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Tey's Follow Along (57)

12-15-2018 07:28 PM #1 tey165 (Member)
Tey's Follow Along

Hey, thanks for checking out my thread!

I'm starting this follow along to share my struggles, victories and to get more involved with the affiliate community. This thread will be an archive of my grind to success, I hope that other people can learn from it or give me advice.

A little about myself:
I'm a web developer from the Netherlands.
Optimizing, ripping, fixing landing pages is not a problem for me, neither is setting up tracking, CDN, VPS, etc. This seems to be what most new people struggle with, so I guess I'm an "advanced" noob

I also know how to use photoshop well enough to make banners and custom images (I'm not very creative though).

Sweeps is my main focus while learning, I started 4 weeks ago.

My setup:



Affiliate networks:


Traffic sources I use (for now):



My current results:
I won't post my results every day, but here's the last few days:

December 11th
Spend: $51,73
Income: $24,00
ROI: -53,61%

December 12th
Spend: $66,53
Income: $51,20
ROI: -23,04%

December 13th
Spend: $46,21
Income: $48.00
ROI: 3,87%

December 14th
Spend: $68,49
Income: $49,80
ROI: -27,29%

December 15th (today - so far)
Spend: $27,20
Income: $51,20
ROI: 88,24% (I expect this to go down, but it should be a good day)


What I did wrong (learn from my mistakes!):
- Didn't check if the offers I was promoting even worked. Use a VPN with the correct geo to check the landing page / submit form of every offer.
- Didn't deal with bot traffic, this made a huge difference. This thread by Caurmen helped a lot.
- Not cutting zone id's aggressively enough on new campaigns.
- Not reading enough. You already have this part figured out if you're reading this thread, but I would have saved plenty of $$ if I read more in the beginning. I am now reading & watching every forum, blog, newsletter, podcast and interview I can get my hands on.
- Don't be afraid to bid high.

What I'm working on / trying to figure out:
- Cloaking, I've had a few campaigns rejected on traffic sources. It would also be nice to not see my landing pages on AdPlexity. I've seen cloaking tools, but it's expensive for beginners. Any suggestions?
- Understanding the psychology of humans better, I need to understand what makes people click through / convert. I don't want to rely on ripped landers forever.
- How to scale a campaign to another traffic source effectively.
- How to find good offers to promote on a consistent basis.
- How to be more efficient, it takes me too long to get a new campaign going. Need to speed things up.
- How to deal with affiliate managers as a noob: asking for hot offers, cap & payout increases.

Shoutout to Bravich, we've been chatting daily about this stuff on Discord. Having someone to share idea's and test results with is important, it also keeps me motivated to see other people work hard.

I don't have much to offer to this community (yet), but if anyone needs help with small coding things (PHP, JS, HTML/CSS), let me know! I'd be happy to take a look, or atleast think along if I can't figure it out either.

Want to talk/chat and share idea's? Let's do it, Discord: --- or Skype: --- (had a lot of people add me, pm me if you want to chat instead )
I'm a real nerd and I work from home, I'm almost always online

Expect consistent thread updates.

- Tey

12-15-2018 07:51 PM #2 jack_l (Veteran Member)

Love it man great work!

As a great lover of the Netherlands it brings a smile to my face picturing you stacking bills in that great country

Seems as though you are far outpacing most newbies, love seeing that green man!

I agree completely on the reading... one of the best things I did when I started was to just quit spending money for a few days and spend every waking minute reading old threads on here related to the traffic sources I was using.

Look forward to seeing updates!

12-15-2018 10:02 PM #3 sheet731 (Member)

congrats on green so quickly!

100% agree with y'all on taking the time to read and learn.

taking the time to learn adplexity tools has helped my camps a ton

12-15-2018 10:42 PM #4 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by jack_l View Post
Love it man great work!

As a great lover of the Netherlands it brings a smile to my face picturing you stacking bills in that great country

Seems as though you are far outpacing most newbies, love seeing that green man!

I agree completely on the reading... one of the best things I did when I started was to just quit spending money for a few days and spend every waking minute reading old threads on here related to the traffic sources I was using.

Look forward to seeing updates!
Quote Originally Posted by sheet731 View Post
congrats on green so quickly!

100% agree with y'all on taking the time to read and learn.

taking the time to learn adplexity tools has helped my camps a ton
Thanks guys.
I don't expect the learning to ever stop. I realized pretty quickly how much more work, knowledge and dedication affiliate marketing takes than I initially thought.

It's fun though, when I go to bed I can't stop thinking of new idea's/angles to try out. I also wake up excited to check how my campaigns did overnight .

As expected my ROI dropped today, but the campaigns tend to have a lot of rollover (previous day) conversions, so it's fine. I think it's because they don't "confirm" the conversions during non-business hours (if this is a thing?). I'll update my stats tomorrow.

Got a meeting tomorrow morning with an experienced marketeer, he mostly does door to door and cold calls, but he might have some insights for me to try out in the online scene.

12-15-2018 10:46 PM #5 leadcloak (Member)

First thing first - Welcome to STM, Tey!

What I'm working on / trying to figure out:
- Cloaking, I've had a few campaigns rejected on traffic sources. It would also be nice to not see my landing pages on AdPlexity. I've seen cloaking tools, but it's expensive for beginners. Any suggestions?
- Understanding the psychology of humans better, I need to understand what makes people click through / convert. I don't want to rely on ripped landers forever.
- How to scale a campaign to another traffic source effectively.
- How to find good offers to promote on a consistent basis.
- How to be more efficient, it takes me too long to get a new campaign going. Need to speed things up.
- How to deal with affiliate managers as a noob: asking for hot offers, cap & payout increases.
1. LeadCloak's pay-as-you-go plan starts with just $99/month - Check here.

2. That's nice - you should not count on ripped landers. Read some of these threads.
- https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...-marketers-use
- https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...-landing-pages
- https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...to-make-it-pay
- https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...lor-psychology

You've to read much more to learn the psychology, but you don't need that much in creating landers because we here rely on testing rather than psychology - Create 3-6 landers and tweak 'em till best CVR.

3. Please read these - https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...affic-Networks
- https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...-Do-I-Scale-It
- https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...xxx-And-Beyond

4. Create good relationships with spy-tool and affiliate managers - later use them to find good offers constantly.

5. Hire a VA.

6. This thread again! - https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...affic-Networks



LeadCloak

12-15-2018 11:17 PM #6 tey165 (Member)

Awesome @leadcloak! It's late here, but I'll be sure to read all those threads tomorrow.

I need some stable profits before spending more money on tools or a VA. At the moment I think it's better for me spend every $ I have on testing new campaigns.

12-15-2018 11:34 PM #7 leadcloak (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by tey165 View Post
Awesome @leadcloak! It's late here, but I'll be sure to read all those threads tomorrow.

I need some stable profits before spending more money on tools or a VA. At the moment I think it's better for me spend every $ I have on testing new campaigns.
Yup. Spend your money on camps first, always. Tools are here for help in process, don't spend your $$$ here and there.


LeadCloak

12-16-2018 05:45 PM #8 tey165 (Member)

Stats today:
Spend: $13,75
Income: $35,20
ROI: 144,36%

Traffic is low, I think I cut too many zones today, but the ROI is good.

What I've done today:



The back-button script. A lot of people click the back button, so I'm trying to make this traffic profitable.I've tested:


  1. Redirecting them to the offer I'm promoting. Big CTR boost, but 0 extra conversions.
  2. Redirecting them to a smartlink, 0 conversions (screenshot below).
  3. Keeping them on the landing page. This is the best option so far, because it increases CTR a little bit without hurting the CR. Also, this doesn't cost me any extra events in my tracker, I'm nearly on 500k this month, I don't want to upgrade plans.



I use the script from this thread:

Code:
   ! function() {
    var t;
    try {
        for (t = 0; 10 > t; ++t) history.pushState({}, "", "#");
        onpopstate = function(t) {
            t.state && location.replace('#');
        }
    } catch (o) {}
}();
Also stuff like sound vs no sound. Vibration vs no vibration. Need more data on these.

Tablet traffic:

What do I do? I asked PropellerAds on how to exclude it, but they told me you can't. The only thing I can think of is making a rule that redirects all tablets to another offer, but I'd rather just exclude it if possible.



Affiliate manager issue:

My affiliate manager asked me to keep sending traffic to some of the offers I've been promoting. They must like the traffic quality, so in turn I asked for a cap & payout increase.
This was Wednesday, I have still not heard back... Am I being impatient? With how short lived campaigns are I'd like a reply within 24 hours on these things.

I might ask to change AM, maybe mine is too busy

Had a few people from STM add me on Skype and Discord! Awesome.

- Tey

12-16-2018 07:34 PM #9 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

Hello tey165

Nice going, it's great to see some green so early in your campaigns, great job.

Let me share some tips too :

The back-button script. A lot of people click the back button, so I'm trying to make this traffic profitable.I've tested:
What worked the best for me lately, was to send backbutton traffic to a different lander with the same or a different offer being promoted on those.

The only thing I can think of is making a rule that redirects all tablets to another offer, but I'd rather just exclude it if possible.
Not every source let's you exclude/tartget tablets and even those they do, it's usually not perfect and some tablets will slip through. The best thing you can do is to try and find an offer that works well with tablet traffic as not all of them are optimized for tablets, for example the screen resolution or some coding problems with the different browsers ... but generally speaking, tablet traffic isn't bad, just the offer has to be able to convert it properly.

This was Wednesday, I have still not heard back... Am I being impatient?
Nope you're not impatient ... we have weekend now, but there were still 2 working days for them to reply. The problem with AMs is that they have several (lots) of affiliates to take care of and since they are usually paid based on the volumes, they give more attention to the bigger affiliates. But still, it shouldn't take days to get an answer. I would still talk to your AM first, before asking for a change ... maybe they got sick or had some family issues.

Keep going man, I'm sure you will reach much higher profits very soon!

Matej.

12-16-2018 07:44 PM #10 leadcloak (Member)

Personally i won't ask for payout increase without $xxx daily ad spend. Affiliate managers are always busy because they have to manage many other big and small affiliates - don't ask for other AM too soon unless he/she doesn't know about affiliate marketing. I've worked with AMs and sometimes they also enjoy a vacation or nice weekend...



LeadCloak

12-16-2018 08:27 PM #11 tey165 (Member)

Thanks for the tips @matuloo!

I didn't think about trying to convert backbutton traffic with another landing page. This landing page has to be more aggressive than the first one I imagine.

Good to know tablet traffic isn't useless, I was about to give up on it completely for this 1 campaign. I'll try another landing page/offer combo just for tablets.

@leadcloak

I can hit the daily cap for this specific offer (it's very low), I actually pause the campaign every day to make sure that I don't. A simple: "I'll let you know on monday" would be enough to keep me happy.
Lesson learned: don't promote offers with low daily caps without first discussing it with your AM

12-16-2018 08:49 PM #12 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

Quote Originally Posted by tey165 View Post
Thanks for the tips @matuloo!

I didn't think about trying to convert backbutton traffic with another landing page. This landing page has to be more aggressive than the first one I imagine.
Not necessarily ... it just has to be different, so you get one more chance at winning the attention of the particular user.

Good to know tablet traffic isn't useless, I was about to give up on it completely for this 1 campaign. I'll try another landing page/offer combo just for tablets.
Generally speaking, in terms of lead quality, tablets are better for me than mobile ... you just need to find the right offers for such traffic.

12-17-2018 02:48 AM #13 leadcloak (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by tey165 View Post
Lesson learned: don't promote offers with low daily caps without first discussing it with your AM
That is a good one! Will help you in future...

12-17-2018 06:40 PM #14 tey165 (Member)

Today's stats (December 17th):
Spend: $16,28
Income: $40,00
ROI: 145,70%
Profit: $23,72

What I've done today:



Tests:

Sound vs no sound:
With sound is preforming better so far, but I don't have that much data (40k impressions). I will start testing different sound files as well.

Vibration vs no vibration:
I made the phone vibrate at different points in a landing page to increase the feeling of excitement for the visitor. When a spinner lands on the prize, or when someone finishes a quiz and "wins" are the the best preforming moments currently. Followed by simply no vibration at all.

Doing these tests takes quite a bit of time, but I feel productive doing them

Frustrations:


Victories:
My new landing page is preforming better (today) than any other lander so far! Spending all that time on it was not wasted.


I've been using this Bayesian calculator to check all the different split tests, I like the interface more than the others I've seen mentioned on the forum:



My AM replied today, he is going to inspect all pre-landers and then decide on the cap & payout increase for 1 offer. The pre-landers are all pretty aggressive, this is making me a bit nervous

- Tey

12-17-2018 07:23 PM #15 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

Someone else started bidding high in my best geo, I'm suddenly paying 30% more for the same traffic.
This is a common thing and you will have to get used to it. Anytime you step into someones face ... I mean buy the traffic they've been buying for some time, they will want it back and the easiest way for them to do is to raise the bid.

It's a good idea to NOT jump into bidding wars straight away, unless you have an exceptionally strong funnel. Usually it's better to take it slowly, wait for a day or so, then try to up the bid somewhat, then set it lower again ... basically annoy the counterpart and make them believe there is some problem with the system or publisher. If you can annoy them enough, they will give up after a while

12-17-2018 09:53 PM #16 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by matuloo View Post
This is a common thing and you will have to get used to it. Anytime you step into someones face ... I mean buy the traffic they've been buying for some time, they will want it back and the easiest way for them to do is to raise the bid.

It's a good idea to NOT jump into bidding wars straight away, unless you have an exceptionally strong funnel. Usually it's better to take it slowly, wait for a day or so, then try to up the bid somewhat, then set it lower again ... basically annoy the counterpart and make them believe there is some problem with the system or publisher. If you can annoy them enough, they will give up after a while
Thank you for taking the time to reply to these posts.
I'll wait for 2 days to see if he/she sticks around this price. If yes, I'll start changing up the bid frequently.

12-18-2018 03:59 AM #17 bravich (Member)

Keep up the great work, this is a nice follow along.

12-18-2018 10:05 AM #18 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

Quote Originally Posted by tey165 View Post
Thank you for taking the time to reply to these posts.
I'll wait for 2 days to see if he/she sticks around this price. If yes, I'll start changing up the bid frequently.
You're welcome, if you got more questions ... just ask

12-18-2018 10:18 AM #19 leadcloak (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by matuloo View Post
This is a common thing and you will have to get used to it. Anytime you step into someones face ... I mean buy the traffic they've been buying for some time, they will want it back and the easiest way for them to do is to raise the bid.

It's a good idea to NOT jump into bidding wars straight away, unless you have an exceptionally strong funnel. Usually it's better to take it slowly, wait for a day or so, then try to up the bid somewhat, then set it lower again ... basically annoy the counterpart and make them believe there is some problem with the system or publisher. If you can annoy them enough, they will give up after a while
^This
This is the same thing (changing bids) OP going to do after some time to keep up with his traffic. Great tip Matuloo!



LeadCloak

12-18-2018 09:09 PM #20 tey165 (Member)

Today's stats (December 18th):
Spend: $14,55
Income: $14,40
ROI: -1,03%
Profit: -$0,15

Today was interesting. I suddenly had a 50% click loss on 1 campaign - between my landing page clicks and the offer. Sent 400 clicks, only 192 registered.
I think it's because the offer page is taking forever to load today. I paused the campaign until I find a new offer or talk to my AM about it.

I have 0 campaigns running right now, I need to start planning ahead instead of being all over the place, I'm not working efficiently enough. I didn't even launch the campaigns I prepared yesterday for example...

What I've done today:



A few questions I currently have:
  1. I understand click loss is normal, but at what % loss would you worry? I checked and I've had around 20% loss on every offer so far.
  2. Are there situations where CPM is better than SmartCPM?



Thank you to all the Skype/Discord people, being able to compare some results quickly has been a huge help (like the click loss %).

It may sound silly, but I'm really proud of this email I got, the work I'm putting in is being noticed:



I blurred out the network name, wasn't sure if it's allowed on STM (could be seen as promotion).

I'm taking some time off work during the holidays. I won't forget to relax, but I'll finally have more time to focus on this journey.

- Tey

12-19-2018 02:43 PM #21 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

I understand click loss is normal, but at what % loss would you worry? I checked and I've had around 20% loss on every offer so far.
Yup, such a loss will always be there, even more so when the networks only registers unique clicks. Do not worry about it to much, all that matters are the profits. As long as it's not something like 40% or 50 %, that would indicate a problem... 15% or 20% is kinda ok.

Are there situations where CPM is better than SmartCPM?
The only advantage is that you know exactly what you are about to pay. With a smart CPM bid, you can bid let's say $1 CPM, but in reality you would be paying $0.50 for example, because that's where the closest bidder is. But someone might enter the bidding ecosystem later on, bid $0.80 which would effectively raise your price to something like $0.81. When this happens during the night for example, you can lose quite a few $$$ ... happened to me a few times already.

Other than that, I always prefer smart CPM.

It may sound silly, but I'm really proud of this email I got, the work I'm putting in is being noticed:
Don't feel silly, it's always good to read something like this, I can imagine you enjoyed it

And enjoy the holidays, I will take a few days of too

12-19-2018 03:13 PM #22 twinaxe (Senior Moderator)

Are there situations where CPM is better than SmartCPM?
Whitelist campaigns

12-19-2018 09:12 PM #23 tey165 (Member)

Today's (December 19th) stats:
Spend: $24,91
Revenue: $12,80
ROI: -48,62%
Profit: -$12,11

Stats so far this month:



Not much, but it's green . I'm down though if you take deposit fee's into consideration.

What I've done today:



Unfortunately Adplexity has been down for most of the day (maintenance). Will get back to ripping and cleaning landers tomorrow.

I read this thread by Mr Payne about 3 times today, including every single follow along posted in there. It made me completely rethink my current approach, it's a must read for beginners.

Question of the day:
On traffic sources like ExoClick and PopCash, is it worth testing out adult placements for non-adult offers (sweepstakes)? Feels like I should be turning these placements off from the start.

The mention in the STM newsletter made me smile, I'll keep posting regular updates!

- Tey

12-20-2018 08:33 PM #24 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

On traffic sources like ExoClick and PopCash, is it worth testing out adult placements for non-adult offers (sweepstakes)? Feels like I should be turning these placements off from the start.
First of all, make sure that the offer accepts adult traffic, not all of them do. And even though there is some adult traffic in the mix pretty much always, even though you opt out of receiving it, advertisers might complain if you send to much of it.

People browsing adult sites have "different things" in mind at the time of watching some videos, but it's still the same people that you might be targeting on different sites ... so if you can "distract" them enough with an LP they can't resist, they can still convert well.

12-20-2018 09:33 PM #25 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by matuloo View Post
First of all, make sure that the offer accepts adult traffic, not all of them do. And even though there is some adult traffic in the mix pretty much always, even though you opt out of receiving it, advertisers might complain if you send to much of it.

People browsing adult sites have "different things" in mind at the time of watching some videos, but it's still the same people that you might be targeting on different sites ... so if you can "distract" them enough with an LP they can't resist, they can still convert well.
Thanks again Matuloo! I will check with my AM if adult traffic is ok for these offers. If they are I'll test it out

Todays (December 20th) stats:
Spend: $26,32
Revenue: $44,80
ROI: 70,21%
Profit: $18,48

Got my domain flagged I quickly bought and setup a new domain, I also got another IP for the VPS (just to be sure). I will have a back-up domain ready for the next time this happens.
I'll be using cheap (.xyz or .club) extensions from now on, .com will get expensive if this is a regular occurrence.



I've been reading threads on STM about getting a warning sent to you if one of your domains get flagged. I'll set this up soon.
The only reason I realized this happened was because PropellerAds started rejecting campaigns.

Finally got the cap increase for one of the offers! When I reach this second cap I will ask for a payout increase.

- Tey

12-20-2018 10:38 PM #26 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

With certain offer types, flagging can become a problem ... google is really pushing hard for this, in my opinion even a bit to much but nothing we can do about it other than being prepared ... so having new domains setup in the queue is always a good idea.

Great stuff with the cap, glad to see you could get it

12-21-2018 11:47 AM #27 leadcloak (Member)

There is nothing much we can do about domain flagging by google. Just be prepared with more domains and add that cost in your spreadsheet.

Hope you reach your cap soon ;-)



LeadCloak

12-27-2018 05:09 PM #28 tey165 (Member)

December 25th stats:
Spend: $26,65
Income: $22,40
ROI: -15,95%
Profit: -$4,25

December 26th stats:
Spend: $24,63
Income: $25,60
ROI: 3,94%
Profit: $0,97

Today (December 27th) stats:
Spend: $11,24
Income: $44,80
ROI: 298,58%
Profit: $33,56

My domains were getting flagged within hours, this took some time to figure out. Editing the landing pages a little bit and switching to a custom tracking domain (with SSL) has helped. No domains have been flagged for the past few days!

Having to change all click urls in the landing pages took a while, but I'm back to launching new campaigns.

Finding new offers to test is the part I struggle with the most right now. I just can't decide.
I'll start contacting my AM's more to ask for recommendations.

- Tey

12-28-2018 05:18 PM #29 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

My domains were getting flagged within hours, this took some time to figure out. Editing the landing pages a little bit and switching to a custom tracking domain (with SSL) has helped. No domains have been flagged for the past few days!
I'm glad you were able to find a way to deal with this!

Having to change all click urls in the landing pages took a while, but I'm back to launching new campaigns.
This is always a time consuming task, unless you are able to automate it a bit. What about using some tool to mass replace certain strings in multiple files? Or maybe use a setup where the click url is pulled from an external file, so you would only change it once and it would affect all LPs ... I had something like this coded for a different project.

Finding new offers to test is the part I struggle with the most right now. I just can't decide.
I'll start contacting my AM's more to ask for recommendations.
Am info and spytools are great, but also browse the offer listing on your own and just confirm that they are live with your AM before launching them. Not all good offers are getting lot's of traffic, so AMs wont see them in the top performers lists ... and AMs are also more keen on recommending certain offers, be it due to their higher margins, relationships with the advertiser etc ... so it makes sense to do your own research too ... even on tools like odigger, offervault, mrkthub etc ...

12-28-2018 09:05 PM #30 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by matuloo View Post
This is always a time consuming task, unless you are able to automate it a bit. What about using some tool to mass replace certain strings in multiple files? Or maybe use a setup where the click url is pulled from an external file, so you would only change it once and it would affect all LPs ... I had something like this coded for a different project.
Loading the url from an external file is perfect, I'll start implementing this.

Quote Originally Posted by matuloo View Post
Am info and spytools are great, but also browse the offer listing on your own and just confirm that they are live with your AM before launching them. Not all good offers are getting lot's of traffic, so AMs wont see them in the top performers lists ... and AMs are also more keen on recommending certain offers, be it due to their higher margins, relationships with the advertiser etc ... so it makes sense to do your own research too ... even on tools like odigger, offervault, mrkthub etc ...
That's what I thought, because most offers I get recommended by AMs don't look that good. Being able to spot good offers comes with experience I guess.

Todays (december 28th) stats:
Spend: $21,52
Revenue: $59,20
ROI: 175,09%
Profit: $37,68

My focus is still on sweepstakes offers, but I'm trying out a few adult offers on the side. Zip submit and AV offers are also on my to-test list.

I don't have anything else to ask or report at this point, I'm going to work hard on testing and improving. When I reach the first $xxx/day I'll give another update, look forward to it

12-28-2018 11:23 PM #31 eurosen (AMC Alumnus)

Goed Bezig!

Great to see a fellow Dutchman doing well.

You seem to be doing very well, but if I can give you one bit of advise... Ditch the adult camps and don´t start any zip submit or AV campaigns and put all of your focus on sweeps.

Master one vertical and don´t split your focus. Trust me, talking from experience. Trying to master different types of offers and traffic sources has costed me a lot of money.

01-07-2019 09:52 AM #32 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

Hello again tey165, just got back from a short skiing vacation with my family, so looking over the forum now Any news with your campaign? Can we help you in any way? How was the progress?

01-10-2019 03:35 PM #33 zeropark (Senior Member)

Hey,
keep up the good work! If you need any help or insights, always feel free to reach out to our support at support@zeropark.com or PM me.
Thanks,
Justyna

04-03-2019 10:59 PM #34 tey165 (Member)

Oh man, update time. It's been a few months, my sub ran out and every single $ went to buying traffic

I've been testing a lot. Got a few profitable campaigns and a lot of unprofitable ones . My focus is on Native now, but I still run pop campaigns when my AM recommends me a hot offer.

Here are my stats since the start of this year, I know you guys love numbers:



My ROI is not great but it's getting better every month . Most (~70%) of this is from Native.
I've reached my $100/day profit goal, but I've also lost more than $100 on some days.

There's still plenty for me to learn, but I'm at the point where I feel comfortable instead of being nervous when I run campaigns.

Some takeaways from these last few months:

1. Build a good relationship with your AM, traffic source rep, other affiliates. This is so so so important.
2. Share data with other affiliates, give and get back.
3. Stop testing offers in T1 countries as a beginner, I was very stubborn about this for a long time. The payouts there are higher for a reason...

I'll keep on grinding, hopefully I'll look back to this thread in a year from now and laugh at my current numbers

04-04-2019 02:06 AM #35 impian (Member)

Nice work there buddy. What sort of offers are you running on native? I used to run Native then did Push but gonna hop back to Native (since I don't see a long term future with Push anymore).

04-04-2019 08:55 AM #36 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by impian View Post
Nice work there buddy. What sort of offers are you running on native? I used to run Native then did Push but gonna hop back to Native (since I don't see a long term future with Push anymore).
Thanks impian . Nutra on native, weight loss trials & cod offers.
In pop simple sweepstakes offers work best for me.

I only run "proven" offers on native. I make sure that (not in a specific order):

a. It shows up in Adplexity
b. My AM tells me that it's doing well for their native guys
c. I manual spy to check that it's still being run

In pop I'll just test whatever offer is kinda new and looks good.

04-04-2019 10:14 AM #37 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

There you go tey165, I'm so happy you were able to move further with your campaigns and actually reach some green! That's simply amazing

3. Stop testing offers in T1 countries as a beginner, I was very stubborn about this for a long time. The payouts there are higher for a reason...
You're not alone, most of the new affiliates do exactly the same thing, and I'm guilty of that too, did exactly the same when I started ... targeting US with dating offers

Really looking forward to your future success, I'm sure you'll get there!

04-04-2019 10:59 AM #38 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by matuloo View Post
There you go tey165, I'm so happy you were able to move further with your campaigns and actually reach some green! That's simply amazing



You're not alone, most of the new affiliates do exactly the same thing, and I'm guilty of that too, did exactly the same when I started ... targeting US with dating offers

Really looking forward to your future success, I'm sure you'll get there!
Thanks Matuloo, I wouldn't be here without the help from people like you

I plan on updating this thread at every big milestone and share some insights, it'll be a fun thing to keep up.

04-04-2019 11:07 AM #39 voluum (Veteran Member)

Quote Originally Posted by impian View Post
I used to run Native then did Push but gonna hop back to Native (since I don't see a long term future with Push anymore).
Why's that? I'm asking cause I'm genuinely curious - sounds like you've changed your mind along the way.
__

@tey165 do you buy native only directly or through DSPs as well?

Karolina

04-04-2019 11:40 AM #40 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by Voluum View Post
Why's that? I'm asking cause I'm genuinely curious - sounds like you've changed your mind along the way.
__

@tey165 do you buy native only directly or through DSPs as well?

Karolina
Direct for now, Voluum DSP only has CPM bidding right? I don't see that going well for me (and my budget)

04-04-2019 12:37 PM #41 voluum (Veteran Member)

Quote Originally Posted by tey165 View Post
Direct for now, Voluum DSP only has CPM bidding right?
Correct.

Good luck man! And def keep updating here, it's always so nice to see the progress you make!

04-04-2019 03:13 PM #42 TopOffers (Member)

Good luck!
Keep updating us here!

04-13-2019 08:34 AM #43 vortex (Senior Moderator)

Very nice @tey165! Thanks for coming back to update us!

Congratulations on the initial success! And all the best on reaching $500-$1k+/day in profits and more in the near future!



Amy

10-29-2019 04:51 PM #44 tey165 (Member)
1 year recap

Hey Hey!
It's been almost a year since starting my AM journey so I thought it would be a good time to do another update. I also love being able to look back at these updates to see how fast things are changing for me.

Quick recap: I started out on pop around november 2018, then did some push and since February 2019 almost exclusively native.

Here's where I'm at now and what I'm up to. First some numbers and screenshots to keep you reading











A little about my native experiences.
I started out running nutra offers (diet and male enhancement) on MGID. It was scary at first because I read multiple times that native is hard/expensive/competetive. Thankfully I managed to find some winners early on and kept at it.

After a while I got frustrated because there were always issues with the nutra offers and they would get taken down randomly. I wanted longer lasting campaigns so I switched to doing ecom in july which is what I'm still doing now.

Currently I'm only running campaigns on Taboola and Outbrain. I've tried running ecom offers on Revcontent and some smaller native networks but never got anything good going there.

And this wouldn't be a good update without sharing some insights. Hopefully this will help a few people:

1. Don't ignore mobile/tablet.
When I started out on native I only focused on Desktop, because who does online shopping on their phones right? Well... A lot of (impulsive) people do. I still don't really understand why but mobile and tablet traffic converts well and always get me the highest ROI's. Maybe it's simply because I've never bought anything myself from a phone.

Just be sure to block the old android versions and push sources that some networks have. They almost always suck.

2. Ad image > ad headline > landing page
Importance in this order (from my experience). Creating new and better ads is where I get my biggest wins.
Once an offer starts converting I will try to get my AM to send me the product so I can take my own pictures. This was a game changer for me, unique and new images are so so important on native.

3. Are you spying, or just checking adplexity?
Get in there manually. Turn on a VPN. Turn off your adblocker. Open different browsers and open multiple websites. Make notes of the ads you see and go down the whole funnel.

I really try to understand why something is working and combine this with what I'm seeing on Adplexity. I still fail campaigns, but way less than before.

And remember, the spy tools don't have every geo. Denmark is a good example, I've had a great campaign there and I think it was mainly because people couldn't find it easily.

4. Don't give up after getting campaigns rejected.
It usually takes me 5+ tries to get my campaigns through moderation.

Different moderators have different standards. A campaign might get rejected on monday because Bob is working then and he is a "nitpicker". But on Wednesdays Sam is in the office moderating and will approve it. Also having a traffic source rep helps a lot, but you need to spend a bit before you get one.


---

So what's next for me? I'm working hard on listicles this Q4. So far the results are not great but I'm not giving up. Lets talk if you're in a similar situation.

And the grind continues...

(sorry mods, I know this is in the pop follow along section but it's turned in to a native journey)

10-29-2019 05:22 PM #45 jaybot (Veteran Member)

Awesome update!

I'm slightly behind you, still working in pops and push and hoping to transition to Native someday. It still looks too hard/expensive/competitive to me

10-29-2019 07:13 PM #46 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by jaybot View Post
Awesome update!

I'm slightly behind you, still working in pops and push and hoping to transition to Native someday. It still looks too hard/expensive/competitive to me
Thanks man! Just had a look at your follow along and you're on the right path for sure. A lot of your skills will carry over to native and it probably won't be as difficult as you think

10-30-2019 12:19 AM #47 paolo_francis (Member)

So far the results are not great but I'm not giving up.
You are crushing it as far as I'm concerned... I come from a tech background too and seeing your thread gave me some good encouragement. I think after 1 year of doing this, you are doing pretty damn amazing. Most people drop their projects within a week. Here you are showing some numbers that I can only dream of hitting right now.

Great job man!

10-30-2019 02:28 AM #48 jack_l (Veteran Member)

Quote Originally Posted by tey165 View Post
Hey Hey!
It's been almost a year since starting my AM journey so I thought it would be a good time to do another update. I also love being able to look back at these updates to see how fast things are changing for me.

Quick recap: I started out on pop around november 2018, then did some push and since February 2019 almost exclusively native.

Here's where I'm at now and what I'm up to. First some numbers and screenshots to keep you reading









  • Done around $200k revenue total so far. My biggest campaign is slowing down but I've done $50k this month.
  • Only running white hat ecom offers at the moment.
  • Average roi is between 10% - 20%. Low but steady.
  • $xxxx/day profit has been hit a few times. Trying to get there consistently.


A little about my native experiences.
I started out running nutra offers (diet and male enhancement) on MGID. It was scary at first because I read multiple times that native is hard/expensive/competetive. Thankfully I managed to find some winners early on and kept at it.

After a while I got frustrated because there were always issues with the nutra offers and they would get taken down randomly. I wanted longer lasting campaigns so I switched to doing ecom in july which is what I'm still doing now.

Currently I'm only running campaigns on Taboola and Outbrain. I've tried running ecom offers on Revcontent and some smaller native networks but never got anything good going there.

And this wouldn't be a good update without sharing some insights. Hopefully this will help a few people:

1. Don't ignore mobile/tablet.
When I started out on native I only focused on Desktop, because who does online shopping on their phones right? Well... A lot of (impulsive) people do. I still don't really understand why but mobile and tablet traffic converts well and always get me the highest ROI's. Maybe it's simply because I've never bought anything myself from a phone.

Just be sure to block the old android versions and push sources that some networks have. They almost always suck.

2. Ad image > ad headline > landing page
Importance in this order (from my experience). Creating new and better ads is where I get my biggest wins.
Once an offer starts converting I will try to get my AM to send me the product so I can take my own pictures. This was a game changer for me, unique and new images are so so important on native.

3. Are you spying, or just checking adplexity?
Get in there manually. Turn on a VPN. Turn off your adblocker. Open different browsers and open multiple websites. Make notes of the ads you see and go down the whole funnel.

I really try to understand why something is working and combine this with what I'm seeing on Adplexity. I still fail campaigns, but way less than before.

And remember, the spy tools don't have every geo. Denmark is a good example, I've had a great campaign there and I think it was mainly because people couldn't find it easily.

4. Don't give up after getting campaigns rejected.
It usually takes me 5+ tries to get my campaigns through moderation.

Different moderators have different standards. A campaign might get rejected on monday because Bob is working then and he is a "nitpicker". But on Wednesdays Sam is in the office moderating and will approve it. Also having a traffic source rep helps a lot, but you need to spend a bit before you get one.


---

So what's next for me? I'm working hard on listicles this Q4. So far the results are not great but I'm not giving up. Lets talk if you're in a similar situation.

And the grind continues...

(sorry mods, I know this is in the pop follow along section but it's turned in to a native journey)


Hey man - fantastic work!

I was looking back and I think I was the first person to comment on this thread when you started it... glad to see we are both still around! lol

Your journey very much matches my own, as far as bouncing around but ultimately ending up at Outbrain/Taboola (and some Revcontent in my case).

Would love to compare notes on native...

Do you prefer Outbrain or Taboola?
Do you use Smartbid or Fixed bid on when you run Taboola?
Do you create separate campaigns for each geo or one big one with all of them?

I'd say Revc and Taboola are my favorite networks with Outbrain very close behind. Do all whitelists on Revc, do all 'improvised whitelists' on Outbrain mostly, and then on Taboola I've tried all sorts of different setups but am mostly on Smartbid right now with a little bit of publisher tweaking but not a ton.

I'm mostly doing listicles right now so if you're interested in doing those am happy to share anything I've learned.

Would love to chat more on here or on dm or on Skype or anything else! Skype is jack.utg

10-30-2019 08:17 AM #49 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by paolo_francis View Post
You are crushing it as far as I'm concerned... I come from a tech background too and seeing your thread gave me some good encouragement. I think after 1 year of doing this, you are doing pretty damn amazing. Most people drop their projects within a week. Here you are showing some numbers that I can only dream of hitting right now.

Great job man!
Thanks!

I meant that the listicles I'm testing are not doing that well. The normal campaigns are going great
Having a tech background has given me a much bigger advantage than I realized at the start. I was able to work at 10x the speed compared to some of the other guys I got in touch with.

There were plenty of time where I wanted to quit or take a break after a bad period. I'm glad I didn't - just keep grinding.

10-30-2019 08:30 AM #50 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by jack_l View Post
Hey man - fantastic work!

I was looking back and I think I was the first person to comment on this thread when you started it... glad to see we are both still around! lol

Your journey very much matches my own, as far as bouncing around but ultimately ending up at Outbrain/Taboola (and some Revcontent in my case).

Would love to compare notes on native...

Do you prefer Outbrain or Taboola?
Do you use Smartbid or Fixed bid on when you run Taboola?
Do you create separate campaigns for each geo or one big one with all of them?

I'd say Revc and Taboola are my favorite networks with Outbrain very close behind. Do all whitelists on Revc, do all 'improvised whitelists' on Outbrain mostly, and then on Taboola I've tried all sorts of different setups but am mostly on Smartbid right now with a little bit of publisher tweaking but not a ton.

I'm mostly doing listicles right now so if you're interested in doing those am happy to share anything I've learned.

Would love to chat more on here or on dm or on Skype or anything else! Skype is jack.utg
Hey man, thanks. I've read all your native posts 10x , the info helped me a lot.

I'll answer these questions here and I'd love to dig into some other stuff on Skype:

Do you prefer Outbrain or Taboola?
Taboola by far.
I've had success on Outbrain, but I always have issues trying to scale there - most campaign graphs look like this:


Pretty much what you've described in your follow along. The initial burst is great and then the campaigns slowly die until there's almost nothing left. No matter what I try (new ads, landing pages, other domains, new campaigns, etc..).

Do you use Smartbid or Fixed bid on when you run Taboola?
Smartbid, it works great. I send all conversion and payout data back to them.
They changed it a few weeks ago where you can manually adjust bids in conjunction with the smart bid.This really helped me get the most out of the best placements.


I don't use whitelists.

Do you create separate campaigns for each geo or one big one with all of them?

I do both. For example, I will group german-speaking geo's DE,CH,AT in 1 campaign. And I will also make separate campaigns where I have them singled out.

Same with device types. I will have 1 campaign with desktop/tablet/mobile and then another campaign with each of them targeted individually.

10-31-2019 09:36 PM #51 vortex (Senior Moderator)

@tey165! Wow it's been a few months since your last update! And it's amazing to see that you've reached yet another level of success!

It's ALWAYS encouraging to see members reporting success. There are lots of members that are doing very well, but many are too shy to speak up - which is a real loss to upcoming affiliates that are in need of "proof" that this is "real".

Thanks for contributing that, plus so many great tips! Very inspiring!




Amy

11-01-2019 12:24 AM #52 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by vortex View Post
@tey165! Wow it's been a few months since your last update! And it's amazing to see that you've reached yet another level of success!

It's ALWAYS encouraging to see members reporting success. There are lots of members that are doing very well, but many are too shy to speak up - which is a real loss to upcoming affiliates that are in need of "proof" that this is "real".

Thanks for contributing that, plus so many great tips! Very inspiring!




Amy
Thanks Amy!
I too was very skeptical when I started with affiliate marketing. Reading the many follow alongs on STM definitely helped show me that it's all real, I'm glad that this thread is part of that now

11-07-2019 01:34 PM #53 Mr Payne (Member)

Great progress bro, congrats on the milestone. Believe it or not you are approaching a much bigger tipping point in your journey!

Also keep in mind, for native having your testing campaigns separated from your winner campaigns is a good move.

Native gives weight at campaign and ad history level. So taking a good campaign with good performing ads and then throwing in new unproven ads to test can jack up your winning campaign.


Cheers!


Andrew

11-30-2019 07:04 PM #54 adubasu (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by tey165 View Post
Thanks!

I meant that the listicles I'm testing are not doing that well. The normal campaigns are going great
Having a tech background has given me a much bigger advantage than I realized at the start. I was able to work at 10x the speed compared to some of the other guys I got in touch with.

There were plenty of time where I wanted to quit or take a break after a bad period. I'm glad I didn't - just keep grinding.

Hey tey great post, are you creating your own listicles or do you have a source? I have been on Shinez.io at the moment.

12-12-2019 05:47 AM #55 generik (Member)

Thanks for posting that in-depth update!

I've been in the affiliate industry as an affiliate manager for 2 years now (nutra/finance). I've tried pushing nutra before, but got burnt out with Bing, FB. I want to take a complete white hat approach this time, for longevity and morals. I'm excited to learn more from you since you've been successful in that path. Thanks for documenting and sharing!

As I'm restarting now, I'm curious if you'd recommend I begin with pop and move to native? Or go straight for taboola/outbrain? (Budget is $5k)

What offer types/networks would you recommend I start with?

Quote Originally Posted by tey165 View Post
Hey Hey!
It's been almost a year since starting my AM journey so I thought it would be a good time to do another update. I also love being able to look back at these updates to see how fast things are changing for me.

Quick recap: I started out on pop around november 2018, then did some push and since February 2019 almost exclusively native.

Here's where I'm at now and what I'm up to. First some numbers and screenshots to keep you reading









  • Done around $200k revenue total so far. My biggest campaign is slowing down but I've done $50k this month.
  • Only running white hat ecom offers at the moment.
  • Average roi is between 10% - 20%. Low but steady.
  • $xxxx/day profit has been hit a few times. Trying to get there consistently.


A little about my native experiences.
I started out running nutra offers (diet and male enhancement) on MGID. It was scary at first because I read multiple times that native is hard/expensive/competetive. Thankfully I managed to find some winners early on and kept at it.

After a while I got frustrated because there were always issues with the nutra offers and they would get taken down randomly. I wanted longer lasting campaigns so I switched to doing ecom in july which is what I'm still doing now.

Currently I'm only running campaigns on Taboola and Outbrain. I've tried running ecom offers on Revcontent and some smaller native networks but never got anything good going there.

And this wouldn't be a good update without sharing some insights. Hopefully this will help a few people:

1. Don't ignore mobile/tablet.
When I started out on native I only focused on Desktop, because who does online shopping on their phones right? Well... A lot of (impulsive) people do. I still don't really understand why but mobile and tablet traffic converts well and always get me the highest ROI's. Maybe it's simply because I've never bought anything myself from a phone.

Just be sure to block the old android versions and push sources that some networks have. They almost always suck.

2. Ad image > ad headline > landing page
Importance in this order (from my experience). Creating new and better ads is where I get my biggest wins.
Once an offer starts converting I will try to get my AM to send me the product so I can take my own pictures. This was a game changer for me, unique and new images are so so important on native.

3. Are you spying, or just checking adplexity?
Get in there manually. Turn on a VPN. Turn off your adblocker. Open different browsers and open multiple websites. Make notes of the ads you see and go down the whole funnel.

I really try to understand why something is working and combine this with what I'm seeing on Adplexity. I still fail campaigns, but way less than before.

And remember, the spy tools don't have every geo. Denmark is a good example, I've had a great campaign there and I think it was mainly because people couldn't find it easily.

4. Don't give up after getting campaigns rejected.
It usually takes me 5+ tries to get my campaigns through moderation.

Different moderators have different standards. A campaign might get rejected on monday because Bob is working then and he is a "nitpicker". But on Wednesdays Sam is in the office moderating and will approve it. Also having a traffic source rep helps a lot, but you need to spend a bit before you get one.


---

So what's next for me? I'm working hard on listicles this Q4. So far the results are not great but I'm not giving up. Lets talk if you're in a similar situation.

And the grind continues...

(sorry mods, I know this is in the pop follow along section but it's turned in to a native journey)
Sent from my LM-V350 using STM Forums mobile app

01-11-2020 02:03 PM #56 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by adubasu View Post
Hey tey great post, are you creating your own listicles or do you have a source? I have been on Shinez.io at the moment.
Hey man,
Not sure what Shinez.io is. I do all copywriting/coding myself for both listicles and normal (standalone) campaigns.

01-11-2020 02:18 PM #57 tey165 (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by generik View Post
Thanks for posting that in-depth update!

I've been in the affiliate industry as an affiliate manager for 2 years now (nutra/finance). I've tried pushing nutra before, but got burnt out with Bing, FB. I want to take a complete white hat approach this time, for longevity and morals. I'm excited to learn more from you since you've been successful in that path. Thanks for documenting and sharing!

As I'm restarting now, I'm curious if you'd recommend I begin with pop and move to native? Or go straight for taboola/outbrain? (Budget is $5k)

What offer types/networks would you recommend I start with?

Sent from my LM-V350 using STM Forums mobile app
Never tried Bing or FB. Having to cloak and dealing with bans would burn me out too. Running white hat is in my opinion the way to go if you're in this for the long term.

A $5k budget to start back up again is amazing! Depending on how long it's been I'd recommend starting with pop or push to get back into the groove and switch to native later if that's where you want to go.

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