Home > Paid Traffic Sources > Mobile

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Newb Getting Started, Sh***ing My Pants (11)

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I sunk a hundred smackaroos on a monthly subscription to STM.

And quite frankly, after reading a few of these threads, you fellas should be charging double that amount. Here be intel I haven't found in even the most highbrow corners of WarriorForum. If there ARE any.

I also sunk a couple hundred smackaroos buying up everything Finch ever wrote.

Both because he seems to know what he's talking about, and because it amuses me that he writes about 8-inch saveloys and bollocks. (Your keyboard must be FILTHY, Finch.)

Why did I drop all that cheddar on a whim? Because I'm fully committed to launching my CPA career. It's either this, or join the circus.

Besides, my investment up to now is just a drop in the bucket compared to the start-up capital one requires to have a real chance at winning this game.

Luckily, I experienced a bit of a windfall recently, so here I am.

That'll do for an introduction. Don't bother learning my name until I earn the privilege.

LET'S GET STARTED

As a baby-faced n00b, I understand that sweepstakes are an attractive option. So I'm starting my follow-along there.

I'd opt for mobile pop / redirect as the traffic source, but I have concerns about:

• Competition & saturation

• CDNs: the expense, and my lack of experience using them

• Cloaking: I have no scruples. None. I'll commandeer your browser until you pay attention to my lander. I'll club you over the head and drag you by the hair back to the merchant's cave if I have to. But being that aggressive is frowned upon, hence the need for cloaking. But that sounds like a huge risk, an expense, and an all-round ball-ache for a noob like me.

• Gullibility: Do people actually buy into this s***?

The other traffic source I'm considering would be mobile display, but something tells me it's an uphill battle.

Bottom line: As you can tell, I'm not ready to take action yet. I'm looking for clarifying answers to my burning questions.

Let's pretend you were but a babe in the woods again. How would you go about flaying the big bad wolf?

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"Bottom line: As you can tell, I'm not ready to take action yet. I'm looking for clarifying answers to my burning questions."

Take action, even if its shitty.

Noone ever got laid watching TV.

You gotta get yourself in the club and start mackin'.

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What this man says

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First of all - welcome to STM! And thanks for your kind words about our community, which you're now a part of - great to have you!

Secondly - thanks for starting this follow-along!

As johnaff suggests: Just get started and ask more-specific questions later. But I will address your concerns below.

These will always be things you'd have to deal with, along with a slew of other problems and issues you'll no doubt encounter.

Just focus on finding ways to make profits in spite of these "limitations". Don't focus on problems - focus on solutions.

As a newbie you're encouraged to play in less competitive geos to avoid the worst of the competition. Many Asian, Latin American and African geos fit that bill.

As for saturation: You'll never know for sure whether something's saturated until you actually run it. There are really old offers that I felt had for sure reached saturation long ago, that some people would run and still make profits from. You never know! Let the numbers talk.


I use Amazon Cloudfront and the costs are negligible, especially if you're not running a lot of traffic (and by the time you are, you'd be making enough money to not care as much about the costs). Here's a tutorial by the great caurmen on how to set that up:

http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...-Cost-Way-Ever!


I'm no techie and I suck at coding big time, and I can't tell you how my partner's doing it cause quite frankly, I still don't understand how he set that up...

I know there are cloaking services around (a simple google or a search in these forums will find some of them). Or you can either figure it out yourself, or somehow partner up with someone that knows how to do it.

Alternatively, just run offers that allow aggressive promotion in the first place. Most pop networks allow aggressive (up to a certain point). That way you won't need to cloak.

If you're wanting to run aggressive on mobile display or FB though, then you'll need to cloak.

Lots of people are making good money without cloaking, so it's definitely not a must. You can always just learn the ropes first and then figure out how to cloak later.


Again, don't assume, and just let the data speak.


Why would you think that? Just because mobile display requires for you to test banners on top of just landers for pop?

It's not as simple as pop, yes. For pop, you can grab some offers and rip some landers and set up a camp in minutes. For mobile display you'll likely need to brainstorm angles and make banners and maybe landers. (Although - there are some types of offers that you can test using "generic banners": http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...isplay-Traffic)

However, based on personal experience, there's less junk traffic (a LOT less) on mobile display networks compared to pop networks. There's also less volatility in performance. Pop camps will often take a sudden dive in conversion rates for no apparent reason, which will happen less often with mobile display camps. So - pros and cons.


So - just formulate an initial plan, set up a camp, and go from there! Shoot first then adjust your aim later. Being bold in testing lots of stuff will go a long way in this game. Looking forward to seeing you set up your first camp soon!



Amy

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Getting too much direction before starting a campaign could hurt your sense of instinct/creativity. Johnaff is on point.
I started without a STM membership, nor reading any "tutorials/guides".

Just use some common sense, it will get ya far (well at least if you have some common sense lol)

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For what it's worth, I'd strongly recommend against getting into cloaking at least until you've mastered the other aspects of AM.

It's tricky, specialist, and often expensive stuff, and you don't need it to make a profit.

As for competition: competition is a useful weathervane much of the time. Speaking as someone who has launched a few businesses without any competition, I'd much rather have competition - it shows people actually want the thing!

That also feeds into the credibility thing: if these offers didn't work, they wouldn't be run in such volume. Of course, you still have to figure out what the current best offers are, and how to run them...

As others have said, don't succumb to analysis paralysis. Get in there, start testing, assume your first campaigns will fail (because they almost certainly will), and build up from there.

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Get Adplexity, this will answer 99% of your questions.

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Thanks to everyone for the feedback.

I'll take the morning and slap together my first campaign. We'll throw it against the wall and see if it's al dente.

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"we'll throw it against the wall and see if its al dente"

amazing quote lol

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So here's something interesting...

Read the verbiage on this advertiser terms blurb:

What exactly qualifies as 'misleading marketing'. Is this one of those offers where I can't play with my javascript toys? How do I know how far to push the envelope?

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Since creative approval is required, you don't need to guess how far to push the envelope - the advertiser/aff network will tell you after examining your creatives.



Amy

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