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A Newbie's Journey To $500/day Profits! (31)

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Hi All! First I want to say what an AWESOME community this is. My background is SEO and I recently joined when OMG Machines told us about this forum. I have always wanted to do Affiliate Marketing but each attempt never really panned out.

UNTIL NOW . . .

I immediately started going through Amy's 40 Day tutorial and got some great experience with direct linking ads. I just started the landers section but prior to that I took a brief side track and setup the Monetizer/Zeropark with Optimizer campaign. I recently read Wakeboarders follow along and it inspired me to do my own. Hopefully it will help others as well as help me stay focused on the goals. The first goal is $100/day then $500/day, then skys the limit.

Here is what I have setup so far.

1. Since Volumn raised their prices I opted for FunnelFlux
2. Have traffic accounts with PropellarAds, Zeropark, PopAds
3. Current affiliate accounts with Mobedia, Aragon, Peerfly, Monetizer. I also filled out the Single Form Affiliate Submission
4. I have my domains setup per the 40 day tutorial
5. I have my S3, Cloudfront, and NS1 accounts setup as well.
6. Have my Adplexity account as well.

Here are the campaigns I have run

1. I have run several direct link campaigns per the 40 day tutorial. I had a few conversions but none that fit the criteria for continuing a campaign. However, I was able to gain a lot of experience with using ad networks and traffic networks as well as how to use FunnelFlux.
2. I found the Afflow/zeropark tutorial which then lead to finding the case study for using Optimizer. Following Amy's directions I found a Geo and setup the automatic campaign.

I just started the lander portion of the 40 day tutorial and have picked a Geo and will use the Sweeps category. I am sticking with Iphone for now. Just today I downloaded about 10 landers from Adplexity and setup CrossFTP an Sublime Text Builder. I hope to get my landers fixed up and move on to testing tomorrow.

At this point my question is regarding the Monetizer(afflow)/Zeropark/Optimizer campaign. It is now day 5 and only 3 conversions. I have increased my bid up to .007 on Zeropark which is above the Premium leads level suggestion yesterday but no significant results. The question is . . .

1. Should I just let this run, with the thought being that eventually the optimizer will kick out enough of the bad placements that it will take off?
2. Should I test out a different GEO?
3. or would it be better to just focus all my attention on the lander training?

If anyone needs any clarification please feel free to ask. I plan on updating my progress on a regular basis to serve as an accountability mechanism.

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Great stuff man! Will be following

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Yo man, the plunge it begins !

Would also sign up to one of the following, Clickdealer, Gotzha, Wewe, Mundo Media, Yepads, A4D as they're always up to date with good performing offers to have in your arsenal.

Like suggested in this thread (https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...26%23127940%3B) using the optimiser in the beginning of your learning is not a good idea as you skip mentally some learning curves for your campaigns. Would highly suggest running a few campaigns without it first there are some great points in that thread I won't double post about.

I'll be watching this one :P

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Always enjoyable to follow someone's journey, wish you the best!

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Nice prep work patrickpeak. Good Luck!

I'll keep a eye on this journey for sure .




LeadCloak

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Hello!

It will not take off I'm afraid The optimization will help of course, but in the end you will end up with a small trickle of traffic that will make you pennies. Directlinking and optimizer/smartlink are great for learning, but the real power is in campaigns that yo optimize yourself and pick the best offers for.

Different GEOs can bring different results for sure, but still, I wouldn't do that now ... see next point.

YES! This is what I would recommend you to do ... focus on building solid LPs and work on campaigns where you tweak the funnel to match a particular offer(s). The directlinking tests helped you to understand the concept, you learned how to setup a campaign and probably how to read the data ... now it's time to step up your game.

You can stick with POP traffic for now, and once you get more experience you might want to venture out to try other types too.

Cheers,
Matej.

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Hey @patrickpeak,

Looks like you have a solid setup, being a new member it's great progress.

Let's see how it goes for you!

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I think deep down I knew that was going to be the answer, but I really appreciate the confirmation. Thank You!

Patrick

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@patrickpeak
As the name says, the optimizer is ONLY for optimization = blacklisting placements.
You still need to test landers and offers yourself.
When you don't have a working funnel you don't know which placements are good and which not so when you use theoptimizer in tetsting phase you probably also cut good placements.
Also you should only automate what you know inside out yourself, otherwise you don't really know how to optimize, what and when to blacklist.

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Good stuff Patrick, subbed and following.

P.S. This might help with knowing when to stop running an ad: https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...nificance-quot

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Hi Patrick - welcome to STM! I'm a fellow OMG'er - well, back in the day anyway when I was still doing SEO.

Matuloo and twinaxe etc. have answered all your questions fully. I have nothing much to add at this point.

Except: Regarding cutting placements, the important thing is to collect enough stats to allow you to see whether you have enough profitable placements to even justify cutting the non-profitable ones. It's like mining - you need to verify that there IS a valuable metal (or whatever) in there before making the effort to hack away the rocks and dirt. If there's nothing valuable in there in the first place, hacking will give you nothing - like matuloo said, you'll get a trickle of traffic left in the end making you pennies a day (if that).

If that's the case, it means the offer+lander combination you happen to be using just isn't good enough. That means you'll need to either 1)test more landers and/or offers until you can find a combination that CAN make ENOUGH of the traffic valuable, and THEN cut the unprofitable portions of the traffic, or 2)test another geo or a different set of targeting, or a different vertical altogether.

Looking forward to your next update!



Amy

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Update!

Per the wise suggestions above I paused my monetizer/zeropark/optimizer campaign. It actually is a relief because I was able to fully concentrate on the landers.

I had started fixing up my first lander over the weekend but started getting confused about javascript, specifically the get functions. I have a good grasp of html but never dealt much with java. Luckily this forum is awesome and I found this thread:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ing-Parameters

After following through the exercises it became clear and I just finished fixing up my first lander!! Only 8 more to go!

The lander I was working on had a call for the City and ISP. My biggest challenge was that I didn't realize that those variables actually come from the lander page url. At first I thought it was something that the javascript pulled directly from the users data. Once I realized that those fields were populated by the lander url, that made all the difference. I was able to add the lander url to funnelflux with the proper tokens and everything worked properly.

Thank you to all guidance above and thank you to all the encouragement. Next to the amazing training that encouragement really goes a long way to succeeding.

Patrick

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I have successfully fixed 5 landers!! My brain is melted. On to the next step . . .

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Awesome to hear Patrick! It gets easier the more you do it. Will be following and hoping you hit that $500

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Congrats on finding caurmen's thread on lander parameters! That was how I learned about the topic as well.

Next: Optimizing the landers for speed.



Amy

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I ran my first lander + offer test yesterday with a bot test thrown in. It was a great learning experience. It seems that PropellarAds has pretty clean traffic. I didn't get any conversions but I think that I just messed up on choosing the offer. I choose Sweden as my GEO and I found a handful of Iphone7 offers. Even though I know Iphone X is what is out now, the fact that there was more Iphone7 offers for Sweden than Iphone X, I still decided to go with it. I started the campaign and then I did some testing (Yes, a little backwards, I know now). I noticed that the offers didn't have anything to do with Iphones. I guess that's what you get when you promote old tech.

I am reworking my landers to reflect Iphone X and go grab some Iphone X offers, which for some reason seem more prevalent now. I will get my new campaign up and running tomorrow.

I am open to any suggestions.

Patrick

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iPhone 7 offers often have a rather full database since they were running for some time already.
Better test with iPhone X.

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Are you sure you're seeing the actual offer pages?

If the offer only accepts traffic from certain geos, then you'll need to use a VPN set to an accepted geo.

Furthermore, if the offer only accepts traffic from certain devices or mobile carriers - then you'll need to use an emulator of some sort.

Otherwise, the affiliate network would redirect you to another offer - one that accepts traffic from your country+carrier+device+whatever other criteria - in attempt to not "waste" this traffic.

If you keep an eye on the offer stats on your affiliate network dashboard before and after trying to access an offer, you will see whether you've been directed to the actual offer, or to another offer.




Amy

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If your offers require specific criteria to access them, then affilitest may help, but can be hit or miss. Otherwise, for a VPN, I've been using VyprVPN for the longest time and they've been great.

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I think you saw other offer because of your IP location (Amy already explained that), get a VPN to change IP location.

LeadCloak

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I switched over to running the Iphone X offers. I was able to find and fix up 7 landers for my GEO. I put those in rotation with 3 offers from Mobidea. 2 of the offers converted once within the 10x payout guideline. I ran those 2 again but neither converted. At first I had a hard time finding some more offers, but then I came across a handful and just started running another 3 offers today.

To clarify. At this point I need to just keep running offers until I find one that converts well, and then use that offer to narrow down my landers, correct?

If I have the means, would it be prudent to also be testing another GEO at this time or should I just stick with my current GEO/Vertical?

I have also included a screenshot of my funnel from Funnelflux to make sure that it is set up correctly. Thanks.

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Awesome progress!

Yes regarding the need to find an offer that converts at least semi-decent so you can narrow down landers. In the beginning you're in a tricky catch-22 situation: You need either a decent offer to test landers or a decent lander to test offers but have neither.

Between the 2, it's much easier to find landers that work (basically rip around 5 or even more of the most-popular landers you find on Adplexity will guarantee that at least a couple will do the work well - but this is ASSUMING you fix them up so they'd function properly + are displayed well on various devices + load fast). That's why I normally recommend to test landers first. But of course the key would be to find an offer that can give you enough conversions without breaking the bank (i.e. while keeping costs to a minimal).

You can of course test multiple geos at the same time. This WILL increase chances of you finding something promising, and testing widely is how all the pros do it (that run pop).

HOWEVER - as a newbie, you need to be prepared for the following "cons":

1)You will likely make "mistakes" while learning the ropes. So the more campaigns you have running, the more the same mistakes across multiple campaigns will cost you.

2)You will need to invest money into identifying the good vs. bad placements in every geo on every traffic network. So if you're running in multiple geos, be prepared to see money bleed faster in the beginning.

Screenshot of funnelflux setup: Looks good!

Eagerly waiting on stats.



Amy

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Since I have only had 1 conversion on 2 separate offers (a total of 2 conversions) in 3 days. The 3 new offers didn't convert at all. Going to find more today. Is there any data I can use from that to cut landers? Like CTR or anything or do I need to keep searching for offers.

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Patrick, so happy to see you in here taking action! I'm about to jump into the 40 guide day as well, so I'm right here with you! STM going to turn us SEO people into paid traffic experts

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You'll just need to keep searching for offers I'm afraid. Can't cut landers based on CTR (unless it's SO LOW that it would require an impossibly-high CR for the campaign to even break-even).

If your AMs don't have more offers to recommend to you for this geo, it would be good to try another geo - perhaps one that speaks the same language if possible, so you can re-use those landers.

Otherwise - preparing a new set of landers to test a new geo would be good as well.

And try to stick with offers that are semi-proven - those that AMs tell you are performing well, or ones you've seen in spy tools with positive trends (e.g. good traffic over a few days).

Keep testing - and don't give up! That's what this business is about!



Amy

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Hi All!!

I have continued testing when I can. Nothing exciting yet, but I just keep learning with every new lander I fix and campaign I run. It was brought to my attention that there a lot of tier 2/3 geos that speak English. So I started compiling a list of them along with the available traffic. As much as I love working with landers in different languages, I figure working with English would make things a little easier.

I also decide to concentrate on 2 CPA platforms (Mobidea & Clickdealer) and 2 traffic networks (Propellar & ExoClick). This way I am not spreading my earnings out. With the traffic I know that my postbacks are correct for both of those platforms.

Hope to have some positive ROI results to share soon.

Patrick

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Clickdealer does have a wide range of great offers!

And if you don't have a lot of cash to float, then sticking to a couple of big traffic networks to learn the ins and outs, as well as sticking with a few geos where you've already cut the worst placements, can be a wise approach.

All the best! Looking forward to seeing your next update!



Amy

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It's Finally Happening!!

It's been a while since my last update. I will admit there were some times in the last couple months where I felt like this may not be my thing. Luckily this forum constantly gave me reminders of what is possible and I kept plugging along. I have been concentrating most of my offers from Clickdealer and have been communicating regularly with my AM there. I think my consistent communication and always taking action on the offers she would recommend allowed me to have my first success.

On Christmas eve my AM skyped me with a brand new offer that she thought would be a good fit. I instantly ripped some landers and created a campaign. The conversions started coming right out of the gate. Even with all the Christmas celebrations I kept cutting placements and test different landers. 2 days after Christmas the campaign was green and has been green ever since. Below is a screen shot of the last 7 days. Now I know its only $xx/day profit so far but, man it was the absolute shot in the arm that I needed!!



However, I find myself nursing this campaign and a little hesitant to scale outside of continuing to cut under performing placements. Any suggestions on getting over that hurdle?

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Congratulations Pat, what a start to the new year!

You have to make hay whilst the sun shines!

Scale on to other traffic networks, and see if there's any additional range in your spend!

All the best

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SO happy for you!! This is such a crucial milestone - now that you've seen evidence that you can do this, it makes the whole thing real!


Nobody but yourself can get past that mental hurdle, but these thoughts may motivate you to take action:

1)Pop camps don't usually stay profitable for very long. Same goes for offers. So it's not like you'd be sabotaging an auto-pilot revenue stream by doing something wrong! Try to do all you can to milk it while it lasts.

2)You can only learn how to scale when you actually have a promising campaign to scale! So take advantage of this opportunity to learn scaling. What you learn in the process will benefit ALL future promising campaigns.

3)Because your camp is converting well, you can test stuff for cheap/free - e.g. frequency, bids, various targeting options on the traffic source, any other optimization tips/tricks/strategies you've been wanting to test. Learn how to maximize your profits from each camp with minimal effort. Again, what you learn from the testing will benefit all future campaigns you run.

4)I'm assuming you didn't go into this business just to make xx/day (although it's AMAZING for such a brand new affiliate!) The more traffic networks you have access to, the more profits you can stand to make. Not every network has quality traffic that you can make "work" - but the more networks you test, the better your chances are of uncovering some good ones. And what I said above regarding testing stuff for cheap applies here as well - it's way cheaper to use a good offer+lander combo to test new traffic sources and cut placements. In fact it wouldn't even make sense to test new traffic sources using a mediocre offer+lander - because then you wouldn't be able to point your finger at the traffic source if you see bad results.

So - be bold and do everything you can to scale this camp while you're still making profits! The threads below may help:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...9-Testing-Bids

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...affic-Networks

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...formance-Dives

These threads are from the previous version of the tutorial, but coincidentally, they're the only ones I'm not planning to change much of for this version - as most/all of the info is still relevant.

Have fun!




Amy

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Great stuff Patrick. It's a pleasure to work with you!

Keep rockin!

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