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Switching from CPC to CPM (13)

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Hi guys,

It's my first thread on the forum so hello everybody!

I know that topic sounds like a more general question but I run my campaigns on Push traffic so maybe it's kind of different on Push than for example on native. Anyway.

I heard many opinions that is good change your campaign from CPC to CPM later to get more volume, cheaper clicks etc. I tried it a few times but never with luck.

Let me show you my way of running campaigns (in short of course, I will skip choosing offer, landers etc):

I start campaign with CPC with 3-5 creatives. 2 of them are profitable, I turn off the rest. I remove 2-5 bad placements and I have profitable campaign with +20% ROI.

Then, when I move it to CPM it doesn't work at all. CTR is way worse, conversion disappears (even on placements where worked on CPC campaign).

That's why I wanted to ask more experienced users how to switch from CPC to CPM?

Of course I don't mean step by step but at least some clues. Maybe my creatives were too bad to CPM model and they work only on CPC, or CPM rate should be higher/lower. Or my blacklist should be bigger?

I'd be so grateful for any advices/tips/comments.

Thanks!
Dawid

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It's all about how the algo of a specific network works. Basically, the network wants to make the most $ they can and they don't really care whether it's on CPM or CPC bid.

Let's say that they get an average CTR of 1% in a spot that you are bidding on and it decreases with every push message that they send to a user. So the first message get's 1%, the second one get's 0.5% and the third one get's 0.3%. That means that for every 1000 users, the first message generates 10 clicks, the second one 5 clicks and the 3rd one just 3 clicks.

With CPM, you pay the same for all the impressions, no matter whether it's the 1st, 2nd or 3rd message. So they make the same amount. But with CPC, they can earn more from the 1st message than from the 3rd, simply because there are more clicks to sell.

So what happens when you go from CPC to CPM with a low bid, is that you are getting traffic from the later messages, which usually produces lower quality traffic and the CVR is lower too. And that's what you are describing.

In order to get the good clicks, you need to bid higher. And that often results in expensive clicks.

This means that with networks where the algo works this way, going CPM won't really give you cheaper clicks, but it can secure higher volumes for you and it also makes testing of creatives easier as the algo doesn't try to push the ad with the highest CTR, but should rotate them evenly.

Not all algos are this good though, in some cases it really can work in your favor in terms of the final CPC, you need to test it with every network.

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Thanks a lot for explanation matuloo. I read your post where you write more about CPC and CPM models but still had problems with it.

I will bid higher and see if that changes something. I have quite good campaign but spendings are like $10 / day which is pointless (and potential clicks according to Propeller are 12k which is quite fine I think).

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I'm not sure it's a good switch from CPC to CPM. It's not gonna really effect your amount of clicks, your'e just gonna pay more for your clicks. it's gonna suck your entire budget and you might pay like 1000$ for 100 clicks since you bought it on CPM. Think about the consequnces in general when your'e making a switch like this

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So basically you don't think CPM is good model for Push traffic?

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One problem I noticed with CPC on PropellerAds that it has a daily limit of impressions, different for various countries. And with CPM at least there's none. Sometimes I start with CPC and if I need more data I use CPM. Although then the same users that already got my message in the CPC campaign may get it again.

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Exactly, i think it's the not the precise way of looking at push traffic. When this whole thing started, CTR% was in the 3%-5%. The market was extremely fresh, so CPM had still had some sort of legitimacy. But, CTR% today after almost a year and half is quite lower in comparison. The market has a type of saturation so if let's say your creative isn't performing well you might pay like a 100$ on 20 clicks. So the way the push notification market is behaving, CPC has far more logic in today's market the way i see it. But that's only one perspective. We had CPM, but we always thrived to have solutions for our advertisers that made sense for us and for them, and that's CPC in push traffic.

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How do you handle the ad rotation am2015? CPC model is fine, but I don't like how it pretty much always prefers ads with higher CTRs, which is logical of course. But it makes the ad testing more complicated as the low CTR ads rarely get the same amount of traffic. And we all know that lower CTR ads can often convert way better than the high CTR ones. That's why i personally prefer to work with the CPM model in the first place.

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Yep, that's exactly what I noticed too. I remember my first campaigns a few months ago when even on "All targeting" I had CTR like 0.8% - 1%. These days sometimes even on High targeting I don't have 1% CTR (of course only on the beginning stage of optimization).

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CPM used to work very well with some sources earlier this year.

Once you were able to get super high CTR you definitely got cheap clicks.

However over the year the ad CTRs went quite down on many sources and therefore the math in favor of CPM is not as good as it used to be.

+ fresh user in DB is not fresh user anymore as he might be in many other DBs (and saw all those ads) before as he is resold here and there.

Things change a lot.

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I think CPM is just good for a specific type of ads. CPC as you said has a preference for higher CTR% to receive traffic but in the end it just forces you to improve the creative you got. And in the end if the CTR% is lower this doesn't mean your'e not gonna get traffic coming your way. CPC is simply an extra step in the way you look at creatives. I'm just saying that in today's market with CPM even the most experienced affiliate might pay a lot of money for traffic and like 20 clicks. That's a possibility. Some offer are very niche oriented, so it's relevant for like less then 1% of the population so you need to get it out there to as much people as possible. And you might lose money for so little clicks.

But it is relevant for a few offers, It's not my personal preference to be honest since this community has super affiliates and less experienced affiliates, so i would recommend maybe to try campaigns on CPC and once you feel you need more traffic or you sense a slow down and you got full confidence in your campaign move to CPM. Just be carefull with this

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And in most cases it's not even your fault, You might buy only old users, meaning saturated users. Or the market is just saturated, You never know. The CTR% standards have changed and we all have to accommodate ourselfs to this new ecosystem that the only constant we got is that nothing stays the same for long. You might strike gold but to keep it like that you need to work and always be on your toes

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Yup, this is solid advice. Starting on CPC is definitely safer and a much better option for new affiliates, I can only agree with that.

When I start with a source that offers CPC, I definitely test it, always, but CPM remains my favorite way of bidding still.

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