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1st Break-Even RevC Campaign (Newbie's 15th Offer/Attempt!) (24)

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Hey everyone-


Just wanted to do a brief post on my newest campaign just in case anything helps anyone- I figure with more niche topics like specific traffic-sources even newbie-material may be helpful in aggregating experience/data/etc.

I was tempted to name the thread '1st Profitable Revcontent Campaign', as it did 493$ in revenue yesterday on 405$ in spend, but I don't want to jinx myself!

Overall I'd say its been around break-even on Desktop for 3-4 days as I've been slowly scaling it, although I tried mobile unsuccessfully for a couple days a couple days ago (see below).


This is the 15th offer I've tried since jumping into Natives one month ago:

-About 5 were total failures on MGID with either zero sales or really low LP ctr's and almost zero sales.
-2 were longer MGID ones I had regular sales on and thought I could get profitable but never did (got a decent list of widgets to use in future from those though)
-And another 7 were total failures on Revcontent. As I keep saying they were all like trying to drive as stick shift your first time- I either gave it way too much gas and went straight into the ditch, or stalled out at 7$ spend per day with a seeming inability to get clicks.


What I did differently this time

-I really did the exact 'revving the engine' thing that James Van Elswyck reccomends. Started super high, and didn't freak out when the spend exploded once they were approved. Just lowered by 10-20% until they were spending steadily.
-Didn't freak out and turn them off when they weren't profitable but just kept lowering bids (although this was easy because they did start converting right away so that was good.)
-I did two big brands and one big topic- didn't do any of the smaller topics like I had in the past, or the smaller brands, but ones I knew for sure worked.
-I did not use the Tier 1/Tier 2/Tier 3-quality templates they provide, which I had tried before. I wanted to know exactly where my traffic was coming from hence the big brands/big topic.
-I used sites in my own geo that I myself read daily, so I understood the traffic well and could manually check all day long to see if my ads were up. I checked both regular and incognito mode. NOTE: Apparently even if you aren't doing 'retargeting' Revcontent still optimizes based on a user's past actions, because on my regular browser I'd see them more than on Incognito, suggesting to me that my prior 'test clicks' of them on the regular browser changed the algorithmn's likelihood of showing them to me in the future.
-I kept an OBSESSIVE campaign log and documented every single thing I did. I also took screenshots constantly of Revc's dashboard so I could refer back an hour or two and see how the spending was going.
-I started testing the LP's religiously from the get go, testing at least 3 per day on average.
-I started creating new ads and new campaigns for the offer before I know whether it would work, so I didn't get delayed later if it did. These were mobile and tablet ones which got a few conversions but where the EPC's were lower than I can really get the clicks for. I still have them on but they only really spent at night a little bit. I'm now trying to scale via increased budget/optimization of LP's+ads, keeping bids around my EPC's, and also very carefully going to test out new Brands that seem similar to the current ones.
-As noted, I religiously calculated my EPC's for each campaign/widget so I would know how much I could bid. At this point the main three campaigns all have 15-20 conversions so I have decent averages I can look at.
-(Other notes just for additional info though I don't know if their relevant: Info product, medium-high payout, appealing to men primarily, very whitehat/respectable.)



So yeah- again- this is just a break-even campaign but after all my other failures it feels like a big success(!), so I thought I'd share what I was doing differently compared to my first ones


But yeah wish me luck in trying to scale it up/keep it going and a huge thank you to all you guys who have offered help/advice/feedback on here! It is much appreciated!

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You and I are exactly in the same boat. At the beginning of the month my campaign was spending maybe $30-$50/day. Now I'm at $300/day spend and still breaking even. My first campaign ever breaking even, and first one on RevContent. Let's scale these to the moon! Best of luck moving forward I really hope it continues.

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Sounds good sprice you too my friend!

If you have a thread on yours or if you post one in the future let me know where the link is!

And yes hopefully we will master this Revcontent beast and get the campaigns large and profitable!

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You two lads are definitely getting close now - seems like some of the pieces are falling into place!

Native is a source where you need to run quite a few campaigns to get a feel for it, nearly everyone I know even coming successful from other sources to native there was quite a learning curve so watching you fail (learn) early and fail forward is fantastic bro!

Yeah MGID is notorious for some terrible traffic and results sometimes this is where so many will give up. The widget database you're collecting is awesome and eventually your success rate at hitting campaigns will be higher with all your previous knowledge.

From working with so many affiliates over the years, the ones who really stuck it out and still make a living from this today are the ones who formed their own practice and formulations to campaigns, not really told do A and B and expect C, so I'm hella pumped because I can already see a great trajectory forming here dude!

So now with this campaign what are the next steps you will take to see if you can squeeze some more roi. Example

- Speak to your AM about the quality of traffic, does it warrant a bump - is there room for a paybump anyway?
- Split testing more on your landers
- Optimising and culling more widgets
- Increasing spend even if you can get 10-20% roi if the budget lifts well in linear fashion to your metrics now you'll be making some profits :P

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Awesome news bro!

Sent from my SM-G965F using STM Forums mobile app

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Hey Maynzie-



Thanks for the reply and the kind words!


And thanks for challenging/asking me re: my next steps! Its very helpful in getting me thinking deliberately about what to do next and I’m glad you asked




Here’s what I am thinking:




-I already have the budgets set way higher than what is being spent with my current bids, so I’ll just increase the bids as much as I can in correlation with the EPC’s (which will hopefully be going up as I further optimize).

-Keep creating one new campaign per day, trying out a new brand or topic (mostly brands). I’ll be pretty brutal with each widget and cut any that don’t convert within about 1.2 X payout on the widgets within topics and 1.5 X Payout on the big ‘Brand’ widgets with their own campaign. I’ll select ones that are similar to the ones already working.

-I’ll keep split testing LP’s every 1000-1200 or so clicks. So basically send 500-600 clicks per variation. Some of these will be small (button color, etc) and some will be big (style of advertorial, headline, etc)

-I’ll keep uploading ads- whether new ones or just the same ones- to keep them fresh in the server. So far I’ve just let Revcontent pick out which to show and haven’t paused any of the ones they pick (I notice Revc only sends traffic to 1-2 of them whereas MGID would to all) but the ones they don’t pick to show I’ve been pausing and replacing with new ones, only 2-3 main images so far and various headlines to go with them.

-It’s a Clickbank offer so no AM, at least at this point (I don’t know if Clickbank typically has Affiliate Managers for high-volume affiliates or not or if you only start dealing with them once you’re a vendor). I was thinking I would send the vendor a short, professional email though letting him know that I’ve been running the offer on natives and am around break-even/small profit, and inquire whether he is whitelisting any affiliates for higher commissions, and that if so I think I could scale it significantly higher. Not super aggressive just short and professional ‘all good either way’ type of thing.

-I may move the LP’s on to my other, ‘Fast’ landing page server. So far my split tests have shown a 3% differential on identical LP’s between the landing page server/SaS I mostly use (the ‘slow’ one), and the other, ‘Fast’ server/SaS one. (Explanation: the ‘Fast’ one is far more difficult for me to use and has been crashing on me/having errors, so that’s why I use what I call the ‘slow’ one mostly- because I think the added dexterity/functionality/surety makes up for the 3% lp ctr differential from the speed difference). But once I get a really good LP down maybe I’ll host that one on the ‘fast’ server with a 50-70% rotation share and then split-test all kinds of variations on the ‘fast’ server with the other 30-50% of traffic (its two different URL’s but they are almost identical).





So yeah those are my thoughts right now! Any thoughts or tips are highly appreciated


Thanks again!

-Jack

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Thanks impian!

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Great thread and good job on getting your first break-even campaign! I'm still on my way there but will hopefully reach it soon.

I'm similarly going to try and test only several brands for english speaking countries but for different verticals, this way I can be assured that the traffic's quality will be decent and not mostly bot/lq as previously experienced.

Good luck in trying to scale this campaign! It shouldn't take you that long to finally become profitable overall.

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Thanks mrinfinity! Right back at ya!

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Hey Jack,

Just checking in...how is this going?

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Hey phemistery-

Thanks for asking!

I have been so busy with everything I haven't updated this, and wasn't sure if anyone was following it so I am glad to see your question!

But yeah, the campaign is going very well!

It dipped down during Thanksgiving but then bounced back, so that was good.

Then I reached out to the vendor about getting whitelisted for a higher commission, but found out there were some logistical issues/pre-existing complications/arrangements with that offer on Revcontent that I hadn't known about, so then I basically quit trying to scale upward at all, since I was thinking I wouldn't be able to continue it... HOWEVER that ended up being the best thing that ever happened, because it catalyzed me to split-test it against a couple of similar offers, both of which ended up outperforming the original surprisingly.

So yeah, since then I've just been scaling it upward in a variety of ways, running both of the other two offers alternating between the two in different ways, and its going quite well.

Around 500-1000$ spend per day and at about 30% profit on days where I keep it 'static'. On days where I'm trying to open up new sub-campaigns it can dip to breakeven or even negative, but its pretty darn consistent on the most established sub-campaigns and overall.

So yeah, trying to scale it as high as I can, but my EPC's aren't super high so I can't bid a ton and that lowers my volume. But thankfully its having success on a decent variety of sites and devices and several geo's, so that is helping.

Now, if I could somehow find equal success on the listicals I've been trying to master then I'd really be in business lol. They've been giving me an ongoing whooping lol, as have all the other campaigns I've tried, so the success on this one is definitely the exception rather than the rule thus far!

But yeah thanks again for asking about it phemistery and I'll try to keep adding updates!

-Jack

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ADA boy jack! yea man those listicles are a bitch. Im taking the best converting products then ripping the lander and hosting it myself but havent found a way for them to work. Let alone even run taboola keeps rejecting my camps!

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Lol you and me both brother... I have only tried them on Revc so haven't had big problems getting them approved, but so far on Outbrain everything I put up gets denied several times before I can get it live (if it all!) so I know the feeling.

But yeah, my problem on the listicle's was severalfold:

1) I started out with products that really fit the 'theme' I was going for and were 'interesting' but where some of them (maybe 50%) were 'new' ones I had found on affiliate networks that weren't already proven and running on natives, and- unsurprisingly in retrospect- those listicals did awful.
2) I either had very very low ctr where I couldn't get clicks for less then 70-80 cents because my listical concept was too boring, OR I did the opposite and made it super clickbaity and got tons of cheap clicks, but no conversions.

Now I'm finally in the middle sort of and having some profitable days. Clicks are still about 40% more expensive than in my regular campaign referenced above, but I'm getting conversions at least. Trying to scale them up now from the 100$ a day mark upward, but we'll see what happens...

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I do love the listical's though since you can be so creative with them.

Mostly right now I see gadget listicals but you could do any sort of listical under the sun really... info products.. weight loss... etc.

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well theres one offer running around that if your on MAD youll know what im talking about. ah fuck it just add me on skype jeremy.andor lets talk on there


- Jeremiah

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Just waved at ya

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halo Jack, i am exactly on the same boat, trying out revcontent, some make some bucks but a lot campaign doesnt.
hows your progress so far may i ask?

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Hey gritaction-

Well, since I started the thread up above I've done a ton of volume on Revcontent and it has become my favorite network by far. I am using Taboola and Outbrain more and more too but I really love how specifically you can target websites on Revcontent and how affiliate-friendly they are.

The campaign I referenced above is still profitable, although I did have various problems arise including having to switch offers, but at this point I have a massive amount of data and while there have been a bunch of people who've tried to copy the campaign I don't think any of them have made it work. I have it segmented into a bunch of sub-camps broken down by device/placements/region/high vs low bid/etc and am running it on 3 different traffic sources in one way or another, although the total volume isn't as high as that makes it sound since its sort of a niche offer.

Other than that I have a couple very small campaigns that are profitable, and then have moved into doing more lead-gen which I am making progress on but not profitable with yet, and also still working hard on listicals. The listicals have been by far my biggest challenge but they are also the type of campaign I get the most excitement/fulfillment from, and I am finally starting to get some traction on them. They are a science all to themselves man! Sooo many variables at play and so difficult to split-test things effectively. I love them though because you can utilize so much creativity and you can really provide people legitimate value mixed in with the offers.

So yeah, huge fan of Revcontent but it can be a vicious beast that is for sure. I've made lots of money on the profitable campaign(s) but I have also lost tons of money on unsuccessful ones and 'bot widget attacks' and my own targeting mistakes and everything else. Natives in general and Revcontent in particular can be highly, highly humbling that is for sure!

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Hey Jack,
thanks for the update! If you wanna run RevContent or Outbrain with us, feel free to register your free DSP account and test the inventory. Don't hesitate to reach out to your AM to get some WLs/BLs with sites Hope this will be a nice opportunity to scale your campaigns further.
Thanks,
Justyna

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hi jack! thanks for the reply and sry for the late response. do u know is it possible to turn notification on for each thread that i watch? i just dont have notification up top lol..

anyways, congraz on the success! and very inspiring!!

one question though, what is listicals? i google and i dunno what is it... sry for noob question

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No problem. A listical is just a landing page with a bunch of products on it. You'll see a lot of them on Adplexity. "Top Fifteen Christmas Gadgets" "19 Military Discounts" "Five UK Dating Services That Actually Work" etc.

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Hi Justyna Thanks for that info

Just to clarify for the future- you're saying one can use Voluum DSP without being a Voluum-tracking user? Or am I misunderstanding?

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oh now i see! i actually once thought of running listical with amazon associate link for which i have been done for a couple of years in amazon associate. but the comission is very low.

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Jack,

Correct - no Voluum TRK subscription needed to run, fully track and optimize your Voluum DSP campaigns. Yet, if you also wanna track other campaigns (for example these that you're running directly with RevContent, Outbrain, Facebook, etc.) then it's recommended to get a TRK subscription and have everything in one place

Thanks and enjoy your weekend,
Justyna

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