Help – A bit old-newbie already started again (8)
Hello STM Forum, I am affiliate since a few years ago, but without good experiences in paid traffic, a lot of content on the Internet wasn't enough to start and building the right mindset for this career, so I decided to try other things as entrepeneur.
This year, I decided to come back CPA Marketing and found this amazing space, a lot of information and a lot of hidden gems waiting for discover... About 2 months ago I joined the forum and never have had found such logical, professional even scientist content to start working in this career. I'm sure that I am in the right place, with the right people.
I'm ready to start, in fact, I've already started some campaigns. After a lot of reading, it is time to learn in the practice, which is quite different from the theory. So, I've got some questions about if I'm choosing the correct GEO, offer, payout and traffic source.
This is what I have:
Budget: Decided to take care and set a low or mid-low budget, but if everything goes well, I could afford to take more of my cash flow.
Affilate Networks: MaxBounty and Peerfly (I'm working only with MaxBounty because of my background, I've been paid before so I can now receive weekly payments).
Tracking Platform: Prosper202 and then changed to
(Note: I'm having some problems with AdsBridge related to the click through in the landing page, I'll let you know in another post, but I've managed to find a solution whilist I wait for the AdsBridge support)
Hosting: Reseller Account (Like a shared hosting, but I can create hosting accounts with some GEOs)
Traffic Source: 50onRed and LeadImpact (both PPV Adware) – I'm running only in 50onRed because I have some balance available.
And this is what I've tested:
Note #1: Since I'm using PPV Adware, I scraped URLs using the AffExpert Tools (STM Tools).
Note #2: All campaigns are Desktop, and when using Landing Pages, these are optimized, the code and the images for speed issues. Tested and I get between 100ms and 200ms. Sometimes 500ms but mostly 134ms.
Note #3: I asked my AM via email for best offers using this traffic source, sorted by volume and conversion rate, but haven't received an answer, almost 2 weeks I guess (don't remember exactly) but I decided to not insist and go ahead with my campaigns. I understand that the AM could be busy with bigger affiliates or something similar, so let's take some results first.
Campaign #1
Offer: Vindale Research – SOI
GEO: United States
Payout: $1.30 USD
Angles selected (Split-Testing 3 Landing Pages):
- #1 Women without enough money for shopping
- #2 Women without enough money for enjoy, mixed with easy ways to earn money
- #3 The classic Earn Fast Money Right Now
Target: Scraped URLs according to the angle (sites that women are often to visit, even website for mothers or parents).
Min Bid: $0.01 USD
Avg Bid: $0.015 USD
Avg CPM: $15 USD
Results:
Day #1
Impressions: 947
Cost: $15.07 USD
Conversions: 1 (From Landing Page #2)
Conclusion: This was so slow and maybe too high priced for the payout and the target that had the conversion, wasted more than 4x payout after converting. I was aiming to use $20, so I started a new campaign using Category.
Campaign #2
The same as Campaign #1 but targeting with specific categories according to the angles, and AVG CPM $18 (this is very mixed, some targets are as low as 0.01 and other as high as 0.045)
Results:
Day #1
Impressions: 1027
Cost: $20.02
Conversions: 1 (From Landing Page #1)
Conclusions: This is more fast, and got 1 conversion, cutted some bad placements and let's do another $10
Day #2:
Impresions: 477
Cost: $9.11
Conversions: 0
Conclusion: Kill Campaign.
In parallel, I was running 2 more campaigns, with the same offer but different angle:
- Don't lose money with lottery, earn secure money with paid surveys. (3 Landing Pages using this Angle).
So I created Campaign #3 and Campaign #4, first one with Scraped URLs and the second one with one category according to the angle and several keywords.
Results: No traffic, waste of time, this was really frustating. 67 Impressions, AVG CPV $0.047 USD, cost $3 USD in 2 days...
I decided to cut that offer and moved to another.
I searched for sweeptakes offers and found 3, so I started new campaigns:
Campaign #5
Offer: Win $5,000 USD – SOI
GEO: United States
Payout: $1.60 USD
Angles: None. Direct Link.
Target: Several Categories, no related with health and other things.
Bid: $0.01 USD
Results:
Day #1
Impressions: 2000
Cost: $20 USD
Conversions: 1
Conclusion: I got 1 conversion, so let's give it another $10 USD
Day #2:
Impresions: 1000
Cost: $10 USD
Conversion: 0
Conclusion: After 3000 impressions and $30, just 1 conversion I think it is time to killed it. Go ahead with the next 2 offers.
I ran the next 2 offers in the same day
Campaign #6
Offer: Win $1,000 Voucher shopping – (convert on second page submit)
GEO: New Zealand
Payout: $1 USD
Angles selected (Split-Testing 4 Landing Pages):
- #1 Classic Congratulations, you've been selected to win the voucher. (Created another landing page but with sound – A friendly alert sound)
- #2 Special Queen's Gift. This June 6 Celebrates with the voucher. (Created another landing page but with sound – God Save the Queen like 4 or 6 seconds I guess)
Target: RON
Bid: $0.002 USD
CPM: $2 USD
Dayparting: 9AM – 12 AM New Zealand Time.
Aiming for $20 for testing.
Results:
Day #1
Impressions: 10,002
Cost: $20 USD
Conversions: 0
Consumed in like 28 hours, don't remember exactly.
Conclusions: Kill it.
Campaign #7
Offer: Win $1,000 Voucher shopping – (convert on second page submit)
GEO: Australia
Payout: $2.25 USD
Angles selected (Split-Testing 4 Landing Pages):
- #1 Classic Congratulations, you've been selected to win the voucher. (Created another landing page but with sound – A friendly alert sound)
- #2 Special Queen's Gift. You've been selected for the voucher. (Created another landing page but with sound – God Save the Queen like 4 or 6 seconds I guess)
Target: RON
Bid: $0.005 USD
CPM: $5 USD
Dayparting: 9AM – 12 AM Australia East Time.
Aiming for $20 for testing.
Results:
Day #1
Impressions: 4000
Cost: $20 USD
Conversions: 1 (Angle #1, Landing Page without sound)
Conclusions: Got 1 conversion, let's do another day for $20
Day #2
Impressions: 4000
Cost: $20 USD
Conversions: 0
Conclusions: I'm going to stop this campaign, but I'm going to create another campaign with the domain that got the conversion. Also removed the Queen's angle since it received almost any clicks, and then created 2 variations of the angle #1.
This goes to the last and my current campaign:
Campaign #8
Same as Campaign #7, but with new landing pages, and targeting all kind of variations of the domain that got the conversion, and bidding with $0.007 USD – CPM $7 USD only with the domain, the variations bidding is $0.005 USD.
Results: Getting some few impressions, ~300 per day, nothing to worry about bursting the budget, and for the moment no conversions.
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So, having this data I'm worried if I'm doing things correctly, the next questions comes to my mind:
1.- I'm using Pops/PPV Adware with 50onRed. Maybe this is an old-fashioned or already satured traffic source with big affiliates and something really hard to compete as a newbie? Should I just use the balance that I have for learning and move to Pops/Redirects?
2.- I try to follow cut campaigns according to what I've read in the forum. Cut placements that have reached 4x offer's payout after pausing bad placements. Cut placements when they reach 4x without conversions, or if it has conversion, cut it when reach 4x without getting profitable, is this really correct to achieve statistical significance? This question is realed to the next one:
3.- I'd like to get statistical significance, but if I cut placements, I will cut them with only a few impressions, so that is really statistical significance? Then this question drives me to the next one:
4.- By using the Scary Math Calculator, and calculating the Minimum Viable Conversion Rate, I found that for example:
Offer: Vindale SOI - US
Payout: $1.30
CPM: $10
Testing 3 Min. ROI:
Min. ROI: 80% - Minimum Viable Conversion Rate = 1.38%
Min. ROI: 40% - Minimum Viable Conversion Rate = 1.076 %
Min. ROI: 0% - Minimum Viable Conversion Rate = 0.769 %
And then using the Scary Math Calculator (Binomial Confidence Intervals):
Conversions: 0
Impresions: 490
Min: 0% - Max: 0.75%
This means that for statistical significance, if I reach 490 Pops impressions, and looking for at least break-even, I must kill this campaign.
However, is 490 Pops impressions really enough for statistical significance?
The answer to this question could be: Find a higher payout, reduce CPM (Try another GEO) or achieve for less Min. ROI, so you can test more impressions.
So the new questions is:
5.- How many impressions really do I need to achieve statistical significance?
Maybe by knowing this, I could think about what GEOs, offers and Min. ROI should I think about before running a campaign, and of course giving it enough chance to see if is good to advance for optimization.
This post is very long, so I apologize and hope some of you guys can guide and clear my mind, I'll really appreciate it 
Looking forward for your thoughts and any questions required to answers my concerns, please let me know
P.S. Sorry if I have some English mistakes, it isn't my native language
Bump. Anyone available for help? Sorry for the long post, I'll appreciate some advices
Hello, I was already looking at your thread, but since I don't work with PPV I didn't reply, hoping that someone who works with it could give you some tips. But since that didn't happen, let me try to help you anyways.
1. If your AM doesn't reply, you should either join a different network or ask for a new AM. It's not possible to do anything without a responsive AM, you simply need to be able to at least verify if the offers you want to promote are alive. You also need tips on attractive offers and GEOs.
2. PPV obviously doesn't work for you now. You only got a 1 conversion per campaign, that's pretty much worthless and doesn't give you any ground for optimization. I'm not sure whether its a problem with the traffic source or the offers or both. One way or another, there is more volume in other traffic types, so you might want to consider moving too. Think about POPs or Display traffic.
3. GEOs - you picked pretty hard GEOs, USA is a bitch in every vertical I can think of, the volume is huge but so is the process of optimizing such GEOs. New Zealand and Australia are tier1 GEOs too, it's a good idea to stay away from these and train your skills on tier3 countries - africa, asia, south america ... large geos with ton's of volume and good results.
4. Landing pages - where did you get them from? Are those your angles or you ripped it? I mean, how certain are you about them being good? A poor landing page can kill even the best offer
5. You had some questions about optimization, the problem is, you cannot really optimize anything yet, because we don't know the answer to a few questions - did you choose a good offer? If not, all else is irrelevant. Did you use good angles/LPs? If not, you can't optimize anything either. I mean, it's pointless to start cutting sources if the offer you chose is not converting.
I would suggest to do the following : sort out the AM first, either get him/her to reply by complaining or join a different network or two. Get proven offers in cheaper GEOs, avoid tier1 countries for now. Consider switching to POPs or display traffic for now.
NOTE: one thing wasn't 100% clear to me from your post, all the test were done on PPV traffic or were you using pops too already?
I would probably stay away from 50onRed, definitely not for a newbie in paid traffic. I tested their ppv traffic a few weeks ago and it was horrendous, plagued with bots. You'd probably have to burn through a lot of cash before getting anywhere. (personal opinion)
Originally Posted by matuloo
1. If your AM doesn't reply, you should either join a different network or ask for a new AM. It's not possible to do anything without a responsive AM, you simply need to be able to at least verify if the offers you want to promote are alive. You also need tips on attractive offers and GEOs.
2. PPV obviously doesn't work for you now. You only got a 1 conversion per campaign, that's pretty much worthless and doesn't give you any ground for optimization. I'm not sure whether its a problem with the traffic source or the offers or both. One way or another, there is more volume in other traffic types, so you might want to consider moving too. Think about POPs or Display traffic.
3. GEOs - you picked pretty hard GEOs, USA is a bitch in every vertical I can think of, the volume is huge but so is the process of optimizing such GEOs. New Zealand and Australia are tier1 GEOs too, it's a good idea to stay away from these and train your skills on tier3 countries - africa, asia, south america ... large geos with ton's of volume and good results.
4. Landing pages - where did you get them from? Are those your angles or you ripped it? I mean, how certain are you about them being good? A poor landing page can kill even the best offer
5. You had some questions about optimization, the problem is, you cannot really optimize anything yet, because we don't know the answer to a few questions - did you choose a good offer? If not, all else is irrelevant. Did you use good angles/LPs? If not, you can't optimize anything either. I mean, it's pointless to start cutting sources if the offer you chose is not converting.
I would suggest to do the following : sort out the AM first, either get him/her to reply by complaining or join a different network or two. Get proven offers in cheaper GEOs, avoid tier1 countries for now. Consider switching to POPs or display traffic for now.
NOTE: one thing wasn't 100% clear to me from your post, all the test were done on PPV traffic or were you using pops too already?
So here are some conclusions, questions and clarification about what I did:
1.- The way that I was trying contact the AM, I think wasn't enough, just one e-mail and did not add to Skype, so it is my fault. You are right, without keeping a comunication with the AM I'm not going to anywhere, so it is very important to have a good communication and relationship with AM, always treat it as a business in the long-term.
2.- This make me think to move to another traffic source, like Pops since it is the most similar to PPV Adware, just want to try not to do the common mistake and always jump from one traffic source to another, but it is also very important to stay in the right place.
3.- I can imagine how US is invaded with a lot of ads and a country so saturated, no doubt this isn't the country for a newbie, but surely there are a huge oportunity if you know how to attack it, but this is something that must be tried when I reach a higher level in this career.
By Tier1 GEOs, do you mean developed countries, bid price or saturated market? 50onRed doesn't specific the TierN country, but I assume they split the country by min. bid:
Tier 1: Min. Bid: CPV $0.01 - United States
Tier 2: Min. Bid: CPV $0.005 - Australia, Canada, France, Italy, United Kingdom
Tier 3: Min. Bid: CPV $0.002 - All remaining countries.
Just wonder why developed countries don't have a hight min bid? Maybe they don't have enought traffic for those countries?
4.- The landing pages were made by my own, after doing research market, brainstorm angles (Following this post by @caurmen mixed with 7 Deadly Sins post by @Finch), then selected the 2 angles that attracted me.
5.- This makes me think that for the initial test, if it doesn't do enough conversions that allow me to project a good optimization, then something is wrong with the offer, as long as if I'm running in a trusted and proved traffic source, and of course if the funnel is correctly configured. The first stage of Landing page optimization just mean increase the initial conversion performance.
NOTE: All campaigns were tested with PPV Adware - 50onRed.
Thank you so much for your thoughts, I'm going to finish the balance that I have in 50onRed by testing several campaigns, and see if I get some revenues, take it as a learning and then move to Pops, and test Tier 3 GEOs
Originally Posted by mrkash
Originally Posted by jurtzi
So here are some conclusions, questions and clarification about what I did:
1.- The way that I was trying contact the AM, I think wasn't enough, just one e-mail and did not add to Skype, so it is my fault. You are right, without keeping a comunication with the AM I'm not going to anywhere, so it is very important to have a good communication and relationship with AM, always treat it as a business in the long-term.
2.- This make me think to move to another traffic source, like Pops since it is the most similar to PPV Adware, just want to try not to do the common mistake and always jump from one traffic source to another, but it is also very important to stay in the right place.
3.- I can imagine how US is invaded with a lot of ads and a country so saturated, no doubt this isn't the country for a newbie, but surely there are a huge oportunity if you know how to attack it, but this is something that must be tried when I reach a higher level in this career.
By Tier1 GEOs, do you mean developed countries, bid price or saturated market? 50onRed doesn't specific the TierN country, but I assume they split the country by min. bid:
Tier 1: Min. Bid: CPV $0.01 - United States
Tier 2: Min. Bid: CPV $0.005 - Australia, Canada, France, Italy, United Kingdom
Tier 3: Min. Bid: CPV $0.002 - All remaining countries.
Just wonder why developed countries don't have a hight min bid? Maybe they don't have enought traffic for those countries?
4.- The landing pages were made by my own, after doing research market, brainstorm angles (Following this post by @caurmen mixed with 7 Deadly Sins post by @Finch), then selected the 2 angles that attracted me.
5.- This makes me think that for the initial test, if it doesn't do enough conversions that allow me to project a good optimization, then something is wrong with the offer, as long as if I'm running in a trusted and proved traffic source, and of course if the funnel is correctly configured. The first stage of Landing page optimization just mean increase the initial conversion performance.
NOTE: All campaigns were tested with PPV Adware - 50onRed.
Thank you so much for your thoughts, I'm going to finish the balance that I have in 50onRed by testing several campaigns, and see if I get some revenues, take it as a learning and then move to Pops, and test Tier 3 GEOs
2. Don't jump from one place to another, but also don't stay in one when its not working.
3. Yes, US is a huge market but its not the best for some verticals. And nothing for new people unfortunately.
Tier's are just to guide you, when I say tier1 I mean the top developed countries so US + old EU states etc, tier2 are new EU members for example, tier3 are developing countries. Min bid is just what it is, min bid
When there is interest, people will pay more. I think there shouldn't be any minimum bids at all, the market should decide.4. It would be a good idea to rip a few LPs and use them as benchmark when testing your own, consider getting a spy tool like adplexity, if it's just for one month.
5. Could be true, but it can also be the creatives or the traffic source.
Thanks matuloo, I'm more clear now!
Looking forward to learn more by testing campaigns in the right way
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