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TheOptimizer.io from a FREE Subscription Winner's Perspective (4)

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I am the recipient of a free 6 month subscription to TheOptimizer.io as a prize for winning the (randomly selected) $1 Guide to Your First Conversions contest here on STM. I wrote a thread about using Voluum tracker in addition to the methods laid out in the Guide: Setting up Push Smartlink Campaign in Voluum.

I heard about TheOptimizer.io in a blog article from AdPlexity I received as an eMail blast [CASE STUDY] $60K Profit on Native Ads Using AdPlexity. (Vortex schooled me on the fact that the AdPlexity blog article spawned from a thread here on STM.) From the article I understood TheOptimizer.io was a tool with which you can set up and execute rules to govern your campaigns automatically. So I am super jazzed to have won a subscription. Rules sound really good to me.

Reading the "Knowledge Base," I was happy to find the "Ready to Use Rules Examples" page -- a handful of rules designed for those of us who are "having difficulties deciding what rules conditions to implement in our campaigns." ~ I decided immediately I'm going to use the ready-to-use rules.

I set up TheOptimizer.io the day after Vortex sent me my invite and logins.

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The Set Up

Set Up is designed really simple and straight forward. The tool's Account Wizard page is clean and simple - 3 Steps: 1.)Traffic Source Setup; 2.)Tracker Setup; 3.) Connect & Finish.

Click "Add New" traffic Source and fill out the menu. Currently TheOptimizer.io-Mobile has functionality to work with 10 Mobile Traffic Sources. In order to use this tool you need to be running traffic through those sources.

I had problems with Step 1.

I could not for the life of me get PopAds setup as a traffic source. Seemed simple enough. There is a step involved with PopAds set up where you need to change a security setting inside your PopAds account settings -- and I did that -- and I was still not able to "Save Traffic Source." I kept getting an error message.

After a number of unsuccessful attempts -- going back to PopAds account settings and checking one more time -- I moved on to set up PropellerAds as a traffic source. Same thing -- another error message. And PropellerAds connection doesn't even require any account settings changes inside their dashboard. This told me it probably wasn't user error.

Support replied the next day asking if I had followed the necessary steps for PropllerAds and PopAds as described in their docs??? (...I did). They also let me know for PopAds you need to change some permissions in order to allow access from all IPs (...also did THAT). And they asked me to send them a screenshot of the "Bad Request. Settings is not allowed" error message.

I log in to recreate the PopAds set up and (of course) it all works just fine. Set up goes like a wiz. I feel like a liar. I write back to Ervin with my apologies for looking like a newb.

The remainder of the setup -- Tracker Setup and Connect & Finish goes off without a hitch. Now I'm in. Almost.

Knowledge Base FAQ page mentions a 15 minute propagation wait but it was a few hours for me. I'm not sure how many because I got up and did something else. When I came back all my existing campaigns in both traffic sources were loaded.

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Laying down THE RULES

My naiveté conjured the notion there'd be an auto click-n-drag of the "Ready-To-Use-Rules." I made that up in my head. You do need to set up the rules yourself. It's not hard to figure out. I went back and forth between the Ready-To-Use-Rules Example page in the Knowledge Base and the Rules page in theOptimizer.io dashboard and set the conditions as specified. There are even example rules for use with Direct-Linked Offers.

Here's the Add A New Rule Menu -- You can create up to 5 logical conditions (Less than, Equal and Greater than) for a specific rule based on:

• Clicks on Traffic Source
• Spent on Traffic Source
• Clicks on Tracker
• Conversions
• Landing Page Clicks
• Landing Page CTR
• Revenue
• Profit
• ROI

There's also rules used to block money-sucking placements marked as bots. I'm not sure if this can be used in place of Caurmen's bot testing instructions. I'd love to hear an Admin or experienced marketer's opinion on this. I'm on Voluum Tracker's entry plan, so I don't have access to Voluum's "Honeypot" -- their tool designed to lure bots into clicking fake links and count traffic they generate. I'm curious how setting Bot Rules in TheOptimizer.io compares to Voluum's Honeypot tool. (If anyone cares to surmise...)




First Campaign Test -- Direct-Link Campaign

Lesson 1 Learned: Get the campaign all set up and ready to go in the traffic source and then press start in theOptimizer.io dash.
Lesson 2 Learned: Set daily budget high enough for rules to execute before campaign runs out of funds.

I ran a Direct Link Smartlink campaign just to set the whole thing in motion. I set a $3 budget daily budget. I started the campaign from the PopAds dashboard. I should have started it from theOptimizer.io dashboard, because the campaign's status did not change from "paused" to "running" in theOptimizer.io campaign dashboard.

The campaign ran and then ran out of funds and the status remained paused until the next day when it showed out of funds. The direct link optimization rules never executed because my campaign ran out of funds before they had a chance to execute. I had the rules set up to execute every 20 mins.

Stats Interval can be set to Today, Yesterday, Last 3 days, Last 7 days, Last 14 days and Last 30 days. Execution Frequency can be set to every 10 mins, 20 mins, 30 mins, 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 12 hours, daily and weekly.



(additions 7/17/19)

2nd Test Campaign - Propeller Ads Popunder w/ Lander

Lesson 3 Learned: Only include "Traffic Source Clicks" condition in your rules if (in fact) traffic source clicks are being tracked in your setup. If not, change rules to include "Tracker Clicks" instead.

This test is a Mobile Sweeps Campaign in 1 GEO using 1 landing page and 3 offers. I started it with a Daily Budget of $50 and a Total Budget of $50. I set it all up in Propeller Ads and once it got approved, I paused it in their dashboard and started it again from theOptimizer.io dashboard.

My bot finder and poor performer rules failed to execute because their conditions were not recognized. My testing budget rule did execute and paused my campaign after spending $22.

Some of the ready-to-use rules use "Traffic Source Clicks" as conditions and I needed to change those rules to use "Tracker Clicks" because my traffic source clicks aren't being tracked. So far I've not successfully gotten "clicks" to show up when looking at my data in Propeller Ads dashboard -- nothing to do with theOptimizer.io. It's probably because something to do with my postback URL setup.

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Wow, you really took the time to write an excellent post! It will be very interesting to watch someone with no experience with the product, setting it all up and getting it running. Really looking forward to how far you can get with this great tool

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Great job @anitaway
Really useful to have these kind of reviews from a user perspective.

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Wow @anitaway! This is the perfect intro post on how to use this tool. I'm adding this to our next newsletter!

Thank you for all your contributions lately! You're on FIRE!



Amy

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using STM Forums mobile app

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