Starting out with sweeps (13)
Hi everyone 
Current professional poker player here and aspiring affiliate marketer. Met some guys in BKK that were ex-poker pro's that are now doing affiliate marketing and they sold me on trying on this thing out 
I subscribed to STM about a week ago and just been absorbing information and applying to affiliate networks. Got accepted into Peerfly and addiliate and waiting on a bunch of other including Affiliaxe, F5, adsimilis and others.
I will be following "The Mobile Cookbook : Appetizer" strategy and get started with sweeps as they seem to be one of the easiest verticals to break into as a beginner, and I see a lot of available offers on the networks, especially for non-US markets with payouts below 1$
Offer : "Free Lotto Certified Winner (ZA)
Payout : 0.40$
GEO : South Africa (ZA)
Vertical : Sweepstakes
I picked this offer because it was listed as one of the top offers on Peerfly, non-US market but english speaking (partially), payout at 0.40$ and there are available banners to choose from that actually look pretty good. I will contact my affiliate manager to ask which banners perform best and whether I can submit some of my own, although that might not be necessary as the ones posted actually look good.
I created the campaign, added the banners etc...
Problem n1 : The campaign was refused on Smaato. Go2mobi cloned my campaign for PubMatic and Mobfox. I didn't know whether those exchanges would work so I asked in the mobile cookbook thread about it. carmen (thanks ) said it will be fine so I went along and started the campaign on Mobfox.
I waited until 10$ of testing and here were the results : 
Pretty disappointing results. No conversions on Go2mobi or Peerfly. I made sure my tracking link works and it does, but figured there was no way I could optimise this campaign to make it profitable so I paused it.
Spent some time looking at other offers, learning more about affiliate marketing and reading about exchanges on Go2mobi. Found out that my results could vary a lot depending on which exchange I used so I decided to let the campaign run on PubMatic to see if results would be different.
Got lucky and recorded two conversions on my Peerfly account but none on my Go2mobi page.
Problem n2 : My postback URL is wrong. This caused me a lot of frustration. It took me a while to knew how to fix this and there was little info online on exactly how to convert a go2mobi postback URL into Peerfly. After reading these forums for info, understanding more about tracking and trying out many conversion tests, I finally got it working, a few hours before my affiliate manager replied on how to format the postback URL properly.
Ran the campaign on PubMatic and here are the results so far : 
Even though the campaign is not profitable (didn't expect my first campaign to be profitable right off the bat), I am getting conversions which I'm really excited about ! Not sure on the numbers but my CTR looks very good I think, I'm very surprised that 4% of people are clicking on my adds.
Problem n3: I used the auto-bid function, which worked very well on Mobfox, but terribly on PubMatic. My WR was about 0.7% at first and I was spending 30cents per hour. I played around with the manual bidder and currently set my bid to 7.5$ CPM and I'm spending a little over 1$ per hour which should get me close to a 30$ spend per day.
Things are looking good and I will now let the campaign spend 60$ before I get into the next step
I'm considering already making a landing page. My CTR is pretty high I think, but my conversion rate is quite low so far. Of course the sample size is very small right now but with such a high CTR I believe a landing page could really benefit me. I know it's a bit advanced for my skill level but I'll have to learn how to do it eventually so why not start now. I keep reading here that a landing page will work much better than direct linking. I'd love to hear your guys thoughts on this. I don't wanna jump through hoops or get myself confused but even though my experience is limited, it seems that one of the main issues with my campaign so far is simply the low conversion rate and that could very well be due to the offer landing page being meh
What I've learned so far :
- I've figured out how to get proper tracking URL and postback URL on peerfly. Still not 100% confident on making it work on other affiliate networks but I'm sure it will be easier now than it was 4 days ago.
- I know that the exchange on which I run my campaign matters A LOT. I will in the future do proper research on which exchange to run my campaign before starting it, and try out small tests on multiple exchanges to see where it performs the best. If someone can give me some insight into why there is such a big difference I would much appreciate it. It seems to matter whether my adds are in-app adverts or web adverts. Mobfox seems to be almost only in-app, whereas Pubmatic is split more evenly between in-app and web. I'm guessing that sweeps will work almost only on web ads. Is there a way to optimise my campaign to make sure it only displays on web ads ? I also found out different exchanges have different rules and I can't run my campaign on any exchange.
- The auto-bidder doesn't always work properly and I have to play around with manual bids to get the correct spending
- Be patient. I got very frustrated at the postback URL not working, and at not getting conversions on Mobfox. Calmly learning and understanding what's wrong is the way to go.
Next steps :
- Apply to more networks and communicate with the managers of the ones I'm currently appplying to. I've contacted a few on Skype and they are reviewing my application and asking me questions on Skype. I've been very open about just starting out but I've told them clearly what I will be doing, what verticals and traffic sources I will use. Hopefully I can get accepted into 2-3 more and then have a lot of offers available.
- Run 2 more campaigns. I tried to run "Mogasm" dating site (South Africa) but I wasn't allowed custom creatives and the supplied banners looked very "adult". Turns out Go2mobi doesn't accept those kind of adds. No luck with that.
- Keep learning, reading STM, googling issues, learn more about tracking, and keep this thread up to date. I've changed my schedule to spend about 3-4h a day on Affiliate marketing for the next 3 months and given myself a budget of 3000 USD over that period for testing/optimising. I will stick to that no matter what, and at the end of the 3 months I will re-evaluate my situation on whether I enjoy this, if I want to keep going, spend more money/time or maybe find out this isn't for me (if I don't enjoy it). I do believe I can make things work so I don't want to give up simply because I'm not profitable. I'm willing to keep trying for longer than 3 months if I enjoy the process.
Overall I'm very excited about starting out in AM, I always enjoy a new learning process as it's refreshing and it's exciting to try something new, especially when you know the upside can be big. Even if i fail or decide this isn't for me, I will learn a lot of stuff that will be applicable in the future, or just improve my overall learning process so I don't mind spending time and money on this even if I don't become a successful affiliate marketer. Having that said I do believe I can make this work, it will just take time, motivation and the right amount of effort.
Thanks for reading and good luck to everyone out there
great post.
i also new to AM, on my way to launch my fist campaign.
I'm also thinking to start with Sweeptake, so i got some question? it would help me a lot if you can answer it 
From what i read you achieve all that with only banner?
(i think to go with a banner+landing page but the LP is difficult for me still try to figure out how to tweak a landing page )
Poker player into AM, seems to be a trend. Similar past here too 
Landing pages usually work better, yes. That said, it highly depends on the traffic source and the offer. If you do want to add landing pages though, definitely look into setting up a tracker. It helps not only with landing pages but with understanding how the whole funnel is structured, where you can gain an edge, etc.
Finally, although I haven't ran sweeps much at all, from what I know, they work better on pop traffic, so you might want to consider checking that out.
Will folllow, good luck!
Manu.
Yeah I suppose I just figured they look so much better than what I could create so I assumed they would also perform better, but I do keep reading that ugly/amateur can perform very well and what looks good doesn't always perform, so thanks for the tip, I will get started on creating banners myself Thanks for the post and advice manu_adefy
Excellent post!
And yes, manu_adefy has an excellent point on testing more creatives (not the advertiser's creatives). CTR is the name of the game when buying on CPM. Finding the best image and angle is key to profitability (and eventually scale).
I'd be happy to help out at any time! Add me on skype: ztutads
Hi everyone.
There was a big holiday here in Thailand, "songkran" which is the Thai new year and a massive 3 day country-wide water fight so I have been pretty busy with that instead of work
I paused the Free Lotto campaign after spending 50$ as the ROI was about -90% and only one of the banners was performing "OK". (Revenue was a little over half the cost). The one banner got about 80% of the conversions. I contacted my affiliate network about making custom creatives but unfortunately that is now allowed for that offer 
.
Just got an e-mail from there that apparently this offer is performing very well so I asked which traffic sources and which banners are performing the best. I'll make a decision on whether I will try some more banners on that offer or not, don't really want to start changing traffic sources as I want to stick with this for a while and not change everything all the time.
Tried out another offer, "iSurvey (AU)" but unfortunately after 25$ spend I had no conversions so decided to pause that. My CTR was very low, less than 1%, compared to the 4% I had for my previous offer. Part of is that is probably because the previous offer was a "YOU WON" type of banners, but I still feel like the angle was probably very poor.
Shout out to vortex for making this guide : http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...mplete-Newbies
I was a little anxious about making banners with photoshop and felt like it would take a long time to learn the basics, but fortunately in 30min I got a pretty decent grasp on how to make simple banners and it's good to hear that your banners don't need to look very professional as I'm not a very artistic guy ^^
The good news is that I got accepted into Adsimilis and they have some offers for sweeps that I am interested in so I will be trying some of those soon.
The plan for the weekend is to start 2 new campaigns and just read more info on everything on these forums.
Wait, you have a banner with -50% ROI and are quitting the offer?
Originally Posted by manu_adefy
Originally Posted by klakteuh
. Originally Posted by klakteuh
Also, you should try hard to get custom banners in. Seems you have a lot of things to optimize. You won't get it profitable from the beginning and -50% on a direct linking campaign with auto bid and the advertiser's banner is extremely promising.
Gogo, conversions flowing means it's time to optimize, not to jump ship
Also, you should try hard to get custom banners in. Seems you have a lot of things to optimize. You won't get it profitable from the beginning and -50% on a direct linking campaign with auto bid and the advertiser's banner is extremely promising.
Gogo, conversions flowing means it's time to optimize, not to jump ship
Hi everyone
It's been a little slow work-wise. Had some issues logging into STM and focused more on my current job (poker) the last few days.
As far as campaigns, the news are pretty bad.
Problem: After un-pausing my Free Lotto campaign, my CTR massively dropped ! For the one successful banner it was around 2-3% but after starting my campaign again it dropped to about 0.3%. I have no idea why this happened. I did run my campaign during the weekend when i was getting conversions but a 10x drop in CTR seems crazy. Nothing was changed besides cutting out the unsuccessful banners.
I tried to run the same offer in a different GEO (ireland) with the same banners and same issue, CTR is at 0.3% and no conversions after 10$ spend. At the same time I tried the same offer (South Africa) but with a different landing page but the issue was the super low CTR again. Overnight my CTR went from 2-3% to 0.3% and I just don't get why. Anyhow I paused those offers and will most likely be done with them unless I figure out what happened with the CTR drop.
Good news is I got accepted into Affiliaxe and they have a lot of interesting offers and I really like the site, it's easy to navigate, everything is clear etc...
I found one offer there that looks promising :
Offer : "Ben&Jerry's Giveaway"
Payout : 1.30$
GEO : UK
Vertical : Sweepstakes
I just created 7 banners for it and sent them for approval. I'll upload the campaign on go2mobi once the banners are accepted, if not I will make new banners.
Also found another offer on adsimilis, also for the UK :
Offer : "Win two £1000 vouchers"
Payout : 0.75$
GEO : UK
Vertical : Sweepstakes
I also made banners which I sent to my AM for approval (can't find anywhere to upload the banners on adsimilis)
While waiting to get my banners approved, I will read about landing pages,
I created a folder with all my banners, notes, data and ideas etc... so I can look back at previous work to learn from it or re-use banner types that were successful. I'm going to add more money to my go2mobi account and keep track of my expenses/revenue here.
Spent : 200$ Go2mobi deposit
100$ STM membership
Revenue : 4$ (Peerfly)
Best of luck to everyone out there !
Sorry for the lack of updates. Didn't want to post anything without much content.
I read this thread : http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...stering-Mobile
by kepe95 which was an amazing read and very inspiring. I spent the next 2 days reading more on these forums and trying to asborb information. Spent some time writing down everything I learnt in Word files and commited myself to taking notes after each campaign.
I launched 4 campaigns and with a total of 70$ spent I only got 1 conversion
Here are the campaigns :
Offer 1: Win an iPhone 6s {UK}
Payout : 0.70$
Vertical : Sweeps
Traffic source : Go2mobi
GEO : UK
Offer 2: 2000$ Super voucher
Payout : 1.90$
Vertical : Sweeps
Traffic source : Go2mobi
GEO : AUS
Offer 3: Win a trip to New York
Payout : 0.20$
Vertical : Sweeps
Traffic source : Go2mobi
GEO : FR
Offer 4: Win a Galaxy S7 edge
Payout : 1.30$
Vertical : Sweeps
Traffic source : Go2mobi
GEO : NZ
Results :
The Ben&Jerry campaign is there too.
I tried out multiple bids and I read that in-app traffic doesn't perform well for sweeps so tried site only traffic. I cloned some campaigns so I could try out wifi or carrier only but since none of them showed any promise I didn't go that far.
I'm kind of surprised I got so many clicks but only 1 conversion. I asked my AM's to check if the offers were converting and they said they were.
I tried out about 7-12 banners for each offer. Gifs, jpegs, png's, different angles.
Here are some of the banners :
The iphones ones were all ripped from adplexity and I changed some of them and added my own angles.
I feel a bit frustrated at the moment because I feel like I haven't really learnt anything in that last round of campaigns besides getting a bit of an idea of what CTR I can get, and I'm not even sure about that.
I have some questions which I'd appreciate a lot if you guys could answer :
- What is a good CTR% range to aim for in sweeps, for example on those "You could win an Iphone" type offers ?
- Is it common for offers to simply not convert, like it's broken or something ? It's just hard to believe I get 300 clicks and 0 conversions.
- If you take 10 campaigns and start them, how many of those will get no conversions ?
- How much should I spend on an offer before cutting it ? I've read 10-20x the payout which sounds reasonable as it would seem very hard to optimise if you've spent 20x the payout with no conversion. In that case, do you just dump the offer or do you try another angle anyway ?
- Are landing pages a MUST for sweeps ? Does it really make a big difference ? I've been running direct and my next step is to setup a server, rip landing pages and test those. Get
- Are app installs still working ? I read they were on the way down but still doable, but then I also read from a few posters that they aren't really good at all anymore to start in. The problem is that even though I'm on 4 affiliate networks, there just isn't a ton of low payout sweeps, whereas there's a whole lot of low payout app installs.
- I've been considering switching to pops&redirects as people seem to say that is arguably a better place to start than DSP. I've learnt a little bit but I don't feel like I've learnt so much in DSP that I'm giving up a lot by changing traffic sources. I'd still operate in the same vertical (sweeps) which apparently perform well with pops&redirects ? What do you guys think about switching traffic source ? I know it's not recommended to switch early on but I'm just not getting conversions.
In any case, my next step is to learn about landing pages and rip a bunch of them from adplexity for inspiration. Setup
Thanks for reading everyone.
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