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Hypnotica Sex/Dating VSL (9)

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Hey guys, my name is Matt. I'm new to traffic, though am an experience copywriter. I'd like to say I'm A level, with 5 years experience. So that's in my favor, but traffic = n00b.

Update 27 July: The first 2-3 posts are about starting with a sex guide VSL. But after running TJ a bit, I decided to do the 40 day n00bie guide. So skip down a few posts to see that stuff!

I'd like to hopefully get a VSL that I wrote converting on cold traffic. It certainly does well on email with EPCs at 90% consistently over $2 and up to $3.50.... but cold traffic... I don't know! I tried it on Etology 1.5 years ago and was about 65% profitable.

I'm running on trafficjunky.com to start with.

I'll outline every spend I do, with learnings etc. Please let me know if there is any way I can make this follow-along better!

Description of Most Recent Spend

Banner: https://imgur.com/MkMKvqp (also attached)
Lander: http://moderndaysexualman.com/special
Network: trafficjunky.com
Amount: $21
Geo: US and Germany
Placements: All
Frequency Cap: 1 per day

Data

Impressions: 225,733
Clicks: 106
Average CTR: 0.047%
Average eCPM: $0.095
Average eCPC: $0.202

Observations:

1. Bid CPM is almost exactly equal to the eCPM (unlike Google where what you pay can be significantly lower).
2. Average CTR for placements which got at least 1 click, was almost identical for US and Germany.
3. Running many placements on a small budget, because you don't get enough impressions for statistical significance, and hence learn nothing.

Ideas for Next Actions

Geo: My customers who have organically purchased through the website are disproportionately from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, so I'll try running there.
Placements: I'll choose a much small number of placements, such that I can properly compare CTR, and lander performance.
Lander: I can try this presell lander: http://moderndaysexualman.com/breakthrough/p10.php
Banner: I have these banners from trying on Etology 1.5 years ago to test out:
Tracking and Analytics: Set up google analytics for starters.

Lingering Questions:

1. What are the differences between sites/placements?
2. Could focusing on one, and only one, country be a good idea?
3. Can keyword targeting be useful?
4. How can frequency capping affect things?
5. What CTR is reasonable?
6. What are the differences between expensive & cheap placements?
7. What banner type is appropriate for VSLs?
8. Direct to VSL or lander?

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Ran another $12 today. I find this totally sufficient, because I'm only interested in learning.

I realized that on my previous attempt to run this offer, I was actually profitable with one banner. That was on Etology. I spent $4000 total. That went to 21 banners, and 10 landers. On banner 21, I spent $1150, and made $1250 day 0. Seeing as I own the email list, I may have also made backend revenue. However, I stupidly abandoned this, because I got another business opportunity, and also hadn't tracked properly.

So I figure, why not run the same banner that was working. This time on Traffic Junky

Description of Most Recent Spend\

Banner: https://imgur.com/vTsC8e7
Lander: http://moderndaysexualman.com/ct/?r=...e=trafficjunky (and so on)
Network: trafficjunky.com
Amount: $12
Geo: NZ, AU, CA
Placements: Tube 8 only. A, B, C, Footer Square, Inline Play.
Frequency Cap: Didn't edit.

Data

Impressions: 137k
Clicks: 97
Average CTR: 0.071%
Average eCPM: $0.091
Average eCPC: $0.129

Observations

1. I made this image of the data, reorganized. I can paste any trafficjunky data and get this info: https://imgur.com/IAyR0IO
2. Canada took up 80% of the budget
3. NZ clicks were cheapest, then AU, then CA. But NZ and AU hardly had any budget.
4. Video A and B were cheapest, then Video C, then Footer Square (twice A and B). Inline Play was almost 3x A and B.
5. Budget was spread reasonably evenly among spots. Though remember, not GEOs.
6. Some clicks were extremely, extremely cheap. Like 1 cent.
7. NZ CTR was highest by far, though it only had 5-10% budget.
8. Video A and B had highest CTR. Video C and Inline were low. Footer Square very low.

Ideas for next Actions.

1. Choose one and only one geo. I'll choose Australia. Seems reasonable.
2. I'm now going through the n00b guide from STM. The 40 day one. I've registered for Mobidea, Adsbridge and propellerads. This will help me get faster learnings that involve conversions.
3. I'll be looking at the presell performance for each spot / geo and seeing how to make decisions based on that.
4. On the GEO I choose, I'm going to choose one spot on all websites. Let's say Video A because that has so far shown to be cheapest eCPC.

Lingering Questions

Same as previous post... Though also now I'm thinking a lot about high performance tracking.

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Hello Matt!

Coming in a bit late, since I was at AWE, along with a large part of the forum members ... hence the more quiet atmosphere for the past few days

So let's take a look at what we have here.

It's great that you have a somewhat proven funnel from the etology test. But the question is, what kind of traffic was it? Etology used to sell text links, then banners, also some clicks from members areas of various sites ... and the performance of each can be VERY different. So the banners are certainly OK to start with, but don't be surprised if they don't work on TJ for example.

I would recommend to stay with 1 or 2 GEOs for now and UP your spend, $12 per day won't give you enough data, especially not when spread over several GEOs.

Now let me quote some of the questions and ideas and give my take on them.

Since you already got something running, I assume you understand the basics ... if that's true, you don't need to go through the newbie tutorial. Just focus on what you are doing with this campaign.

Each of the sites has different audience, based on the type of content that they offer and how they accumulated their user base ... so each of the sites has a bit different traffic and different performance is also to be expected.

Which leads to the next question :

I would rather focus on a smaller amount of spots on limited amount of sites, do not try to run on all straight away. Video A is usually the most competitive spot, sometimes it's better to go for B.

Yes, especially in the beginning, when the last thing you want to happen is to lose focus and get cluttered data. Read this for more ideas about this : http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...n-starting-out

Yes, in case your product caters more to certain demo ... just keep in mind that the keyword targeting isn't totally accurate.

Freq cap means how many times do you want your banners to be shown to the same user in a given period of time ... the more times you do that, the lower final CTR you will get. It's safe to start with 1/24 for example and then increase it to get more volume when you need it.

Hard to say, each site has a different avg CTR, same for GEO, offer type etc ...

It's bidding based, so higher bids mean that someone is able to make more money from that traffic ...

NO set rules here either ... whatever you can make work is fine I've seen so many variations ... photos of penises, animated stuff, hot girls with a strong angle ...

Most people send directly to VSL. A simple LP with a very clear message could increase the CVR though ... make the surfer want to watch the video.

Cheers
Matej.

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Hey Matt, if you're looking for some really solid traffic for this offer please give us a shout. We have some seduction/pick up artist mailer traffic that will work gangbusters with this.

Thanks and good luck with your campaigns!

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Matuloo -- Thanks so much for your reply! Digging into these answers right now and will update this post later with learnings / ideas / input etc.

Edit: OK I've read. I definitely do need to do the n00bie guide, I've discovered. I hadn't even used a tracker when I started this. Using Adsbridge. Seems good. Very excited about this because it's DATA DATA DATA!!!! And I'm an ex aeronautical engineer with MATLAB experience, so it stimulates my brain like crazy.

Summary of what I heard from you:

- Different sites need to be learned / experience to understand how the traffic acts / what is their profile
- One GEO to start
- Limit spots to start
- keyword targeting could be useful, though seems like something for later
- start with 1/24 freq cap
- CTR is to be learned for different places
- Higher CPM indicates that someone out there is able to monitize at that rate. Probably doing advanced things to make that high CPM possible -- probably very good targeting.
- banners or angles that work on one network, won't necessarily work on another (same with sites, etc)
- presells/landers for VSLs should be very "make them want to watch the video" oriented (basic, but deep at the same time).

Again, thanks!

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Hey Vrume, after I get a little more advanced (after 40 day n00b guide?) I'll be looking for better offers, so I'll reach out when I'm there.

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This is the first update for my 40 day n00bie guide!

Affiliate Network: MobIdea
Tracking: Adsbridge
Ad Network: PropAds

1) Impressions / Views Discrepancy.

I had this discrepancy between the platforms:

Visits Clicks Impressions
MobIdea 3457 3457 n/a
Adsbridge 3860 n/a n/a
PropAds n/a n/a 4130

I asked propads and they gave a great answer:

"The usual discrepancy is 10-20% and 90% of our advertiser see it within that range, however with others there were no cases we have detected the discrepancy reason in a number of impressions.
But here is the list of main reasons which can cause a high discrepancy
- there may be a number of zones causing the discrepancy, so we recommend to you to check by zones and exclude such if any
- the more redirects are in the url the more chances it will cause the discrepancy
- if you use complex targeting, your tracker might do not recognize some of (opposite to our data), so it might cause the discrepancy too. Consider running a small test selecting just a GEO or GEO+platfom and check how it performs discrepancy wise."

Awesome!

2) No Conversions

The offer I chose had these stats listed for last 7 days.

Offer 16385 - Videos - BR - 3G - Primetube Irmaos Neto (funny)
Category Videos (CPA)
Country BR
Payouts €0.24 - €0.42
EPC €0 (rounded)
CR 1/16810
Clicks 9817008
Revenue €134.77

And I had the following learnings:

- Don't look at the stats for "all affiliates". Look at specific affiliates who are making conversions. Otherwise the stats are corrupted by god knows what.
- If you multiply the EPC(100) by 10, you can get the "break even earnings per 1000", so you can get the "break even CPM". Therefore you know what CPM bid could be (in)appropriate.
- UTILIZE the support reps on the tracker and ad platform! They can answer questions! Even ones that seem tough to a n00bie.
- You need to choose an appropriate bid that will send enough clicks for conversions. I chose $2.33 CPM, ran $10, and got 3800ish impressions / views (not sure difference yet). This was not enough for probably conversions! Obviously this offer needs lower bids. Or choose another offer that has higher CR (which I'm doing).
- I'm installing MATLAB (which I'm very good at) so I can begin looking for correlations etc in the tracking data. (Probably not useful at this stage, but I fully intend to go advanced).
- Tokens -- The tokens etc are still very confusing, but I've started to get a feel for it. I imagine total knowledge will come with time and implementation.


NEXT STEP

I'm going to run another $10 with an offer that has CR around 1/180. On Mobidea it's called "18854 - Games - EG - 3G + Wifi - Jumbo Games LP2". The math for my previous offer made no sense at a bid of $2.33. I could lower my bid to run that offer, but I think I'd be getting very low quality traffic, and that's too advanced for now (too many variables).

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Set up an Egypt campaign...

I'm fairly confused about all the URLs involved, and the parameters. What goes where etc.

I don't know if anyone will have time to review my screenshots of my setup, so no worries if this gets missed, though I'll post here just in case!

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Im on vacation right now, so hard to give you a proper answer now ... but why did you decide to scratch the VSl camp and go with the day guide? I mean there is nothing wrong with it, but the mobile/pops combo is quite different from how you need to approach the VSL stuff ... in case you feel like you need to learn the very fundamentals, then ok, the 40 day guide is a great start, but if you plan to focus on the VSL camp fully, it might be a better idea to stick with it and try to master it.

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