S3K's Pop Journey (19)
Hey guys, guess it's finally time to start one of these...
I've been into affiliate marketing for around a week, and joined STM yesterday.
So far I've ran 5 popunder campaigns already but none have even got a single conversion (all game/app installs on iOS/android).
Spent around $5-10 on each camp.
I know the upcoming journey is not going to be easy, so I've mentally prepared for that.
Just trying to learn as much as I can everyday and implement what I've learnt in some form.
Anyways, today I was going through the 40 day tutorial.
Since I already signed up on networks, traffic sources, and got tracking tracking setup, I skipped quite a few days.
However I read the explanations for a lot of stuff, which really helped for sure.
Today I implemented the mass testing offers day/module.
So at this moment I have a direct link campaign rotating 4 offers - total budget $30 and $10 daily budget.
(FYI I'm running offers from CPAlead, buying traffic from PropellerAds, in Indonesia, all mobile app/game install offers, and using Kintura as the tracker)
Anyways, not expecting too much as I read direct linking is kind of dead now. A conversion or two would be nice!
If I get any good data I'll attach it here.
If I see any potential I'll test and optimize according to the stuff I've read so far.
I will also continue testing more offers tomorrow and the day after.
If no offers convert and/or have profit potential in the next week or so after mass testing, I'll start testing using landers.
I will start brushing up on my HTML and CSS skill as well (I can understand it well and make small changes, but it's a long time since I've taken the course).
One thing I'm worried that will cost me a lot of time and money also is Adplexity is out of my budget right now.
Hopefully I get some profitable camps fairly soon so I can invest into it.
Keep you guys updated!
Following your journey, s3ks3k.
To learn HTML/CSS/JS go here - https://www.w3schools.com (great step-by-step newbie friendly tutorials)
By the way w3schools is totally free.
LeadCloak
UPDATE:
So I've been testing more offers in a different geo that my AM at a new network recommended me, and got two conversions on one particular desktop sweep offer.
My first conversions in my affiliate career!
I spent quite a bit of effort some landers for each of the offers I tested, so I'm getting more familiar with the process of uploading to S3, getting tracking links, etc.
Although, as expected, there are more problems as things progress.
So these conversions are legit as they showed up in my network dashboard, however my tracking wasn't setup properly as these conversions didn't show up in my tracker.
Here are the stats from my tracker dashboard:
And then the PropellerAds stats:
Cost and visit/click stats were also totally off, way too much to be attributed to click loss or anything.
I also forgot to setup postback URL's and that stuff for my traffic source.
So I have no idea which landing page, zone ID, etc that the conversion came from...
So for now I paused traffic until I figure this out.
Lesson learned:
Make sure when I join a new network and traffic source that tracking is setup properly.
Next time I promote a new offer I'll get the AM to fire a test conversion beforehand.
Currently I'm still trying to get this sorted with my AM and tracking software rep
Although my conversion rate is total s*** I think this offer has potential as it's doing very well on the network.
Once tracking is fixed I plan to test some more landers to the offer and optimize the campaign.
In the meantime, I'll look for some more offers to start testing once everything is fixed, as well as watch and read more educational content.
Kind of frustrating to be in this situation, but as always if you have challenges it means you're making progress as you learn how to solve the problem.
Switch from fixed CPM to SmartCPM.
Will save you money.
UPDATE:
Here's a summary of what I've been up to the past several days:
- Fixed the tracking issue from the network side. However the tracking still isn't working with the traffic source (PropellerAds). I can't see which zones conversions are coming from, only visits and clicks 
- Made some more landing pages for the same sweep offer using PureLander (It's only $25 for 6 months so was a good start for me. However I'm realizing it's quite limited so will probably move on from that once I get AdPlexity)
- Ran some traffic to test different landing pages for the sweep offer I've been focused on. Started using SmartCPM instead of normal CPM for bidding also.
- I tested the same offer on another network and the conversion rate was actually lower than the original one, along with the payout being lower - $0.22 vs. $0.27) So I'm exclusively focused on the original network's offer.
- Made a profit & loss as well as cash flow spreadsheet. Been 2 years since I took intro to financial accounting in university but I still remember enough to get by!
Here are revenue screenshots since my last update (wasn't running traffic everyday as I had to pause to fix tracking, budgeting issues etc):
So far I've spent $173.93 on campaigns (doesn't just include the above offer but multiple that I just blew money on direct linking).
Self Criticisms:
I realized I've spent a bit too much on traffic though - not because the offer doesn't have potential (it does and is performing quite well according to my AM and the network stats), but because I've kept it running while tracking is still broken (I can't see which zone ID's are converting in Propeller).
Everytime I think I've fixed tracking I run about $20 of traffic and once I check the stats my campaign budget has dried up and the tracking still doesn't work properly (did this several times). So I'm going to stop running traffic until this is fixed for good and be more diligent in setting up tracking properly before starting new campaigns.
Also, at the moment I'm basically shooting in the dark not using AdPlexity or similar tools. While I think a few of the landing pages I made could have potential with more tweaking and testing, it's not worth the time and feeling of uncertainty when I could use AdPlexity instead. I will buy it in the next couple days after I get paid from my full-time job. Getting it will make my job easier for sure.
Anyways, once I've got AdPlexity and fixed my tracking issues, and then proceed to run traffic on some ripped landers it should be a step above what I've been doing so far.
Just a bit worried about the technical side of things, like fixing up ripped landers and modifying things to fit my offer/angle/etc. I'll put some time into reading the tutorials here and see how it goes.
Hey s3ks3k. Have you contacted Kintura support for your problems?
If you don't wanna pay for adplexity right now, just get a VPN and spy manually on offers. Visit some torrent or movie streaming or warez sites and you'll have lots of landers and/or angles to try out. You can rip landers with HTTrack too.
LeadCloak
Shooting in the dark without experience will be more expensive than getting adplexity for a month.
Learn how to use adplexity clever and you will save money compared to just blindly testing random landers.
Apart from that, I also checked PureLander myself and many of their landers are not good.
Originally Posted by leadcloak
Yes for now I will try a bit of manual spying and see what I find, but will buy AdPlexity shortly. Never heard of HTTrack, will have to check that out!
Originally Posted by twinaxe
Yea PureLander isn't too good honestly, I just bought it on a whim after seeing how cheap it was - it was like my 2nd or 3rd day into affiliate marketing as well so didn't know what was good or not too.
Will put in an effort to learning more HTML & CSS now, but also if there's any other landing page tools you can suggest that are legit let me know!
Before you sign up for adplexity check online for discount codes.
There mostly are some available that will give you 25% off
QUICK UPDATE & COUPLE QUESTIONS:
So I finally bought adplexity several days ago (used the STM discount and got 25% off for life) and have ripped some landers for offers I'm running.
Since I already know some HTML & CSS it wasn't hard to change the more basic landers so I tested a couple of those which have been converting better than the stuff I've made by myself using PureLander so far, but still having tracking and technical issues.
I also hired a web dev assistant on upwork to work on the more complicated landing pages with JS and PHP as there's stuff there that might be a bit malicious.
Quite cheap for me and it's easy work for him so win-win.
I get to focus on brainstorming angles/strategy, analyzing data, and cultivating relationships in this industry instead of scratching my head.
He's fixed a couple landers for me which I'm going to test soon, after I implement my bot tracking script (waiting for my tracking support to get back to me.)
Anyways, I have a couple questions:
1. Is my level of click loss normal? Pics here:
Network Stats:
Traffic Source Stats:
Tracker Stats:
As you can see, traffic source reports 10,414 impressions vs. 4814 visits on tracker, and network reports 234 clicks vs. 545 from the tracker.
Over 50% difference in both measures. I've discussed this with my tracker support but they've told me it's normal. Not sure if it's alright to have such a difference though, let me know what you guys think.
2. Does anyone else's {cost} token in PropellerAds not work?
I've set the cost to auto in my tracker but it doesn't work even though I have the {cost} token in my URL. FYI I'm bidding with SmartCPM.
It's not sending any cost data, so I'm trying to figure out how to update the cost with CPM, CPC, or CPA to accurately analyze data.
However that's not really working, so I'm still just looking at the PropellerAds stats to analyze the cost side of things.
Anyone that has experience with this kind of problem let me know.
Anyways, seems I have to handle these problems before I continue running traffic. Burnt quite a bit more than I would've liked, so definitely would be nice to handle these issues before I start ramping up on the spending and mass testing different landing pages and offers.
In the meantime, I'll keep ripping and fixing up landing pages, as well as finding different offers to test.
QUICK BUT BIG UPDATE:
I've switched to tracking with
Also, found a new offer that I direct-linked tested as I felt the offer was that strong and it gave me around -70% ROI after running $20 to it. Not bad for direct linking eh?
Working on churning out 5 or so original landers with my programmer soon as I can't find any similar ones that fit the offer on adplexity (it's a mobile game offer).
Hope at least 1 lander kills it... I can taste the blood in this offer and have adrenaline rushing through my veins!!!!!!!
Meanwhile my sweep offer has died a bit so getting 3 new landers made atm from my programmer as well. Came up with some unique angles that are sure to beat the overplayed sweep landers on adplexity (which I've tested as well.)
Will provide some more screenshots soon after running more traffic to these new landers soon.
UPDATE:
So the past several days I've been testing this offer.
It's some sort of zombie game:
Basic offer specs:
GEO: MY
Platform: Mobile
Payout: $0.67 USD
Carriers: All
It's the network's highest converting mobile offer in this geo currently, so it definitely has potential.
I direct linked test it on propellerads (I know it doesn't work much these days but the network's pre-lander looked pretty good so why not?)
Test camp (carrier only) stats:
-71% ROI, not bad so I proceeded to get my web dev to work on 2 LP's I made on photoshop to test out. Would've used some ripped landers but couldn't find any for this offer nor for any similar type of games (not sure if it's just me but having trouble finding relevant landing pages for my offers on adplexity).
LP 1:
LP 2:
Ran some traffic to these 2 LP's (50/50 split), here's the result:
Good CTR I think but not converting much, so there's a problem. Maybe need more statistical significance. I will also make 5 or so new landers on photoshop for my dev to make in the meantime.
As of now I'm running a 3 way test (LP1/LP2/direct) for this same offer, however I made some changes to the targeting based on some data I got:
Blacklisted these 3 zones as they spent >2x payout (read that somewhere in the 40 day guide).
Excluded this Digi carrier as it spent the most money out of all carriers, but no leads.
In addition, I switched the delivery to distributed as I noticed my budget was getting spent in several hours and not getting any delivery in some hours of the day (when using standard delivery), so for accurate data I need a good representation of all hours of the day.
Later I will day-part if that seems to be valuable.
Will update with the data once the $10 is spent.
Last words:
I'd love to test more offers but not sure how useful that would be with my current budget ($300 a month for traffic). I want to exploit this current offer to it's potential.
Anyways, next month or so I should be getting a raise at work so will probably be a 50-100% increase to how much I can spend on traffic a month.
Also, if there's any suggestions to how I can optimize this campaign or my overall testing approach, let me know.
This is actually my most in-depth update so far probably... looking forward to writing more of these.
QUICK UPDATE
Haven't had the time to update in detail lately...
So I've been testing A LOT. Finally hit one day of profit on one campaign! Died down a bit and trying to get it back up now, looks like I have a reasonable chance.
(This is a sweep offer in MY).
Throughout this process I've refined and learnt a lot more about testing offers, landers, and bids.
I'm using all the calculators recommended to make statistically significant decisions.
I've applied my HTML skills to add things to ripped landers to make them perform then the standard ripped one off Adplexity.
All I have to do now is keep testing...
Also looks like my monthly testing budget has increased due to some good luck at work.
Will post quick updates once in a while.
First of all - don't know how I haven't found/noticed/replied to this thread in the past 2 months. But excuses won't help - so I'll just jump in and do my best to make it up to you!
If someone is still able to make consistent profits by direct-linking to DCB offers without one or more of the above, then big KUDOS to them. I personally don't know anyone that fits this description.
But if like you said, all you're wanting is make your first couple of conversions, then this method should still server your purpose!
You can also make minor edits to those landers to come up with variations. So these landers should be enough to last you a few months - hopefully by then you'll be making enough consistent profits to be able to afford Adplexity. Also keep an eye on the discounts section to save money further:
https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...-amp-Discounts
Meeting each challenge head-on and solving it will put you ahead of yet another batch of competitors. Do that enough and you'll find yourself at the front of the race.
Every tracker will account for impressions differently depending on which IP database they use etc. I've never used your particular tracker so can't comment.
Also: If the tracker is self-hosted, then the amount of server resources available will have an effect on clickloss. The distance between your server and the target geo can have an effect as well.
In the end, what matters is whether you're getting the best conversion rates or not. I would suggest testing either funnelflux (managed plan) or
But I've learned that not all trackers will allow you to use that token to pass costs. Don't know about your tracker.
GEO: MY
Platform: Mobile
Payout: $0.67 USD
Carriers: All
You did all the right things as far as optimization goes - split-testing the 2 landers against direct-linking, blacklisting zones in loss by >2x payout, excluding the digi carrier.
(This is a sweep offer in MY).
Throughout this process I've refined and learnt a lot more about testing offers, landers, and bids.
I'm using all the calculators recommended to make statistically significant decisions.
I've applied my HTML skills to add things to ripped landers to make them perform then the standard ripped one off Adplexity.
All I have to do now is keep testing...
Also looks like my monthly testing budget has increased due to some good luck at work.
Will post quick updates once in a while.
Very well-deserved! You got here by testing extensively.
The first profitable campaign is often the hardest to hit on. It sounds like you have a methodology down and refined, and can rip and fix up landers faster. So your next profitable campaign shouldn't require nearly as much test budget to find.
Try to put the emphasis on testing offers and landers (with special emphasis on testing OFFERS) until you find an offer+lander combination that can turn a considerable part of the total traffic GREEN. It may be a bunch of green placements, a big OS, a big browser, a mobile carrier, a number of hours of day that are profitable - any subset of variable that is making good enough profits (say >$10/day, preferably more, even for a newbie). When you have that, focus on cutting the unprofitable traffic segments (placements and/or whatever else).
Avoid the classic newbie mistake of settling for a lukewarm offer+lander combo and trying to CUT your way to profits. You'll spend a ton of money on the cutting, plus have almost nothing left over to profit from.
It doesn't mean you can't start cutting placements from the very start of the campaign, while testing landers and offers. It just means don't STOP testing offers and landers and keeping running and running traffic to cut more and more placements over a long period - until you see enough green in the first place.
Now that I'm all caught up - looking forward to your next update! Again, very apologetic about my extremely late arrival!
Amy
Thanks for the reply @vortex!
I've fixed the huge clickloss issue, and managed to afford a monthly adplexity subscription, so won't have to worry about that.
I also have a new VA that's really good that helps me out with the harder stuff that I can't change myself on ripped landers, as well as creating fresh ones I design on photoshop.
Looking forward to more of your input in the future!
So a quick overall update of what I've been up to:
The camp that was green for a day unfortunately died down soon after, and then my domain got flagged by google, as well as suspended by namecheap. And the campaign got suspended by propellerads too (probably for using a carrier's logo).
Anyways, I've dealt with that - got a new domain, set all the landers up, and back to business.
I've moved to push notifications - started testing them yesterday.
Some promising results but bit challenging as there's a new variable of the ad/notification creative. Definitely worth focusing on push though I feel, as the CTR and CR's are way higher than pop.
Traffic is cheap too, plus the option to pay CPC is great.
I'm running 6 push campaigns currently and will keep testing new offers. Currently I'm still doing sweeps but might try another vertical that works well with sweeps such as nutra, dating, or casino.
Once I get more data from the push camps I'll do another update!
Waiting for your push campaign data. Please don't forget to checkout Erik's push journey. He is doing wonderful.
LeadCloak
UPDATE:
So the past few weeks I've been playing around with push notifications. Tested a bunch of offers in the sweepstakes niche (as well as a few game offers), got some practice making creatives on photoshop, and learnt a lot overall.
Haven't managed to get green on any campaigns though, but after analyzing the stats and reflecting a little bit I think I know what I have to do to break into a profitable state.
I'll discuss that, but first here are the overall stats for all the push camps I ran recently:
After breaking down each of the camps (would take way too long to screenshot all the reports so will just describe in text), I noticed a few things:
- Conversion rates are WAY higher on push than pop
- There is WAY less volume on push than pop (on propellerads), especially for small geos
- You have to bid quite high to get adequate volume and watch your EPC vs. CPC
That being said, right now what I'm doing is:
- Focusing on the offers that have potential (I have 3-4 that have good EPC's and CR's, just have to find networks that have good volume and quality for CPC<EPC)
- Made new landers and ad creatives for the offers that I want to invest more in
- Getting payout bumps for those offers
- Trying a different traffic source that claims to have more volume for my geos
Also, I have a question:
I read that you should scale to other traffic sources once you're green on one, but with the kind of volume I'm getting on push for certain geos especially at low bids, is it OK to test on multiple traffic sources at once? Sometimes I don't even reach 50% of my daily budget and preferably I'd like to get data faster.
Anyways, will keep you guys updated with the camps I'm currently running soon...
UPDATE:
Hit first real profitable campaign, hit my first $50/day profit, hit my first $100/day profit...
then got kicked off the offer
Hopefully getting paid for my leads though! No indication I'm not so far.
Stats from the past week:
(the campaign I'm talking about was the $180 profit one)
Only ran it for 3-4 days but was a fun time while it lasted.
Started with $20/day of adspend.
Scaled it up to $50/day for the next 2-3 days and got some nice change.
Here is my breakdown by day:
Campaign Summary
GEO: TW
Vertical: Dating
Traffic Type: Push
Traffic Source: Zeropark
Basically I followed the success story about dating on propellerads push. Copied the exact same angle and everything for the ads, but had to make my own landers.
My landers were really simple, 3-question survey, with rules at the end! Super basic but it works.
First time running campaigns on zeropark and I must say it's really good. I'll be sticking with zeropark for now for testing all my campaigns as the traffic converts well and has adequate volume for my purposes.
What I'll Do Now
Find similar offers in similar geos, try to use similar creatives for this campaign as it clearly works.
Will update on my next success! (hopefully it'll be soon).
Originally Posted by s3ks3k
Hit first real profitable campaign, hit my first $50/day profit, hit my first $100/day profit...
then got kicked off the offer
Hopefully getting paid for my leads though! No indication I'm not so far.
Stats from the past week:
(the campaign I'm talking about was the $180 profit one)
Only ran it for 3-4 days but was a fun time while it lasted.
Started with $20/day of adspend.
Scaled it up to $50/day for the next 2-3 days and got some nice change.
Here is my breakdown by day:
Campaign Summary
GEO: TW
Vertical: Dating
Traffic Type: Push
Traffic Source: Zeropark
Basically I followed the success story about dating on propellerads push. Copied the exact same angle and everything for the ads, but had to make my own landers.
My landers were really simple, 3-question survey, with rules at the end! Super basic but it works.
First time running campaigns on zeropark and I must say it's really good. I'll be sticking with zeropark for now for testing all my campaigns as the traffic converts well and has adequate volume for my purposes.
What I'll Do Now
Find similar offers in similar geos, try to use similar creatives for this campaign as it clearly works.
Will update on my next success! (hopefully it'll be soon).
Looking forward to seeing you achieve more success!
Amy
Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app
Home > POP / PPV / Redirect > Follow-along Campaigns