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Follow Along - Adult Dating - Tier 2 GEOs - Second campaign so far,....who can help? (25)

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Hello STM,

I'd like to post a follow along, in the hope I can get some support from some of you guys, to help take me to the next level,.....which to me at this moment in time is of course getting more conversions, reducing my loses and developing a systematic approach towards launching profitable campaigns in the near future.

This morning I started following The Italian Job - 2018 Adult Dating Follow-along from xechel0nx and matuloo has been giving some great advice. Something like this for me and my specific campaigns would be most welcomed from any of you pros!

Below I'm sharing a brief overview of what I'm currently doing as an introduction:

Vertical = Adult / Dating
Traffic Source = Traffic Factory
Affiliate Network = Advidi

Tracking = Voluum
SpyTool = Adplexity Adult
Hosting/VPS = LiquidWeb
VPN = ExpressVPN

Banners/Landers = 4 * banners / 4 * landers (all ripped and recoded)
Domains = 4
GEO = Italy
Tier 2
Offers = 2
Payout = Offer 1 CPA - €2.44 / Offer 2 CPA - €0.90

Next Steps?
As I don't wish to repeat the same questions and problems and take up too much of anyone's time in going over the same ground already covered on other threads. I'll first wait until one of you replies and will provide only the information that you request (Screenshots etc., that YOU need to see). As you may have a given template in your head as to how best you approach these follow along / advice threads.

Thank you in advance for any support you guys can offer. I look forward to communicating with you all!

Alan

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So there we go, you called for my help and here I am

TF is a solid network, advidi is a solid network too .. great combo for dating actually.

So, what are the initial results?

How much did you spend, how much traffic did you receive and from what "banner spot" on TF, how about the CTR ... let's share some of the basic info and of course the conversion data from advidi.

Gimme some initial data so we can go from there.

Cheers,
Matej.

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Here he is, the man himself!

Thanks for your speedy reply, much obliged. So, I currently have three campaigns going at the moment, but I'll initially focus on Campaign 2 for this discussion, as that's that only campaign I have setup with the 'reserved banner' slot.

So campaign 2 started on May 15, I only ran it between 21:00 and 02:30.
The reserved banner slot (position 13) started on May 16 and was running (I believe0 from 15:10 to 02:30.
I just changed the settings to run this from 21:00 till 04:00 until Sunday.

Screenshots






As you can see in the screenshots above, and below, Campaign 2 has two banners on 50/50 rotation.



The reserved slot was 'lucky number' 13, and it cost me $17,35 for this position.



Some more banner stats.





I haven't yet checked with my AM at Advidi for the exact number of conversions for the past 3 days, however, in Voluum I see that I have made an amazing (haha) 4 conversions. So I'll probably have to wait at least another week before ordering my Porsche Cayenne Turbo.

Let me know what else would be helpful to share with you.

Once again, many kind thanks in advance for your support!

Alan

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OK, do you have any reason for the strict day parting that you used initially?

I know that by using simple "logic" adult dating should work better at night, but it's not always the case ... in case your budget allows this, I would recommend to go and try a full day of traffic ... in an ideal case, you should be able to profit 24/7, of course there will be some bad hours in the mix, but in order to maximize the potential profits, you need to run non-stop.

Securing a given position is a newer function on TF and you don't have to use it, you can still just place a bid and see what kind of traffic you would receive. And if you decide to book a certain position, aim higher, 13 is quite low and the traffic quality is usually lower too.

Are you also tracking the performance of the banners and LPs? You definitely have to In order to be able to cut the worst performers, you need to give it a bit more traffic.

The good thing is, you have some conversions, but pretty low number so far. I see that the payouts on the 2 offers you run are quite different, this is another thing you need to sort out and focus on the better one, or maybe bring in some more for further split testing.

To make some verdict here : I would try to run non stop, on regular CPM bidding or securing a higher position (5 maybe) and trying to see if any of the banners or offers shows more promise.

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No real reason. I started the campaign at that time on May 15 as I wanted to see if I could find my banner on XVIDEOS and test the redirects. I just didn't go back to change the settings again.

OK, I'll do that, 24/7 it is at least for one week and collect as much data as possible.

Campaigns 1 and 3 are running on non-reserved slots. I figured comparing both would make some sense. I'll aim to reserve a slot closer to 5 for as long as possible, budget permitting.

I would certainly welcome a recommendation as how to track the performance of both most efficiently. If you feel another thread or post deals with this question, then by all means, feel free to share with me.

You're right, the offer that pays more hasn't converted yet, whereas the lower paying one has.
As for split testing, can you recommend a thread/post here on STM that would start me off on the right foot? There are loads of course, but, if you think one or two threads/posts in particular which may be relevant to me, then I welcome the insight. I haven't really done any split testing as such. The only thing I've done at this stage is set up my campaigns like this:

Campaign 1
- Offer 1
- Banners 1, 2, 3, 4 on rotation

Campaign 2
- Offer 1
- Offer 2
- Banner 1 and Banner 2 on 50/50 rotation

Campaign 3
- Offer 1 (creative 1 & creative 2)
- Banner 3 and Banner 4 on on 50/50 rotation

I'm really not sure this is logical or not? Moving forward I'd welcome any advice on how to structure a proper split testing approach and to make sense of the data once collected. I may also reach out to my AM at Voluum to understand if this is logical or not? Maybe there's too much overlapping?

OK, so my plan is to implement your suggestions as of this evening. If the budget allows it, I'll aim to run one campaign non-stop with higher positions than 5 for the coming 5 days. The other campaign I'll just do regular CPM bidding to compare the two.

I'll keep you posted of my progress in a few days. Hopefully by then I'll have enough data for you to take a closer look at and comment on.

Any structural split testing advice /recommendations you can share in the meantime will be enough for my tiny brain to digest. As not only do i need to understand the whole concepts of split testing better, I also need to get to grips with Voluum, in order to be able to apply my soon-to-be-acquired split test knowledge to their system.

OK I'll leave it here for today.

Many kind thanks!

Alan

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First of all, did you read this from me? https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...-of-my-methods

It's an older post, but I still use this method a LOT, maybe not 100% the way it's laid out there, but the logic is the same ... I prefer to get lost of the worst elements quickly, leaving space for the better ones to compete for the winning spot.

There are many guides on how to track and optimize, but in adult you gotta act quicker than in other verticals, since its an impulse behavior vertical... sometimes there is no time to wait for statistical significance. So make sure to track what ads and LPs are converting and cut those that start to fall behind.

It'sa good idea to compare regular CPM bidding and the guaranteed positions ... if your budget allows it. If it doesnt, focus on just one of the two.

Basically, you need to run a bit more traffic to see if something starts to fall behind or stand up.

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Hi Matej,

Thanks for your latest reply.

I am going to read this immediately and I think I'm going to try digging up more of your previous posts too whilst I'm at it

Sounds like solid advice.

Will do.

Like you said, if you want quality traffic, you have to pay for it. This week I'm running three campaigns on CPM bidding, all three with guaranteed positions, namely: 4, 5 and 6. Previously I started around the 13+, however, as conversions were low, I followed your advice to get as close to the best positions as my budget would allow.

The three campaigns I have running since last night are as follows:

Position 4 runs till Thursday (ran out of budget)
Position 5 runs till Saturday
Position 6 runs till Saturday

That should give me at least 5 days 24hr traffic data to analyse over the coming weekend. Once these data are in, I'll revisit this thread and see if I've got something interesting to share with you.

Thanks a bunch!

Alan

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Cool, looking forward to your results

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Hi Matej,

So I have some results to share with you. Not sure how best to reflect those results with screenshots, as it seems I've exceeded my upload limit, so I'll just use dropbox links for now.

Last week I ran 3 campaigns, all with reserved banner spots and of course upped my ad spend:

Initial Overview
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ixntcfen6m...spots.png?dl=0

Campaign 1
- reserved banner spot position 6
- ran for 2 days
- ad spend $29,71
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b2ah2e7ezt...0days.png?dl=0

Campaign 2
- reserved banner spot position 5
- ran for 5 days
- ad spend $88,39
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e7xeztqi0w...0days.png?dl=0

Campaign 3
- reserved banner spot position 4
- ran for 5 days
- ad spend $105,06
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ctu4m8nrpc...0days.png?dl=0

Voluum Registration/Set up issues
It seems that my campaigns aren't set up correctly on Voluum, probably a postback issue, as the total number of conversions isn't correct. So I'll aim to get that sorted in the coming days. During the period of 22 - 26 May, Voluum only has 3 conversions registered, whereas Advidi have 74 conversions registered:

Voluum Conversion Overview 22-26 May
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7llrjvw7b3...20May.png?dl=0

Only campaign 1 seems to have registered 9 conversions, campaigns 2 and 3 have 0 conversions registered on Voluum(???)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i8ij27dg5f...n%201.png?dl=0

Advidi Conversions Overview 22-26 May
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u04mkdgjok...20May.png?dl=0

Period 22 - 26 May
Total number of campaigns running: 3
Total number offers: 2
Total ad spend (USD): $223,16
Total revenue (EURO): €72.58
(today's exchange rate = $85)
Profit / loss (USD): - $138,16 (minus)
Conversions offer 1: 5
Conversions offer 2: 69
Total Conversions: 74

Initial Conclusion
- Offer 2 is converting better than offer 1 need to find out why, as it could be a set up issue with traffic source.
- Need to set up Voluum correctly, as likely postback issue not registering conversions correctly
- Spent $223, generated $85, lost $138
- Next effort will be to spend $200, and aim to get back $100 at least and keep reducing loses, working towards breakeven, anything on top of this (beyond my expectation) is a bonus
- All in all, I'm happy being that this is really only my second effort at launching campaigns

Your feedback?
So what do you think so far? Are there specific screenshots you want me to make for you, in order to analyse some data on your end?

Maybe you can also provide some suggestions as to specifically what's going on with Voluum, I'm happy to make some screenshots of my settings and dig deeper into the whole set up regarding landers, postback URLs, single click and multi-click urls and even the code I've used in my landers etc.

I look forward to hearing back from you soon!

Alan

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I'm afraid I have no advice to give you since the tracking wasn't working, that's a BIG problem. If this happens again, STOP the traffic immediately and sort it out first. Right now you don't know what banners, LPs or offers urls worked better for you You were basically running a blind test and as such, it's not possible to optimize this.

You will have to fix the tracking and restart again, to see if there are some combinations that stand out and show promise. You got quite a few conversions so by now, you'd be able to say if the offer has potential or not, if only your tracking was working.

The problem will be the postback, did you get your AM to set a global postback for you? Just a note, you need to set a postback with every affiliate network you are working with.

To help you find the problem, show me the URL of some offer exactly as you entered it in the Voluum offer setup. Also make a screenshot of the trafficfactory source setup in Voluum. And I will also need to see the postback you've sent to advidi. Feel free to blur/replace the domain name but keep all parameters in tact please.

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Hello again,

I forgot to mention, you suggested checking out one of your previous posts:

As I'd already had these campaigns up and running, I haven't yet applied any of your wisdom to these campaign, so I'll be doing that in the next phase of optimization.

I was thinking, instead of spending too much time trying to figure out exactly why offer 1 only had 5 * conversions (as that may take me a few days racking my brains as to solve this problem, I'm quite sure I've simply set it up wrong), maybe it's better just to pump another $200 into the campaign that delivered the 69 conversions instead, and simply dig deeper into the banner rotation and finding out which are working best, and in which banner positions are delivering the best results? Maybe with another $200, I can just use the same 4 banners (Maybe I can also add more banners?) for just one campaign, and if my budget allows it, try to reserve slots 1, 2 or 3 (being that I've done 4, 5 and 6 already) on the traffic source. What do you think?

Thanks

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Damn dude, you replied fast, before I even sent the next message.

OK, let me reach out to my AM and Voluum again, and I'll get back to you with some screenshots of my set up on both TF and Voluum too for good measure.

thanks

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Do not send any traffic until the tracking works, you won't be able to tell what banners work and which ones don't, tracking needs to work 100% !!!

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Hi Matej,

So I had a bit of an issue this week with the traffic source, which delayed my set up a bit, problem now resolved.

I set up a new campaign last night. A bit more simple, for me at least:
- 1 lander
- 1 offer
- 4 banners

I've reached out to Voluum today to see if they notice anything strange or odd with my set up. In the short time I ran it, I got some clicks and one conversion.

Voluum stats read: 23 clicks; 1 conversion.
Advidi stats read: 29 clicks; 1 conversion
Traffic source stats: 151 clicks
I would assume that 'clicks' on all three platforms means total number of people clicking on my banners. Correct? Any reasons why some clicks are registered and some aren't?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e757475l0n...%20up.png?dl=0

Anyway, I just wanted to get some initial data for a test to make sure the initial set up was good.

So the plan for this week is;...

ENSURE CAMPAIGN SET UP CORRECTLY!!!
Launch three campaigns
Run two offers
Test 5 > 10 banners
Reserved banner slots 2 > 5
Run for 5 days
Total ad spend $350
Get back to you with some data

I'll also get back to you shortly with some screen shots of my set up, as previously requested.

Thanks again for your support. Without it, I'd be completely in the dark.

Alan

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Hello again, so Voluum replied, and they informed me who I should set this up if I want to. I don't know at this stage, if that's something useful or not?

"I checked your campaign. Everything seems to be set up correctly, instead of one thing - cost model set to CPM. CPM costs will only be reflected in your campaign if you are recording impressions on your campaign."

Either way, I'll try finding a thread here about impression tracking/recording for more info.

Cheers

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Are you using a landing page with this campaign? If you do, the "clicks" you see in Voluum and advidi are clicks on the button on the LP. The clicks in trafficfactory (your source) are the clicks on the banners. These banner clicks are counted as visits in voluum.

In case you're not sure about this, show me a screen from voluum please.

There is always a small clickloss, time zone difference plays a role too. And do not compare banner clicks with clicks on the LP

Forget about impressions tracking, most sources do not support it anyways. Select CPC in voluum and set a value that reflects the average spend per click on the particular source. It won't be 100% accurate but that's the way it is.

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Ahaa, I figured that not every platform uses the same terminology at all times. But yes, I am using a ripped landing page. So the 'button' is the CTA button, correct?

Is this what you were looking for?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oqky2tw7jm...sions.png?dl=0

OK. Good to know.

OK, I'll aim to do that this afternoon. Being that at the traffic source I have a "Avg. CPM" column, reading $0.0518. Must I simply divide this number by 1,000 (0.0518 / 1000) to get $0.0000518 and input this number here?:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tk0r3i9xhf...20CPC.png?dl=0

Many thanks

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Correct, that's what I had in mind.

To have the most accurate data : take certain time frame and set it at both the traffic source and the tracker (Voluum), check how much you've spend and divide it by the amount of clicks that your tracker recorded ... use that as the CPC.

The average CPC will vary from one day to the next, so either take some variations into consideration when optimizing, or adjust daily costs in the tracker. Cost can be updated on a per campaign basis.

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Hi Matej,

So my campaign ended this week. Would appreciate some feedback. Hopefully this time around the majority of settings were correct and I can share with you what I have now, and look at what I can change for the next one.

Traffic source
Stats - table
https://www.dropbox.com/s/48musse8ta...0June.png?dl=0
Stats - graph
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tjinimr4z4...0June.png?dl=0

Voluum
Conversion stats
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1jscnjhy1a...0June.png?dl=0

Advidi
Conversion stats
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gxuyry4kg2...0June.png?dl=0

Campaign set up
I actually decided just to run one campaign the past week, set up like this:

4 * banners
1 * landing page
1 * offer page

Banner position #3
Ran for 5 days
Total number conversions: 37 (voluum stats) or 38 (advidi stats)

Total ad spend: $128,91
Total ad revenue: $39,66
Total loss: - $89,25

Basically, I just set it up and let it run. I haven't changed a thing, or play around with any settings. The main focus was to ensure that it all just ran unhindered, that the conversion reports on advidi and voluum were the same, and to get some data for you.

Clearly nowhere near a green campaign as of yet, but hopefully I can at least now supply you with some data for your much-needed initial thoughts, insights and recommendations.

Regards,

Alan

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Ok, so now we know that tracking works well, but for the next time, do not run so much traffic just to verify settings. The campaign is at about -70%, so there is obviously something wrong with it. By running such poor campaign, you're not really collecting all that useful data, because you need to make BIG changes to improve its performance.

You need to realize one thing, AM is all about finding the right funnel, so the right combination of banner, lp and offer ... there are no miracles, so running a poor funnel for days will NEVER improve it's performance, it's not possible. When you hit a poor funnel, it's time to tweak it.

You need to start testing more, on all fronts ... definitely test more offers too, it's very important to have good converting offers.

For your next round of testing, I would recommend to start with at least 5 banners, minimum 2 LPs and at least 3 offers. I usually start with more but the costs go up as you test more stuff, so it's up to you to decide.

I noticed that on the 13-14th, your average position dropped, I guess that was when the 5day #3 position ended ... but you didn't get worse results, so it looks like you can start testing on lower bids. Was the volume limited by a daily cap, or that's how much they have?

The LP ctr is about 12%, which is acceptable for mobile traffic (still a bit low), but way to low for desktop ... what were you running actually?

Cheers,
Matej.

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In May I had 4 ripped landers completely recoded, I used them for the first campaign I shared in the follow along (with the poor tracking set up resulting in no workable data). Being that we are at the end of June. Do you think it still makes sense to use those landers for my next campaign? Or are they now 'dated'; is it likely their efficacy will be diminished, in that more people have likely seen them / more people have likely ripped them/tested them/drained them of earning potential already?

The reason I ask is that I now have the choice of:
- using same 4 ripped landers (recoding already paid for)
- ripping 4 "new" landers and getting them recoded (yet to be paid)
Obviously it's all about my personal budget and my decisions, but still your insight is always welcomed.

Correct.

TESTING ON LOWER BIDS:
- do you mean stop spending money on fixed banner positions 1 - 5? Instead, go for lower spends on lower positions 5 >?

DAILY CAP:
- do you mean from the traffic source, limited views or clicks, you mean?
- do you mean 'conversions' from Advidi offer?

I guess to understand daily cap on a traffic source, that would relate to:
- my budget settings, correct? As in, if I'd set a max. budget per day on my banners' average position lower than position 3 (position 4 >)?
- traffic source is only driving xxxx number of views to my banners based on my max. ad spend (budget) for each day?

My offers contain the description [WEB+TAB]. On Traffic Factory my target devices are Desktop & Tablet.

I've noticed if I use a VPN to enter country where my ads are running, click on my ads, I then get redirected to my landers, however, I never get redirected to my offer pages. Presumably that is based on my 'Target settings' in Traffic Factory and not because of my [WEB+TAB] offers. Correct?

BASED ON THE 12% CTR
- do you think it's worthwhile adding the 'mobile' option to future campaigns?
- do you think it's worthwhile dedicating time, money, energy, to make the above campaign purely towards mobile, seeing as the ctr is only running at 70% on desktop/tab?
- is there something specific about [WEB+TAB] offers that will prevent me from targeting 'mobile' too?

I will aim to get 4 landers online tonight and find a few banners, get it all set up ahead of any feedback you may be able to share in the meantime.

Thank you!

Alan

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LPs dont die so fast, only people who click a banner see them, so it takes WAY longer to get saturated ... so I think it's fine to try and test them.

Yup, higher positions usually mean better quality, but it's not ALWAYS the case.

Cap can be a budget related cap or an impressions cap ... so how many times a banner is shown to the same surfer.

12% ctr is to low for desktop and tablet, you need to work on the landers or use banners that go better with the current ones.

The offers usually have GEO detection too, VPN should be able to fake your origin, but it's again not working 100% ... so they probably were able to detect where you are from and redirected you to a backup offer. Could be also a device detection issue (desktop offer wont show for mobile users and will redirect too). This also depends on the offer, not all have such detection in place.

The ctr will only get lower with mobile traffic, so not sure how much sense it makes to try it. On the other hand, maybe it's an LP that looks better an mobile and will actually perform better ... you need to test this.

I don't understand the 70% remark, if I understand it correctly, you had 12% CTR on desktop/tab, not 70.... or?

I already touched this above ... offers that are optimized for web + tab, or each separately, will usually redirect the other traffic types away to backup/fallback offers ... depends on the offer too, some take all traffic types, some pay different rates for each... your AM should be able to tell you.

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Hi Matej,

As you can see, I've had a bit of a break from running campaigns. It was summer and I took the whole of July off (planned) and apparently most of August too (unplanned).

I'm going back into paid employment from September onward. A part of me feels like this is a step back, but actually, I need that money to fuel my AM journey so at least I'm going back to work with a reason.

With Voluum's recent 100% price hike, I've cancelled my subscription with them, a no doubt will have a different tracker when I return in October. I'd also very much appreciate your support once again, at least with the campaign stats, if not the tracker, from that point onwards.

Thanks for everything up to this point. I look forward to more words of wisdom from you when I return.

Kind regards,

Alan

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Welcome back Alan!

I did pretty much the same man, summer was extremely hot this year, so I was slacking more than I should have been

Having a supplemental stream of income is great, gives you the much needed peace of mind, so I wouldn't say it was a bad decision. Just make sure to plan your days properly, so you have enough time for AM too and don't get to exhausted.

I'll be here don't worry, anything you need ... just ask

Cheers,
Matej.

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Thank you!

Good for you; rest and relaxation is also important! I was in the Dutch Caribbean (Curaçao) for 3 weeks, partly for family and friends, partly for vacation, partly for looking to buy a second home as investment. If this AM things works out (I'm sure it will eventually) then hopefully we might buy something within the next (realistically) 3 years; sooner rather than later!

That's my idea too. My guess is that most people keep their jobs before jumping head first into AM. I did it the other way around, as I had some savings and was no longer happy doing what I was doing. So leaving wasn't a terrible idea, in fact, I've had a whole year to really explore this whole AM thing/this space, and I absolutely love it! But like you said, with a consistent stream of income to fund my campaigns and SaaS subscriptions, it'll make the journey somewhat more doable.

In principle I'll have the evenings and weekends and at the pace I've achieved to date, which wasn't too crazy, it should be manageable.

Thank you kindly. I'll be back!!!

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