40 Days Challenge (14)
Hi there,
I joined STM forum couple weeks ago and i think it is one of the best decisions i made, as i have been trying to learn about aff. marketing for a while now with no much success.
Couple things about me, i have been in the IM scene for almost 5 years mostly doing SEO for personal sites and some freelance work too.
Introduced to paid traffic (FB) couple months ago and thought i have to switch my efforts there as i got sick from the upfront effort and uncertainty of SEO.
I do not have any coding skills but i know some basic IM stuff.
In the affiliate marketing area i would describe my self as a complete noob willing to make mistakes lose $$ and learn.
My guides for this journey are :
Vortex 40 Day Tutorial 2018 - 2019 Version (and all the links to other posts inside)
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ntro-and-Index
Vortex 40 Day Tutorial 2017 - 2018 Version (and all the links to other posts inside)
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ntro-and-Index
GregMorrison's Amy's 40 Day Guide Follow Along (with Binom)
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...g-(with-Binom)
So today (22/11/2018) is the second day of my journey and let me tell you what i did and why:
Day 1 (21/11/2018)
Sign Up on Affiliate Networks
Mobidea - ClickDealer
- Gotzha
- PeerFly
- Convert2Media
- Monetizer
- GuruMedia
- Advidi
- MaxBounty
Sign Up Traffic Sources
- Propeller Ads
- PopAds
Notes:
- Got auto accepted at Mobidea
- Got accepted at Peerfly couple hours after i submit my application (No phone or Skype etc.)
- Got rejected from MaxBounty
- Got rejected from Convert2Media
- Waiting to hear from other networks
- Had no problem depositing funds (minimum $100) at Propeller Ads with a Revolut.
Day 2 (22/11/2018)
- Bought a tracker (redtrack)
- Bought a tracking domain and pointed it to the tracker (Namecheap)
- Pick up some offers and apply (Mobidea)
- Set up tracking
- Set up a campaign (Propeller Ads)
Notes:
- I decided to buy redtrack that has a 14 day free trial (no CC required ) is self hosted and really cheap compared to other trackers as i wanted to keep costs down and speed up the proccess at the begging while i am testing things out. If redtrack is not good tracking stats, slow etc i will switch to another tracker soon.
- The domain purchase and pointing was pretty straight-forward (redtrack has a tut video on how to do it)
- The offer picking part was also really straight-forward i did everything according to Vortex's 2018-2019 guide (Got auto approved)
- Now the setup tracking part, i am not sure how it went, as there is no guide about redtrack here and i am not a super technical guide. I did everything by myself following tutorials from their site
- Also picked up randomly an offer from the 5 i chose and set up a campaign for $10 at Propeller Ads (waiting to get approved)
So that's all i have done till now, my target for these first 2 days is to learn how to set up tracking properly and get accepted from as much affiliate networks i can.
If everything runs smooth on the tracking side my next step is to play with various stats across redtrack and try to understand them, after that probably buy adplexity and start ripping and fixing some landing pages
Costs: $109
- Propeller Ads: $100
- Namecheap: $9
P.S. I will not be updating this followalong daily as i have a fulltime job and don't have the time to do it. I will probably update it couple times per week
P.S. 2 Sorry for any grammatical or spelling mistakes English is not my mother language
Quick Update
Of Course i didn't set up the tracking right just sent an mail to support to see if they can help me.
Update Day 6 (26/112018)
After talking with
My advice to other people starting out:
-Do not get overwhelmed by technical stuff and avoid taking action, most trackers have excellent support and there are great tutorials out there and especially here at STM (Vortex guide etc.)-Do not try to do everything fast, especially when you feel tired, you will probably make mistakes that will delay you even more
What i have done till now
-I have 2 direct campaigns running (
-Unfortunately i haven't been contacted by other networks, some AM managers added me to Skype but didn't talked to me (probably because it was weekend, waiting on them)
-I have done a ton of reading here on STM mostly Vortex and other articles too.
About the camps i am running
-One is an antivirus offer at Palestine (3G traffic DOI)
-And the second is a content download at Bulgaria (3G traffic DOI)
As you can see surprisingly enough the first offer has 3 conversions without any optimization.
I was thinking about optimizing this camp to play a bit with blacklisting, whitelisting but based on Vortex's Day 5-6: Optimizing a Direct-Linked Pop Campaign - ACTION - Part 2 from 2017-2018 series it failed from the beginning since it doesn't get enough volume. (Is this guide ok to use or is it outdated?)
Today is the third day i run this camp and i have only spent less than 3$.
The Bulgaria campaign has even less volume.
So really important lesson taken: Pick offers with enough traffic i think at least 5k visits per day is minimum
Next steps
-Thinking of killing the campaigns as i run them just to see if i have set tracker stuff ok
-Play a bit with Adplexity (Just bought adplexity mobile with a nice -35% Cyber Monday lifetime offer)
-While waiting other affiliate networks to accept me do some basic coding lessons at codeacademy.
-After get accepted from other networks talk with AM managers about offers and pick some of them and rip landing pages.
Costs: $238
- Propeller Ads: $100
- Namecheap: $9
- Adplexity: $129
Quick Update
Had a lot of work this week so i didn't made a lot of progress just did HTML and CSS lessons on code-academy and setup hosting and CDN, also talked with some affiliate managers about offers.
Next Steps
-Decide on offers and geos and start ripping and fixing some landing pages
Update Day 17 (7/12/2018)
Hi guys i apologize for the lack of updates but i had a lot of offline work and got a bit stuck with the process, there are some points that got me stuck big time.-Decide on offers and GEOS.
-First i thought i should find a good offer, talked with some AMs and got lost in huge lists with offers trying to think what will convert etc.
-After spending couple days frying my brain to find an offer with the method mentioned above i had a change of mind and thought to first find some tier 2-3 countries with population over 10 mils and see what is getting good traffic there and got in a rabit-hole again spending hours in front of Adplexity browsing landers.
-So i got sick of my indecision, picked a popular offer (IphoneX) from the list of an AM for an English speaking tier 2 country to get things moving, downloaded five different style landers from adplexity that received good traffic to move as fast as i can to the most important part of the process testing.
-In the meantime i have done the first courses on HTML & CSS at codeacademy and played a bit with some ripped landers. Also talked with a coder friend of mine that showed me how to spot redirects etc and decided to outsource this part for now to move things quicker so i posted an upwork job that is in progress right now.
Next Steps
-Wait for my five landers to get cleaned and edited and start split testing them with the 5 offers that i have.
-Read again Vortex articles on testing landers and offers and all the relative links.
Questions
-Some of the offers i have picked have choices between the model i am promoting on my landing pages (IphoneX) and some other models (Iphone 8etc.) Should i find offers with only Iphone X or give a try to these offers too on the first round of testing?-If my offers & landers combination doesn't workout no conversions (most possible scenario) should i test new landers with new offers(non iphone) or use the landers i have to test other iphone offers?
Costs: $326
- Propeller Ads: $100
- Namecheap: $18
- Adplexity: $129
- Upwork $50
RedTrack $29
Good luck for your journey.
LeadCloak
Thanks LeadClock for the advice i will probably start sending traffic to the landers tomorrow and make a proper update 
Quick Update
In the meantime i got accepted by several networks and found 3 offers for IPhone X from Mappstreet. My AM there informed me that they accept aggressive landers.
I got my landers cleaned and optimized for speed. (Upwork)
In total i have 6 landers. 4 of them are not aggressive and 2 of them are pretty aggressive.
So in my first round of testing i will rotate these 6 landers with the 3 offers mentioned above.
Everything is set up on the server i have set up a campaign in my tracker and i am waiting PopAds clear my PayPal payment (have to send a scanned ID).
I hope to get my payment cleared before the weekend.
Questions
As i understand from posts i have read here, traffic networks like affiliate networks have different standards on the aggressiveness of the landers they accept.
-I also remember reading that PropelerAds don't accept aggressive landers while PopAds does and that's the reason i decided to start with PopPads.
Can you suggest any other pop traffic networks that accept aggressive landers?
-Also about campaign setup, the 3 offers i have they all accept WiFi traffic, 2 of them target the same carriers but the third one has only one carrier in common with the other two.
So how do you think i should start?
Build i campaign including all 3 offers for WiFi?
And then what about the carrier campaign(s)?
Update Day 29 (19/12/2018)
So i have tested 3 offers with 6 landers and 2 traffic sources (i tested 2 traffic sources as i thought i was maybe getting junk traffic with 0 conversions)
Camp1
Camp2
So as you can see i had 0 conversions no big deal i have talked to several AMs and i have some other offers with the same prize to test for different GEOs with the same landers.
Also i will rip some more landers for a different prize (S9) and probably translate some of my existing landers.
Notes
-Double check the offers your AM sends to you (I asked for SOI lead-gen but got MO and DOI)There is not a lot to mention here, technically speaking i cannot add any value as i payed for my landers to get fixed and optimized.I just got them from my guy uploaded to S3 and set add them to my tracker with some offers in rotation.
- Bot test: i didn't implement the bot test as i read here that it is not possible to do the bot test when you test multiple landers and offers. My thought was to test multiple offers with landers and when i find a winning combination to implement the bot test then. Do you think i am right or i should do it another way?
-Offers: I think i am losing a ton of time contacting AMs asking for offers, waiting a lot of time for them to answer etc. do you think i should try to find offers myself through networks and Adplexity or i cannot do something and that's how it works?
- Cutting or whitelisting zones: Again i didn't blacklist or whitelist any zones my thought was to find a good offer+ lander combo and do it then. When i finished the first camp and decided to run a second one with a different traffic source i tested the zones that got most of the traffic with the kill whitelist calculator and got "keep running"
-Bidding: Not much here at both camps bids were 25%-30% over the average bid
Next Steps
-Talk with AMs and find more offers.
-Rip more landers to test.
I am happy i am done with all technical parts (setting tracker, postsbacks etc.)and now can focus on developing my skills at testing and optimization.
-George
OMG - I don't know how I've managed to miss this follow-along for so long!
Seriously need to check forum posts more often, as this is becoming a common occurrence as of late. Being consumed with writing lessons for the new 40-day tutorial, AWA, and the holidays, then the subsequent catching-up plus other things completely threw me off.
It's been a month since your last update - how are you doing now? I'm going to make a special note in my to-do list to look out for updates from you.
Amy
Hi Amy,
Sorry for the delayed response.
I haven't updated the post for a long time i was also too busy testing offers, having "real life" work, reading etc.
So, i have tested over 60 sweep offers at pop at different GEOS with no much luck, a week ago decided to try push (as i think i have learnt all the basic stuff tracking, testing landers, offers etc) and BOOOM!! After couple days testing offers with Push i hit my first low $$$ day.
I immediately contacted my AM asked about the lead quality, got a response that it was ok and started to plan on how to scale it.
I registered at other traffic sources and bump the spending at current source.
The result of bumping the budget at my traffic source (10x) was a bit weird from a crazy ROI of almost 400% it fell to -50% the next day.
Also the results at other traffic sources were mediocre ranging form -30% to -50%.
I know at FB bumping the budget like this can cause crazy stuff but does this also happen at push or pop traffic ?
Unfortunately the next day i got an email form the Affiliate network that the advertiser stopped the offer before i can scale it properly and run it for a bit(i am now thinking the decrease in performance might have something to do with this)
I am writing this to thank everyone here for the useful articles and crazy info being shared here, your guides are a goldmine to noobs like myself trying to figure things out.
I feel my 40 days journey was a total success if you think that i learned a sh***load of stuff that i never heard of before
I will keep testing offers at push and try to focus there.
VERY glad you've expand away from pop and found success with push!
Offers will come and go. It's part of this business. But your experience will always remain yours and will benefit you well into the future.
As for scaling, it depends on alot of factors. Pop traffic isn't like FB at all - FB "decides" who to target on your behalf, where pop just targets everyone.
Saturation can happen to individual placements. It's one thing when you set a low budget and showing (for example) 2% of the site's visitors your offer every day. But when you increase the budget to show (for example) 50% of the visitors on that site your offer every day, AND if the placement site doesn't have high visitor turnover, then the kind of massive decrease in performance can happen.
In addition, I also have my own speculations about traffic networks and affiliate networks in cases like these, but those would only be speculations, so I'll bite my tongue.
All the best! And thanks so much for your update!
Amy
Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app
Thanks Amy for the advice.
I will keep testing and push myself to be more active here and start some valuable threads at push section.
Cheers,
George
Originally Posted by mstgeorge
Amy
Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app
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