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Better late than never - Follow Along (9)

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I got the STM promo email about the offer since I was a member a while ago, and saw the $1 guide.

I had a lapse in STM membership since I had been focusing on SEO and was reading a lot on this forum, but without any plans or means for immediate action.

It was more the promise of getting started than the price that got me interested.

I had a bit delay because I didn't look at the forum and realizing other people also had trouble accessing the book.

I signed up at PopAds and Mobipium last Friday. Didn't get accepted at Mobipium yet, but it has been weekend.

I had another affiliate network I use for SEO projects, who also offer smartlinks.

I followed the guide, but used another dating smartlink instead, and started pops Friday night.

At work on Saturday I checked my stats - I had about 1000 uniques, and not a single click on the offer. I figured I couldn't really expect anything more with pops, as I had only spent 40 cents on traffic. But then later I got 1 click, and realized that at least theoretically, this could work. I got more clicks during the day, but no conversions on Saturday:



I let it run to Sunday. When I woke up, first thing I did was check the stats. I had 2 conversions and made $6.13, and had a positive ROI! About 120%, having spent about $2.5. I woke up quicker and were more energized than any cup of coffee could do.

I only used AU, BE and CH as those had the highest eCPM. But with 200 visits and 1 click Saturday, and 450 visits and 1 click Sunday, I cut CH. This is how it looks Sunday night:




I played a bit with the bids to get more traffic using this post: by vortex. So a bit more money were spent during the day, so ended up slightly negative overall ROI by the night:




What I learned:
- Usually, these offers pay $3.5 to $7 for me. If I were to test at 3x payout, it would get expensive, and this is why it's a good idea for beginners to test offers with lower payouts.
- I know I read why low payouts are best for learning how to do proper testing. But it seems my brain won't learn anything until I'm actually doing it, and understand it.
- This guide helped me realize that instead of spending weeks reading every post and book on a topic, it's more valuable to do something and learn. I can always take a break and gather new information if I run into a problem. That's a lot easier than building a complete mental model of how everything can be done perfectly in my mind.


I really appreciate making this book Vortex, I am very grateful, thanks

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I continued the campaign today with one conversion for my dating smartlink. I use only one geo.



I'll let that one run. Neutral ROI is free data.

I also tried sending traffic to some older 'Free AirJordan giveaway' with another network I've joined earlier for mobile installs, and targeted all geos and only Android. I got only one impression on the offer wall after a few dollars, so I stopped it, and changed it to the lowest possible bid, just to get an idea of possible traffic at that level.

I got accepted into the Mobipium program this evening. I just now sent an email to the AM asking for CPMs by geo. I'll set up the campaign tomorrow. I could start sending traffic to the approved geos tonight, but it's good to know which geos have high CPM, but also which ones have lower CPM so if this tutorial saturates PopAds you could play with the lower geos. Or maybe higher bids for PrimeSpot placements on high CPM geos.

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This is today:



I was using only one geo yesterday/today. I wanted more traffic, so I planned to double the bid, from 0.00065 to 0.00124, but the expected number of visitors was still showing up as under 1.000, and my position in the bidding queue was only raised from 32 to 26. I had been reading about scaling at work today, so I realized I needed more geos (or more traffic networks).

The dating smartlink network had geos sorted by CPMs, so in addition to BE, I added AU, AT, NZ and CH, all top of the list. I also realized that there were two CPM-ranked lists - one for mobile and one for desktop. I only used the ones for mobile. This was great because I could choose to only buy mobile pops at PopAds. I got a much larger volume and five conversions by 2 AM. It looks off at the screenshot because affiliate network and PopAds are in different timezones.



Also, I have to fire the conversion tracking link manually, by pasting 'http://serve.popads.net/cpixel.php?s2s=1&aid=NUMBERSandLETTERS&id=impressi onId&value=conversionValue' into the browser and entering the impression id and value manually. I think I have to ask the AM to activate callback for me.

It's great to see the ROI slightly positive because using a dating offer directly from a network could increase payout/ROI. But then there are quality issues with pops too, so hard to say for sure. I've also noticed all conversions, except one, have been between 17 PM and ~8 AM. If I had proper tracking set up, I might consider using the scheduling option for PopAds to only run it in the evening, but I would need more and more exact data. BE, AT and CH have similar timezones, so those would have their own campaign.


What I've learned today:
- Don't cut geos too early. I cut AU, AT, NZ and CH on Saturday because they got fewer clicks per unique visitor. I thought there was enough traffic in BE to scale up there.

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I made some mistakes in assuming there were more conversions during nighttime. It's possible that's the case, but I realized that despite little traffic and few conversions to substantiate my hunch, that because it 'made sense' that fewer people are interested in dating offers during the day, my brain discarded everything I know about statistical significance, and went straight to a conclusion based on an insignificant amount of data.

Still doing dating smartlink. Changed campaigns to non-adblock only, only residential and internet cafe connections, removed unknown and dial-up connection speeds.

Got CPM list from AM at Mobipium, and set up campaigns at PopAds. Waiting for them to get approved. Made one multi-geo campaign, and one for each of the 10 geos. Will be easier to make changes without having to copy and wait for approval.

What I learned:
- Writing in the morning is easier. I'll keep that in mind when I start making landers. Proof-reading, coming up with angles, etc, would be better done in the morning with cups of coffee.
- I need to watch out for premature decisions based on inconclusive data.

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I had my PopAds campaigns approved in the morning, and started sending traffic to Mobipium;



I got conversions much faster than with my dating smartlink experiment.

Some geos are even profitable right off the bat;



I'll send more traffic to EG and TR in separate campaigns, and start cutting placements. I've removed BR, along with EG and TR, from the multi-geo campaign, so that other countries can rack up impressions and hopefully conversions. I'm bidding low, so if traffic stays low, I'll raise the bids.

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Very nice! Love the fact that you were so eager to get started, you got another smartlink and just ran with it. You'll get far with that attitude (with AM or pretty much anything else).

You're right about the 3x payout being a lot for higher-payout offers than the ones in the $0.01-$0.10 range for the push smartlink. Usually I recommend cutting a placement at 2x payout in loss. In cases where there are a LOT of placements and/or payouts are high, and you need to stop the massive bleeding quickly, cutting at 1x payout or even 0.5x payout without conversions can be justified as well. There's no definite rule and you do what you need to do to get where you want.

Regarding waiting until you have a complete mental model before taking action: I have a tendency to do that too, and even now I'm STILL catching myself doing it sometimes and have to gently remind myself to just get SOMETHING started and THEN tweak it as I go. If you need more inspiration on that, check out some of @twinaxe 's recent threads where he talked about how to mass-test offers, and how he made money with classifieds. He didn't wait until he knew how to do the whole thing - he just kept figuring out the next step and doing the minimum required to complete it. Inspired me to no end.


Indeed!


Offers like that may work better with landing pages - this is where the 40-day tutorial comes in.


Please read this:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...um-and-Quality

Mobipium only allows the promotion of select geos now.


Sound conclusion.


Nice!

A more advanced concept than judging a geo solely based on RPM (revenue per mille - which many networks erroneously refer to as CPM): The CPM cost of each geo is also different, so BOTH the revenue AND cost per mille should be taken into consideration. A geo that has low RPM can still be profitable if the CPM is even lower than that.


Yes you do - but usually you can set conversion postback yourself via your aff network dashboard.


A tracker can help for sure. Worth pointing out is the fact that some networks only refresh their stats every so often, whereas trackers will register the conversion at the time at which the visit first occurred.

Those 3 geos may have similar timezones, but if you want to find the optimal bid for each of them, it may be better to split them up into respective campaigns.

Also - I don't know which network's dating smartlink you're testing, but I know Clickdealer has ones that convert pretty well, so feel free to give that a shot as well.


Valuable lesson. Try not to draw conclusions based on clicks, but based on spend and conversions, i.e. if spend is excessive and there are no/few conversions, then cutting something would be justified.


It's OK to not use stats all the time, but make sure you do for the more important decisions (the ones that have major impact on your camps).


Justification?


Planning ahead is good!


Again, valuable lessons.


Congratulations! Good stuff!


Sounds like a plan!



Overall: Great progress and great learning! Looking forward to following along!



Amy

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Thanks Amy!

A lot of interesting points in your post, I'll probably go over and read it several times!

Thanks, I will check it out, as it's something that I'm struggling with too.


I'm using their 10 geo smartlink


Aha.. I kept looking over the smartlink campaign and thinking that the higher bids for Austria compared to Australia would offset the higher RPM. I guess you get a feel for what geos have higher CPM after a while.


Good point! I thought about this for a while now, and what I was thinking at the time was; "People with AdBlock are more tech-savvy, so they'll won't click any offers. And if a dating offer pops up at someone's computer while they're at work, they'll probably close it fast. People only sign up for dating offers at home. Unknown connection speed sounds like an invitation for bots." I thought to make that change would give better ROI. I realize I would have no way of knowing what effect the changes would have; how would I know? Maybe I could pass those parameters to a tracker, and look at the data and see if there's any merit to the reasoning, but without a tracker, it would be impossible to know. And maybe cutting those sources would ultimately cut revenue anyway.

I also had no clear way of knowing whether or not the campaign improved from the changes or any idea of what numbers I would need to see to be convinced it was a change for the better. I'm glad I'm writing stuff down, so I can think it over the next day.


This is my Egypt campaign after blacklisting 8 websites;



And this is Turkey, just started now. I blacklisted 3 websites;



When gathering data for the single-geo campaigns, I blacklisted all the website Ids with positive ROI, so that other websites had a chance to increase their ROI. Yes - I got it wrong and thought the next step was whitelisting, not blacklisting. But the positive ROI sites had thousands of impressions, so I would probably do the same, and let more traffic flow to other sites, so some of them can turn out negative faster, and be blacklisted.


I had about 450 conversions this morning and wondered when a good time to ask the AM for a quality check would be. I didn't want to be over-eager and ask to check it after 3 dollars, and too few conversions, but figured it would be proper etiquette to ask at least before the 1000 conversion cap. So around 500 conversions I sent an email and asked how many conversions I should have before they could do a proper quality check and if they'll do it for each geo.

But I'm curious to know if there's some rule of thumb, some x times the payout is a good time to ask. I've heard 30 is a good rule of thumb for statistical significance, so if say, there's a $25 payout, that'd be $750 - a bit much? For smaller payouts, I guess before you start scaling is mandatory, and whatever makes sense before that..


I'll continue to send traffic to the smartlink tomorrow until Sunday, and check the numbers. I want to see if there's a spike on weekends. If they don't look good, or give me anything to work with, I'll pause until I get a dating offer directly from a network - just need to sign up to a few. The issue is not having enough conversions from the same website to run a whitelist campaign, and not any sites close to negative 3x the payout (most is -$0.59, with ~2.3 payout) to do any blacklisting. I also have no control over LP, offer, etc, but it served well as a confidence boost, in that I got conversions, and now have no doubt that pops can be made profitable. I also learned a lot about the targeting opportunities and layout of the PopAds.net-platform.

This is how it currently looks like (I've cut AU):


I might play around with Austria and Switzerland tho

What I've learned:
- If you make changes, you need to have specific criteria for knowing when there is an improvement. It's a bit like daytrading; never enter a trade without having an exit point. Don't just 'see how it goes'. It's also less mental work to have it ready when changing something, than it is to be checking all the time, trying to figure out if this is enough data.

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One of the Mobipium campaigns have been going good;



I paused it since I reached 1000 conversions for the push smartlink in Mobipium;



I'm waiting for confirmation of lead quality from the AM.


I have been reading up on tax rules and VAT regulations. I did SEO last year and had to incorporate to pay taxes. There's no LLC equivalent in my country, so I had to start a corporation. That leads to quite a bit of paperwork, and actually, the reason I started the '$1 journey' this late, was to finish up accounting and financial statements to send in. But I'm still having some issues figuring out the VAT rules as it relates to international transactions. Right now, I pay from my private bank account to PopAds, and the affiliate commissions would eventually end up in my business bank account. Then there's corporation tax on that, and then income tax if it's paid out to me; so even with 100% ROI, at best I'll break even. So I have to get some registrations in order before I can scale.

I was also looking into getting an accountant, but my business is currently quite small, and I reckon it would cost about USD 2500 to have someone do the accounting, taxes, and financial statements. I'd rather spend it elsewhere

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There's some misconception here on how traffic flow works: You won't get more traffic from the lower-traffic websites by pausing the higher-traffic websites.

The volume of traffic you get from a website is determined by a lot of factors, mainly 1)how much traffic the site has available in the first place, and 2)how high you're bidding, and 3)how high other competitors are bidding, and 4)how MANY competitors are bidding on the same traffic.

None of these factors involve influence from other websites (aka websiteids, placements, zone ids...).

The only exception is if you've set a budget to limit the amount of traffic you'd OTHERWISE gotten (if you hadn't set a budget). For example if your budget is $10/day and you'd have gotten $50's worth if you hadn't set a lower budget, THEN by pausing the higher-traffic placements you'd let the lower-traffic placements run for longer (because the budget would be reached later-on in the day than it otherwise would).

At any rate, blacklisting sites is not a very good solution. You'd want your profitable placements to run as long as possible for as long as they're profitable. That's the whole point of the game.

Better options would be:

-Just keep blacklisting unprofitable placements (in 2x or 3x payout in loss) to increase campaign profits.

-Blacklist both profitable and unprofitable placements in the original campaign, and start a whitelist campaign to JUST target the profitable placements (that way you can try to bid higher to see if you could get more traffic from these good placements and potentially more profits).


There's not really a rule of thumb, but typically I'd say at least >20 conversions to get a rough idea.

Wouldn't hurt to ask your AM in any case!


Agree with everything you're saying. This exercise is mainly good for a confidence boost, and to make a little bit of profit while gaining lots of experience - that can later be applied to other campaigns - the REAL money makers.


Sometimes it may be necessary to just set up something and "see how it goes". But agreement with you 100% that where possible, having SOME type of criteria would really help.


Best of luck with the accounting side of things! That is unfortunately a very necessary part of affiliate marketing. Is there a simple way to register a business online, then just open a bank account and apply for a business credit card, so you could keep everything separate? That would be a good start!



Amy

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