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Symlab - Complete aff beginner Follow-along Jan 2019 (Voluum and Binom) (37)

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Starting to follow 2018-2019 guide. Decided to go with Binom (maybe Voluum too for comparison later). Binom has russian support so it may save me a lot of time.

Today applied to all networks in tutorial

Affiliate networks:
1. Mobidea
2. Clickdealer
3. Gotzha

Traffic sources:
1. PropellerAds
2. PopAds

Mobidea - got access (just logged in)
Clickdealer - got access (AM contacted me and approved. She sent me platform tutorial and top offers. Very pleasant person )
Gotzha - waiting for approval

PropellerAds - got access (just logged in)
PopAds - got access (just logged in)

Going to get familiar with aff networks, go through platform overview on Mobidea and Clickdealer.
After that will proceed with tracker setup. Going to start with DigitalOcean VPS. I'm curious is it ok to host tracker on AWS or GoogleCloud but it's not critical for now, will do some research after finishing tutorial.

Do I need to buy Adplexity now and which version? Mobidea offers 30% discount. Can I get discount later?

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Congrats on starting your follow along symlab! Glad you're also considering Voluum.
As I said, I hope you'll have many campaigns in the green!

Karolina

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Congrats on your decision to start a follow along, that's always a great idea.

I'd stick with the VPS, not sure if it's even possible to host a tracker on AWS to be honest, but I know that many people host them on digital ocean or vultr, so you should be fine. If un-sure, asj Binom's support, from what I know, they are very helpful.

As a member of STM, you get access to many discounts, and Aplexity is on the list, check this forum section : https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...-amp-Discounts
So no need to rush with the decision.

Looking forward to your progress!
Matej.

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Congrats on deciding to start a follow-along!

Matuloo has answered your questions. I just want to add that Amazon S3 can only be used to host static files (most landing pages fall under category) whereas tracker files are dynamic, so can't be hosted with S3.

Binom's support page lists server recommendations - please do a search. If I find it I'll post the link here later.

Onto the next step! Eager to see your progress!


Amy


Edit: Found it! Please see the "server choice" section:

https://docs.binom.org/faq.php#6

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app

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Hi Karolina, Matej, Amy! Thanks for replies, guys!

I spent a few days setting up technical stuff. Still have a lot to learn but ready to proceed with tutorial.

Here is my status so far.

Affiliate networks:
1. Mobidea - seems like they provide self-service, no AM assigned (had one strange issue - there was no panel on right side to apply for offers - but now it is there and I can proceed)
2. Clickdealer - got approved and AM has been assigned
3. Gotzha - got approved and AM has been assigned

Traffic sources:
1. PropellerAds - looks like no approval required
2. PopAds - looks like no approval required

Trackers:
1. Binom - set up on VPS (DigitalOcean) and have spare domain for landers VPS if needed. Roman and Binom answered questions about servers. Binom installation was very easy, still need to figure out how tracking works - placeholders, parameters, etc.
2. Voluum - set up and custom domain is assigned (big thanks to Karolina and Pawel who arranged very nice offer for me. thank you guys!). also had on-boarding session today with client manager, picture is a bit more clear now.

Haven't set up hosting for landers yet. Will setup S3 later in tutorial. Also will try VPS for dynamic landers. Don't want to spend time on this now.

So looks like I'm all set up now and ready to proceed with Day 2-8 lessons

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It was a pleasure! I'm happy you jumped on board and really can't wait to see your next updates.

Let us know how lessons 2-8 go and if anything isn't clear, I'm here to help

Good luck!
Karolina

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Status on Days 2-8 lessons

Applied to 5 offers in Mobidea, all activated quickly. However I could hardly find 10 offers out of 108 with epc > 0.
Applied to 1 offer in Clickdealer. Actually AM contacted me herself and suggested good offers and helped to pick one for tutorial and approved. I'm lucky to have very friendly and understanding AM Elena, a pleasure to work with. Tanks for help, Elena!
Applied to 1 offer in Gotzha. It's public and active without approval.

Offers:
Mobidea: 19283 - Mobile Content - BG - Vivacom + 3G - download4u - $1.40
Clickdealer: (64428) [MOB] WIN NEW IPHONE XS /EE [TELE2+TELIA] - CPA - $2.40
Gotzha: (10987) ZA - Playmo - Speed Booster - WAP&WEB - CellC,MTN,Vodacom - 1Click - #1352 - $2.00


So, have 3 active offers and ready to move on to Voluum/Binom configuration

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Just a word on your offer selection ... from the descriptions, they all look like carrier billing (PIN submits), is that right? This type of offers has really seen better times, to say it in a nice way. On top of that, they require 3G traffic from specific carriers, which is always limited in volume.

I would suggest to look after simple SOIs instead.

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If you need any help with setting up tracking, let me know

Karolina

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Hi Matej,

Thanks for advice! Could you help me pick better offers please.


From 5 Mobidea offers I've applied for I see only one single optin.

18691 - Mobile Content - EG - Orange + Wifi - WhatsFile

I looked for 1-clicks with non-zero EPC, and found only a couple.

13700 - Mobile Content - GT - Claro - Extremo Club
13657 - Mobile Content - SV - Digicel - Club Movil

In Clickdealer I looked for 1-click offers with highest payout and found these ones.

(62759) [MOB] Race Arcade /KW - 1 Click [Zain]
(43135) [WEB+MOB] Angry Birds /ZA [Cell-C] - 1 click
(43136) [WEB+MOB] Fifa /ZA [Cell-C] - 1 click
(43137) [WEB+MOB] Daily Video /ZA [Cell-C] - 1 click
(53360) [WEB+MOB] Funny Video /ZA [CellC] - 1 click
(53833) [MOB] Top Puzzle Games /OM - 1 Click [Ooredoo]

In Gotzha I found these ones.

(10988) ZA - Playmo - iPhone X - WAP&WEB - CellC,MTN,Vodacom - 1Click - #1352
(892) BR - Clubs Movil - Download - WAP - 1 click - Claro - #1016
(5376) MY - Lekkermobile - Download Macrokiosk - Click2SMS - WAP - Maxis, Digi, U Mobile - iframe not allowed - #1233
(7544) PR - Clubs Movil - Mainstream - 1 click flow - Claro - #1016
(2588) RS - Golomi - Flapping Crow - WAP - MTS, Telenor, VIP - 1Click - #1036

Looks like most of them are from specific carriers. How to pick good ones?

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Ok, I've read a bit about flows and found out following.

Direct billing (1/2-click or Single/Double optin) requires 3G as it uses mobile identification by carrier.
SMS billing (MO and MT/PIN) doesn't require 3G and can be used on both 3G and Wifi connection.

You said PIN requires 3G. Could you explain please what you mean? As I understand both Direct and SMS flow require carrier at some point.

Also, from what I read about flows it looks like all SOI/DOI offers are carrier specific (and limited in volume?).

As I understand it's better to stick with Direct for higher conversion rates. How to identify wider audience for SOI/DOI based on carrier? Some offers have 1 carrier, some 2 or 3.

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@moderators:

As I'm now using both Binom and Voluum in my follow-along it should be reflected in thread title. So please update thread title to:

Symlab - Complete aff beginner Follow-along Jan 2019 (Voluum and Binom)

Thanks!

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Done!

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Somehow I got used to call all carrier billing offers as PIN submits, not 100% accurate I know

So let me rephrase myself : Carrier billing offers in general have seen better times. The reason is the pretty strict regulation, the advertisers have to make all the billing practices very clear now in some cases even ask for double confirmation, so the final CVR is very low.

What I suggested to run was classic SOI/DOI leadgen offers that are based either on simple email collection or some kind of simple registration. Skip the carrier billing flow and test these offers. It's easier to make them work, compared to carrier billing.

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Thanks for explanation! I really missed that we need to pick 1-click offers. Actually I thought I need just to pick any offer to get my feet wet . Thanks for advice, it's very valuable to set proper foundation from the beginning.

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Days 9-10

After offers review, I've picked 1-click offers. I kept one pin offer for comparison and because it was approved by AM.

I'm using Voluum and Binom in parallel. That's why I'm not using global postbacks for now.

Also it wasn't clear where s2,s3,s4 parameters come from, I couldn't find this mapping in Clickdealer's UI first. I found it later in manual. It wasn't very straightforward.
I decided to read about token usage in Voluum docs and I must say Voluum has fantastic documentation, very beginner-friendly, very clear and structured, like textbook.
Then I noticed that Binom suggests pre-defined parameters and tokens in Aff.Network and Offer setup, and provides ready-to-use postback url with correct parameters and tokens.
This feature is very useful for beginners and missing in Voluum.

So, I have 6 offers in spreadsheet (3 for Voluum, 3 for Binom).

Mobidea Voluum EG – Egypt 18691 - Mobile Content - EG - Orange + Wifi - WhatsFile $1.05 Direct Billing, Single Optin
Mobidea Binom ZA – South Africa 15942 - Mobile Content - ZA - 3G + Wifi - ScoutApps: Battery Saver $1.44 Direct Billing, Single Optin Telkom,MTN,CellC,Wifi

Clickdealer Voluum BR – Brazil (55080) [MOB] MEUCLUB TV /BR - 1 CLICK [TIM] - CPA - $0.40
Clickdealer Binom EE – Estonia (64428) [MOB] WIN NEW IPHONE XS /EE [TELE2+TELIA] - CPA - $2.40 pin submit (mo flow)

Gotzha Voluum ZA – South Africa (10987) ZA - Playmo - Speed Booster - WAP&WEB - CellC,MTN,Vodacom - 1Click - #1352 $2.00
Gotzha Binom PR – Puerto Rico (7544) PR - Clubs Movil - Mainstream - 1 click flow - Claro $1.5

I configured offers and campaigns according to tutorial in Voluum and adapted them for Binom, just changed tokens in final offer link.

I've created PropellerAds campaign yesterday and looks like approve didn't take much time. Today I see first results.



Voluum shows some numbers


Why Voluum shows 0 conversions?

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Somehow we're still not on the same boat

1 click, 2 clicks, pin submits or whatever other flow that is tied directly to some kind of carrier billing setup ... stay away from that. So basically ignore all offers that require specific carriers, the reason they do that, is that they want that particular carrier to bill the users.

Look for SOI/DOI offers, read this for better explanation : http://www.matuloo.com/soi-and-doi-l...d-explanation/ and also this one please: https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...hlight=leadgen

You made some mistake with the postback setup, hard for me to say where exactly, without getting more info about the setup. Since the conversions are showing up in propeller, you probably placed the propeller postback into mobidea?

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Thanks, I'll read them.

Looks like I missed PrepellerAds postback in Voluum.



I've updated it in Voluum but it was on second day, one day passed. There is a guide for that https://help.propellerads.com/advert...ng-with-voluum



Also I needed to set time frame properly both in PropellerAds and Voluum. They used "Today" and I set "Month". So currently conversions reported properly but cost is different ($10 in Propeller and $8 in Voluum).





I spend $10 and earned $5. First profit

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• Regarding the first point: It is very nice to hear sth like this, that someone finds our docs useful Thanks for bringing this up.
• Regarding the second point: Affiliate network templates with predefined tokens have already been suggested as a new feature. I agree that this is very useful for newbies and our writer promised he would try to keep pushing this topic.
• For now, in the Case Studies section, there are docs regarding how to set up specific affiliate networks - tokens that should be used are usually also included. So they are not in Voluum's UI, but can be found in docs. Voluum's tech writer is currently working on Clickdealer's doc, so soon you'll be able find it there as well.

I think @matuloo is right on this one. If a conversion is shown on the traffic source platform and you don't see it in the tracker at all, that means you must have pasted a traffic source postback URL to the affiliate network platform and not Voluum's postback URL.

@symlab, you said you liked Voluum docs so here's a link to the article that walks you step-by-step through submitting Voluum's postback URL to an affiliate network platform (Submitting a Postback URL to an Affiliate Network Platform) - once you follow it and complete the setup, all the conversions recorded by the affiliate network will be fired to Voluum because the postback will be sent not to the traffic source (in this case - PropellerAds) but the tracker. If you want to fire conversions to the traffic source (PA), you need to properly define the traffic source postback URL in the traffic source setup in Voluum and then select the right traffic source while creating/editing the campaign. In our docs there's an article on traffic source postback URL because if you want you can pass much more information to the TS, so check it out if you have a minute (Traffic Source Postback URL).

If there are any conversions missing in VLM - like in this case where you haven't been firing them to the tracker on the first day - Conversion Upload is a feature that allows you to manually upload conversions that, for some reasons, occurred but weren't registered by Voluum. Note for the future: you can also use this feature to correct any discrepancies in revenue between Voluum and your affiliate network platform's reporting system.

It's very important to upload them correctly because values you upload will be permanently registered in Voluum. There's literally no point in me writing a short tutorial in this post (it would be too much information at once!), it's all explained in the docs in the Conversion Upload article, I recommend reading this one as well.

We also have a feature for that The Manual Cost Update functionality enables you to modify your campaign costs in Voluum. You can use this feature if the cost value recorded in Voluum differs from that which is reported at your traffic source. And again, it's all explained in our docs in the Manual Cost Update article!

I might have just bombarded you with links and information (sorry for that!) but you said it yourself - the articles in the documentation are very beginner-friendly. I'm thinking of selecting a few that are most important when you start using Voluum and uploading them here in a form of a tutorial. What do you think about it?

On another note, congrats on your first conversions!

Karolina

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Nice start of a follow-along!

I'll provide detailed feedback later - for now, I want to clarify one thing:

As @matuloo has pointed out, 1/2-click offers are hard to make profits with nowadays. But as I've pointed out in the tutorial, direct-linking to these offers is good practice.

Of course using a landing page to run something like sweeps would be more lucrative, but for your first campaign or two, it's good to direct-link to 1/2-click offers.

Apologies for the confusion!



Amy

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Hi guys!

Needed to finish urgent work and now I'm back. I've run 2 campaigns since last time but both 0 conversions. Both Voluum and Binom show slightly different figures than Propeller.

I'm on lesson 13 now and actually going to read all lessons to have an overview of whole process first and then experiment. I like top-to-bottom approach in learning, from complex to simple.

I've read half of Voluum docs and also got Adplexity Mobile subscription and signed up to Zeropark to experiment with Voluum features.

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Very impressive considering how extensive our Knowledge Base is! Good job!

Interesting you decided to give Zeropark a go - now you'll be able to see first hand what benefits Voluum - Zeropark integration gives you. Keep us posted

Karolina

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Thanks Karolina!

I'm now reading "Affiliate what's working in 2018" to decide on verticals. Very interesting.

I looked up Adplexity Mobile briefly and noticed one thing - amount of campaigns using Voluum is very small compared to other trackers. Binom is the most used one. Why is that?

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The 2019 report is already in the works btw, give us few more weeks and we will publish it

I think the main reason is the recent price increase of Voluum, new affiliates simply don't wont to spend $200+ on a tracker straight away, when there much cheaper alternatives available out there. Voluum is a very good tracker, just more expensive than the competition, unless you go for the longer subscription periods (1-2 years) which is again something that new affiliates wont do. That's why you see other trackers used more often.

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I see where you're coming from though it's more of a technical issue, the change in pricing might have affected the numbers seen but definitely not to this extent.

AdPlexity cannot easily recognise Voluum tracking domains anymore (their rep actually reached out to us once asking about tracking domains we are using cause they had less and less recognised Voluum domains).

So to answer your question I would say, it's more difficult to categorise Voluum campaigns as Voluum nowadays, so a lot of them end up being assigned None category - hence the small numbers.



Just to prove the point, take a look. Screenshot from AdPlexity native (edit: I added it's native after roman binom fairly pointed it's an info that was missing). The number for None is much higher compared to numbers of all tracking tools.

Karolina

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Hi,

May I ask when did you capture this screenshot?

I've just checked AdPlexity stats and I can see this:

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@roman Binom It was taken right before I posted the reply yesterday but it's AdPlexity native. Should have added that, sorry for any confusion caused.
Either way, both screenshots show that the vast majority of campaigns has the tracking tool unrecognised (even in the case of your screenshot it's still 235k with None to 57k with Binom, the second highest number) which was kind of my point.

Karolina

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Sorry, but in this case (Native vs Pops) you can´t really compare the trackers.
Probably many people still use Voluum for Native but for Pops there are many people who switched from Voluum to other trackers for some reasons.
And when you check Adplexity Mobile you can clearly see that Binom is by far the most used tracker that gets recognized by Adplexity.

In Binom you can completely customize your URLs, beginning from login to campaign URLs to click URL to Postback.
You can not only customize the file names but also the parameter names, key length and whatever.



So yes, your statement about the as "None" recognized trackers/campaigns on Adplexity is absolutely correct but that doesn´t mean that necessarily most of these campaigns would be from Voluum.
Probably also many of these are from Binom with customized URLs.
I could imagine that many experienced affiliates will make use of the URL customisation to don´t leave the default trackers footprints and complete URL customisation with unique filenames, parameter names and parameter values/strings is more powerful to be labeled as "None" than just not being able to recognize tracking domains from a specific platform.

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My intention was never to compare trackers. Binom is a great tracker that's become very popular - for many reasons. It has the highest number of recognised campaigns so what you're saying sounds reasonable, that many of the None are from Binom too.

But knowing that some of them are also from Voluum I wanted to show that the numbers displayed for Voluum category don't necessarily reflect the numbers in reality. I believe that an answer including this information plus the cost factor previously mentioned by matuloo is a more complete one to @symlab's question.

Karolina

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Apologies for the delay in posting the rest of the tutorial! I'm hours away from posting the 3 lessons on optimization. Please stay tuned!

With pop, try not to analyze too much at the beginning. Instead, just launch a few campaigns first, THEN analyze the stats, re-adjust your approach and go from there. Re-reading the tutorial at that point will be good too, as you'll have practical experience to assimilate the knowledge into.

Trackers should show less traffic than the traffic source - this is know as clickloss and has been talked about extensively. Matuloo has written at least a couple of threads on that topic - just do a search and you'll find them.

How much budget did you spend on running the 2 campaigns? Were they direct-linked? And have you checked the aff networks' stats to make sure you haven't actually made conversions? (Because it could just be that they're not being posted back to the tracker properly.)

Making your first conversion is a major milestone that you should aim to reach ASAP. I would suggest to ask your AMs for an offer that has very low payout (<$0.50 or even $0.20) but converts half-decent, that doesn't require a lander (or what they call "pre-lander") to convert, just to collect data to see what it looks like. This way you reach that first milestone, verify the postback is working, and start learning optimization.

After that, you'll have more motivation to learn how to work with landers - which can be a bit of a pain at first if you're not a coder.

Please do let us know how you get on!



Amy

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Finally finished 2018 report. My takeaway is that push, native and video are trendy now and most of affiliates/networks work with ever-green verticals.
I also checked ExoClick's 2017-2018 reports and PowerBook 2018 report. Will look for more data.
Also waiting for 2019 report


I spent not much, about $30-40 running 3 campaigns. But learning on direct offers and doing baby steps is not very interesting to me
I'm tech guy and coding is what I do daily, so landers, servers, etc is not a problem.
I already have motivation to do real stuff and learn on the go as I work in a company developing own DSP and see what is possible.
However I still need optimization skills and don't want to skip tutorial.
I find this tutorial too detailed for me at the moment. It's not bad, it's very good. Thanks for you efforts, what you do is very valuable!
Just I like to step back to have a broad picture and plan before I get into details.
Also I don't have much free time so I'd like to go straight to the core.

So here is my plan.

I'd like to learn optimization on ever-green verticals. My personal preferences after reading reports are gaming, apps, crypto/forex, ecom, dating/adult and leadgen. Mostly because I understand something there and can edit creatives if needed. But I can test other verticals just to have an idea.

I'd like to learn on trendy formats - push, native, video, fb - or at least learn how to work with them.

Also I don't want to compare Voluum and Binom back-to-back anymore, it doesn't make much sense now. Instead I'm going to use stacks of tools for different traffic sources:

Pop ads: PropellerAds + Binom + Adplexity Mobile
Push ads: Zeropark + Voluum + Pushspy

I'm going to use Servando Silva's and Erik Gyepes's reports as example for push.

I will finish tutorial testing pop and push and then move to native ads and fb leadgen experiments.

Currently I'm on landers stuff (day 14 and 6wamc video on ripping landers from adplexity).
Also asked Clickdealer AM to recommend a couple of good Sweeps offers to start with Zeropark.

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Hey @symlab

Apart from the great case studies provided by Erik and Servando there is this post we did on good ad copy practices for push https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ds-on-zeropark there are also some other tips hosted in the linked blog. Check it out if you get time. Also feel free to write to us at support@zeropark.com if you come across any issues.

Thanks!
Neill

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Sounds like a solid plan!

Just one suggestion: Try to stick with ONE traffic type at a time to learn the ins-and-outs of that traffic. Spreading yourself too thin will drastically reduce your effectiveness.

Every traffic type will take a certain amount of time and money to reach a stage where you can make profits consistently. It would be daunting to try to learn several at the same time, all draining your budget and not reaching success for a long time.

(And really, just ONE of the traffic types you listed, can generate more money than you could ever spend in one lifetime - IF you know what you're doing. And that will take time.)

As for trackers - for our intents and purposes ANY of the popular trackers will do the job. No need to get more than one.

Have fun and I wish you much luck on your journey @symlab!



Amy

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I LOVE hearing stuff like this! So inspiring and motivating! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

-Chris

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Hi Amy!

I agree with you regarding spreading. It's better to master one traffic type at once. But how to know which traffic is good for me if not try? I think it's better to try several types in the beginning and then proceed with one type at time as you say.
Even here on forum some affiliates prefer fb, some do native, some do push and some stick to pop. Why? Is it based on profit, ease of work, or personal preference?

Regarding trackers. Yes, both are enough for the start. What is interesting to explore - hosted vs cloud, AI features, click loss (Voluum integration with Zeropark vs Binom + Propeller).

I've read some case studies on push (Propeller, Spypush) to have an idea. Still need to read cases by Matuloo, mrbaun, Erik, Servando.

It's not clear how to use landers with push. So I'm reading Day 17 about downloading landers from Adplexity Mobile. I put Spypush on hold for now as I've read that it's possible to use pop landers with push.

I'm picking offers in Clickdealer now and I have a question how to pick offers.
I apply filters (Sweepstakes/Leadgen, SOI, pop/redirect, English-speaking countries) and then find keyword "iPhone X".
I see such offers. Which is better? The higher EPC the better or higher click rate is better?


Also some offers have very high payout but low epc, like crypto ($500 payout and $0.5 epc). How to choose?

I noticed that I need to read pretty much before doing some action. This slows down progress quite a lot considering that I can spend approx 2 hrs daily. Small post often has link to other posts, which in turn have links to another posts, and so on. Some posts are dated few years for now and it is not clear is it still actual or not.

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The MOST important part is to refrain from jumping from one source or traffic type to the next one, again and again, without actually spending the time needed to learn any of them properly. So if you run 3 or 4 campaigns on POPs, without much success, then move to native and do the same there just to end on adult banners afterwards and trying a couple campaigns there ... this will not get you anywhere. With just a bunch of campaigns, you basically only scratch the surface so to speak, you won't be able to build a blacklist, you won't learn what placements work better than the rest, you won't be able to properly test LPs or offers, because these things simply take time.

You need to take this in 2 steps so to speak. 1st is to learn the very basics of setting up campaigns, tracking and optimizing them, because this very fundamentals are the same on ALL sources. Of course there will be differences when it comes to the setup, due to different backends... but it will always be about using funnels, judging creatives and placements based on CTR and CVR, you will always need to pause some placements or targets.

Once you have this narrowed down and once you are confident about the process, then try to thing about what traffic type or verticals you want to focus on, not sooner. And if you decide to try something, stick with it for a while and give it what it takes. It's very common for new affiliates to find success in a different space than they started in, but do not try to hurry it and try the "best" approach within a week.

Using landers is one of those fundamentals that I mentioned above, you will ALWAYS need to use them, no matter what the traffic type is. There are some specifics coming with each traffic type though. For example POPs need the most aggressive landers, because it's an intrusive format that's forced on people without any intent on their side, it's simply pops automatically. So you have to grab their attention quickly, or else they'll close the pop. Push traffic is "clicked" so there is some intent expressed so getting the interest of the user is easier. On top of that, they've been pre-sold with the push ad itself and it makes sense to follow the same message from the ad to the lander. With POPs there is no angle to carry on since it all starts withe the LP ... this is one of the differences that you need to get experience with, for example.

Network wide EPCs can be tricky, since they are calculated from a big mix of traffic. Let's say they have a big facebook guy, running cloaked campaigns and sending quality traffic, so the EPC will be high for that offer. However, it would be pretty irrelevant for you, in case you plan to throw POP traffic on it. I prefer to ask for volumes instead, if a network is doing a lot of volume with an offer, chances are that it's working for multiple affiliates and that's what tells us the offer is good. The ideal case is to have an affiliate manager who understands your traffic type and can tell you what offers work well for just that type.

What worked best for me, was to listen to the advice from AMs, but also picking offers for testing on my own. Because it's also common for good offers to simply slip through without getting much attention from affiliates.

High payout offers have complicated flows and require more action from the users, in order to get paid for such leads. The higher the payout, the harder to convert it and the harder to optimize it, since you need a lot of data. For a newbie, it's absolutely recommended to start with low payout offers.

It's important to read, but actually running a campaign will give you answers for a lot of questions you are guaranteed to have. So don't let the reading hold you back from actually testing something. You can always limit the budget so the possible loss isn't high. And you will also be able to ask much better questions when you're running something, because they will be more relevant. Regarding the old posts, in case it's about some the fundamentals, the info usually holds true, as the basics don't really change much, but you can always ask by posting in an older thread and someone will tell you if it's still relevant or not.

Cheers,
Matej.

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^ What @matuloo said.

Just have a couple of things to add:

Ah OK - if you're wanting a TASTE of each traffic type before committing to one, then you have my blessings! We mainly don't want for you to spend huge budget over a long time and give up before seeing success with any traffic type.

Also: Don't expect to see profits while you're "dabbling" in each traffic source (although if you're lucky, profits may still come - just not consistently). And don't conclude that the traffic type "doesn't work" based on results on the dabbling.

Regarding whether to judge an offer on network stats like EPC: You'd only ask this question if you're being TOO selective about which offers to test. Testing offers extensively is crucial to success in this industry. I'm not suggesting to test every single offer of course, but any offer that SEEMS promising - AM-recommended offers, offers that have good stats in spy tools, offers that have good stats on aff networks - I would suggest to just run some traffic to see how they perform.

Don't get stuck trying to analyze an offer too much before testing it. Test a bunch of offers, narrow down to the best, and THEN examine them in greater detail and how to make them convert better.

Have fun!



Amy

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