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Derrick's 1st Mobile Follow Along (12)

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Hello STMers!

So just after a fews days of joining this forum I thought it'd be a good idea to start a follow along and get some feedback along the way as I'm diving into my first campaign. My goal is to make $XX/day in a 2-3 months. Hopefully this is realistic.

Quick Background

I first got into AM last year after I completely tore my left achilles and got into some depression. I then started focusing on AM and got into PPV. After 6 months and losing a little over 1K, I had to take a break to put together funds for another attempt. This month I just joined STM and this forum has definitely opened my eyes and I love the how helpful the community is!

What have I done so far?

So far I have read the mobile cookbook (plus a lot of random threads) and think it's a great guide to follow for a first campaign. I have also just signed up for the following:

• Adplexity (spy tool)
• Go2Mobi (traffic network)
• Adsimilis (affiliate network)
• Maxbounty (affiliate network)
• Peerfly (affiliate network)

I think I want to first tackle a mobile PIN submit offer since that vertical seems to be beginner friendly. It seems like on Adsimilis, I have to apply to run on most offers, so I have done so with a Flappy Bird offer. I am not into the adult stuff, but the games seem pretty cool to me.

What to do next?

I need to do more offer research, especially because I now have access to Adplexity. I'm going to do some research within the forum on offer research techniques and techniques using Adplexity (still not sure how to really use this thing). If anyone has any relevant threads, please shoot them my way.

I also want to get tracking setup. I have used prosper202 in the past, but it seems like FunnelFlux and Voluum are the top choices (from what I've seen in STM).

More to come soon!

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Good call starting a follow-along and I guarantee that you won't regret it! Documenting what you're doing and how you're making the decisions you do will help you to organize your thoughts. Not to mention the feedback you can get.

Your goal is realistic - let's get started!


Yikes! That sounds painful... >_<

Keeping yourself busy is one of the best ways to combat depression. Losing only 1k over 6 months is something to be proud of - I lost many times that amount when I first started out...


With something like flappy bird, my guess is that direct-linking should work better than using a landing page, since there's not much selling you can do for a game like that - people either like what they see or don't.

Try using animation in your banners - a flappy bird bobbing up and down avoiding those pipe thingies will do. If the advertiser has provided animated banners then just use those for a quick test. I normally wouldn't recommend using banners from advertisers, but for gaming they can be convenient to use for a quick initial test because these types of offers require minimal preselling. Basically you want to make your banners enticing enough to make people think "hey that looks like fun I'm bored so let me download it and check it out".


I'm afraid I don't have a lot of advice when it comes to using adplexity as an intelligence tool...I've only been using it to rip landers and the occasional banner...

I don't think I've seen an entire thread that discusses how to get the most out of adplexity - perhaps you could start one?

I know people use it to see what kinds of offers are being run in which geos and traffic sources, which creatives and offers have received the most traffic volumes, which creatives are still being run currently...

Ideally you'd want to seek out creatives that have high occurrence (i.e. it's "seen" alot) currently, that is exhibiting an upwards trend. Something like this:



When you find something like this you could then find out what the offer is and which traffic sources it's being run at, and basically replicate. At least that's what I would do if I were to use adplexity as an intelligence tool.





(By the way - the landing page for which I posted screenshots above can be found here if anyone would be interested in checking it out further:

https://mobile.adplexity.com/ad/2098082)


Voluum is easier to set up because it's managed, but at higher traffic volumes it can get expensive. Funnelflux is cheaper at higher traffic volumes but you'll have to manage the server side of things. So pros and cons.


Looking forward to seeing some results!


Amy

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So right now I'm waiting to get approved for this offer:

Offer: Anti-Virus Mobile
Vertical: Mobile Pin Submit
Geo: Kenya
Payout: $0.80

I chose this over flappy bird because I think I can come up with more angles with utilities rather than a casual game.


Mini Rant

I haven't had a good experience with Adsimilis. I originally got assigned an affiliate manager from the Netherlands and were never online at the same time since I'm in California. It took me a few days to get a response until I finally reached out to another affiliate manager who resides in CA. I'm hoping to get reassigned soon. Hopefully this improves my experience with Adsimilis.

Brainstorming Angles

I like the scare tactic approach similar to what Amy posted above.

• Protect your phone from harmful scripts
• Downloading apps and music can be harmful to your phone. Scan and find viruses now.
• Older phones need more protection against viruses. Scan now.
• Slow phones are often affected by viruses. Speed up your phone by removing the viruses.

Next Steps

As I'm patiently waiting to get approved, I need to create banners and get my tracking with Voluum setup (although I guess this is not really a hard requirement for the cookbook). I've also been tempted to create LPs but I perhaps I should just follow the cookbook and direct link to the offer to simplify things.

Questions

1. Does anyone have any experience/thoughts on running offers in Kenya?
2. Is it worth it to get Voluum tracking setup? Or is it only worth it if I use LPs?

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Please read this before you run antivirus offers on display traffic!

Most (if not all) mobile display networks and mobile exchanges are strict about using aggressive/misleading promotion tactics on creatives. And yet for promoting antivirus, aggressive is what will typically get you results. AFAIK, most of the people that run antivirus using aggressive marketing on mobile display sources are cloaking. The ones that aren't, are either promoting extremely well-converting offers that would convert well enough even for non-aggressive angles, or are promoting brand name antivirus offers that practically sell themselves due to the brand's reputation.

The angles you listed above - those sound harmless enough and will likely get approved to run on mobile display sources, but I don't think they'd be scary enough to get you enough conversions.

You'd do a lot better running antivirus offers aggressively on pop traffic. (Disclaimer: Please comply with the TOS of offer advertisers, aff networks, and traffic sources, or you could get your accounts banned and/or commissions withheld.)

There are definitely easier verticals to run on display traffic.



Some types of offers can work without landers, whereas others will require landers.

Stuff like sweepstakes offers will typically require landers to do well, because visitors needs to know the backstory on why they're being entered into a contest/giveaway, as well as need to be convinced that the contest is legit - and banners just don't have the space to do all that.

It all depends on how well the offer page can sell itself, and whether the offer will require a lot of preselling in order to convert. For certain offers, having good banners may be enough. For certain offers that have offer pages that sell themselves, you could even get away with using so-called "generic banners" - banners that have no relevance to the offer and do practically zero pre-selling. Examples of generic banners are those that say "download" or "play", and those that look like facebook notifications.


For go2mobi, because their reporting is pretty good, you can get away with NOT using a tracker if you're not using LPs.



Amy

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I feel hesitant to diverge too much from the cookbook. I want to try to follow it as closely as possible so I don't dive into too much complexity. With that said, I'm not sure that I want to change traffic sources from mobile display to mobile pops. Would I need to sign up for a different traffic source to run offers on mobile pops, or does Go2Mobi also provide that?

Secondly, I was hoping to find a good offer to direct link as that's what the cookbook says. I think the reason why I chose to follow the cookbook, was because it isolates a subset of challenges within AM and allows you to focus on them without getting too overwhelmed with all of the things you need to setup (i.e. landing pages, tracking).

It seems like the cookbook allows you to focus more on running a campaign, testing, angles, and banners. For a newbie this is already a lot, and if you can understand it and form a process around it, then getting into landing pages and tracking won't be so daunting.

Questions

1. Am I being too stringent on following the cookbook like a bible? Or should I allow exceptions? From what I've been reading, it seems like when first starting, it's all about learning and not about making money. However, I would like to at least give myself a chance by selecting an offer that has potential, choosing an angle that has potential, etc.

2. Should I really consider getting into mobile pops? Or perhaps an antivirus offer is just not a good match for mobile display. In that case, Amy mentioned running a sweepstakes offer, but then that would require an LP & tracking. Maybe there's another vertical that would be good for direct linking on mobile display? I'd love some direction here. Maybe I'm getting too deep into analysis paralysis and should just launch something?

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You can absolutely continue with the mobile cookbook and follow it to the T - it's just that I believe you'd have more luck with a different offer type than antivirus.

If you want to keep things really simple, then just stick with your idea of picking an offer that will do well on direct-linking! The sweepstakes thing was just an example and not a recommendation.

Here's your homework: Go through some of your aff networks' top offers lists, and examine some of the offers' offer pages, and see which ones look like they may do well on direct-linking.

If you'd paste a list of them here, I'll do my best to tell you which types of offers have the best chance of doing well.



Amy

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Just browsing around Adsimilis, it's pretty difficult to find an offer with a good offer page. I'm looking at offers with a payout less than $1 and within Kenya, as that seems to be the only English speaking non 1st tier country. A lot of them look something like this: http://ilovemobi.com/ke/mobile/batterySaver/?affl=91

Or this: http://offers.mobiime.mobi/offer_cac...1LRV9TVERfMDE=

An offer page like this doesn't seem like it would do well without a landing page. Or is there a kind of banner I can use to increase the CR for these kinds of offer pages? It seems like a landing page could provide more context and sell it more before arriving to offers like these. Let me know if my thinking is right or not.

Other than offer pages that look like that, there are the various adult offers but I don't think I have any interest running those kinds of offers.

Besides that there's also these iPhone 6s offers:

• http://www.ec.mundome.com/lp/4220 (EC offer - in spanish)
• http://www.jokerquiz.com/?template=i...6&pub_id=1752- (IN)

These seem to have better pages because there's a quiz so it's more interactive with the user. Maybe that means that these kinds of pages perform better with direct-linking? I'm hesitant to run this kind of offer because it seems competitive, but maybe I'm wrong.

Aside from Adsimilis, I'll look through Peerfly & Maxbounty. Are there other networks that I should I apply to? I'll look into other networks that have mobile pin submit offers.

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Actually there are lots of tier 3 and up geos that speak English as a main language. Just off the top of my head are Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda. You can find more here:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0855611.html



Actually, based on what I've seen in the past, it's the opposite of what you're guessing. Stuff like whatsapp wallpapers and battery savers have better chances of converting on direct-linking than sweeps offers do.

For sweeps offers, people need to know what the backstory is - why the contest is being run, or why are they being offered a free prize. They also need to be convinced that they've done something to deserve that prize or that chance to win - for example by answering multiple survey questions. Therefore more preselling is typically required - which is why landers would be a good idea.

For whatsapp wallpapers, focus on making your banners look either cool or cute, to get visitors to think "hey I want my whatsapp to look like that!"

For battery savers - look through banners on adplexity to find proven banners that people have used to promote battery saver offers in the past. Choose "running longest" and/or "received most traffic" and you'll find some. I usually don't recommend to depend on ripped banners because they burn out fast, but for battery savers I know that the old popular angles are still working today, so those would be a good start. Please also try to come up with your own angles if you do decide to give this type of offers a try.

I would recommend testing more than 1 offer for any offer type you may choose. Try to get 2-3 of the same type of offer preferably from more than one aff network.

You can also throw a couple of "generic" banners into the test to establish a benchmark. This post describes what "generic" banners are:

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...isplay-Traffic


Oh there are lots! Clickdealer, Appflood, Affiliaxe, and OasisAds, just to name a few. (Disclaimer: STM does not endorse any affiliate networks. Please join networks at your own discretion.)




Amy

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That's really interesting and it's good that I've been informed on the above. I thought that because these offer pages didn't have a lot of information, that they wouldn't do well. But I guess in reality, people that click on the banners for these offers already have a pretty good idea of these kinds of offers. I'm assuming that's what's going on here.

Anyways, I just signed up for Affiliaxe and Clickdealer and am now waiting for approval. In the meantime, I'm trying to find other whatsapp wallpaper & battery saver offers to test with. Depending on which offer I find more of, I'll go with that. Then I'll start brainstorming angles and will look for banners on Adplexity.

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Twiddling my thumbs here while I'm waiting for approval on Affiliaxe and Clickdealer. While waiting, I think I am leaning towards running this battery saver mobile pin submit offer:

Offer: Battery Saver Mobile
Vertical: Mobile Pin Submit
Geo: Ghana
Payout: $0.20

Unfortunately this is the only battery utility for Ghana offer I could find on Adsimilis, so I might just run with it until I can find more.

Adplexity Research

Doing some initial searches for keyword "battery", it seems like this is a common keyword so I'm getting a bunch of irrelevant results. Digging in more, I see lots of pops and banners for app installs. I'm not sure if these are relevant to a battery saver mobile pin submit offer.

Are these relevant to my research?

https://mobile.adplexity.com/ad/3018226
https://mobile.adplexity.com/ad/3399866
https://mobile.adplexity.com/ad/2862912


Brainstorming Angles

• You're using more battery than you need to. Optimize your battery usage now.
• Apps can use your battery even when not open. Save your battery.
• Don't let your battery die while playing games. Extend your battery life.
• Keep using your phone without worry about battery life. Save your battery.
• Watching videos shouldn't drain your battery as fast it does. Extend your battery life.
• Use this trick to save your battery life while using apps.

Next Steps

• Create banners
• Launch campaign!

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Those landing pages above would not be approved on go2mobi

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Egad! I second racket's comment - those 2 landers would never be approved!

I would suggest to just start with direct-linking to see if the offer even converts, and also find out which angle works best, and go from there.

That "banner" you ripped isn't really a banner...

Here's how to find some battery banners on adplexity:



I've noticed that most of the best-performing banners I've seen, are VERY simple both in design and in wording. The more concise your headlines are, the better. People never have the patience to read long headlines on ads - you'd be lucky to get a glance that lasts a fraction of a second.




Good luck - looking forward to seeing some stats!



Amy

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