Newbie stuck at first campaign (17)
Originally Posted by popodita
It has been almost three weeks since I joined STM, and with the abundence of CPA information on this forum and the help of those who know a lot more about this then myself (thank you Sebastian, Amy, Chris, and Mr. Braun 
), I began my first campaign on 4/13. Right now, I am stuck and I would really appreciate some feedbacks / pointers as to how to proceed so I can make it to the green.
), I began my first campaign on 4/13. Right now, I am stuck and I would really appreciate some feedbacks / pointers as to how to proceed so I can make it to the green.-Regarding iphone 7 sweeps: How many landers did you test? And how many offers did you test for each geo?
You need to test lots of landers and offers for each geo to maximize your chances of finding something good - and you need to lock down each variable one at a time.
Try this:
1)Find 5-10+ landers, and 3-5 offers. Throw them in a camp, run until one of the offers has made 2 conversions, then pause all offers and keep running that one.
2)Use that one offer to cut landers, i.e. drill to Offer > Lander, and expand stats for that one offer, evaluate the lander stats and cut based on statistics. Here's the method:
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...Banners-Part-1
3)Once you cut down to the last lander, retest the offers that got cut from before, and cut those that reach statistical significance:
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...211#post289211
When you're down to the last offer, consider doing another round of offer-testing by finding more offers.
-Basically: It's great to test a lot of offers, but you need to test more landers than just 2 (5 is like the minimum). And do focus on one geo at a time when you're starting. Once you have a good offer and lander (through the split-testing process above), you can test bids and focus on cutting placements. This whole process will take spending money. Spreading out your budget over so many geos won't allow you to make major impact in any one geo.
When you have more experience, feel free to test several geos at a time - but even then, you'd do well to test lots of offers to find a good one, and then test bids and cut placements etc.
-The only way to make Antivirus work is by running really aggressive. Not many networks will allow some of the aggressive landers you can find through spying. PopAds is lenient as you've found out, and to a certain extent Zeropark and PopCash (but even Zeropark won't allow google logos), would be your best bet if you're not cloaking. Due to these restrictions, I don't have other traffic network suggestions for you (regarding your question on where to find traffic from the middle east).
And then there's the advertiser's side - unless you know how to keep your landers out of spy tools, they may find your lander and kick you off the offer. So, if you want to keep running antivirus, consider asking your AMs for offers that allow aggressive marketing.
1. With such a low payout ($0.16 - $0.25), should I continue optimizing any of these offers? Or should I continue to try something else?
3. I've tried Amy's technique of cutting landers and placement after the 1st day, but since there are so little data for me to work with, I was only able to cut out 3 placement for both Jordan and Ghana. If I should continue these offers, what else can I do to try make these offers convert better?
4. When I analyze the data for Jordan and Ghana, I noted that all the conversions comes from one specific carrier, will it be too earlier to cut out all the other carriers?
Remember though, that you're NOT SPLIT-TESTING carriers here. It's not like for landers and offers, where you can only show ONE of to each visitor. For traffic segments such as carriers, you'll want to keep targeting as many as possible as long as they are profitable - no need to compare and find a winner and cut the rest.
It's a good idea to target one carrier per campaign though, because then you could bid more appropriately for each, instead of potentially overbidding for some and underbidding for others.
5. I am using the "throttling" target function in Popads to try and see which hours I can cut, and I set the traffic speed to 50%, but for Bahrain & Iraq & Ghana, after waiting for one day, Pop Ads still wasn't able to use up my $10 budget... should I set it to full speed? Is there a why to distribute traffic among selected hours?
What do you mean "distribute traffic among selected hours"? You mean throttle and daypart at the same time? I don't usually throttle so don't know, but you can give it a try!
What other details should I provide so I can receive more help on how to convert?
I feel like a kid who got interested in running, went out to buy all cool gears i.e the Adidas shoes, the nike headband, the fit-bits, and then when I got to the starting line and started to take my first few steps, fell flat on my face, lol. Thanks in advance for all the help!
Amy
Originally Posted by popodita
My guess is that it's a common feeling, don't sweat it. It looks like you're going about it the right way and with the right attitude.
I'm still new to this and I have my good and my bad days. You've got to spend some money and make some mistakes. It's kind of like learning to fix a car--evenif you have the book right in front of you, you're going to have to try a couple of things out, some of them aren't going to work, you're going to lose some money at first and probably cuss a lot. But it'll work out if you keep at it.
/peptalk
Originally Posted by elskafreya
This game has a steep learning curve like no other, and there's so much more than what meets the eye. Everyone starts out really excited because ignorance is bliss and everything seems possible. And those that have been doing this for at least 6 months to a year, already have enough experience to know what to expect. But that period in the middle where on the one hand you've seen the reality (i.e. only 1-2 in every 10 camps are ending up profitable) but don't yet feel confident or experienced enough to be making consistent profits, is the hardest to get past. Many people will quit during this middle phase, and only those that persevere, will proceed to the next level (i.e. consistent profits).
You almost can't give yourself a deadline, and have to make a commitment based on blind faith in the beginning, like "I know this will work, and I'll keep at this for as long as it's necessary". This is why it's so important to have another income source while still trying to make AM work - so that you don't have the pressure of making something work before money runs out. Ideally if you could set aside a percentage of your regular income for spending on camps every month - money that is disposable - it would really take the pressure off, because the urgency to "make it" wouldn't be so severe.
When I say "you" I don't mean you popodita - I'm using "you" interchangeably with "one", or anyone.
Sorry for the rant lol - I blame it on Brad - his peptalk set me off.
Hang in there!
Amy
Wow, I just come back from out of town and found these awesome tips to continue on my AM journey. Thank you so much Amy!
I will follow your suggestion and try again.
One question, you said: Try this:
1)Find 5-10+ landers, and 3-5 offers. Throw them in a camp, run until one of the offers has made 2 conversions, then pause all offers and keep running that one. Do these 3-5 offers have to be on the same Vertical or do they have to be in different verticals?
-Regarding iphone 7 sweeps: How many landers did you test? And how many offers did you test for each geo?
I tested using the same kind of lander (the spinning wheel of iphones) but 5 different geos, and only 1 offer each... That was my very first camp, and I had no idea what I was doing. But now that I did my second camp, I realize that's probably not sufficient.
Thanks for the peptalk, I really did need to hear this from someone that's been through this stage of the game to encourage me to continue.
Originally Posted by elskafreya
Amy, did you have Adplexity on newbie's lives?! How can you so accurately describe all the problems that newbies face and the emotions that's going through their heads?!
I'm at boat where I am unemploy and trying out AM, but like you said, I realized that it takes budget to learn this game, on the side I am finding freelance work for bookkeeping. I have such an urgency to try and make AM work not only b/c I'm going to run out of money but I am also running out of time. Totally wished that there's 48 hrs in a day so I can finish everything I set out to finish in one day.
Anyway, I can't tell you how grateful I am for your guidence, it couldn't come at a better time, thanks!
Originally Posted by vortex
You almost can't give yourself a deadline, and have to make a commitment based on blind faith in the beginning, like "I know this will work, and I'll keep at this for as long as it's necessary". This is why it's so important to have another income source while still trying to make AM work - so that you don't have the pressure of making something work before money runs out. Ideally if you could set aside a percentage of your regular income for spending on camps every month - money that is disposable - it would really take the pressure off, because the urgency to "make it" wouldn't be so severe.
When I say "you" I don't mean you popodita - I'm using "you" interchangeably with "one", or anyone.
Sorry for the rant lol - I blame it on Brad - his peptalk set me off.
Hang in there!
Amy
Originally Posted by popodita
E.g. It won't be enough for them to all be sweeps offers - they'll all need to be iphone 7 offers, using iphone 7 landers. You may need to break that down further - for example I divide iphone 7 offers and landers into 2 types by angle: 1)"Win the new iphone 7", and 2)"Test and keep the new iphone 7". (I don't run sweeps personally - was doing testing for the AMC cohort briefly last year.)
-Regarding iphone 7 sweeps: How many landers did you test? And how many offers did you test for each geo?
I tested using the same kind of lander (the spinning wheel of iphones) but 5 different geos, and only 1 offer each... That was my very first camp, and I had no idea what I was doing. But now that I did my second camp, I realize that's probably not sufficient.
I tested using the same kind of lander (the spinning wheel of iphones) but 5 different geos, and only 1 offer each... That was my very first camp, and I had no idea what I was doing. But now that I did my second camp, I realize that's probably not sufficient.
Trial and error is necessary when learning this trade. There are too many details and too many ways of doing things. Reading some and testing some and adjusting your aim and then repeating - would be the way to go.
But yup - it would be better to focus on testing lots of landers and offers for 1 geo at a time. The pros of this approach:
-If you include all the most popular landers you can find on Adplexity, chances are that the "winning lander" of the batch would be decent, thereby you'd be "locking down" this one variable: the lander.
-If you test lots of offers with that winning lander - at least all the ones available on the several aff networks you're a member of - you'd get a MUCH better idea on how well that particular geo+vertical is doing overall. By testing more offers you'd also be maximizing your chances of finding something that converts well - and if you don't, at least you can conclude with some sort of confidence that the particular geo+vertical is NOT doing too well at the moment in general, so you won't need to test it over the next while. If you test an offer from this geo and an offer from that geo, you wouldn't be able to make this type of observation.
-Plus, you'll have already invested into testing landers for a particular geo+vertical (probably at the price of running the camp at a loss in order to cut down to a winning lander), and have found a decent winner. It would make sense to take advantage of that investment as much as possible by testing as many offers as you could for that geo+vertical.
So how do you pick these geos? When you're starting out, here are some tips:
-Stick with tier 3/4 geos - basically developing countries, avoiding first-world, developed countries. Traffic is cheaper, offers have lower payouts, so you can find out whether something will or will not likely be profitable after spending a smaller amount of money. Optimization will be faster - e.g. cutting a placement by 2x payout in loss would mean $1 instead of $5 or $10.
-Look at the stats of monetizing services - Afflow is the one with the most comprehensive stats. You can check stats by vertical and geo, and by targeting such as Carrier and OS. Drill down into their offer stats - they won't reveal the actual offers (cause it's their bread and butter), but if you see multiple offers with high eCPMs (earnings per 1000 impressions) compared to the average CPM of the traffic (cost per 1000 impressions), that's a good indication that the vertical+geo is doing well in general.
-Do some spying on Adplexity to see which geos+verticals are exhibiting consistent or increasing trends (i.e. look at the first graph). That's a good sign that the camp is working or they wouldn't keep running it. You could sometimes even find out the exact offer being run.
At the end of the day though, nothing is 100% certain until YOU personally set up a camp and try to optimize it. But using the tips above, you should be able to significantly increase your chances of hitting profits.
Amy, did you have Adplexity on newbie's lives?! How can you so accurately describe all the problems that newbies face and the emotions that's going through their heads?!
And this type of growth doesn't need to come at the price of a lot of emotional pressure and turmoil. THAT part is a CHOICE we choose to make, usually not actively or consciously, but by default because we're either too lazy to choose otherwise, or too ignorant to even know there is a choice. One thing I've learned from having listened to Abraham Hicks workshops day in and day out over the past several years, is that everything will happen at the right time and right manner to grant our every wish - provided that we cater to our happiness first and foremost. Setting conditions for our happiness is the exact roadblock that is keeping those conditions from manifesting. Ironic isn't it?
We have to get happy unconditionally FIRST, and THEN what we want can happen. Once our energy is aligned, all the energy in the universe will be on our side. I've lost track of all the very nice coincidences that have happened to me over the past 2 years especially. You can never plan things as well as the universe ever could, because we can only see so many viable options, whereas so many more are actually available and are just within reach (unbeknownst to us).
But when you just sit back, decide you'll be happy regardless of whether what you want will happen or not, and TRUST that everything will happen in due time to augment that happiness, things will just happen naturally. This way you get so much more accomplished than if you were to try to make it work through taking action alone. Making something manifest through action is very inefficient. Aligning your energy first by getting happy unconditionally will make you millions of times more effective in getting what you want. When your energy is aligned, you'll be INSPIRED to take action - an exciting idea will come to you, or you'll come across someone or something that would involve you in a project for example. That is called inspired action and is so much more powerful than the type of action you take when in desperation.
So you may ask, then why am I still pushing newbies to take action? That's because not everyone has the same faith/beliefs that I do. I can't expect to change everyone's paradigm, so I could only work within their existing paradigm. Expectations are the most powerful thing. I'm at the point where I believe that inaction will eventually lead to inspired action (and have experienced that time and time again - one time I felt so stuck I decided to do NOTHING but play games and watch movies and meditate, and 6 weeks later an idea came to me and I built a website that made $42k in Adsense earnings in its best month). But I can't expect for other people to have the same expectations I do. To most people, change can't happen without action. So I encourage everyone to take as much action as they could, to effect that feeling of having accomplished something. And once they start seeing conversions, they'd be much more inclined to keep going. In short, there are better ways, but instead of making what I already know to be futile attempts at changing people's deepest underlying beliefs, I try to help by working within those limitations.
On the surface, I still make tentative plans and let them guide my everyday work, but I don't really set deadlines anymore - or at least I do my best not to. The universe knows the tasks I'm wanting to accomplish, and provide help at the right time. The right people would show up to give me help and guidance, situations will change to make my job easier, etc. etc.
Here's just one of countless examples of the type of coincidences I'm talking about: The fact that I was invited to be a mod here. I had always worked in online marketing as a lone wolf, and was pretty much a lurker after signing up to STM. When the first 6WAMC was offered I signed up mainly for the ad credits (don't tell zeno!), but it gave me a taste of what it was like to be in an active mastermind and I liked it (and BTW the course itself was very helpful as well). During the course, I had "spoken" with zeno in chat maybe once and maybe all of 3 sentences, but for some unknown reason he remembered me, and 3 months later he nominated me for Junior Mod and MrGreen made it happen. At that time, although I had already been doing online marketing for a decade, I was still a newbie in AM. How zeno and MrGreen knew I would make a suitable mod and chose me over the tons of other people that had more experience than I did, I still don't know to this day. All I know is that being a moderator has hugely accelerated my growth, because nothing makes you learn faster than teaching others. In order to guide others, I had to think, I had to test, I had to look things up. When people didn't get good results I had to figure out an alternate strategy, until people started reporting that they were doing 2 figures, 3 figures, 4 figures...
So one thing has led to another. The pilot AMC course, being invited to be a moderator, being asked to be a TA for AMC, accelerated learning through teaching, meeting a TON of people on the forum and in the AMCs and AWCs, which has led to various collaborations with various people...
Some may argue that I could have effected the same outcome with strategic planning and execution. I say not a chance, because my personality would have made me remain a lone wolf if it wasn't for all these opportunities that have gradually brought me out of my shell. Not a chance I would have planned any of this. So I'm very grateful to the universe and more so to everyone I've come across in my journey - everyone that has played a part. Especially zeno and mrgreen and the entire STM team. Without them, I'd probably still be working alone somewhere, just me and my computer.
But I digress. Popodita - I've read some of your blog and intuitively know that some of this rant could be useful to you. You're the type that would understand. I can sense your urgency and stress, but the more you push against, the more you'll get yourself into a bind. Relax and trust that everything will turn out fine, and they will. Sometimes things need to get worse before they'll get better, because energy has momentum. What you were thinking in the recent past is shaping your current reality, but what you choose to think today will determine your reality tomorrow. If spending money on campaigns right now is making you anxious, then don't do that for now.
Get some freelance work first like you were planning to do, or see if you could arrange for someone to look after your kid while you take on a part-time or full-time job. My girlfriend has a home daycare - those are more flexible in terms of hours and are cheaper than the big ones. Basically just do what you can to ease your worries as much as possible - then go on faith that everything will turn out well in the end.
I'm not discouraging you from continuing to run camps. Just suggesting other possible routes. If you would like to continue running camps, we could choose to work with cheaper geos and lower payouts. But don't depend on AM to solve your immediate financial problems is what I'm saying. It's just not a good idea any way you look at it - whether from a practical point of view or from an energy point of view. There's no need to back yourself into a corner. Life doesn't need to be so hard.
I'll stop my rant here. I'll be here to provide further help on campaigns. You have me on skype - if you'd like to chat about stuff of a more personal nature, that would be another channel. I'm not the wisest person and am so busy nowadays I sometimes go days or weeks without replying to skype messages, but I will reply eventually. Hang in there - good things are waiting just up ahead. I guarantee it!
Amy
Beautiful post.
Hi Amy,
I read your response at least five times this past weekend and I felt deeply fortunate that you are willing to take the time and share the journeys you've been through. You're absolutely correct that we can't change what is happening around us, but we have a choice to face these changes without having to feel the pain, and the only way to do that is to change ourselves. Like you said tho, it is easier said than done, and to take the leap of faith even tho everything in reality reflects otherwise takes a lot of focus and grit--that is something that I lack and maybe the universe has set me on the AM journey to give me a bootcamp!
I truly do believe that the universe has a mysterious way of demonstrating it's power, and if we choose to believe that everything that happened to us and all the people that came into our lives are here to bring something we must learn, then eventually, we can become who we want to be and live a life that aligns with our paradigm.
It's so easy to get off track tho, and having read your response has really re-centered my thoughts. I can't tell you how grateful I am to have met you on STM.
With that said, I will follow your method and continue on my AM testing journey--not going to stop this time until I get to green:P Thanks Amy!!!
-Tina
Originally Posted by vortex
Not only will they need to be in the same vertical, they'll need to be very similar offers - since they'll be sharing the same set of landers.
E.g. It won't be enough for them to all be sweeps offers - they'll all need to be iphone 7 offers, using iphone 7 landers. You may need to break that down further - for example I divide iphone 7 offers and landers into 2 types by angle: 1)"Win the new iphone 7", and 2)"Test and keep the new iphone 7". (I don't run sweeps personally - was doing testing for the AMC cohort briefly last year.)
In the beginning, any action would be better than no action - so kudos on that!
Trial and error is necessary when learning this trade. There are too many details and too many ways of doing things. Reading some and testing some and adjusting your aim and then repeating - would be the way to go.
But yup - it would be better to focus on testing lots of landers and offers for 1 geo at a time. The pros of this approach:
-If you include all the most popular landers you can find on Adplexity, chances are that the "winning lander" of the batch would be decent, thereby you'd be "locking down" this one variable: the lander.
-If you test lots of offers with that winning lander - at least all the ones available on the several aff networks you're a member of - you'd get a MUCH better idea on how well that particular geo+vertical is doing overall. By testing more offers you'd also be maximizing your chances of finding something that converts well - and if you don't, at least you can conclude with some sort of confidence that the particular geo+vertical is NOT doing too well at the moment in general, so you won't need to test it over the next while. If you test an offer from this geo and an offer from that geo, you wouldn't be able to make this type of observation.
-Plus, you'll have already invested into testing landers for a particular geo+vertical (probably at the price of running the camp at a loss in order to cut down to a winning lander), and have found a decent winner. It would make sense to take advantage of that investment as much as possible by testing as many offers as you could for that geo+vertical.
So how do you pick these geos? When you're starting out, here are some tips:
-Stick with tier 3/4 geos - basically developing countries, avoiding first-world, developed countries. Traffic is cheaper, offers have lower payouts, so you can find out whether something will or will not likely be profitable after spending a smaller amount of money. Optimization will be faster - e.g. cutting a placement by 2x payout in loss would mean $1 instead of $5 or $10.
-Look at the stats of monetizing services - Afflow is the one with the most comprehensive stats. You can check stats by vertical and geo, and by targeting such as Carrier and OS. Drill down into their offer stats - they won't reveal the actual offers (cause it's their bread and butter), but if you see multiple offers with high eCPMs (earnings per 1000 impressions) compared to the average CPM of the traffic (cost per 1000 impressions), that's a good indication that the vertical+geo is doing well in general.
-Do some spying on Adplexity to see which geos+verticals are exhibiting consistent or increasing trends (i.e. look at the first graph). That's a good sign that the camp is working or they wouldn't keep running it. You could sometimes even find out the exact offer being run.
At the end of the day though, nothing is 100% certain until YOU personally set up a camp and try to optimize it. But using the tips above, you should be able to significantly increase your chances of hitting profits.
LOL! This is because I've spoken to so many newbies. I never take other people's struggles lightly, because I've been through some major struggles myself. One day I'll tell my story - it's not pretty. The reason I can empathize with so many of you, is because I've been through more shit. Not something I'm proud of or worth boasting about, but shit (or what Abraham Hicks calls "contrast") is what helps us grow.
And this type of growth doesn't need to come at the price of a lot of emotional pressure and turmoil. THAT part is a CHOICE we choose to make, usually not actively or consciously, but by default because we're either too lazy to choose otherwise, or too ignorant to even know there is a choice. One thing I've learned from having listened to Abraham Hicks workshops day in and day out over the past several years, is that everything will happen at the right time and right manner to grant our every wish - provided that we cater to our happiness first and foremost. Setting conditions for our happiness is the exact roadblock that is keeping those conditions from manifesting. Ironic isn't it?
We have to get happy unconditionally FIRST, and THEN what we want can happen. Once our energy is aligned, all the energy in the universe will be on our side. I've lost track of all the very nice coincidences that have happened to me over the past 2 years especially. You can never plan things as well as the universe ever could, because we can only see so many viable options, whereas so many more are actually available and are just within reach (unbeknownst to us).
But when you just sit back, decide you'll be happy regardless of whether what you want will happen or not, and TRUST that everything will happen in due time to augment that happiness, things will just happen naturally. This way you get so much more accomplished than if you were to try to make it work through taking action alone. Making something manifest through action is very inefficient. Aligning your energy first by getting happy unconditionally will make you millions of times more effective in getting what you want. When your energy is aligned, you'll be INSPIRED to take action - an exciting idea will come to you, or you'll come across someone or something that would involve you in a project for example. That is called inspired action and is so much more powerful than the type of action you take when in desperation.
So you may ask, then why am I still pushing newbies to take action? That's because not everyone has the same faith/beliefs that I do. I can't expect to change everyone's paradigm, so I could only work within their existing paradigm. Expectations are the most powerful thing. I'm at the point where I believe that inaction will eventually lead to inspired action (and have experienced that time and time again - one time I felt so stuck I decided to do NOTHING but play games and watch movies and meditate, and 6 weeks later an idea came to me and I built a website that made $42k in Adsense earnings in its best month). But I can't expect for other people to have the same expectations I do. To most people, change can't happen without action. So I encourage everyone to take as much action as they could, to effect that feeling of having accomplished something. And once they start seeing conversions, they'd be much more inclined to keep going. In short, there are better ways, but instead of making what I already know to be futile attempts at changing people's deepest underlying beliefs, I try to help by working within those limitations.
On the surface, I still make tentative plans and let them guide my everyday work, but I don't really set deadlines anymore - or at least I do my best not to. The universe knows the tasks I'm wanting to accomplish, and provide help at the right time. The right people would show up to give me help and guidance, situations will change to make my job easier, etc. etc.
Here's just one of countless examples of the type of coincidences I'm talking about: The fact that I was invited to be a mod here. I had always worked in online marketing as a lone wolf, and was pretty much a lurker after signing up to STM. When the first 6WAMC was offered I signed up mainly for the ad credits (don't tell zeno!), but it gave me a taste of what it was like to be in an active mastermind and I liked it (and BTW the course itself was very helpful as well). During the course, I had "spoken" with zeno in chat maybe once and maybe all of 3 sentences, but for some unknown reason he remembered me, and 3 months later he nominated me for Junior Mod and MrGreen made it happen. At that time, although I had already been doing online marketing for a decade, I was still a newbie in AM. How zeno and MrGreen knew I would make a suitable mod and chose me over the tons of other people that had more experience than I did, I still don't know to this day. All I know is that being a moderator has hugely accelerated my growth, because nothing makes you learn faster than teaching others. In order to guide others, I had to think, I had to test, I had to look things up. When people didn't get good results I had to figure out an alternate strategy, until people started reporting that they were doing 2 figures, 3 figures, 4 figures...
So one thing has led to another. The pilot AMC course, being invited to be a moderator, being asked to be a TA for AMC, accelerated learning through teaching, meeting a TON of people on the forum and in the AMCs and AWCs, which has led to various collaborations with various people...
Some may argue that I could have effected the same outcome with strategic planning and execution. I say not a chance, because my personality would have made me remain a lone wolf if it wasn't for all these opportunities that have gradually brought me out of my shell. Not a chance I would have planned any of this. So I'm very grateful to the universe and more so to everyone I've come across in my journey - everyone that has played a part. Especially zeno and mrgreen and the entire STM team. Without them, I'd probably still be working alone somewhere, just me and my computer.
But I digress. Popodita - I've read some of your blog and intuitively know that some of this rant could be useful to you. You're the type that would understand. I can sense your urgency and stress, but the more you push against, the more you'll get yourself into a bind. Relax and trust that everything will turn out fine, and they will. Sometimes things need to get worse before they'll get better, because energy has momentum. What you were thinking in the recent past is shaping your current reality, but what you choose to think today will determine your reality tomorrow. If spending money on campaigns right now is making you anxious, then don't do that for now.
Get some freelance work first like you were planning to do, or see if you could arrange for someone to look after your kid while you take on a part-time or full-time job. My girlfriend has a home daycare - those are more flexible in terms of hours and are cheaper than the big ones. Basically just do what you can to ease your worries as much as possible - then go on faith that everything will turn out well in the end.
I'm not discouraging you from continuing to run camps. Just suggesting other possible routes. If you would like to continue running camps, we could choose to work with cheaper geos and lower payouts. But don't depend on AM to solve your immediate financial problems is what I'm saying. It's just not a good idea any way you look at it - whether from a practical point of view or from an energy point of view. There's no need to back yourself into a corner. Life doesn't need to be so hard.
I'll stop my rant here. I'll be here to provide further help on campaigns. You have me on skype - if you'd like to chat about stuff of a more personal nature, that would be another channel. I'm not the wisest person and am so busy nowadays I sometimes go days or weeks without replying to skype messages, but I will reply eventually. Hang in there - good things are waiting just up ahead. I guarantee it!
Amy
E.g. It won't be enough for them to all be sweeps offers - they'll all need to be iphone 7 offers, using iphone 7 landers. You may need to break that down further - for example I divide iphone 7 offers and landers into 2 types by angle: 1)"Win the new iphone 7", and 2)"Test and keep the new iphone 7". (I don't run sweeps personally - was doing testing for the AMC cohort briefly last year.)
In the beginning, any action would be better than no action - so kudos on that!
Trial and error is necessary when learning this trade. There are too many details and too many ways of doing things. Reading some and testing some and adjusting your aim and then repeating - would be the way to go.
But yup - it would be better to focus on testing lots of landers and offers for 1 geo at a time. The pros of this approach:
-If you include all the most popular landers you can find on Adplexity, chances are that the "winning lander" of the batch would be decent, thereby you'd be "locking down" this one variable: the lander.
-If you test lots of offers with that winning lander - at least all the ones available on the several aff networks you're a member of - you'd get a MUCH better idea on how well that particular geo+vertical is doing overall. By testing more offers you'd also be maximizing your chances of finding something that converts well - and if you don't, at least you can conclude with some sort of confidence that the particular geo+vertical is NOT doing too well at the moment in general, so you won't need to test it over the next while. If you test an offer from this geo and an offer from that geo, you wouldn't be able to make this type of observation.
-Plus, you'll have already invested into testing landers for a particular geo+vertical (probably at the price of running the camp at a loss in order to cut down to a winning lander), and have found a decent winner. It would make sense to take advantage of that investment as much as possible by testing as many offers as you could for that geo+vertical.
So how do you pick these geos? When you're starting out, here are some tips:
-Stick with tier 3/4 geos - basically developing countries, avoiding first-world, developed countries. Traffic is cheaper, offers have lower payouts, so you can find out whether something will or will not likely be profitable after spending a smaller amount of money. Optimization will be faster - e.g. cutting a placement by 2x payout in loss would mean $1 instead of $5 or $10.
-Look at the stats of monetizing services - Afflow is the one with the most comprehensive stats. You can check stats by vertical and geo, and by targeting such as Carrier and OS. Drill down into their offer stats - they won't reveal the actual offers (cause it's their bread and butter), but if you see multiple offers with high eCPMs (earnings per 1000 impressions) compared to the average CPM of the traffic (cost per 1000 impressions), that's a good indication that the vertical+geo is doing well in general.
-Do some spying on Adplexity to see which geos+verticals are exhibiting consistent or increasing trends (i.e. look at the first graph). That's a good sign that the camp is working or they wouldn't keep running it. You could sometimes even find out the exact offer being run.
At the end of the day though, nothing is 100% certain until YOU personally set up a camp and try to optimize it. But using the tips above, you should be able to significantly increase your chances of hitting profits.
LOL! This is because I've spoken to so many newbies. I never take other people's struggles lightly, because I've been through some major struggles myself. One day I'll tell my story - it's not pretty. The reason I can empathize with so many of you, is because I've been through more shit. Not something I'm proud of or worth boasting about, but shit (or what Abraham Hicks calls "contrast") is what helps us grow.
And this type of growth doesn't need to come at the price of a lot of emotional pressure and turmoil. THAT part is a CHOICE we choose to make, usually not actively or consciously, but by default because we're either too lazy to choose otherwise, or too ignorant to even know there is a choice. One thing I've learned from having listened to Abraham Hicks workshops day in and day out over the past several years, is that everything will happen at the right time and right manner to grant our every wish - provided that we cater to our happiness first and foremost. Setting conditions for our happiness is the exact roadblock that is keeping those conditions from manifesting. Ironic isn't it?
We have to get happy unconditionally FIRST, and THEN what we want can happen. Once our energy is aligned, all the energy in the universe will be on our side. I've lost track of all the very nice coincidences that have happened to me over the past 2 years especially. You can never plan things as well as the universe ever could, because we can only see so many viable options, whereas so many more are actually available and are just within reach (unbeknownst to us).
But when you just sit back, decide you'll be happy regardless of whether what you want will happen or not, and TRUST that everything will happen in due time to augment that happiness, things will just happen naturally. This way you get so much more accomplished than if you were to try to make it work through taking action alone. Making something manifest through action is very inefficient. Aligning your energy first by getting happy unconditionally will make you millions of times more effective in getting what you want. When your energy is aligned, you'll be INSPIRED to take action - an exciting idea will come to you, or you'll come across someone or something that would involve you in a project for example. That is called inspired action and is so much more powerful than the type of action you take when in desperation.
So you may ask, then why am I still pushing newbies to take action? That's because not everyone has the same faith/beliefs that I do. I can't expect to change everyone's paradigm, so I could only work within their existing paradigm. Expectations are the most powerful thing. I'm at the point where I believe that inaction will eventually lead to inspired action (and have experienced that time and time again - one time I felt so stuck I decided to do NOTHING but play games and watch movies and meditate, and 6 weeks later an idea came to me and I built a website that made $42k in Adsense earnings in its best month). But I can't expect for other people to have the same expectations I do. To most people, change can't happen without action. So I encourage everyone to take as much action as they could, to effect that feeling of having accomplished something. And once they start seeing conversions, they'd be much more inclined to keep going. In short, there are better ways, but instead of making what I already know to be futile attempts at changing people's deepest underlying beliefs, I try to help by working within those limitations.
On the surface, I still make tentative plans and let them guide my everyday work, but I don't really set deadlines anymore - or at least I do my best not to. The universe knows the tasks I'm wanting to accomplish, and provide help at the right time. The right people would show up to give me help and guidance, situations will change to make my job easier, etc. etc.
Here's just one of countless examples of the type of coincidences I'm talking about: The fact that I was invited to be a mod here. I had always worked in online marketing as a lone wolf, and was pretty much a lurker after signing up to STM. When the first 6WAMC was offered I signed up mainly for the ad credits (don't tell zeno!), but it gave me a taste of what it was like to be in an active mastermind and I liked it (and BTW the course itself was very helpful as well). During the course, I had "spoken" with zeno in chat maybe once and maybe all of 3 sentences, but for some unknown reason he remembered me, and 3 months later he nominated me for Junior Mod and MrGreen made it happen. At that time, although I had already been doing online marketing for a decade, I was still a newbie in AM. How zeno and MrGreen knew I would make a suitable mod and chose me over the tons of other people that had more experience than I did, I still don't know to this day. All I know is that being a moderator has hugely accelerated my growth, because nothing makes you learn faster than teaching others. In order to guide others, I had to think, I had to test, I had to look things up. When people didn't get good results I had to figure out an alternate strategy, until people started reporting that they were doing 2 figures, 3 figures, 4 figures...
So one thing has led to another. The pilot AMC course, being invited to be a moderator, being asked to be a TA for AMC, accelerated learning through teaching, meeting a TON of people on the forum and in the AMCs and AWCs, which has led to various collaborations with various people...
Some may argue that I could have effected the same outcome with strategic planning and execution. I say not a chance, because my personality would have made me remain a lone wolf if it wasn't for all these opportunities that have gradually brought me out of my shell. Not a chance I would have planned any of this. So I'm very grateful to the universe and more so to everyone I've come across in my journey - everyone that has played a part. Especially zeno and mrgreen and the entire STM team. Without them, I'd probably still be working alone somewhere, just me and my computer.
But I digress. Popodita - I've read some of your blog and intuitively know that some of this rant could be useful to you. You're the type that would understand. I can sense your urgency and stress, but the more you push against, the more you'll get yourself into a bind. Relax and trust that everything will turn out fine, and they will. Sometimes things need to get worse before they'll get better, because energy has momentum. What you were thinking in the recent past is shaping your current reality, but what you choose to think today will determine your reality tomorrow. If spending money on campaigns right now is making you anxious, then don't do that for now.
Get some freelance work first like you were planning to do, or see if you could arrange for someone to look after your kid while you take on a part-time or full-time job. My girlfriend has a home daycare - those are more flexible in terms of hours and are cheaper than the big ones. Basically just do what you can to ease your worries as much as possible - then go on faith that everything will turn out well in the end.
I'm not discouraging you from continuing to run camps. Just suggesting other possible routes. If you would like to continue running camps, we could choose to work with cheaper geos and lower payouts. But don't depend on AM to solve your immediate financial problems is what I'm saying. It's just not a good idea any way you look at it - whether from a practical point of view or from an energy point of view. There's no need to back yourself into a corner. Life doesn't need to be so hard.
I'll stop my rant here. I'll be here to provide further help on campaigns. You have me on skype - if you'd like to chat about stuff of a more personal nature, that would be another channel. I'm not the wisest person and am so busy nowadays I sometimes go days or weeks without replying to skype messages, but I will reply eventually. Hang in there - good things are waiting just up ahead. I guarantee it!
Amy
Hi Amy,
I read your response at least five times this past weekend and I felt deeply fortunate that you are willing to take the time and share the journeys you've been through. You're absolutely correct that we can't change what is happening around us, but we have a choice to face these changes without having to feel the pain, and the only way to do that is to change ourselves. Like you said tho, it is easier said than done, and to take the leap of faith even tho everything in reality reflects otherwise takes a lot of focus and grit--that is something that I lack and maybe the universe has set me on the AM journey to give me a bootcamp!
I truly do believe that the universe has a mysterious way of demonstrating it's power, and if we choose to believe that everything that happened to us and all the people that came into our lives are here to bring something we must learn, then eventually, we can become who we want to be and live a life that aligns with our paradigm.
It's so easy to get off track tho, and having read your response has really re-centered my thoughts. I can't tell you how grateful I am to have met you on STM.
With that said, I will follow your method and continue on my AM testing journey--not going to stop this time until I get to green:P Thanks Amy!!!
-Tina
I read your response at least five times this past weekend and I felt deeply fortunate that you are willing to take the time and share the journeys you've been through. You're absolutely correct that we can't change what is happening around us, but we have a choice to face these changes without having to feel the pain, and the only way to do that is to change ourselves. Like you said tho, it is easier said than done, and to take the leap of faith even tho everything in reality reflects otherwise takes a lot of focus and grit--that is something that I lack and maybe the universe has set me on the AM journey to give me a bootcamp!
I truly do believe that the universe has a mysterious way of demonstrating it's power, and if we choose to believe that everything that happened to us and all the people that came into our lives are here to bring something we must learn, then eventually, we can become who we want to be and live a life that aligns with our paradigm.
It's so easy to get off track tho, and having read your response has really re-centered my thoughts. I can't tell you how grateful I am to have met you on STM.
With that said, I will follow your method and continue on my AM testing journey--not going to stop this time until I get to green:P Thanks Amy!!!
-Tina
All is well - let's wait and watch everything unfold....
Amy
I saw Caurmen's that we should build a lander instead of ripping, but I don't have ANY computer background, even if I sign up for codeacademy today and learn html and java, it'll take me at least a few months to understand the basics.
Here's a Q&A from the FAQ we've compiled for the AMC that may be useful:
Q: Do I need to know coding to make landers?
You can survive by ripping and modding. In fact, it’s recommended that you start by using ripped landers at least to establish a benchmark, because the popular ones are tried and tested, vs. your own custom-made landers which are unproven. A very good spy tool is Adplexity.
You don’t need to know a lot of coding in order to fix up ripped landers (i.e. to correct the errors introduced during the ripping). Take a couple of online courses in html, css, js and jquery and get some practice fixing up a few landers and you should be good to go.
Some online coding tutorials:
https://www.codecademy.com/
https://www.w3schools.com/
If you want a custom lander created for you, here’s a service vortex has used:
http://www.bannerslanders.com (Disclaimer: AMC does not endorse any products/services, so please use at your own discretion.)
Once you’re making money, you can consider outsourcing lander ripping/modding/creation.
You can survive by ripping and modding. In fact, it’s recommended that you start by using ripped landers at least to establish a benchmark, because the popular ones are tried and tested, vs. your own custom-made landers which are unproven. A very good spy tool is Adplexity.
You don’t need to know a lot of coding in order to fix up ripped landers (i.e. to correct the errors introduced during the ripping). Take a couple of online courses in html, css, js and jquery and get some practice fixing up a few landers and you should be good to go.
Some online coding tutorials:
https://www.codecademy.com/
https://www.w3schools.com/
If you want a custom lander created for you, here’s a service vortex has used:
http://www.bannerslanders.com (Disclaimer: AMC does not endorse any products/services, so please use at your own discretion.)
Once you’re making money, you can consider outsourcing lander ripping/modding/creation.
Also - when fixing code, it's almost always the same few things that need fixing:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...Ripped-Landers
Sometimes people will hide sneaky redirect code in their landers, so that when they get ripped by someone else, the landers would send a percentage of the traffic back to their own tracker and offers. Here's a tentative method that may help you detect some of them. If you do detect one, you'd still need to go over the code in detail though to locate and eliminate it. But this would be a start:
Depends what kind of functionality you are trying to find as redirection could easily be triggered by a timer, complex logics, cookie-based, etc. There are a bunch of ways to make sure it doesn't fire until it's live and in position.
Although if you watch the web console for it calling out to ANY external service, and it doesn't, and then check if it's dropping any cookies, and it's not, you should be OK.
But for just checking whether it's calling out, developer tools > network tab.
To check whether or not it’s dropping cookies:
-On Chrome: chrome://settings/
-And check for your domain.
-Check before you first visit the page on your domain, and then after.
Or use something like http://www.cookie-checker.com/
Although if you watch the web console for it calling out to ANY external service, and it doesn't, and then check if it's dropping any cookies, and it's not, you should be OK.
But for just checking whether it's calling out, developer tools > network tab.
To check whether or not it’s dropping cookies:
-On Chrome: chrome://settings/
-And check for your domain.
-Check before you first visit the page on your domain, and then after.
Or use something like http://www.cookie-checker.com/
I'm going to make you an offer I've made to AMC students in the past: If after following my post on fixing up ripped landers, you're still not sure, zip them up and upload them and give me the link (via PM if you like, but please update this thread to let me know, or else the PM could sit there for weeks) and I'll take a look. (Anyone else reading this - please understand that I can't do this for everyone. I'm dreadful busy these days - been working nonstop for the past 23 hours today.)
The alternative, of course, would be to stick with direct-linking for now (only to types of offers that can convert with direct-linking of course). This would be a feasible plan as well. Entirely up to you.
Either way - I'll help out where I can.
Amy
Hello Amy great reply. I had a question. I am currently getting into Affiliate Marketing while still working my job. I would say I make a decent living, but I have other financial obligations as well. Currently since I have gotten into AM. I noticed I have been spending some money on monthly subscriptions. For example:
STM=99$/Month
Hosting Service costs= still applying
Adplexity=199$/Month (I have not bought this yet, but was planning to)
With all these costs did you have a recommended amount to allocate for running campaigns? I don't want to lowball too much because I would like meaningful data that I can analyze. And I don't want to spend too high because I still have other financial duties. And another question was, would you recommend purchasing Adplexity as a newbie? Some people have told me it will help me out despite the price,while others have said to hold off. Thank you for any input!
Originally Posted by achowdh3
You need some of these - hosting, tracking ... this is a must.
STM is not mandatory, but as you already figured out yourself, it can definitely help a ton.
A spytool is of massive help to any newbie, I'm not saying you have to have access to it at all times, take a month, spend a few days on it, download many ads/LPs and then you can test all or some of them on the fly. Then you can buy access for some time again ... it makes perfect sense to cancel/renew a spytool membership as needed.
I would say it would be a good idea to have about $50 to spend on campaigns per DAY. It can take about 6 weeks to get your first payment, so you should have enough funds prepared to cover this period. Then it depends on your results. I see $3000 as a solid budget to start in AM, this can cover tools and a decent daily spend for about 3 months - because even if you are loosing, you are not loosing everything. However, people have made it with less ... anything above $1000 is something that you can work with.
Thank you Matuloo for your tips. I would say that STM has been an excellent investment. I feel like I have been learning rapidly these past few days.
I had 2 Quick questions regarding Adplexity. Is the main purpose of Adplexity to find successful landers and see what's working? I've seen a few youtube videos, and that seems to be the case. Also, Once we download the landers, do we need to know heavy html,css java in order to modify the downloaded landers for our split testing? Carumen wrote a great post on learning the basics of coding. I currently am familiar with the basics as I was an engineering major back in undergrad. However, I am looking to see to what extent I should refresh my coding background. If heavy coding is needed I can spend a few weeks investing in a class. Thank you again.
Originally Posted by achowdh3
The level of coding depends on what kind of landing pages you are going to grab - in some cases it's very simple, basically just html with some javascripts. On the other hand, there can be more code heavy LPs that use external libraries, so ripping those is not so easy. It's really a case-by-case basis. I think it's safe to say that you do not need heavy coding skills to rip majority of the LPs.
Originally Posted by achowdh3
Please start a separate thread for further questions.
We don't want to hijack this one too much.Amy
Hi Amy,
Thank you very much for all the links you sent me! I'm going to go through them and see if I can fix the landers after reading those posts first. If I'm still stuck, I will for sure take on your offer and PM you the ones that I have a problem fixing, thanks!
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