Campaign: Making Stardoll Work... (14)
Time to hand out some candy.
This is a simple little campaign I ran on and off for about 3 months. I used it as a “start-up” campaign when creating new Facebook accounts. It worked really well because my approval rates where almost 100% and with very good CTR's it was the perfect way to start a new account. I would usually run it for a week or two just to get my account spend up over $200/day so that I can run my more lucrative campaigns.
The Background...
I picked up this campaign after being fed up with gaming offers getting pulled as soon as I started profiting. I thought I'd work on something that's been around for a long time. This is usually an indication that it works and that its highly unlikely it will get pulled at a moment's notice.
Stardoll was the winner by a mile because I think its been around since forever. The payouts are super low 0.10 to 0.75 but its available on a lot of different countries – and a lot of different networks.
With payouts that low I typically start thinking about 3 things:
1.How can I get 1c clicks
2.How can I get volume
3.How big a pay bump can I get
To get super cheap clicks internationally is not that hard BUT you will need a good angle. There are some kick ass threads in the forum that can help you out with this. I've seen people try to promote Stardoll with a straight angle and fail – which is not a real surprise.
After signing up for Stardoll (yes, you actually have to do that if you want to understand the offer) I did a bit of snooping around. Its basically a “dress-up” game for young girls. Kinda like a digital Barbie. Now that is not very exciting and it would be hard to build a campaign around that. What caught my attention was the fact that they can dress up their favorite celebrities.
Ding Dong...
Bieber, Gaga, Katy Perry...they are all in there. Sign up and check it out for yourself.
I built a basic landing page around the angle by ripping the actual dress up page and the sign up page. The landing page averaged about a 70% CTR. I never bothered with split testing just because I did not take the campaign seriously enough.
The ads where quite easy. Here are some of the best Justin Bieber ones...Some basic Photoshop skills worked wonder for the CTR. (Tip: adding crazy make-up performed best)
The ad copy was simple.
Justin Bieber Needs You!
Be Justin's stylist and give him a cool new look. Play FREE...
(PS – Bieber was not the top performer)
The only English speaking country I ran that in was the UK. It was kinda okay. Hitting EU countries was gold though. France, Germany, Italy, Spain...huge demo's around those keywords with cheap clicks. It was relatively easy to get 0.5% + CTR's and they would usually get below 5c clicks in a day or two. I was very surprised at the volume I got – even when FB's estimates was below 75,000.
This is by no means a HUGE campaign but it easily did $200 to $300 per day on a $50 ad spend. Since I don't have any of the accounts any more I cant's post the stats but EPC's where in the 0.15 to 0.25 range. Even with the low payout the ROI was great.
Take Aways and Tips:
- Firstly, run at your own risk. I never had any issues with running this but in saying that I lost more than a dozen FB accounts in the last few months.
- You must get super cheap clicks. 0.01 is very hard these days but anything below 0.05 will be good to profit from.
- You need to get pay bumps a.s.a.p. When you push a lot of volume you will get decent bumps. I was on almost double the street rate in some countries. Quality is not such a big issue because they monetize the site by letting girls buy bling for their characters/dolls. These purchases are small. Older demo is better but you will compromise on ad CTR and volume.
- The secret to running low payout offers is VOLUME and cheap clicks. This campaign has both.
- Teen girls is a huge market on FB and generally its hard to find offers for them. When you do, the sky is the limit. Because you are targeting a young demo there is a lot of fresh users streaming in and because I only ran it when I started new accounts the campaign virtually never died.
- I'm done with Facebook, so use this but don't abuse it. Use the idea and apply it to other low payout offers. I've done it with at least two other offers that are still around on all the networks.
- Anytime you use celebs in your ads you can get some heat on you. I think its okay in this case because they are being used in the site itself and by running outside the US you are less likely to get picked on. If you are afraid of that, just make sure you use cartoons and not photos of the celebs. It will still work.
- Please do not PM me about this.
Originally Posted by deondup
True. If an offer uses celebrities in their own product, they likely have licensing agreements with them and you're less likely to get in trouble. Some don't and use them anyways, so it's always a gamble...
Other sites use funny disclaimers like these to get around it: "All images, layouts, and backgrounds are user generated. Company Name LLC does not undertake any obligation or liability relating to any user generated content."
nice one!
great example of understanding your product and choosing an agle
also the lander and ads were great examples for people to get their own ideas.
now for those rip & copy people - please dont run the exact same campaign. try and innovate or extend the angle.
sick case study man!
I'm guessing one of the reasons the Justin Bieber angle did work is because girls are so bloody passionate about him, calling themselves beliebers and all. They really care. Did your other angles have those 'passionate' attributes to them? I notice in my own campaigns when people really care, they convert well.
Celebrity pictures garnish high CTR from previous experience 
ya word on the street is FB no likey stardoll anymore 
seems stupid yes....but then again its FB....I will say though that this can be run on sitescouts inventory just fine....and if you do it right with some good banners you can get some dirt cheap clicks....and get even more aggressive than you can on FB.....lp wise....
most of the that page rage stuff is downloaded by younger girls...so the demo is right for it....
Thanks for the candy.... haha.
I find Pagerage stuff converts better for Freebie offers and none for CC offers. Now I know the reason from polar's post.
Originally Posted by deondup
I'm not aware of the fact that FB hates on Stardoll. If they do, then I really don't know why because this is as innocent as a game can be. The fact that it uses a landing page might make it much more acceptable since it won't trigger the Stardoll URL. Running in EU also makes it much easier to deal with reviewers that might flag it just because its Stardoll.
As for running on SS...its possible but you will have to work very hard to get your click costs down to < 0.05. Volume might be an issue with the Fb apps in EU on the apps. Its well worth a try though.
@index - I never really thought about it that hard. I suppose that anyone who likes a celeb on FB likes them enough to respond to seeing an ad. Its really all about testing. Some celebs did well in some countries and failed miserably in others.
Last time I tried running stardoll with a celeb angle. You weren't allowed to use any celebs. Did they change?
There are a lot of terms on that campaign but none of them explicitly states anything about using celebs. I've been running it with 3 networks and the terms are the same everywhere.
Like I said, they use certain celebs on the site so there is definitely an argument for taking a relevant angle.
Its also not just about throwing up images of celebs. The angle is to find people that relate to the demographic and having them "dress up" and style them in the game. The ads and the images relate specifically to that angle.
Using a landing page also helps - you are not direct linking celeb images to the Stardoll site - so they are legally not as exposed
Using celeb images in your ads has risks attached to it ONLY because its more recognizable and they are likely to get more upset (and take action). Legally there is no difference between using a random image of some girl in your dating ad than there is in using a pic of Lady Gaga. In both cases you do not own the right to use it.
Personally I don't think there is a lot of risk attached to it. As long as you don't attach anything negative to the celeb you are using. Consider the fact that affiliates have been using celeb images in advertising Ringtones, Quizzes and who knows what else. I still see a LOT of affiliates use it to build their own fan sites - which is much more risky i.m.o
I see a lot of cloaked co-reg campaigns running with company logo's - now that is risky because there is a definite commercial implication to that. We see images of celebs everywhere anyway and in some ways it helps make them even more famous 
I am not a legal professional but that is just my take on the use of clebs
awesome post man!
great customization on that lander!
I did something similar during these offers prime, and i can say a did a lot higher ROI than my competition because i got some amazing customizations done to my lander to show exactly what you can create with the toolbar.
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