Newbie Campaign - Working to Get POPS Profitable (13)
Hey All -
Thanks for taking a look at my follow along. I will be as transparent here as possible with everything that I do, because I know that will
be the absolute best way to learn. I apologize in advance if this follow along isn't like the others that you are used to seeing. In all
honesty, I am still green as hell when it comes to paid traffic, and I will be learning as I go along.
I'm sure that the awesome members here will help get me pointed in the right direction. The hope is that I can post what I'm doing
here, and you guys will let me know if my strategy is complete crap and what I should be doing instead or how I should improve
what I'm doing.
Obviously, help with analyzing data will be a huge PLUS for me. I'm brand new to tracking, and tbh, it still scares me a bit. Reading
through some of the threads on this forum is helping me to get over the fear to some degree, and I don't think I would have ever
even gotten the setup right without some help from reading through the forums here, so thanks for that everyone.
My setup is that I am going to be casting a WIDE blanket to start, and attempt to funnel down and find something profitable
in the POPS space, but I'm sort of flying blind here to start, but hope to narrow my focus eventually.
My setup for now is pretty simple;
* I have
* I Have a CDN setup through S3 When I need to start utilizing landers, though I'm not quite to that point yet. This step would not have
been possible without the help of manu_adefy's help in this thread
* I am using DNTX/TONIC as my traffic source
* I am Using YTZ as my monetization
My strategy to start is also fairly simple. I want to 'blanket' a bunch of countries and see if I can find any that have potential to be profitable.
I will do that utilizing the tiny bids that TONIC allows for their campaigns ($1.00 CPM). I will see if any counties prove to be profitable, and/or
any major segments (OS/Traffic type) in these countries.
I've set up campaigns on TONIC in about 30 different countries, targeting ALL traffic (except tablets) - incl wifi etc when available in that country.
I am direct linking to YTZ rotator. They have a few different rotators available, but the one I am starting with is the SWEEPS/WORLDWIDE rotator.
If I'm able to find a profitable country/offer type pair, I can move on and dig down further.
That's the goal for now.
So far, the results seem to be pretty bleak to say the least, but I need some help analyzing this
data to see if there might be any combo/segments worth digging down into deeper.
If this initial campaign looks to be a total loss, and there is no data here worth exploring
further, perhaps moving onto either different countries, or a different rotator could be employed.
Like I said in my initial thread, I'm using a SWEEPS rotator at YTZ right now. But they have more including:
Downloads Rotator
Mainstream Rotator
Adult Rotator
Sweeps Rotator
Email Rotator
Incent Rotator
Mainstream Dating Rotator
BizOpp Rotator
PC Repair Rotator
CPI Apps Rotator
Anti-Virus Rotator
-----
Had no idea which one to start with , or which one would be the best to go with based on what type of traffic I was able to
get in volume, so I just started with the Sweeps Rotator.
So far, I've gone through $50 in Adspend, and have been able to get a little bit of Data back.
The biggest bright spot to me so far about this initial adspend is the fact that I'm showing $1.31
in revenue on YTZ and $1.30 in revenue on Voluume.
This alone is awesome to me, and leads me to believe that I have my tracking setup correctly?!
I want to post my data below to let you guys see if there might be any hope on any of these
countries or carriers or anything, or if everything I have run so far is just a complete and total
loss...
BROWSER BREAKDOWN
CONNECTION TYPE BREAKDOWN
COUNTRY BREAKDOWN 1
COUNTRY BREAKDOWN 2
DEVICE BRANDS BREAKDOWN
DEVICE TYPE BREAKDOWN
DEVICE MODEL BREAKDOWN
ISP CARRIER BREAKDOWN
MOBILE CARRIER BREAKDOWN
OS BREAKDOWNS
OS VERSIONS BREAKDOWNS
Hey alexcn, I would suggest a few things that may be worth considering with your current approach.
First and most importantly you need to work with concrete offers from affiliate networks. This way you get familiar with how offers and affiliate networks work, including payouts, daily caps, offer rules as well as the relationship with your AMs.
About traffic sources you will need to have access to more than one and split test the offers on different sources, this way you don't give up on a good offer that's not working for the single source you are testing it on. Or else it could be the case that a specific TS doesn't have enough traffic for required targeting, if not granular targeting at all.
Having a monetizing service as the offer itself even though with vertical specific targeting, may not give you a profitable pop campaign since these services are used for left over traffic like back buttons or unmatched redirects. By the end of the day you will only get a percentage of those conversions, not the total payout of the converted offer.
On POP you have to get your hands dirty with pretty much everything that involves a campaign from tracker setup, server, cdn, spying, ripping, landing page cleanup, random scripts, targeting, campaign optimization and yet you'll have to create your own angles/copy which would be the key on getting prospect's attention.
Good luck! 
Hey, glad you started a follow along.
A couple of suggestions since you are just getting started with things.
I wouldn't start off on TONIC, it can be a good source but you need to be able to move more quickly and have high volumes of traffic for lots of geos. My personal suggestion would be to test on Zeropark and PopAds when doing the mass testing approach for YTZ and Monetizer.. atleast for the time being.
I do suggest signing up with Monetizer (AffFlow) and testing that along with your YTZ tests to see which performs better for you and your traffic.
That being said, you will have to move very quickly and be very organized to get solid results with using a those types of monetization platforms. Its ok to get your feet wet but I would start launching regular campaigns as soon as you can. You will learn alot more about the process and optimization of things.
Final suggestion, it would help to also have your costs updated when sharing screenshots so we can give you more direct feedback on the results. It's hard to suggest much when all we see is the revenue. And because every geo has a different actual CPM, this is why I suggest starting off with ZP because it'll keep the costs fairly true no matter the geo. I suggest starting your bid at .0001, set a low budget of $5 for the camp on ZP and then run some traffic. Once your budget hits, review the data and pause any geo that has spent $5 or more. Then increase your budget another $5 and let it run. Keep doing this and you will minimize losses while spreading your budget around alot of geos. This will help you to discover some quick winners.
The most important steps to look at in the beginning for this type of approach is to review the stats in
I've had profitable campaigns using these services but they come and go quickly, so use it as a starting point to learn a few basics and then move on. After you understand more of affiliate marketing you can revisit this.
I'll keep a look out for your updates.
Andrew
Thanks for the reply platinum! I agree 100% with everything that you have said...
In case I wasn't totally clear from my initial post, my end goal here is NOT to get profitable with a redirect network (YTZ)
I understand they only payout a fraction of what the offer actually pays, and there are also some other huge negatives
to working with them.
My point in initially starting with a redirect network is to get some DATA... and see if I can narrow down Countries, OS, Offer TYpe, etc
that I could move forward with and THEN implement the strategy you are talking about (testing different landers, offers, traffic sources etc)
You don't think this is a viable strategy?
Alex
Originally Posted by Mr Payne
In the upper left of
into Mobile Carrier other than that. I tried going to COUNTRY first, then looked to see if there was a way to overlay Mobile carriers or something,
but I kept ending up back at this tab. If there is another way to drill down, It's not that clear to me.
You also suggest to 'Have Costs Updated' when pasting screenshots. Is this something that I have missed inside of voluum and my tracking is set
up incorrectly, or are you talking about just going into my traffic source and taking a SS of my costs for each country like this:
Lastly, as I talked about with platinum in my last reply, my point in running TONIC traffic is NOT to get profitable. It's to get data
quickly from these redirect networks and try to find some countries/OS etc that might be worth going after with more direct campaigns
, different traffic sources, and utilizing landers etc..
I will ask you also: Is this not a viable strategy, or am I simply better off starting a different way?
Alex
You are having issues because you have already narrowed it down to Global Pops > direct linking > YTZ.com
I don't know why you are narrowing it down that way? You should just choose Country and then in the 2nd dropbox menu select mobile carrier like this:
http://prntscr.com/ehnh7j
Because you're using Tonic its not gonna be easy to update the costs in
So I mean update your costs from the traffic in Voluum by going to the Campaigns tab, right clicking and selecting Update Cost: http://prntscr.com/ehnilb
BUT, it will update your total adspend across ALL countries, so on a country by country basis your actual costs will not be reflected properly in Voluum... but if you use ZP then yes, it will show correctly.
And yes, this is a perfectly fine strategy to use in the beginning. I've not hit any huge winners doing this but I have certainly make some money with a similar approach.
Andrew
Originally Posted by Mr Payne
You have no idea how valuable this reply was for me - on 2 fronts. I just about fell over laughing when you asked "I don't know why you are narrowing it down that way."
The answer? BC I had no f****** clue what I was doing... I think I kept using the 'drill down' tab thinking it was going to help or something, and that's how I ended up
that way.
Anyway, I think I have it correct now, Country - Mobile carrier, and I have posted a screen shot below.
ALSO, I now see exactly what you are talking about with updating campaign costs. You are talking about doing it manually. I've done that, but I'm still a bit confused.
By your reply, I'm guessing they will automatically spread the cost out amongst all the countries in a given campaign? For instance, I inputted an actual cost of
$50.20. So they will divide that cost by all the countries in my campaign? If that's the case, I agree with you. That doesn't really make any sense whatsoever,
as the costs for each country will vary greatly. Perhaps there is something that I'm missing here? How are people able to keep accurate costs per country if Voluum does
something ridiculous like simply dividing the cost evenly amongst all countries?
That is my first question. Secondly, can you explain how using Zero Park makes it easier to keep voluum updated with correct actual costs per country?
Is this an extra feature of ZERO PARK compared to TONIC, or is this something that's inside voluum that happens automatically when using ZERO PARK?
One other thing regarding my PROFIT/LOSS for each segment, which I forgot to mention and perhaps would make updating costs manually for
a campaign like this unnecessary:
My BID for each traffic segment is $1.00 CPM. Therefore, my COST per visitor is .001. You can look at the EPV column in Voluum, and that will clearly show
earnings/visitor. Anything OVER .001 means a profit for that segment. Is this thinking correct?
Well, the good news is that I've been approved at ZP, so on your advice, I will move over there with my next campaigns.
I'm still wondering though if there is ANYTHING that I can take away from this campaign that I have already run... anything that I might be able
to use in the future, or was this basically an experiment in futility?
FWIW, I still have about $50 sitting in my TONIC account, so I want to try and run another campaign to see if I can get any useful data, which
I will obviously post here. I'm thinking about running an ADULT rotator on YTZ, and sending ADULT traffic from TONIC. From what I understand
about POP traffic (and where it originates) Adult POP's could be a match made in heaven for POP traffic. I have no idea if that's the case
for TONIC adult traffic, but I guess it's worth a shot. Perhaps I can learn something valuable.
Thanks so much for your help so far!
Alex
@alexcn personally I've found that the hardest way to get into something is the more stable one even though it may require time. Good numbers require hard work, so it's up to you what strategy you'd want to run.
You're gonna spend your budget anyway so why not spending it on learning how things run? Get an adplexity account, check what offers and landers are doing well (sebastian_r has posted an excellent video on how to use the tool) and get your way in to everything else required to make pop work. Yet you can keep using Afflow/Monetizer or YTZ.
Two things to mention re: TONIC:
1. The $1CPM bid floor. Some geos should really be less than this. (My view has always been, don't set a floor, and let the market determine the price.)
2. The $1CPM incremental bid. This might work for Tier 1 geos, but you'll often want to increase your bids in smaller increments (e.g. $0.10CPM).
To echo what was said above, it might be worth checking out ZP, or another source.
The reason to use Zeropark right now is because Zeropark and
For ALL other sources, you have to update the costs manually and if you group several geo's together in one campaign then the costs will most often not be accurate. For sources like TONIC that does charge a flat price for all the traffic the costs will be fairly accurate but like compound said in the last message, the $1cpm minimum is a killer for most geos.
Save your money, get some conversions and make life easy for now by using Zeropark and then once you get past this ABC learning phase, you can explore the others. But you still need to learn how to use
I would not continue with your test camp you showed above. I would sign up to Afflow, look at a few geos and verticals that are doing well. Then setup a few campaigns in TONIC that are all targeting just 1 geo per campaign. Focus on the geo's that are showing good results right now in Afflow. Set the lowest bid possible and a small budget. Run the test and see what you get.
Otherwise, focus on Zeropark or Popads. The reason I also suggest PopAds (even tho there is manual cost updating required) is because you get very granular targeting options. So if you find a segment that is working, you can focus and target just that one profitable segment and get something in the green quickly.
Andrew
Originally Posted by compound
Originally Posted by Mr Payne
The other info about how to properly run a TONIC campaign, and why POPAds is a great source is a big bonus.
I'll do that then, sign up to Afflow, leave TONIC alone for now, and start integrating ZP with Voluum & YTZ & or Afflow.
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