Does optimizer mobile cut placements correctly? (9)
Hello everyone
I have been using optimizer to cut placements (block publishers), however I am having some significant problems
In some cases, optimizer cuts placements which should not be cut, and in other cases, optimizer forgets to cut placements which should be cut.
The optimizer rules which I am working on are currently in this format:
IF landing page clicks are less than or equal to x number of clicks, AND tracker profit is less than or equal to $amount, THEN block publisher
I have multiple of these rules starting at low clicks and small negative tracker profit (as shown in the screenshot), to more clicks and more negative tracker profit.
these rules are set to execute every 10 minutes
So I will give some examples of where in my opinion optimizer did not follow these rules
here are 3 placements. The top one as you can see is tracker profit -0.93, and LP clicks 1. My rule is shown below, if landing page clicks are 1 and tracker profit is less than -.21, block publisher…
so why was this publisher allowed to get to -.93 instead of being cut at -.21 profit? OK well its possible that all that spend happened within 10 minutes so optimizer didnt have time to cut the placement until 93 cent spend potentially
So lets move on to the second placement from the screenshot above. Here we see 10 clicks and tracker profit -0.85
My rule for 10 clicks is shown below:
So here, this placement should not have been cut, because its profit is -.85 and it should be allowed to spend until its profit is -1.11, yet for some reason, this placement was cut.
When I go into the “system activity” section in optimizer, and I search for that placement, here is what I see:
So this here says that the placement was paused after 0 clicks and -.15 profit… but if that is the case how was it allowed to spend -.85 and get 10 clicks? Does this make any sense?
One final example:
Here is a placement where tracker profit is -.27, and landing page clicks are 1. As shown above, this placement should be cut at -.21 tracker profit, yet when I searched for this placement in “system activity” there is no activity, meaning it was allowed to continue running, so i had to cut this placement myself
So in summary: it seems like optimizer is not following my rules, sometimes it cuts way too slowly and allows a lot more spend than it should. Sometimes it cuts placements when the rules have not even been met, and other times it does not cut the placement when it should have
I messaged optimizer support about this and they gave a pretty generic answer that seemed like a copy paste answer and didn't solve the problem
Anyone have any ideas?
Are there competing software which can do a similar or better job?
thanks
@soyboy I’m really sorry to see that you are facing possible issues with our service.
I’m not sure if you have already submitted a ticket on our support portal about the above issue. If not please do so, we’d be glad to go over the details on why rules may not execute as expected.
Also, based on your screenshots I am noticing that you are comparing TheOptimizer stats, directly with those on your tracker.
The problem with comparing stats this way, is that the tracker is getting traffic cost based on tokens, while TheOptimizer via the api of your traffic source account. So basically on your tracker you are seeing a close estimation of the cost on the publisher level, but not the real one.
As you may have noticed the cost received via tracking tokens, may vary a lot from the actual cost on the traffic source.
With that in mind, it could happen that even if a publisher may seem to have reached the spending limit on your tracker, it may still have not reached the real spend as reported by the traffic source. In which case, the conditions won’t be tru for the rule to execute, so it gets rechecked the next 10minutes based ok your rule execution settings.
Another thing I wanted to emphasize, is the time zone based on which you are comparing stats. In order to properly compare them, the tracker reporting settings should be at the same time zone your traffic source is set with at the same time this time zone should be correctly set on your traffic source configuration in TheOptimizer.
Again, I would like to go over your details together through our support to make sure everything is correctly set and you get the service you need.
It's a case of garbage in garbage out I guess.
Most TS and Trackers don't have very good APIs (some do, many don't), and they don't give you real click data (just aggregated stats). So you're comparing 2 aggregated data sets at their respective time zones.
What would be really great -- but something that will never happen -- would be if you could get raw click logs with clickID from both the tracker and the TS. A self hosted tracker like
Then you (or a software like Theoptimizer) could aggregate this in any dimension you want. Then you could drill down the real cost on any parameter in your tracker, without this parameter being available in your TS, and you could actually get some interesting data.
That being said -- Theoptimizer is IMO the best of its kind. There's been others around, but none as good in terms of UX and stability.
Originally Posted by platinum
yes I submitted a ticket and received what I think was a copy paste reply about how "AND" rules work, which was not helpful I think.
I can submit another if it would work better this time, I can mention you in the ticket.
About your second point, I had initially had the rules set up in the format of:
traffic source spent is greater than or equal to $ AND clicks are less than x,
however, now I am using tracker profit in the rules, rather than traffic source spend, so I thought it would be getting the spend data from the tracker rather than from the traffic source API, please correct me if I am wrong
thats a great tip about the time zone thing. I had a suspicion there was some kind of delay going on so hopefully that is the main issue and matching the time zone will improve things
Originally Posted by soyboy
Also, it looks like you’ve misunderstood the Tracker Profit metric. This metric is calculated like this: [Tracker Revenue] - [Traffic Source Spent] = [Tracker Profit]
As you might imagine, many affiliates don’t even bother passing cost using tokens as it will never be accurate.
Originally Posted by platinum
You were right that my timezones were not synced between everything
Since then I have changed all 3 to be the same timezone, but I am still getting some issues.
I opened another support ticket as you said, thanks for your help
And it´s really good that they do so because that´s the only way to get real stats.
Only the trafficsource itself can tell how much you spent, the tracker only shows cost for the traffic that arrived the tracker.
Trafficloss is not shown in the tracker.
That´s why there can be discrepancies between the tracker stats in tracker and "tracker profit" in Optimizer.
I seem to have a similar problem myself, zones almost seem like they getting cut out randomly.
Already reached out on Skype so waiting for an answer.
Originally Posted by roiter123
Apparently the issue seems to be in the rule conditions. When creating traffic source revenue or traffic source roi based rules, the respective information should be available on the traffic source as well. In which case, propeller in their interface reports revenue and roi only on the campaign level, not on the zone level.
Our devs are rechecking if zone level revenue and roi is reported in their API, however when working with such conditions, tracker side revenue, roi and net profit are more accurate.
TR ROI – Indicates the current return on investment based on the spent pulled from the traffic source and revenue pulled from the tracker.
TR NET – Indicates the current net profit based on the traffic source spent and tracker revenue.
Also, if you'd need any assistance while setting up rules, you can always ping us on skype or through our support email.
Thanks
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