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Dating Smartlink Campaign (17)

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Hello!


I'm running a pop traffic campaign focused on Dating offers with the help of a smartlink from the LosPollos network. After setting my tracker, I decided to use the RichAds network and target Slovakia, as it was a tier 3 country.


I only targeted mobile devices and had no restrictions on browsers, etc., in order to collect data that will help me optimize my campaign in the future.


I had my bid set at $2 CPM, and after spending $10, I received ZERO conversions, despite the fact that LosPollos' eCPM in Slovakia is currently $52.70.

Should I put more money into the campaign to see if there will be any conversions from this traffic source? Should I change my traffic sources? I'd rather run Pop campaigns in the Adult vertical because it's an evergreen niche with good payouts. Using a smartlink (which I understand isn't the be-all and end-all) would allow me to practice targeting and optimizing my campaigns, and then I'll practice with landers in the future.


I welcome your feedback, ideas, insights, and suggestions.

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Are you using a LP?

Edit: Your best off uploading your screenshots using https://imgur.com/ The built in file uploader is a bit dodgy.

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Okay, I'll use imgur instead, and when I asked my AM if the smart links had landing pages, she says: "Hi, there are some landing pages on the rotation where our OOS (Offer Optimization System) redirects each user to a particular offer, based on user-specific characteristics (such as device, country, and more!). This process ensures the BEST performance of your traffic, and maximizes earnings for our affiliates."

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Slovakia is a tier3 country??? That did hurt a little

The eCPM you see in lospollos is an average and it's likely counted by using unique clicks of various quality levels. I'm not sure how lospollos works now, those eCPMs might even be calculated from actual clicks on the landers they rotate.

The number you see in RichAds are RAW POP impressions, which is quite different.

So do not expect to buy 1000 POPs and see a eCPM of $50+ in lospollos, the results will actually be DRASTICALY different.

The last time I have ran POP campaigns for dating offers, I was able to get a LP CTR of 1%-4% so out of 1000 POP impressions that would be 10-40 clicks. To put things into perspective, you would need a 1000 of these clicks to reach the eCPMs they show in stats.

That will be hard to make profitable with the price you are paying.

Smartlinks are great for cheap traffic and clicks that you cannot directly monetize with solo offers or you need very good landers to heat up the users so they convert better. Personally I rarely use them these days, dedicated solo offers work much better for me.

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Yeah lol, I used a site to find tier 3 countries, and Slovakia was one of them. Is that where you're from?

Hmm, so when you say RAW POP impressions, do you mean that the clicks and impressions from rich ads are the same? https://imgur.com/a/CeRo58x

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Hehe yes, that's where I live Not sure who has put us in the TIER3 category though, here is a quick picture from the center of our capital:



Not saying we are the most developed country in the world... but Tier3? I suffered some emotional damage LOL


Just to make sure I'm not talking nonsense, you are buying POP traffic, right?

I will assume that you do.

With POP traffic, there is only one delivery method, each POP opens the url you specify in the campaign and this is usually called a "visit", I used the word impression, but its pretty much the same and I see that Richads uses this word too.

The user doesn't click on anything, an extra tab opens on top, or below the actual tab that they have open... and that's it. Since there is no need to click on anything, these aren't clicks.

In the richads screen you shared, you can see that the number of impressions matches the clicks, that is because every single POP actually opens the campaign url so the user lands on it, but technically this isn't clicks at all, so the way they label those is actually not correct for the POP format.

For more info on how the POP format works, read this article please: https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...inition-1-POPS

Richads also sells push traffic and in that case, the users actually have to click the notification in order to be sent to the campaign url... so in this case, it is a CLICK indeed.

I'm just reading what I wrote, it's not super clear I'm afraid, do you understand what I had in mind?

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LOL that doesn't look like a Tier 3 country, especially with the skyscrapers. I used this site to find my targeting, but I just returned to the site and it appears that he removed Slovakia from the list, as it is no longer listed in any of the tiers. http://www.brusmedia.com/country-tier-targeting/

What a coincidence that the first super affiliate to help me comes from my target country!!

Yes it's Pop Traffic.


Yeah they used Clicks along with the impressions, that confused me. I'm like, well, if I got all these clicks, why aren't they converting????


Thank you!

Yes it makes sense to me. Since they had the clicks with the impressions they confused me, because this campaign is specifically for Pop traffic. I decided to just run this campaign at a different traffic source, where I can get some cheaper clicks and optimize from there.

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Which smartlink are you using? Their default one (called Dating) ?


I don't think their Dating eCPM figures are very accurate when using the default Dating smartlink. Select "Mainstream dating" in Opportunities / Smartlink box on the top, and you will be closer to reality. For example, SK is $52.70 on Dating, but skewed by their Casual Dating offers at $71.68 vs Mainstream at $8.10.


At least my last 6 months average matches their Mainstream figures with organic traffic. I have just asked them to enable me the Casual and will split test, so will tell you in a couple of weeks.


Two more tips:
- LosPollos smartlink takes a bit of time to get used to your traffic, so try to run the same type of traffic for each smartlink, because otherwise it will have issues optimizing.
- Don't hardcode their tracking link on your pages or campaigns, because they change the domain every 1 or 2 months.

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@jeremie

Yes, the default dating link is the only smartlink I have access to. I looked at the opportunities tab and noticed that casual dating has a different eCPM.

I'll be on the lookout, thank you!


Thank you for your advice! Instead of richads, I decided to use Plugrush for my traffic. If you don't mind me asking, what is your traffic source? For the time being, I plan to run pop ads until I master campaign optimization.

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Organic traffic, as mentioned in my previous post. A website ranked in Google generating visitors.

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Hehe yes, but to be fair, we still have some regions that are underdeveloped

On top of that, the TIERs don't necessarily have to be based solely on the living standard in any given GEO. From an affiliate/marketing point of view, the higher the TIER, the easier it is to monetize in the online world with the currently available options.

Let's take my country as an example. We're an EU member with decent median income, but the credit card usage is still rather low, people love their cash and they still hesitate to use CCs to pay online... even though pretty much everyone has some card issued by their bank. That's why the COD model is extremely popular over here.

When you compare this to the USA for example, where EVERYONE uses credit cards, Slovakia is significantly harder to monetize since credit cards are the number 1 payment option in the online world. This being said, we are definitely a lower TIER than the US.

The whole TIER system can get confusing, there isn't anything like a definitive list either. So take it with a grain of salt, pretty much just to roughly understand what the most competitive markets are and why it is the case.

To put it simply, the richer a country is and the easier it is to monetize it's citizens in the online world, the more competition it attracts and the harder it is (at least in theory) to start in there.

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Just had a quick chat with Anna from Los Pollos. She says they don't like to open all their smartlinks at once. But if you just want one or two, they can consider it.

The casual dating smartlink is PPL/PPS just as the mainstream one.

As i am just running organic on this vertical, I will let @matuloo talk about which paid traffic to choose (once he recovers from his emotional shock )

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Hehe it wasn't that bad, Iwas just joking... from the most part

BTW: @j_solo ... this case of @jeremie is a great example when using a smartlink makes complete sense.

He has an adult site with organic traffic, that is basically free and represents a mix of devices, connections and likely several GEOs... setting up dedicated solo offer campaigns for each of those segments doesn't make too much sense, as these segments tend to be small unless the traffic rises to very high numbers. So sending it all to a smartlink and letting it do it's job is a solid option.

But when buying the traffic, where you can select exactly what you want, it's better to focus on solo offers and model your funnels for them. OR you need to buy mixed traffic that is cheap.

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Don't know how to mine from this number of subscribers yet!

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Sarah hello, can you please be more specific with your question?

Is that your own list that you are trying to monetize or something else?

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Here is a better tier country list explanation

https://ppcprotect.com/blog/strategy...l-advertising/

It's not always based on how developed the country is or wealthy but also competion and language. South Korea, Japan. I think the tier-ranking is very different for adult and mainstream. Since a lot of wealthy countries are very strict with adult so they are tier3 in adult but different tier in mainstream. Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Unit Arab Emirates etc.

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This is actually a pretty good one mr_akira, thanks for sharing the link!

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