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How to test different bids? (13)

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Hello everyone on STM forums!

Thank you all again for the great information and support here this is truly a special place for anyone interested in affiliate marketing.

Sorry if this got asked before, but in vortex’s guide she says one of the most important things is testing 3-5 different bids.

Does this mean creating 3-5 different campaigns in the traffic source and pointing them all at the same Voluum campaign?

I tried this and all my conversions showed up on the main campaign I cloned from so I didn’t get any usable data.

Or should I create a Voluum campaign for each bid?

Is there a practical guide to how to test bids?

Thanks!!
-WS


Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums mobile app

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Yes, testing 3-5 different bids requires running different campaigns on the traffic source. These campaigns can point to the same tracker (Voluum) campaign or different ones.

When sending traffic to the same tracker campaign it is important to have your traffic sources’ CAMPAIGN ID token appended on your campaign url. This way you will be able to see from which of your campaigns the conversions are coming from.

If you already have this token on your links you already have the data you need to analyze different bids performance. Just go to Voluum drill down reports and filter by the custom variable where the campaign id is present

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Platinum in with the answer! The campaignid param was the missing piece. Thank you my man!

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What platinum said will work!

An easier way would just be to clone the Voluum camp as well, then clone the traffic source camp, then update the destination urls on the traffic source camps to the new Voluum camp urls.

That way you have a separate Voluum camp tracking each camp on the traffic source.

Another way to test bids: Start by bidding low, then cut the bad placements, raise the bid further, cut another batch of placements - until you see profits decreasing, then revert to the last bid.

That way you don't need to clone camps, but this method will take longer. But in cases where, when you test multiple bids simultaneously, the traffic source will flow almost all the traffic to the highest-bid camp, then testing different bids on the same camp would be a good alternative.



Amy

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I never use different bids in the test phase.
I prefer to test little bid (joke) different.
In my opinion bids get more important for optimization and scaling.
For first tests I set the bid low to catch high volume/low quality placements.
Then I start testing with a medium bid.
A good lander/offer combo will convert anyway, no matter if I bid low or high.
That way I can test more campaigns in the same time with same budget and chances to find a winner are higher.
Once I have a good converting campaign I test different bids to make the most of it.
There it also depends on the platform how I do it.
In the end everyone needs to find its own way to run campaigns.

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I do test different bid levels, even though you are right with this :

... on some sources I can convert with any bid, to some extent, but only certain positions have a chance to become profitable ... On these sources, the bid management is sort of a final confirmation of whether the funnel (offer) has a chance to make profit.

It's funny how we all have different styles of achieving the same thing, which is profit

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I do the same, because when split-testing landers and offers, I only need to know which offer and lander are the best relative to all offers and landers being tested. And I can do that at any bid.



Amy

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Sure, everyone should use different bids to find the perfect balance between adspend, volume, CR, ROI and so on.
But from my experience to check the potential of a campaign it is enough to run a good medium bid.
If you have a good offer it will convert, if not it probably won´t convert with other bids as well.

True, unluckily this is the most demanding part, to come to the point where you develop your own style.
Especially for beginners it´s very hard when they ask a question and then different more experienced marketers answer and they all give different replies based on their experience.
That´s what I always try to teach my students, not only to learn how things are done but to understand why things are done so that they can develop their own style as soon as possible.
From my experience this is also a hard part for beginners.
When you don´t have any experience you ask yourself where to start.
How can you find the best lander when you don´t have a proven offer to test with it?
How can you find the best offer when you don´t have a proven lander to test offers?
What was first, the chicken or the egg?

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I agree that one of the best approaches is not starting with staggered bids from scratch, but to bid the average/low and slowly raise it as you optimize and cut certain placements and/or bots.

But it depends from case to case, I just feel it is the most cost-effective approach imho

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I love the topic of bidding strategies!

It's probably one of those things that separates us, as mentioned above, everyone has a bit different style!

Did you guys know that we have some great threads about bidding strategies here on STM?

I was recently rereading some of these and would love to link them here!

First here are really great pieces of content from @caurmen (RIP), in 2015 he wrote a 3-part tutorial focused purely just on bidding strategies:

Bidding Strategies Part 1: Mapping The Landscape
Bidding To Win Part 2: Situational Bidding Techniques
Bidding To Win Part 3: Crushing The Competition


@TheAngryRussian also posted some amazing underground tips (back in 2011) on Gaming the System.

And last, but not least do not forget post from legendary @Finch on How to Win a Traffic Bidding War!

Even those posts are a bit older they are truly awesome and still evergreen.

Erik

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Solid threads right there ... I remember when I was reading them for the first time, Caurmen is legendary

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Amazing answers! Thank you guys, there are so many resources on this forum. I am just really grateful that I stumbled across it so early in my AM career to be able to take advantage of all this fantastic information and the advice and help of people with so much experience.

It seems like since I am still in testing phase I don't need to worry about it too much, but I have a couple of offers and a lander that is looking promising so once I get into the green with that it sounds like that will be time to test some bidding strategies.

I will take the time this evening to have another detailed read through all the answers and see what insights I can come up with to test on my campaigns.

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This is one of the hardest things for sure!

To maximize chances of success, this is what I recommended in the 40-day tutorial:

-For initial testing, use offers that have good track-record: AM-recommended (offers that have converted well for at least a few other affiliates), and/or have received big traffic and with uptrending graph according to Adplexity or another spy tool.

-For initial testing, use landers that are popular in spy tools, include more than a couple (e.g. 5), and take the time to make sure they load fast, display correctly in all major devices (browserstack), and function correctly.

-Throw these offers and landers together, wait until an offer reaches 2 conversions (within reasonable spend), then use just that offer to generate conversions that can be used to identify the best lander (i.e. when statistical significance is reached). If spend is excessive before any offer reaches 2 conversions, either swap out the whole batch of offers, or target another geo/vertical.

-Then use the best lander to test more offers.

If you have a better approach I would love to hear it (and tailor the 40-day tutorial to it). Very appreciative of your taking the time to drop gold across the forum!



Amy

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