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Running profitable POP campaigns using CPA cost model (14)

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In this topic we will talk about running POP traffic using CPA cost model. As you can know CPA - Cost Per Action. Therefore in this case we'll pay for each lead. Looks easy, right? Don't think so

Sources
There are some sources which offer CPA cost model for advertisers. Some of them:

• Propellerads - we will talk about this network, cause it's my main source if we talk about this cost model
• Clickadu
• Adcash (I don't want to throw shit, but 99% of my campaigns and also my friends'/students' were not profitable. It looks like there are a looooot of bot or shit traffic. Be careful with that.
• Adsterra

Offers&LPs
Please know one thing - you need really GOOD offers and GOOD landers, which you TESTED before. Because it's not like CPM where you receive traffic depending on your bid. In CPA if your offers/landers don't converts, you won't get any leads or only few. You may think "Cool, in this case I won't spend money for tests. If there are no leads, I won't pay anything!" - NO! You will pay your "test budget" (will talk about that next).

How to chose good offers and landers?

1. Run campaigns using CPM model, optimize that
2. Run campaigns using different sources (Popads, Popcash, Hilltopads etc...), optimize that

And your optimized campaigns with a good ROI your can run through CPA model. So you chose what you'll run.

Before running
Before you'll run your camps through CPA cost model, you have to add propeller's postback to your tracker. Go to "Tracking" and copy your unique link:

Then you have to add this postback in your traffic source's settings. Put ${SUBID} (macros which will send you an ID of the visitor) in your External ID parameter in your tracker. Then add this externalid to your link. If you're using Voluum, it will be like this:


Creating campaigns
In Propellerads you need to click "Create campaign" and you will see:

• Campaign Name - The name of your campaign;
• Pricing Model - We need a SmartCPA;
• Target URL - your tracking link;
• Countries & Conversion Price - choose a coutry you need and set a sum which you will pay for each lead. If we talk about CPA model, there are a good ROI = 20-30%. Please don't set 20% of your payout or 50%. The source won't give you any traffic with this low price. Usually I set 75-85% of my payout. For example if I have $10 offer, I'll set $8 in Propeller. I will earn $2 for each conversion. And it's normal for CPA model!

• After that you need to setup right targeting options or large targeting if you don't know which options to run.
• Test Budget Limit - it's a max amount of money you're ready to pay if your campaign won't be profitable for the source. If your campaign had no leads, but propeller sent you traffic, they will do calculations based on an average CPM. For example if you received 10 000 visits with no leads and average CPM is $4, you will pay $40 for test. I recommend to set $100-150 on your test budget.
• Slice Limits - if we're working with CPA cost model, the source will optimize zones by hisself, and this is a limit of impressions which a the source will use in optimization process. If you set 2000 visits, and from some zone you've received this amount of visits with no leads, the source will block this zone. Therefore you need to optimize only target. I recommend to set 3000-4000 visits.

Optimization process

1. As we already know the source will optimize zones without our participation. But we need 100% good offers/landers/targeting. So how I do optimization?
2. After 2-3 days I look at my tracker's stat which parameters gave me low EPV. We don't have a negative ROI, cause we pay only for leads. And therefore our main parameter there - EPV (Earn per visit)
3. If some parameter shows a couple times worse EPV than others, we have to turn it off. For example Android 4 gave us 0.001 EPV, when Android 6 = 0.006. But often we can't edit the campaign, therefore you have to create a new campaign with optimized targeting. It will be very good if you add a blacklist (go to the stat and block all zoned which show you a bad EPV) to stop bad zones on start.
4. You can do that process 2-3-4-5 times and do more accurate accurate targeting.

Things you need to know

1. As I already said, you need really good offers and landers.
2. Do not be greedy and set 70-80% of your payout. In this case you'll get more traffic and more profit, even with a small ROI.
3. If your campaign performs good, propeller's team will clone your camp and create 5-15 multiple campaigns to give you more traffic. One day I received 20 times more traffic, than I had with CPM cost model
4. The moderation is more loyal for CPA campaigns (not in 100% cases)
5. You can receive an absolutely different traffic with the same targeting. For example I run a camp through CPM model and CPA. And zones in these campaigns were absolutely different. And a quality too.
6. Traffic in CPA cost model is more qualitative than in CPM, that's I can say after tests.
7. Do not hesitate to ask your AM about TOP CPMs, it'll help you a lot!
8. The CPM is different for each zone. And how much traffic you'll get from a current zone depends on your CPM on it.
9. The CPM refreshes every hour for each zone.

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Thank you MrBraun, awesome share, I was not aware of the possibility
to run like that on e.g. Propeller.

I actually have one offer atm that converts well with a given lander,
but I am still optimizing the lander. I might soon check in with this CPA model
and give feedback in here how that was working out!

Cheers
Florian

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Hey, flow_rian!
Definitely you should try it! Looking forward to see your results

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Golden nuggets

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Thanks for sharing,mrbraun
I want to ask a question,you can't cloak in this case,is it?
So do you run mostly sweeps in this model?

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You can cloak for sure if you know how to do that
It's 70% AVs and 30% Sweeps.

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Another bomb by mrbraun! I've been wanting to test CPA for a while now - this post has given me the kick I needed - thank you!



Amy

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Sick bomb mrbruan, thanks!

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Holy shit!

I know what I'm doing when I wake up.

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Awesome post, Mr. Braun! Quick question: When you take a profitable CPM camp in Propeller and start to test it on CPA, do you pause the original CPM camp, or let both run at the same time?

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Hey!
Thank you!

No I don't pause my CPM campaign. Propeller has so much traffic, therefore it won't be a lot of competition between my camps.

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The optimization process does not make sense. Maybe I do not understand something...

As he says himself, we don't have a negative ROI - all the segments are making money. Why do you want to cut off something that is making you money? Secondly, who cares about Earnings Per View? It is all about Profit Per View. As long as it is not negative I am happy.

And maybe I am stupid so somebody could explain the logic?

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This is what is important. And yes, he does not talk about that next, which is why you may be missing a part
He is using the CPA goal model, where you are not charged by click but by conversions. The platform try to optimize based on your cost per action goal, your conversion rate and the number of impressions. So at the begining, he can not see proper costs and therefore has no negative ROI. Yet, if he sees a zone that is already a low-performing zone based on the revenue generated per visit (meaning low CR) compared to others, it is unlikely to be profitable, and if he leaves it runing, it coud be negative when paying for impressions.

See this webinar aboud Propeller Ads CPA goal 2.0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HpzlpBKkvA

And the slides:
https://bit.ly/3dfafdv

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I have just noticed that the OP had been written for the SmartCPA andt NOT for the CPA Goal 2.0. SmartCPA is no longer available. But the general idea is still the same for both models.

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