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First time running a campaign with Natives, Hoping to learn and improve :) (19)

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Hello Everyone,

Firstly I just want to say how amazing this forum has been and how much it has helped me learn and get to this stage. I also think anyone who wants to get into Natives should invest in the Native ads masterclass and a STM membership, great content and value

My first campaign in Natives has just gone live and I am very excited to say the least, I am hoping with this follow along to learn and gather a lot of data for use on future campaigns. I hope this thread will help people learn from my mistakes and success and I am looking forward to diving right in and sharing the journey with you.

So without further a do let's jump straight in

A quick mention of the tools I am using currently to help me run this Campaign:

Tracker: Voluum

It was a really hard choice between Voluum and Funnel Flux but I came down on the side of Voluum as they are regarded as industry standard and I have heard amazing things about the software. From what I have seen I can definitely see why. I have to say the documentation as well as the support and on boarding has been fantastic, the User Interface is easy to use and it also integrates fantastically with the other tools I am using.

Landing Page hosting: Landerbolt

Not a tool I have seen to many people recommend but from coming from a non technical background, all I can say is that it makes life so much easier, you can upload ripped landers and it will remove all Javascript and redirects and insert your links in place, it has loads of templates and I think it could make a lot of newbies lives easier. It also integrates directly into adplexity.

The Optimizer:

I think this tool will make things a lot easier in the long run, I have set up some rules taken from this amazing thread: https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...26%23129297%3B
The support has also been great and it is now fully integrated and good to go. If any one has any tips about the Optimizer or rules that they love to run, please do let me know as it would be much appreciated.

Spy tool: Adplexity

Really awesome tool, is really easy to use and I already feel like I am getting the hang of it. It helps find the offers and I can only imagine how difficult life would be before it.


Onto the offer, Traffic Network and my approach:

The offer I have chosen is a Nutra type offer running in a Tier 2 Geo and I have confirmed from spying that is has been running with lots of hits in that geo for longer than 14 days continuously. It looks like a strong performing offer with a payout of $7.5, I have also confirmed that people have been running it profitably form the traffic source I will be using MGID. My rep at MGID has been great and he has helped me set up my campaign and recommended a good CPC to get started with, which for this GEO is $0.1 so really cheap clicks and a good chance to get profitable hopefully.

I have set the daily budget to $50 to get started, what is everyone's thought on this, too high? too low? In terms of creatives, I have 8 ads running with 4 images and 4 headlines mixed up, with 2 landers on rotation (both ripped). 3 of the images are ripped, one of my own, using the great tip I got from Ralphs talk at AW by using a smart phone for low quality images, I also ripped 3 of the headlines with one of my own.

We have just started running traffic so I will update this thread tomorrow with progress and some numbers on how things have progressed.

A couple of questions if that is okay. First on the set of rules we are running in the optimizer:

Block super high LP CTR publishers and add to bot list
Running
Block Widgets/Publishers
Spent > $2 & LP CTR > 85% & Tracker Conversions < 1


Time period: Last 7 Days
Rune Rule: Every 10 Minutes




Increase daily budget
Running
Change Campaign Budget
Tracker ROI > -30%


Time period: Today
Run Rule: Every 10 Minutes




Block site on low LP CTR
Running
Block Widgets/Publishers
Spent > $5 & LP CTR < 6% & Tracker Conversions < 1


Time Period: Last 7 Days
Run Rule: Every 10 Minutes




Block Site if tracker net < - $15
Running
Block Widgets/Publishers
Tracker NET < $-15


Time Period: Last 7 Days
Run Rule: Every 10 Minutes




Pause Campaign Net < -$30
Running
Pause Campaign
Tracker NET <= $-30


Time Period: Today
Run rule: Every 10 Minutes


What are you thoughts on the above rules? Should anything be changed/added?

And on Voluum we have the campaign URL which it says to give to the traffic source for approval, it is a really long tracking link and I just want check that it is not showing up under our ads when they are served on sites?

I have also collated a list of Widget ID's and Publishers that other people are running heavily on via Adplexity, do you think it would be worth running a whitelist campaign while this one is running to compare results?

Super excited to hear everyones thoughts and looking forward to learning and improving.

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Hey! We run a similar setup on MGID except its tier1 nutra. Also used landerbolt, adplexity.

$50/day is MGID's daily minimum...IMO good volume of traffic at a speed that you can optimize.


We use theoptimizer.io but not with MGID.

Most of my campaigns that end up being profitable will run negatively at the start. If its a $7.50 offer, I would need to "lose" a few hundred dollars at least to see if the campaign has any potential. Then probably more money while optimizing

I suggest that you pay attention to the # of your lp-clicks (clicks that went from your lander to your offer). These are a very good tool to use when optimizing placements, ads, landing pages, etc. The # of lp-clicks is strongly related to your sales #.
You get a lot more lp-click data than sales data - so you can optimize your funnel a lot faster and waste less money running your campaigns when they are running at a loss.

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Hi,

Just an update that we had 3 conversions over the night so the rule to up the budget has kicked in, we are still not getting many clicks though, only 296 clicks in total with 3 conversions, should I up the CPC to get more traffic? its sitting at 0.1c just now so very v=cheap

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Thank you very much for your detailed reply, I have built a Whitelist from spying on other placements through adplexity, do you think it would be good to run that campaign parallel to this one, to compare data?

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We Have a CTR from Lander to offer currently of 19%,, what is a good % to aim for and what % should we cut and replace a lander at?

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19% is decent for an advertorial, but it's largely going to depend on the quality of traffic you're working with and your targeting. Highest CTR landers (eg 40-60%) are typically super short pre-sell or pre-VSL pages with 1 paragraph, image and CTA button, but I've also had regular advertorials reach that on high quality traffic.

So it's hard to give a general answer unless someone is running the same type of thing. Once you've tested a few more landers and run a few more campaigns on that source you'll have first hand data telling you what you should shoot for.

But I wouldn't setup rules to cut LPs based on CTR unless you're doing a ton of spend. Just let things run in the beginning. So often the 'different' pages people rip from spy tools are practically the same thing, same angle, with minor changes, and they jump to conclusions too soon.

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The Dude gave an excellent answer above. I would piggyback on his and say that:

1) LP ctr doesn't matter at all- only conversion rate does: epc vs cpc. However the reason people block based on lp ctr is to be able to do so more quickly and inexpensively than only based on conversion rate. This is common sense but just throwing it out there. For example, you'd rather have a site with a 1% conversion rate and a 10% lp ctr than one with a 0.5% conversion rate and a 30% lp ctr. This is common sense but just writing it out for thoroughness.

2) It also really depends on what it is you are doing. If you are running on a whitelist of known good sites, or exploring on Outbrain or Taboola where the traffic is really good, I would be hesitent to block based on lp ctr very much. If you're running on Revcontent or MGID AND you're doing a blacklist campaign AND everything is brand new and you have no pre-loaded blacklist already, I would block based on lp ctr more aggressively, just to get the 'bad apples' out of there.

These are generally really bad sites where there are lots of accidental clicks, 'bot traffic' (whether or not its bots or just other issues), etc, where you quickly get 200 clicks with only 3 landing page clicks. These sites can eat up your budget quickly and- in my experience on Revcontent and MGID at least- rarely end up being good.

On the other hand, on Outbrain and Taboola there are definitely sites that have low lp ctr but still have high conversion rate. I would *guess* that these are sites where there are an above average number of 'accidental clicks' but where the qualify of the user is still so high that the conversion rate is really good anyway.

Basically it's just a question of priorities. If you block based on lp ctr (say on every widget that gets 10 clicks without a single click to the offer) you will probably block some sites that would actually have ended up being good. On the other hand if you don't do something like that and just block based on conversion rate (every site that spends 30$ without a conversion, for instance), you will spend more money, but be less likely to lose out on a 'good' site.

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Many thanks for all the tips above, really helpful, this forum rocks!!! Yesterday we had 3 more conversions so sitting at around break even now with little/no optimisation. I am having an issue though, although the conversions are recording in Voluum they are not recording in my MGID dashboard, can someone please help and confirm the postback URL that I should be using and how to set it up properly in Voluum/MGID as right now I can't see which image led to the conversions etc so driving pretty blind

Edit: Figured it out and can see conversions now in Voluum.

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We had a couple more conversions with no optimisation yesterday so I think this offer has legs at this stage if I am honest. We still don't have enough data to start blocking widgets as we are not getting enough clicks at present. Our ad click through rate is really low hovering around 0.063 so we are not getting enough data to make decisions at this point, so I am going to change up the ad's and the headlines to see if that improves things, if we can improve the Ad CTR to landing page I think their is a real chance of making this profitable. I am also thinking of testing another lander, let me know what you think of that? Our whitelist campaign went live yesterday as well but I think the CPC was too low to get enough clicks. Would you guys recommend adding new ad-sets or rotating out underperforming ones? currently we haver 8 running.

Here are the numbers from Yesterday :




Let me know what you think every piece of feedback you give is really helpful do you agree with me that the offer is probably a good one?

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Yes. The offer looks like it has some legs to work with. It'd be good if you can add another offer or 2 and split test

IMO 8 ads running is a bit too much and would take a while to make determinations. 3-5 running at a time to start with is ideal imo. If you have one or two that are outperforming the rest then you can cut down to run those only. Also, yes, look at your stats and see which one is performing best and make new ads that incorporate winning aspects of your top ads

Definitely add another LP or two if you can. You should split test these so they run concurrently. Ideally the landers will be very different from each other. You want to seek out big differences in performance rather than minor ones at this stage.

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Thank you so much for the advice I have in added another lander on rotation now, It is a different style to the other two so I am excited to see what data it throws up.

When you talk about testing another offer by split testing, do you mean creating a new funnel with different ads and LP's relating to the offer or just rotate another offer with the same funnel and have it be completely unrelated to the LP's?

Thanks again for all your help

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Hopefully you can find a similar offer that would work for your current creatives+lp+geo+device. Then split the traffic 50/50 between the 2 offers and evaluate their performance

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I'd piggyback on what my fellow Jack is saying I almost always split-test offers. Usually it's easy if it's a vsl as there's normally other vsl's in the same vertical, and same thing with lead-gen offers like refi, life insurance, etc.

Sometimes I'll use the same landing page and just rotate from it to the various offers, and sometimes I'll create separate landing pages for each offer to boost congruency, etc. Sometimes I'll even run moderately different offers using the same ads, since the ads are the most ambiguous. So you could have something like "Seniors Love This New Gadget" as the ad copy, with a somewhat ambiguous/curiosity-inspiring image, and then rotate between two different ecom products, each with their own lp.

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Please stop saying Natives.

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Lol I think OP's use actually sounds logical- unlike Facebook or Youtube or GDN, there's a variety of native networks and types of native ads, so the plural use of the word seems reflective of that...

Then again one wouldn't say "Push's", so you could make a case either way

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Thanks for sharing your journey with us @uxking
Nice to know LanderBolt is one of the tools that serves you on your way

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Hi Everyone,

Just an update that over the past couple of days we have been getting lots of visits/clicks but not many conversions. I have started to block underperforming widgets and have changed some of the images/headlines with low clickthrough rate's.

I have also found two pieces of code on our landing page that we ripped, do you think this is a redirect script that is taking clicks away within the HTML file? I use Landerbolt which they said remove all Javascript but it looks a bit out of place, let me know your thoughts and if you think it is obfuscated Javascript:

.minute::after {
position: absolute;
content: "РїС—Р…РїС—Р…РїС—Р…РїС—Р…РїС—Р…";
bottom: -10px;
font-size: 12px;
display: block;
width: 100%;
color: white;
}

.second::after {
position: absolute;
content: "РїС—Р…РїС—Р…РїС—Р…РїС—Р…РїС—Р…РїС—Р…";
bottom: -10px;
font-size: 12px;
display: block;
width: 100%;
color: white;


I also checked our advert on adplexity and it seems that there are other URL's in the landing page URL section.

Your help would be amazing on this one,

Thank you

edit: it is also in the CSS file

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Lol that's super weird. I've never seen those kinds of hieroglyphics before. Prob some encrypted stuff. You could try pasting it into free decrypting tools online (just google for them).

But even easier...

I would delete that code... refresh, see if breaks the page. If not, you're good brother!

If it does break the page, then just figure out what changed.

This is just CSS code which isn't super important to the function of the page... it's just what makes the HTML pretty. Kill it.

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Was probably just font based icons that got improperly encoded at some point with ripping.

But it's still just page styling, not javacsript so there's nothing to fret about.

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