Mobile Cookbook Appetizer - going live - help needed (6)
Hi marketers,
I stumbled upon this forum and I fell in love in a minute. After a very long research and study, I am ready to start this new adventure called affiliate marketing, and this is my first campaign. I have a very solid background in e-commerce (I am running an Amazon FBA business in Italy since 2009) and I am excited to see how AM works for real, by putting my hands on it. I have LOTS of doubts but I believe that I cannot ask without a real test, so here I am!
Tutorial: Mobile Appetizer from @caurmen
Vertical: app install
Offer: AliExpress App for Android
Payout: 0.50$
Suggested by my AM (Irene) as a very hot offer
Geo: /IT
Traffic Source: go2mobi
Affiliate Network: clickdealer
Exchange: Smaato
TARGET: 1 conversion (the lowest target ever!!)
So, the tutorial is very clear. I made my 8 creatives (see below) and I launched the offer.
PROBLEM 1: go2mobi only allows a minimal spend per day of 50$ while the tutorial says to set it to 30$. Let's go with 50$ there.
The only change I made was to limit the traffic to Android Smartphones because this app is for Android smartphones only. I also limited the Geo to Italy.
RESULTS:
The budget of 40$ went away in less than 8 hours (by night) and the results are following:
Of course, I am very disappointed... CTR is not the best ever, but can be optimized. However, I had ZERO CONVERSIONS! Not only on Go2Mobi but also on the Clickdealer backend, I read zero conversions. I thought I set something wrong so I tested the conversion link on a friend's android phone, and it converted correctly. I can see his conversion on che clickdealer backend.
Now, I don't expect to be profitable in my first campaign, but my target was just 1 conversion! So why the offer is not converting at all? What am I doing really bad here?
My questions:
1- What am I doing really bad here?
2- is it still possible to have a profitable campaign without even a landing page as described in the appetizer tutorial?
3- is it possible to even have a profitable campaign staying white-hat?
Thank you guys!
I'm not experienced enough to properly answer 1 and 2 (although I believe not having a lander was always considered okay for app installs), but people that I trust greatly have answered yes to 3. I have a very slightly profitable campaign that has been running for 2 days now full whitehat.
I would say while it's good to question things and go against the grain, the usual sentiment is that people are finding all kinds of ways to make money with all different kinds of offers and methods. At least when starting out, I think it's good to get a spy tool so you can have a better idea of what's actually working for people (also people often talk about what they are doing here on the forums). Personally I try not to worry too much about "if people are actually making money with X" just because I can't make it work. The best advice I've received though is to test tons of combinations at once. I think the appetizer is good for getting the basics down but once you do, you can start mass testing offer/lander banner combinations with not that much money and pick what converts the best and/or has the highest profit potential to focus on.
Hi guys,
I concluded that this combination in Italy is not profitable at all for me. Zero conversions after 2 days, so I gave up and I moved to another GEO.
Offer: the same offer (AliExpress app install)
new Payout: 0.15$ instead of 0.50$
new GEO: PL
Banners translated and launched.
However, after another 20$ spent in PL, still zero conversion in PL as well 
CTR is lower, but also traffic is cheaper and the payout is 0.15$ instead of 0.50$. I expected an easier conversion rate but I am still stuck to the awful ZERO conversion count!
Very disappointed. Maybe this offer doesn't work for me, or by banners are not right, I don't know. Am I so much out of track?
Any suggestion for me?
Thank you!
Hey @parsifino,
Congrats on launching your first campaign! You will find that AM can be quite difficult especially while you're trying to learn how it all works. You should learn to cope with losses and failing campaigns, it's all part of the game. That being said, I think you're on the right track!
Let me answer your questions below and then shed some light:
1) From a campaign-launch point of view you aren't doing anything wrong here. You've made some banners, setup your tracking and you're doing some proper split-tests. The basics are spot on.
2) It is possible to have a profitable campaign without a lander, though it will be much harder than having one, especially on Smaato.
3) Absolutely possible to run profitable campaigns by staying white-hat. People are making tons of money running whitehat.
Your main problems are sticking to just one offer and not having landers just as @sonicam mentioned (and Go2Mobi being pretty difficult in general).
These AliExpress offers are all over the place and are likely saturated, they've been around for quite a long time now. Go2Mobi is also not an easy traffic source to master, and can get quite expensive.
If you really want to see your first conversion, here's what I recommend you do instead.
Since you now have all the basics down, you know how to setup a campaign and get traffic etc., you should change the traffic source to pops, and grab a whole bunch of offers to test at the same time. Testing multiple offers is a LOT more efficient than trying to make one single offer work - focus on mass testing offers.
Here's what I would do if I were you:
1) Pick a pop traffic source like PopAds, PopCash, Adcash, Propeller etc.. I'd pick PopAds for starters because it's pretty simple and fast to setup a campaign there.
2) Ask your Clickdealer AM for their best performing offers on pops, specifically. Pick a few offers (3-4+) in the same GEO, or even multiple offers for a few GEOs if you feel comfortable launching a bunch of campaigns, it's not that complicated. Preferrably offers in Tier 2 or Tier 3 countries.
3) Get yourself an excellent spy tool like Adplexity and do some proper digging. Choose the same GEO that your offers have, choose the same traffic source (Popads, for example) and start looking for landers. Get a whole bunch of landers related to your offers, but make sure the landers have different designs so you're not wasting money testing the exact same stuff.
4) Setup campaigns with your newly found offers and landers. The key here is to be testing as many offers and landers as you feel comfortable.
5) Once you see conversions, start optimizing your campaigns. If you find any landers that perform well for you, keep them and pause the poor performing ones. Once you have some proven landers, it gets even easier - you just have to find more offers to test!
That's pretty much it really, it's not hard, just focus on testing tons of offers instead of digging into 1 offer trying to make it work and wasting your money.
Hello, parsifino, I would recommend Native ads as a good option if you are going to do CPI, they are working very well for Hoomobi users.
Also, if you are just starting in this market I would like to suggest an offer without KPI (Key Performance Indicator/something extra to do besides the install) until you learn how to optimise your traffic.
Other important point to keep in mind is the advertiser; as far as I know, AliExpress advertiser is a little strict so it may be easier to start launching other kind of offer.
Hope it helps you 
Hi @sonicam and @shishev,
and a special thanks for you: I think it takes quite a lot of time to write such a long and clear suggestion, even for a pro like you
According to your suggestions, this is what I changed in these days.
Before I give up the aliexpress app install, I decided to go for another try (my first campaign, I want to learn the most).
CHANGES:
1- suspended the campaign in PL (kept the IT campaign only because I speak italian and it's easier to test quickly)
2- added 2 more networks aside of smaato (mobfox and rubicon that according to go2mobi, are more targeted to app install in Italy)
3- added the
4- searched the AliExpress app on AppAnnie to confirm that it's hot. Confirmed in the top 10 in Italy (BTW, means it's hot or saturated?)
5- added an intermediate LP:
Attachment 12694
OK, this may be a very bad LP (it's my first!) so please feel free to be crude here.
RESULTS:
Results are clearer than any word. After 11.86$ spent:
1- I only got 38 clicks
2- costs skyrocketed (CPC > 0.31$)
3- zero clicks from LP to offer
4- zero conversions at all
Obviously, there are many flaws in this campaign, as shishev said (saturated offer, strict requirements, inappropriate traffic, LP missing or bad) and the thing to do here should be to drop it. I didn't just because I thought I still had more to learn here for a few more $$. So any feedback to help me to understand this better will be very, very appreciated.
OPEN QUESTIONS:
1- having the AliExpress app in the top 10 means that it's saturated or hot?
2- is my LP really bad or do I need more traffic to say?
3- may have sense to test the PL geo?
WHERE TO GO NEXT:
According to @shishev, I launched another follow along for POPS. Reach it here:
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...eedback-needed
Thank you!!!!
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