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Complete newbie starting with Zeropark + afflow arbitrage (52)

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Hi, I'm a total newbie from China. Just registered this forum today and want to make my first move into the affiliate world. Please do help me through the ups and downs. I'll contribute to the community as much as I can.

I read many posts on STM and decided to start with Zeropark + afflow arbitrage, following this amazing tutorial by Amy. As suggested in Zeno's mini series on where to start with affiliate marketing, this is probably the simplest place to start.


Goal of this follow along

1. Get profitable. Not matter how little it is. Profitable means net profit after all costs, including transfer fee, etc.
2. Hands on with the basics of registering networks, using basic tools, analyzing data, etc. Don't get overcomplicated, focus on Goal 1.
3. Post follow alongs and get to know the community.

The following dates are in GMT+8

8.26

1. Registered STM. Read lots of posts. Figured out where to start.
2. Registered Zeropark. Still waiting for their call.
3. Sent a register message in Afflow. Still waiting for their reply.
4. Registered Voluum.

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Hello,

I am Chinese as well (well, Indonesian Chinese actually). Anyway, I am a newbie and have also decided to do Afflow+Zeropark arbitrage. Still figuring out how to use Afflow properly though.

Cheers.

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hi, mscuckoo. we definitely can help each other along the way!

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Hi Magic! Came here from your intro thread. Looking forward to following-along!

Welcome to the forum and thanks for starting this thread!



Amy

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Thanks Amy. I'll post updates if there's progress or problems.

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Great follow-along Magic, many will have and will be in this exact situation so it'll help those at the very beginning of their AM journey. Look forward to progress and hope I can help you in some way or another =)

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@showmethemagic good luck on your follow-along Magic.

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Thank you rolandb.

8.30
There are two great tutorials on Afflow Arbitrage(Amy's and Payne's). I decided to start with Payne's approach first.
From what I read, the pros and cons are (correct me if wrong):

pros
- early to profit
- heuristic rules

cons
- not very profitable
- time-consuming
- hard to scale

Since the goal of this follow-along is just to make any amount of profit. I think this approach serves the purpose.

What I've done so far
- Voluum, Afflow, Zeropark accounts are ready.

Plans for the next several days
- Follow through Payne's tutorial
- Get familiar with the basics of these three platforms

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Hi Magic,

I'm a newbie myself and is also following the arbitrage materials, I was wondering if you've had any success in making a conversion yet? I've spent $40 and although a lot of views, got zero conversions.

I'm chinese too by the way, maybe we can chat on skype! @popodita

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Haven't started yet. I'll give you feedback as soon as I get some data. I'll add you on skype.

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Hi Magic, Hi Amy (vortex) - Vortex has heard from me before but this is my first post in this thread (I just learned what "thread" means). To begin with, I am so new that I do not know what "afflow" means. Please explain. Secondly, I know what arbitrage is but I do not understand how a newbie can prosper with arbitrage when in AM kindergarten. Arbitrage sounds "advanced" to me. Help me understand, please. Lastly, best of luck to anyone who has the tenacity to go through the pains of the AM learning curve. I think Vortex is the equivalent of AM Einstein.

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Hi Jimpster,

I am also a newbie trying to get my feet wet with Afflow. I am sure magic won't mind me helping answering the question.

To get started with usual AM, we have to pick offers (you know like when you want to open a physical store, you want to know what stuff to sell at your store and which has the best selling rate. Stuff here is equivalent to offers in AM, then you have to create promotional material (brainstormjng angle, landing page, ad, etc) to lure visitors. In AM everything is about testing, after you got all that, you test which one works for the tested offer. Without a good offer, everything else won't matter.

With Afflow, you dont need to test offers, you don't need to test landing page, etc. why? Because Afflow has tested which offer works for particular traffic segment.


all you have to do is analysing stats on tracker which is connected to Afflow, see which offer is hot, send traffic there and when there is conversion you get paid.

That's the basic of how it works. Hope it helps. Read Vortex guide for clearer explanation.

Please correct me if I am wrong Amy, Magic.

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Hang in there Jimpster. Things will start clicking eventually the more time you spend on it. I guarantee you everyone went through the same phase you're going through.

Afflow = Monetizer, this is their website. They have offers (any product/service that can be sold) and optimise the best offers based on the traffic you send them. You send them traffic through Zeropark, a traffic network where you are buying the traffic. In this case, Afflow Arbitrage is buying traffic from Zeropark and connecting that traffic to Afflow's offers and profiting. As vortex mentioned in her Make Money with Afflow Arbitrage guide, it "doesn't involve learning how to pick offers, brainstorm angles, code landing pages, or make banners", which makes it ideal for people just starting out, isolating more the testing/optimising/statistical side of AM, which is essential.

Hope that helps.

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Hey Jumpster - I remember you - you have a memorable username.

mscuckoo and rolandb have both explained what afflow is very well (thanks to both!) Thedudeabides provides a very nice bird's eye view of the process in his thread here:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...day-and-Beyond


And then here's my tutorial on afflow - which as far as I know is the best of such traffic-monetization service these days:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...utorial-Part-1


Mr Payne's afflow method is also very worth testing - his approach is beautifully simple:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...w-and-Zeropark


And thanks for the compliment - wished I could live up to that praise one day. I'm just good at explaining basic concepts to newbies in a thousand different ways, and have the patience to do it. Thanks for your encouragement!



Amy

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8.31
I started testing on Zeropark using Mr. Payne's method (increase budget by $5 every hour), but the result is (not surprisingly) unsatisfying. I got just 55 conversions over $100 spendings. I first started testing during daytime, only managed to get 12 conversions over $45. Then I paused the campaign and started again during midnight (I'm in GMT+8). It got better, but still 43 conversions and not enough conversions for each Geo to make decisions.

What can I do right now? I heard people having better luck using other traffic sources, but I really don't wanna move too often. There must be something I can do right?

Here's the overall chart.


Here's the top converting geos.


Data from Afflow Leagues Page


If you need more information, just let me know. Thanks soooo much for your help!

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Zeropark reporting in!

From what we can see here it is a good start. You've got the basic idea of how our platform works and you got your first conversions. Now it is the time to optimize your campaigns and to make the best of it. However, judging from the screens you have in here you are rolling the campaigns on Remnant traffic and on multiple GEOs, and this kind of settings gives you a limited opportunity to do so. It is a good idea to dive into the business like this, but not quite a good one to stay for a long time.

Your next step should be creating some campaigns on the Standard traffic, and then perfecting them by our means of optimization. It will work even better if you combine the means of Voluum and ZeroPark to define the best targeting group and to redirect unwanted traffic to the other offers. Splitting the multi-GEO offer into the several separate offers for different GEOs may also be a good idea since you will have more optimization levers to achieve the best ROI.

In any case, if you have any questions or need any help, don't hesitate to reach our support, we are always there for you!

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Definitely, if you are following the method of Mr. Payne, he is the best adviser here.

Although, there are few ideas I can suggest for you to consider.

I believe that you are doing well, and already can pause those GEOs that have ROI worse than -75% (like the one of -92%, -85%, etc) as Mr.Payne suggests. Normally, according to our (Mobidea's) experience, with this kind of ROI it's pretty difficult and costly to improve the campaign. Especially with so many GEOs, it feels like you are missing the focus.

So according to Andrew's tutorial, after pausing several GEOs you need to increase your budget $5 more and keep running, but I think you can already optimize as you've spent more than $100 and you have a decent amount of visits.

What you could do next - dig into each of the GEOs (after you select several that you continue to work with) and explore all the parameters, and see what else you could cut. The tutorial suggests to first look into mobile operators.

Try, and let us know how it goes

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Lots of great advice by Zeropark and Mobidea above!

The only thing I could add: I would start 2 campaigns to target the 2 green geos (and any other geos you feel have not-too-negative ROIs - at least close to breaking even) and optimize them further. I may even start some staggered-bid camps for these geos to see which bid gets me the highest ROI, then pause the other bids, and optimize the remaining camp further.



Amy

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9.2

Thanks for all your inputs.

I did go deeper into the converting offers/geos and tested different possibilities. Found one Geo+Offer+Carrier that actually works.



I also paused some placements that are not doing well




I see in Afflow Snapshot this combo has 20+ leads generated today, whereas I've captured only 3. What are your suggestions to capture more leads per day?

Thanks!

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Got a question related to Zeropark sources. Why are the sources sending me traffic yesterday, no longer send traffic today. All the sources for the same offer are new.

Yesterday


Today

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Hello All,

NEWBIE here,

Sorry if this is a stupid question.

I am having a problem setting up my afflow domain name. I have changed my Godaddy @record to point to the generated IP address in Afflow and saved that.

When i go back to afflow to generate a link to promote and test it in my browser to see if its working it says this site cannot be reached.

I have looked everywhere to find instructions on Afflow setup that includes adding domain etc. no luck. Can anyone please help?

Thanks a Bunch.

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@showmethemagic:

If the traffic segment only generated 20 leads for the day, that's not a lot at all.

But to answer your question, to generate more conversions, you'd need to either increase the traffic volume and/or the conversion rate. Mainly increase traffic volume. So you can try bidding higher and/or scaling to other traffic networks.

As for no longer getting traffic from the same sources as yesterday, you may have gotten outbid. Try to increase your bid for those sources to see if you get the traffic back.

Very nice to see some green! All the best on finding more!


Amy

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@woodxr: It may be that you need to wait for propagation. Try again in a few hours. If after 24 hours, it still doesn't work, contact afflow support to explain the problem. They should be able to help.

If you still can't get it to work, please start a new thread describing what you did along with screenshots, and we'll take a look.


Amy

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Thanks for your reply

I'm a bit perplexed now. The campaign that has been converting several days ago simply stopped converting today. Same sources no conversions.

I tried to run the same campaign on Standard traffic (the previous one was on remnant traffic), but no conversion.

Started two new test campaigns today, following Amy's today VS 30 day high eCPM geo+vertical method. But traffic is coming in very slowly with 3 dots visibility.

I know it's just the reality every newbie has to deal with. Should I continue the campaign? Should I start over? Should I move away from Arbitrage? I really need your suggestions.

Thanks!

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This is from your post 2 days ago, but seems you've paused some placements way too early. Which methodology did you follow for pausing placements?

Regarding whether to pause the campaign, the bottom part of vortex's guide HERE helps with that. Can you post screenshots?

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Hmm, where did you get that info from? I always figured cutting sources should be based on payout, or ROI. An aggressive cut would be at 1x payout, but you're cutting at close to 0.1x payout.

For all 4 campaigns, it looks to me like you should be collecting a lot more data. There are 2 approaches outlined by vortex here, I'd recommend picking one depending on your budget.

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You're right. I should be patient. Get more data. Guess sometimes anxiety and frustration just set in. When things don't work, chances are I'm the wrong one. I'll read more posts and read more carefully.

Thank you so much.

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It hits me that the reason why the first campaign stopped converting, is maybe because the "trend" is no longer there. I check the stats on Afflow confirming my guess. It peaked around 7 days data, and went all the way down. When I started testing using Payne's method, it happened to capture the down-going, but still converting offer. As it now bottoms, the offer simply stops converting, not matter how hard I drive traffic to it.

The whole Afflow thing is much more volatile than I expected. I might need to rethink the general approach here. But for now, I'll just hit the sack...

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No problem, hang in there, early stages still!

I don't think in general profitable campaigns in Afflow last that long (though some can), the ZP + Afflow arbitrage game is about churning out campaigns while they are hot, optimising/scaling quickly to maximise profits, then cut them once they are dropping off. 5 campaigns a day is a good number to create, but only create as many as you can manage, since it's essential to be on top of them in terms of optimisation + cutting. Maybe start with a lower number and once you get the hang of speedy campaign launches, you can up the number. Like vortex mentioned somewhere in her guide, it's like daytrading with stocks. Also, the more you do it, the easier it'll get, the quicker you'll be, and all the while you'll be building skills like data analysis.

I guess it's best to focus on optimising your optimisation (while posting updates in here) then once you've got that down, start launching more campaigns on a daily basis.

Maybe the more advanced AMers can chime in just in case.

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Regarding conversions stopping: Have you checked stats to see if the traffic is still being directed to the same offers that were converting? This happens all the time with afflow, as well-converting offers are paused for example.

To succeed with afflow, it would be necessary to test a large number of geos.

If traffic is slow, up your bid. If you're already bidding quite high and there's still little volume, don't bother. Make sure there's enough volume first.

Some camps will just have a bad day where conversions seem to stop coming in. Try to pause it and resume the next day. HOWEVER, before doing so, check 2 things:

1)Like I said above, check to see if the traffic is still going to high-eCPM offers (specifically, to the one(s) that were making you conversions before). If the traffic is no longer going to a good offer, then obviously, don't bother to resume the camp for now.

2)Check your placement stats before and after the conversion stopped. Make a note of which placements were giving you conversions before, and check after stats to see if you're still getting the same traffic levels from those placements. If you're not, it probably means you've been outbid. Increase your bid for those placements to see if conversions will come back.


I don't see the logic of your cutting criterion - cutting based on CVR doesn't make much sense. It would make much more sense to cut based on ROI or spend vs. revenue - for example if the source isn't green after spending 3x payout or 5x payout (say) in costs, then cut the source.


I agree with Roland - WAY too little spend for making any type of observations. Need to run some more.

Question: Are you targeting carrier or wifi? The bids seem really low even for wifi. This would also explain why traffic is coming in so slowly. This can be a real problem, because afflow's offers are changing constantly, so speed is crucial.


Ah - then in this case, it's not because you've been outbid.

Yes, afflow is volatile for sure - this is why I put in all those "checks" in my tutorial to make sure traffic is still being directed to high eCPM offers. Once that stops happening, that would be the time to put the campaign on pause.




Amy

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Rolandb - thank you for the clear and concise explanation of Afflow. And, another thank you for your encouragement!! (It has been a long summer-ending Holiday in the US so that is why I am late in responding to your post.) I will research the Afflow Arbitrage concept because of the comments in this thread and also because of tutorials by Vortex and Mr. Payne, both of whom I respect very much.

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Since the eCPM for direct link is so low, I wouldn't even bother testing that further.

The global link may be worth running further - although the eCPM isn't as high as I'd like to see it. With some placement-cutting you may be able to make it profitable still.

As for whether 10x payout in traffic costs with 2 conversions is a sign of poor performance - it depends on your placement stats as well. There are a million and a half different scenarios, but basically what you're looking for is whether you're making enough of the bigger placements profitable, and what percentage of the total traffic is from loser placements.

Just a few scenarios for illustration purposes:

-If a lot of the placements that HAVE converted, are in profit, it's a positive sign. If they're in profit AND have 2+ conversions, even better. If they're profitable AND are big placements, better still.

-If you're seeing some of the positive signs above, and you also see 1-2 of the big placements are in loss by quite a bit, then you know that by cutting those big loser placements, you'll stand a good chance of taking the camp to green.

-If most/all of the biggest placements are in loss, and they comprise of a significant percentage of the total traffic, then it's a sign you should pause the camp.


Advice: Don't wait for the smaller placements to gather enough traffic to prove themselves either way (winner/loser), unless you're targeting a big geo that has a lot of profits potential if you'd invest money into cutting lots of placements. (e.g. If you're targeting a smaller mobile carrier that doesn't have a ton of traffic in the first place, and see that the few biggest placements aren't looking hopeful, then it may be good to stop.) (e.g. 2: If you're targeting a big carrier, or wifi traffic for a mid or large volume geo, then investing money into cutting bad placements, including smaller placements, can be a big edge for any future camps you run in that carrier/geo.)

So, in general, run enough traffic until you can observe some of the above trends that will tell you whether the camp has a good or bad chance of ending up in profits, and go from there.




Amy

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That's the main problem, yes.

The advantage though is that you don't need to spend time on scouting out offers and messing with landers.

So - pros and cons.

You could pick some geos+[any other targeting] that have been consistent performers (i.e. high eCPM - either from one stable good offer or a stream of good offers), and invest into cutting placements. Because they're consistent performers, chances are you'll be able to benefit from the investment for quite a while.

That way, you'll have an advantage over affiliates that are giving up on a campaign when they're not in profit the first 1-2 days.

If you want to go that way though, make sure you choose something that has lots of traffic, that you can cut heavily and STILL have lots of traffic left afterwards.




Amy

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You are absolutely right. I almost forgot to factor in competitors. It's not just about doing the "thing" right, but also outcompeting competitors.

Traffic volume seems to be a real issue to me right now. Guess I have to try more traffic sources to figure out their weakness and strength.

Btw, What do you think about the roles of AP and CVR (you talked about ecpm) in deciding a good combo?

Thanks!

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Yes! Trying more sources would be great. For running monetizers like afflow, being able to find less-competitive traffic source would be especially beneficial. Here's a simple approach on how to scope out new traffic sources:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...l=1#post317559

eCPM is effectively calculated based on AP and CVR. I suggest to focus on eCPM because that's a key metric when evaluating afflow stats.



Amy

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Hi there...I am a newbie as well and must be doing something wrong as I set up a campaign following Mr. Payne's method and got over 6,000 view very quickly but not a single conversion. Any help would be appreciated...I really want to make this work.

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The priority right now should be to verify whether you've set up everything correctly.

Target one or more geos that has low payout offers and doing high volumes in conversions.

Egypt, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines may make good candidates but of course you'll need to check afflow stats to verify my criteria above.

If you're STILL not getting conversions - then something is likely wrong with the way you've set up your links.

Also - check afflow stats to see if conversions are being registered - it may just be that you've set up your postback incorrectly.

Another thing to check: Paste your afflow link in your browser to make sure it's working. If not, you may have set up your afflow domain incorrectly.



Amy

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9.9
Not doing much today, just pulling some stats from Afflow trying to make sense of it.



Here's what I think of the stats. I'm totally making some of the metrics out of the blue! Please correct!

eCPM

• effective Cost Per Mille
  
• Overall quality of the combo. The higher the more likely to perform well. Have to factor in geos/tiers.

CVR

• ConVersion Rate/Ratio
• What traffic quality it may require. The lower the CVR, the higher quality/volume of traffic (better traffic-combo match / better placements, etc.) it may require.

ALPD

• Average Leads Per Day
• How much conversions I can possibly gather. If ALPD is too low, I may not have enough conversions to make decisions on.

AP

• Average Payout
• How much test budget I possibly need. The higher the AP the larger the test budget. Though this is NOT the AP I actually get, it gives a rough estimation.

ARPD

• Average Revenue Per Day
• How much scale I will possibly have. If ARPD is too low, it may not worth to run the campaign, because of my limited attention span.

ACPD

• Average Click Per Day
  
• How much competition there is.

Here's an analysis of Combo 1 and Combo 2 based on interpretations above.

In terms of combo quality, 1 and 2 are roughly the same, because they belong to the same Geo (assumed here). However, Combo 1 is much more difficult to convert than Combo 2,it may need higher bids, much larger traffic, because I have to cut placements harder and that may severely reduce traffic. Also I can gather more data with smaller test budgets with Combo 2 (this needs to be further tested with real data), although the possible scale of 2 is as of right now smaller than 1, and there's also a rising competition in 2.

Like I said, I'm just playing with the stats to make sense (nonsense more likely!) out of it. Kinda find myself like doing this stuff LOL!

Please fellow AMs offer your inputs!

Thanks!

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Very nice analysis! These are afflow's aggregated stats right? From all publishers and not just your own stats?

Just want to add:


1)If you're not getting enough traffic to potentially make more than a couple of dollars a day, and you're already bidding average or better, then the camp isn't worth running, period.

It doesn't mean the targeting (or what you call combo) isn't worth running, but in that case you should definitely seek out other traffic sources that DO have enough traffic.


2)eCPM - of course the higher it is, the better. But to put it into context, it would be best to compare it with the average CPM of your traffic cost. Obviously, the smaller the traffic CPM is compared to your eCPM, the better. And of course you can lower the CPM further by cutting placements, or bidding lower, or both. (Bidding lower though is tricky, because it won't just lower the CPM, it will lower the eCPM as well because you'd be getting lower traffic quality. Still, you won't know until you test bids.)




Amy

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Thanks...I have a feeling my links might not be correct or something is wrong with my domain. Every time I try to check the link i get an error. I am in serious need of help!!

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Could you please start a new thread, and provide details on your problem?

Also - please keep in mind that domain DNS may take up to 24 hours to propagate. If you're confident that you've set up the afflow domain correctly, wait a few hours and try again.



Amy

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1. If you've set the budget to 5-10x the payout, let it run out.
2. Hmm, hard to say exactly, you can consider it high, and test 2 lower bids. Maybe vortex who has more bidding experience can help here.

Good to see you testing more though!

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Thanks, I'll just let it run out!

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9.13
I tried to port campaigns to another traffic source, not having much success except for one campaign. The problem is still volatility. I had one offer doing -7% ROI yesterday with great volume simply stopped working today. I double-checked Afflow stats. The offer is still there but it simply stopped converting! 0 conversions for everyone! It had been running well for the past 30 days.

Lessons learned: Act fast when it's still green.

Here're the only two campaigns left. For this round of testing and optimization, -$12.94 in profit so far.

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Very nice!


Sounds like a good plan!

Note here: Once you've identified the good and bad placements (a.k.a. targets/zones/pubs), you can re-use them again and again for future camps, so would be a worthwhile investment. Stuff like OS and carrier and device though will perform differently for different offers, so you'll need to retest them when afflow changes their main offer (or just re-check afflow's stats to see which OSs and devices and carriers are performing the best for the current main offer).


Up to you. I think the 2 green camps with 2 conversions each looks especially promising considering no placements have been cut yet (I'm assuming) - I would certainly continue optimizing these 2 without needing to wait until the budget runs out.


There are no hard-and-fast rules to determine which bids to test, but I would suggest to space them $0.50-$2 apart to try to trigger traffic from different placements.

Say you're currently bidding $1, then I would try $0.50, $2 and $3. Or $0.50, $2 and $4. For more expensive / competitive geos, maybe even test $6 or even $8 and $10 if the offer is looking very promising by converting very well.

In short, testing more bids is better than not testing bids. The more bids you test the more good placements you can potentially uncover - but the downside is that testing bids will cost money. It's kind of like playing roulette.

If you see a good offer, I would encourage you to test more bids than just 3. Try testing 5, or 7, or 10. I've had several students from the 6WAMC course report seeing great results with this approach.


Volatility - yup that's the name of this pop+afflow game unfortunately. Even if you were running individual offers this would happen - an offer may just stop converting suddenly due to technical reasons, or the offer is capped, or the aff network or the advertiser would start shaving or scrubbing heavily all of a sudden...

Keep an eye on afflow stats - maybe the offer is just having technical difficulties. It may come back if it's been running well for so long.

And yes - scouting out new traffic sources is important. If you find one good source out of 10 or 20 you test, it would be worth the trouble.




Amy

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Hi, Amy thank you for your detailed comments! I read everyone of your posts in this thread several times. You've been really helpful along the way.

9.14

Death of the winners


The 2 campaign that made profit yesterday died today unfortunately (and not surprisingly). Not sure what happened. From Afflow aggregated data, these two targetings are still make conversions, but not for my traffic sources, maybe there are guys (or computers) realize I'm stealing their conversions away and reacted to it.


Postmortem of the ignored


This is probably the closest campaign to potentially cover the entire testing spending. It's got approved 19:30 and spent 5x budget within 90 minutes with 5 conversions and -7.64% ROI. This is even before selecting OS/Device type and cutting placements. There's enough traffic to optimize. Thinking this targeting has been working for 30 days, I acted way too slowly. I only optimized it the next day after the offer was paused and I got 0 conversions.

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Your comment is appreciated! Likewise, thank you for starting this follow-along. I enjoy our discussions.


Perhaps it would be good to run a bit more traffic.

Have you checked placement stats to see whether you're still getting traffic from the same converting placements as before?

Try bidding a bit higher for placements that were converting, and/or increase the campaign bid. Or, pause the camp and start it up again in 1-2 days. Or do both.


No need to lament over anything. There are tons of opportunities and nobody can take advantage of every single one. Offers will come and go. You'll ride the next wave.



Amy

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Hi, Amy. I think you are right. I may have abandoned the campaigns that did not convert too soon. They usually run out of testing budget in 1-2 days.

As suggested in this thread
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ow-to-avoid-it
Day by day fluctuations may be standing in my way.

So, how long should I generally speaking spread out my testing budget? 5 weekdays? A whole week? Is this a good strategy for Afflow (not sure if Afflow is more volatile than typical POP offers or not, as the thread above mainly deals with "normal" POP campaigns - ones with LPs etc.)?

Thank you!

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9.18
Some updates.
1. regathered data from Afflow for 30 days consistent performers. Found some targetings still going strong and some new ones worth trying.

2. started 3 campaigns on 2 different traffic sources. 1 campaign are now on 3 different traffic sources. So 7 running in total. Some are old targetings I just resumed.

3. gonna try these 4 campaigns on a new traffic sources tomorrow.

I found consistent performers are relatively stable (at least according to Afflow), so with this method, there are not many targetings to test really. My goal is to try more traffic sources during the next few weeks and playing around with biddings.

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First of all many apologies for the delay in reply! In China attending meetups atm.

For something like Afflow, speed is of essence, because offers are being swapped in and out constantly. So no time to draw out your testing or you'd miss all the good opportunities for profits.

For pop camps in general, I personally don't like to drag out the testing, because there are so many other factors that can introduce volatility anyways. As long as you use stats to cut offers and landers (elements which are the most important aside from traffic quality and suitability), the rest doesn't need to be very accurate - I'd say efficiency will trump accuracy for most other campaign factors when it comes to optimization.


It's hard to make observations like this when you've only had several conversions in total.

A greater issue here is that you don't seem to be getting much traffic - did the placement stats include all the traffic you've made over the past few days? If so, then the profits potential may not even be there - even assuming you'll be able to get this green.

To gauge whether a camp would be worth running further, I always look at the green parts and try to estimate how much profits they're making. If it's not more than a couple of dollars per day, then it won't be worth it even for a spanking new newbie to optimize - because that will be the amount of profits you'll end up with after cutting the unprofitable stuff.


Sometimes you may be able to see the landers and offers, but afflow does have measures in place to prevent us from reverse engineering.

Which is understandable - because then we'd all run direct instead of going through afflow.

And I suspect that with the volume they're able to run, that they're getting the highest payouts possible anyways. Not saying it's not worth pursuing though - just that I haven't personally.


Good plan.

Extending this one step further: Consistent performers means it would be worth testing individual offers from aff networks or offer owners, for the same verticals and the same geos (and carriers if applicable) - because it indicates that the vertical+geo is performing well as a whole. (You can verify whether there are multiple good offers or mainly just one good offer by digging into afflow's aggregated stats. The more high-eCPM offers there are, the better your chances at finding them when testing offers from aff networks.)

Another point is that for the consistent performers, it may be worth it to spend the time and money on cutting placements for a larger geo/carrier, because then you'd be more confident that you'd have time to make back your investment and more while the good times last.


That C1 is looking promising!

Overall, there isn't much data to make observations on. Can't really comment based on a single conversion - or a couple.

And yes - volatility will always be the case with CR and bids and traffic volume. Competition levels are always changing, and then there's the traffic source's algorithm.

Now that you have more experience with afflow camps: Try to target geos and carriers that have traffic volume on the traffic networks you're running on. It's just no fun trying to optimize a camp just to be making a couple of dollars a day.

To find out whether an offer's trend is affected by time, use that timezone trick I showed in my afflow tutorial. If you're seeing a jump from low to high eCPM at around the same time every day, then it probably means the offer has a daily cap that gets hit, after which afflow would direct the traffic to alternate offers. Be aware though that as more and more people try to run the same geo+vertical+carrier/whatever, the cap will get hit earlier and earlier on in the day.

As for that camp for which afflow's stats are holding steady eCPM but isn't converting for you - it may not be because you're doing something wrong. It may be because other people running traffic have already cut out the worst placements, or they may be running from traffic sources that have higher-quality traffic. You can test more sources, but the important thing is whether YOU are getting a high-enough eCPM to justify keeping the camp running.

And seeking out less-charted territory, i.e. less-known traffic sources, would be a big edge when you're running traffic monetizers like afflow. Sometimes, finding just one good traffic source will be enough to bring in a full-time income.

As for adult camps - are you targeting geos where afflow is telling you that the adult vertical is fetching high eCPMs?



Making lots of progress - good stuff!




Amy

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Hi, Amy. Nice seeing you in the event! Replying FAs in an internet cafe! That's some real devotion there! Great event, helped me a lot to understand the affiliate industry as a newbie. Honestly, prior to it, I was doubting if the whole thing was legit. Boy I was so wrong! Seeing so many people working in this industry doing different jobs in real life is a true confidence booster! I asked one guy if he was able to make a living just by running campaigns online. He looked at me like I was total nuts! LOL! Great experience.

Thanks for your advice, I do see volume a big problem now. I was able to get 3 campaigns profitable, but each of them making me just somewhere 10 cents... Seems like the geo is too small. Or maybe I'm not on the right traffic source.

My previous approach is to start with good targetings and then test them on traffic sources. Guess I'll follow your advice starting with good volume first.

As for volatility, I discovered it's partly due to Afflow's rotating algorithm. Sometimes it gives me high eCPM offers and sometimes very low ones. So instead of just targeting one vertical, I whitelist several high payout offers. Seems to be working.

I'll pause campaigns, take a break for a few days and have some quality Zzzz's. Updates will be posted as soon as it's available.

Thank you so much Amy! Take good care of yourself!

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Haha yes it was great meeting in person! Thanks for coming out. Did I get you on wechat? If not please feel free to PM me your wechat username - we have a chinese wechat group for affiliates that I could add you to as well.

And yes affiliate marketing is certainly real! There are people making 6-figures a day in profits. Sky's the limit really. The learning curve is steep, yes, but if you persevere and test different things, anything would be possible.


Verifying that there IS enough volume before starting to test is a critical first step. It took me a long time of messing around with little bits of traffic here and there before realizing this very simple fact.


Looking for targeting that has high eCPM AND good volume on at least one traffic source would be the key here.


I'm glad that's working for you! My attempts at targeting specific offers were hit-and-miss. Sometimes it would help, other times afflow would still send the traffic to other offers. So doing so may or may not be worth the extra trouble.


Thank you and you as well! Looking forward to seeing you in future events!



Amy

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