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Does SelfAdvertiser have any real traffic at all? (21)

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Hi guys, just tried this network because of a recommendation from a user att AffFix. I'm promoting a call offer for student loan consolidation. I spent about $60 on 40k pops and domain redirects, some keyword targeted, some RON. I got over 1000 clicks on my CTA button which launches the call automatically, and I got $0 calls.

Quick Stats.
40,000 Views for $60
1,000 Clicks on CTA button
0 Calls.

I also have hotjar on the site, of the 40k views, only 60 recordings had a click or a scroll. This obviously doesn't add up, does anyone have experience with them?

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I've had very little experience with them and I remember big placements being very bad in many geos a few years back. They did have some converting traffic too though. How's your traffic distributed? Did you start blacklisting anything?

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I tested Self Advertiser few years ago.
For US traffic I also had very bad experience but I had some European campaigns running there profitable.

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I haven't started blacklisting anything, it's kind of hard with no conversions. But i've just set that up, I have a few sources showing up multiple times on Hot Jar, whether it's just complicated bots i'm not sure. But i'll push traffic and give an update soon.

And I have it to run ASAP.

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The thing is, if there's a very big bot placement/source and you don't pause it, you won't bid to get traffic on the good ones sometimes, or not enough anyway. That's why blacklisting bot placements and not converting ones is always a good idea from the beginning. Especially is the case if you know your funnel to work on other sources of the same traffic type.

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It needs to know what the most type of publishers there.
As I know it is mostly torrents on SelfAdvertisers - so your offer isn't relevant for the type of traffic you purchase.
But it rocks for some advertisers who look for this type of traffic.

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People who look for torrents sound like some everyday people, no? Just more tech savvy than say, older people.

Alright, so I did some blacklisting on some sources, and make a separate campaign for specific sources that were getting registered on Hot Jar and showing some activity. The results were not good, at all.

How is this not a bot?
https://insights.hotjar.com/p?site=4...9115a219bfecbe

I think now I understand how the CTR can be 30%, bots like this inflating my stats like crazy
And this?
https://insights.hotjar.com/p?site=4...12b46c8bd6e9e6

I mean, these bots have Residential IP's, direct to CTA clicks, multiple CTA clicks, Click on all CTA's, Even time spent on time is through the roof! Everything you would normally want from a winning campaign. FFS.

It's just ridiculous, and it goes on like this for awhile, across all devices. If all the "Well performing placements" are really just advanced as heck bots, then how am I supposed to know what to optimize and what not to? This is crazy.

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Some offers convert better on torrents than others do. That probably has a lot to do with where the user's mind is at at that specific moment, although you're probably right in saying that torrent sites probably don't have too many of the older crowd. If SA really is mostly torrent traffic (I have no idea if that's true), it might not be the best place to run loan consolidation. But I've had profitable campaigns with them, often for lower cost than at other sources.

I had good luck on SelfAdvertiser running antivirus/privacy/utility installs for desktop. It was hard to keep it consistent, but that probably has more to do with the nature of pops (and my landers...) than with SA specifically.

On the upside, I paid less per conversion at SA than I did anywhere else when I was first running desktop. Running 3 different bids for the same camp helped me at SA more than anywhere else, b/c the lower bids often did better.

Just about every pop traffic source is going to have some bots. That's the nature of working with 1000s of individual publishers/webmasters--some are going to send bot traffic, and it's impossible to catch them all at once. I send 5-10% of my traffic to Afflow at first, passing along placement ID (which I believe in SA is %SOURCE% ), to help root out bots. It's not perfect but it -will- save you some money and frustration. Some placements will show a low bot % but a high cloak %, and I usually blacklist those placements as well. Keep in mind however that if everything is come up high cloak %, you might want to double-check your tracker setup and/or how you're redirecting your traffic (I think double-meta refresh will show up as cloaked, but I'm not 100% on that).

This is anotehr good way to filter out bots:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ing+placements


And here is a good one on cutting placements:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...Banners-Part-2

If you look at Vortex's signature, she has another post on cutting placements, as well as a couple of other guides you might find useful.


Before I signed up with SA, I reasearched them, and yes there were people complaining about them a couple of years ago. ATM they seem alright.

It definitely helps to build a blacklist. It can't hurt to reach out to your ad rep, let him/her know what you're running, and ask if there are any placements you might want to block.

Any traffic source takes a bit of time to get down. Pop traffic specifically can seem like crap at first--cutting placements is essential. No source is perfect, but I do think SA can be a good source for the right kind of offers.

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You might also want to look at PopAds and similar places, as they have category targeting.

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It's always about the proportion of bots and the performance of the placement. @elskafreya gave you a very detailed explanation and very good tips, which apply to any source really.

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I appreciate this info man, is afflow the same thing as fraud filter? I'm having trouble finding info on afflow through google. I think the offer might run a little better on ZP, as they have keyword targeting with some traffic for my KW, i'll give that a try in a few and let you know how it goes for me. I really appreciate yours and manu's help on this. Thank you so much.

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I had also mixed experience with them.

For some campaigns in some geos I had very good results, but for some very bad.
Even if it was a tested funnel that worked elsewhere.

So it's a hit or miss, I always test it with new geo / vertical to see the behaviour and taste the traffic quality.

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They used to be good, but now I'd be careful with their traffic. I lost 10k as a publisher for revcontent cause I sent traffic from there and all the traffic showed coming from 6 different IP's only (we're talking millions of clicks). They didn't deny it all they said is that they validate traffic on a uniqe combination of IP and device ID. So if someone can maniplulate device ID from the same IP he can probably make a lot of money with them as a publisher. the account manager insisted it's a valid method to count real traffic and after long arguments agreed to compansate my account for only 20% of the traffic cost and after trying to argue that, that's not enough I was simply told maybe it's better we don't work together anymore

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Damn man, i'm sorry to hear that. But i've been speaking to their support over skype and it seems they're willing to offer a full refund for proven bot placements. I've installed fraud filter now and I believe that + hotjar will be enough.

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Hi STMers,

I’ve been MIA for a while, but I’m back. As some of you may know, I am from SelfAdvertiser.com, and I’d like to comment on the above.
As any experienced affiliate knows, in order to test a high payout offer (such as the loan offers mentioned above) you need much more than $60 to get any indication of the quality and potential of the traffic.
Basically, if an offer doesn’t convert it could possibly be a result of choosing the wrong targeting, not doing enough optimization or a mismatch between the offer and the traffic sources.
Since we at SelfAdvertiser.com implement the most advanced fraud detection technologies and strongly stand behind our high quality traffic, our policy is very simple: If you think that your offer might have gotten bot or fraud traffic, you’re invited to inform us, send us the source ID’s and your criteria for detecting fraud traffic, and if we identify the traffic as invalid - YOU’LL BE REFUNDED. It’s as simple as that.

Having said all that- if you haven’t tried us, want to try us, already working with us- I was able to get a special promotion just for STM community/registered users- Double your money- Matching bonus up to $500.
To create an account: https://app.selfadvertiser.com/signup.jsf?ref=STM
Promo code: STM500MATCH

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I agree, it's pretty low spend. I did spend a bit more after this post. However my whole gripe with this is;

1) I'm running a mobile only campaign.
2) There are over 1,000 clicks on my call button.
3) There are 0 calls.

This doesn't make sense because the call function auto-launches on most mobile devices.There's also the recordings of my call button being clicked over 30 times in one session.

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Thanks for the feedback! i know that you are working closely with Selfadvertiser's support team to figure out this specific issue.

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Little update, SelfAdvertiser actually refunded me on my birthday

Gonna switch gears and start running Antivirus with them.

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I've been running with them on and off for like 3 years already.

Some geos have a ton of traffic to filter before getting into something interesting. Some other geos not as much and I have had a lot of profitable campaigns there, so they do have real traffic.
With big geos I also test domain traffic as it usually has better quality.

Also, is your offer well proven or is it the first time you're testing it? You can actually blacklist websites based on budget spent even without conversions to start optimising a bit.

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I've spent over $125,000 on SelfAdvertiser over the past year, you absolutely MUST block back zones (there are LOTS) but once you do, there is plenty of highly profitable traffic there.

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Second that.

When I was running camps with them, I had to blacklist like a madmen during the first hours after the campaign was live.

You have to blacklist very aggressive, I used 100 impressions not lander click, 1000 impressions no conversion.

But once you have worked your way through the bullshit you can pull nice profits there.

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