How often should you really be switching creatives? (13)
How often should you really be switching creatives?
Title speaks for itself.
Push, Native traffic, etc...
Everyone is different 
For me...
As often as I stop getting traffic.
If it stops, slows for a day or two, I’ll either start a new camp or stick a new creative or two in the mix.
Otherwise, as long as it keeps consistent traffic and conversions, I don’t bother with updating the creatives.
I keep them running as long as they work and this can be weeks or months.
Recently I started to run campaigns again that I ran more than a year ago for several months and on high volume with exactly one creative, now for the new campaigns I use exactly the same old creative and same old lander again.
When volume drops I just create a new campaign with same creative and I only change creatives when performance decreases.
"Never change a running system" 
This is for push, I don't run native so can't say anything about it.
Yup - everybody's different, and every traffic type is different too.
If you're operating in an area where you have enough experience to KNOW approximately how long new creatives will last before they burn out, you'll have a schedule for churning out new creatives.
For example, when I was running adult dating, creatives needed to be refreshed every few days. I had different batches of creatives I would rotate a few times to delay burn out, (the inevitable). But new creatives had to be made regularly.
But this "schedule" can vary for other traffic types. It also depends on the type of offers you're running, the level of competition, and the traffic volume you're running.
Once in a while I would rotate some of the previously-burnt-out creatives back in for a retest - and sometimes they'd work again for a while.
Amy
I got it. As long as it works. Regular schedule.
But would you replace the creatives the CTR drops or only when CR decreases?
And how do you know the CR decrease is not a pure result of offer performance decrease, or... COMPETITION INCREASE! (*SaMe for CTR decreases)
CR is only CR and does only tell that the offer isn´t converting as good as before anymore but it doesn´t tell why.
When the CTR stays same but CR decreases then it´s maybe the offer.
When the creative is burnt out it would probably receive lower CTR as well.
It shouldn´t have much to do wth competiton, there you would rather see a general decrease in volume that doesn´t necessarily mean that there are big changes in CTR or CR.
So again, when you just look at isolated metrics and values it´s very hard to find out what happened.
Always try to see connected metrics in relation, check which of these metrics changed and which not and then try to drill down what happened.
Maybe it doesn´t look like a big difference between performance on CPM vs CPC but both bid models work different how they deliver traffic and so the difference can be huge.
On CPM it more or less doesn´t matter if your creatives have a high or a low CTR.
There you pay amount $x.xx per impression to the trafficsource, when you have a high CTR you pay less per click, when you have a low CTR you pay more per click.
For the trafficsource this is not important because they get paid per CPM, completely independent from your creative CTR.
This means that a creative that is burnt out still receives the same number of impressions and as Matuloo explained it can happen that it still receives a healthy CTR.
Just because the CTR isn´t low it doesn´t mean it still works that good, Matuloo explained some reasons.
Another reason why the example post from Matuloo can´t be applied 1:1 on push traffic is that banners can have much higher bot % compared to push.
Now let´s check CPC bids because CPC works a bit different.
On CPC the trafficsources don´t get a flat price per 1k impressions so they send the most traffic to the creatives that make most money for the trafficsources.
These are creatives with a good ratio of bid and CTR (best = high CTR and high bid, worst = low CTR and low bid).
A creative with too low CTR will never receive much volume, no matter how high the bid.
Example:
- Your bid is $5.00 CPC and your creative CTR is 0.01%.
For each 10k impressions you would receive 1 click at $5.00 CPC so your trafficsource would make $5.00 per 10k impressions = $0.50 per 1k impressions.
- Another affiliates bid is $0.10 and his creative CTR is 1%.
For each 1k impressions he would receive 10 clicks at $0.10 CPC = $1.00 so your trafficsource would make $1.00 per 1k impressions.
On the other hand a creative with very high CTR but too low bid also won´t receive much volume when there are creatives from other people who make more money for the trafficsource.
Example:
- Your bid is $0.001 and your creative CTR is 50%
For each 1k impressions you receive 500 clicks at $0.001 = $0.50 so your trafficsource makes $0.50 from these 1k impressions.
- Another affiliate has only 2% creative CTR but bids at $0.05 CPC.
For each 1k impressions this affiliate will receive 20 clicks at $0.05 CPC = $1.00 so your trafficsource makes $1.00 from these 1k impressions.
Guess who´s getting more traffic
Anyway, on Push CPC I don´t really see the situation that volume and creative CTR stays same and only the CVR decreases.
It´s rather that CTR goes down and thus the volume also goes down.
In the end there are 3 scenarios that happen when a competitor "steals" trafficvolume from you.
1. He either runs a similar bid but has a higher creative CTR so that his eCPM for the network is higher than yours and his creatives receive more impressions.
2. He has similar creative CTR as you (maybe even running sams creatives) but he bids higher so that his eCPM for the network is higher than yours and his creatives receive more impressions.
3. he bids higher and has a higher creative CTR so that his eCPM for the network is higher than yours and his creatives receive more impressions.
In all 3 cases the competition would not first have impact on your creative CTR, mostly you first see less volume because the competitor receives more impressions to his creatives because of a higher eCPM for the trafficsource.
Then we shouldn´t forget that not all placements are equal and the bid is often also connected to the traffic quality.
In the situation above we already have a competitor who outbids us per eCPM and receives more volume.
When now the remaining volume comes from placements with lower quality then it´s good possible that the creative CTR also goes down.
These could be things like creative CTR, bid, creative CVR, available volume, received volume, LP CTR, LP CVR, offer CVR.
I can imagine that it can seem to be very complicated and then there are mostly also exceptions for basically everything but in the end it helps alot when know what metrics are connected, how to interpret changes and how to draw the right conclusions from it.
I hope I didn´t confuse you too much with the stuff, just let me know when there´s anything unclear for you.
Would also be great to hear from other beginners how they see it and if you maybe want to read more about how all these different numbers are connected and how to read them.
Damn @twinaxe that post - hat's off to ya!
Originally Posted by roiter123
Including but not limited to:
-Testing bids
-Testing new creatives
-Testing new offers
These should be done on a regular basis anyways.
Amy
Yup, when I was writing that article, basically all of my traffic has been banners using the CPM bidding model. As twinaxe explained, in that case the networks algo doesn't care about the actual CTR or the effect is minimal, while on CPC even a small change in CTR can completely mess up the delivery.
The main takeaway from my article should be this: a banner that starts to burnout doesn't have to suffer from a large drop in CTR. In some cases, the CTR will remain almost the same, but the actual CVR will start to go down on a more significant level. SO just because a banner can still pull solid CTRs it doesn't mean that it will still be able to convert well.
I've found that adding audiences can be more powerful than adding new creatives. It does depend on the offer, vertical, etc. of course. This is in travel.
I have one travel campaign where I haven't changed the creatives in over 2 years, and it still works like a charm.
Originally Posted by travelsite_io
Originally Posted by travelsite_io
In summary: It's all about how much ad fatigue has set in for a given audience.
The larger the audience, and/or the fewer impressions you're showing per day, the longer you can use the same creatives.
The smaller the audience, and/or the more impressions you're showing per day, the more frequently you'll need to switch up your creatives.
Amy
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