...so does that mean always start with cutting placements first?
@vishal100london - Yes, start by cutting placements, but only cut the terrible ones. Then cut banners, landers and offers as they reach statistical significance: no need to cut one then the other most of the time, as they're competing against each other.
And yes, sounds a lot like the offer could be loading very slowly from one network. Test it on the second network against the first offer (don't just swap it out - test them side by side) and see how they compare.
This is my first replay
thank you very much
i hope i will be advance here
you and stm members and forum are awesome
i have many many questions as a newbie i do not know from where i will start
but i will
I can vouch for this.
I found my first profitable campaign on ZeroPark - it was giving me consistent 25% ROI. Split test more landers but my original turned out to be best. So I scaled to Propeller Ads, PopAds and PopCash. Propeller and PopCash weren't profitable. PopAds was but only slightly. So I decided to scale to display. Scaled to BuzzCity, AirPush, Millenial Media, Leadbolt and inMobi.
Millenial Media turned out to be my golden goose and has been kicking out a 200% ROI daily so I've killed the campaign on all non-profitable sources. None of the others have come remotely close to that. Same offer, same lander, same banners. Just goes to show that different networks respond differently.
Originally Posted by caurmen
Thank you for the great post! I have a question though.
What if the stats for the entire campaign has reached stat sig. and tells you to stop but the individual ads has yet to reach stat significance? For example, 1 campaign has 3 ads and all the ads have yet to reach stat sig. but the campaign as a whole already has and it tells you that the campaign probably would not work.
Would you ignore the data at a campaign level and continue running the individual ads until stat sig?
@gasorama - depends on how disastrous the campaign was being. Generally I don't expect a campaign to be profitable before optimisation anyway - it needs to be below -50% ROI before I'll consider stopping it before trying optimisation. However, if it's not getting any conversions and it has run to 4x payout (7x payout on mobile) or more, as a rough rule of thumb, then I'll certainly consider cutting it.
You've got to make a judgement call here. Usually I'll err on the side of giving the ads time, but if I think it looks like the offer's a total dud, I'll kill it.
Great tips @caurmen, thank you for sharing!
Thanks, @caurmen. I wish I know this thing long time ago.
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