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Mass Test Traffic Sources? (6)

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Hello friends!

Been reading a few guides and follow-alongs on the forum. For pop traffic, people seem to start with a single traffic source. The mass testing is done on LPs and Offers. Why is this?

Is it a good idea to also test 3 - 4 traffic sources to start? My reasoning is as follows:
1. You get more data in a shorter period of time
2. You get a choice of more placements and your campaign is not strangled when you cut multiple bad placements

Is there something I'm missing?

Thanks for your time!

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The reason for this is - offer is usually what makes or breaks the campaign. The saying is : You can convert even poor traffic with an awesome offer, but a really bad offer will not convert even the best traffic. It's pointless to test several sources and pausing them one by one, before you know you're working with solid offers.

But there are more reasons for this :

- It's easier to mass test offers compared to sources - you can split test a lot of offers in one campaign.
- All sources have good and bad traffic, so you can do the testing on any of them. Good offers will convert on some placements on ANY traffic source.
- It's a good idea to stay focused when starting a campaign, by running on multiple platforms, the data becomes harder to follow and analyze - it can turn into a mess pretty fast.

It's easy to swap an offer and start testing a new one, but once you cut a source because it doesn't convert for you, it will be harder to return to it - there will be a psychological barrier so to speak. And we don't want that to happen as it will just limit our volume. It makes more sense to find solid offers first and then start optimizing the placements/sources.

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You don't really have to mass test sources, especially when you are just in the hunt for a new offer/campaign..

BUT:

..If I know the offer converts and works for others, but not for me I would definitely test it on 1-2 more sources, just to validate that fact.

Problem is that sometimes the offer is just not good fit for one particular source, but could be a perfect to another one, I saw it happening so many times..

So yeah, in my case I would say: yes focus on 1 source that you will know as your back of the hand (home run), but also have 1-2 more good sources to test and validate your ideas and use this weapon when needed.

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Thanks for your reply matuloo!

Just a few more questions on what you said:

FIRST QUESTION

What if your decision rule for cutting placement A is:
1) If the offer doesn't convert on all placements it was shown - conclude it's not a problem with the placement
2) If the offer doesn't convert on placement A but it converts on other placements AND if other offers also don't convert on placement A - then conclude that placement A is poor and cut it.

Would this be a good way to determine whether you're working with solid offers? And if so...

SECOND QUESTION
Is this something that could benefit from having multiple traffic sources, or can you make the same conclusions with a single traffic source?

You mentioned
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Do you mean that a single traffic source has enough different channels to do testing?

THIRD QUESTION
Would all the information not be found in the tracker? What do you mean by it becoming messy? Let's say you wanted to figure out how well a particular carrier does - you could filter by the data by carrier right?

Sorry, I know I'll probably get the answers by testing these out by myself. But I really appreciate your insights and advice. Thank you!

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Thanks for your reply erikgyepes!

Assuming you're hunting for a new offer/campaign (and you don't know if other affiliates are doing well with it)...

Could you run the risk of missing out on good offers by running traffic that's not a good fit? What are your considerations against mass testing sources? Is it cost, or are the considerations similar to the ones matuloo mentioned?

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Yup, you always need to do some variation of this. You will start with a lot of placements and in case the offer doesn't convert anywhere, it's probably a bad one. If some placements show conversions, you can focus on those after you bought significant amounts of traffic.

BUT, to return to the original question, you don't need to do this on multiple traffic sources, since every source has plenty of placements to test. Mixing sources is just extra work at this point.

Yes, exactly. Any solid source has enough placements for testing. In some cases, especially in small GEOs, the volume can be low at some sources - in such cases you might have to move to a bigger one or use two at once, but usually one source will be enough for the initial offer testing.

You should create separate campaigns for every major targeting point - so carrier for example. Let's say you are testing 3 carriers, so 3 campaigns. But take it to 5 sources at once and you need 15 campaigns. Imagine you are working with banners and landing pages - 10 banners and 5 LPs per campaign ... that's a ton of possible funnels to test. Now take it to 5 sources and the possible funnel just multiplied by 5. You can find all the info in tracker for sure, but it will take you way more time, you will have to optimize way more campaigns and it will cost you way more $ to properly test all possible funnels. You can do that, it will just be more complicated and that's not really necessary when you're just at the beginning.

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