thefalcon's Wild West Follow Along Contest #2 - Icon Ads on Airpush (15)
thefalcon's Wild West Follow Along Contest #2 - Icon Ads on Airpush
Ever since Icon Ads came out a couple weeks ago, I've been itchin' to test them out. You only pay once when they install the icon on their desktop. The trick is how do you get them to click your icon again and again, and how can you convert effectively? In a sense, these are sort of dumbed-down apps. At least for me, this really is the wild wild west as I have no idea or precedent for how this will perform.
I've brainstormed ideas that mainly dealt with dating and promo. Here were some of the ideas:
- Wingman Page (pick up lines etc.) x Dating Offers
- Calendar Page (ie bikini babes) x Dating Offers
- Groupon-esque lists of deals x Promo, Rebill, Anything really
- Lotto "Game" Daily Draw x Prize Offers
- Game of the Day x Gaming Offers
There are a ton of twists and angles, but what I'm more interested in first and foremost is how "sticky" are these icon ads really. What are typical lifetime impressions per user? How hot are the leads?
I've decided to test 3 of my ideas in the promo category. Most everything else involves a little more work w/ content creation and the use of images that I don't own. So I'm keeping it very simple and using angles to prime visitors to go to prize/deal offers.
DETAILS:
Traffic: Airpush (Icon Ads)
Offer: Lots of Promo/Prize/Deal Offers
Country: US
Tracking: MobAff Tracker
Hosting: VPS+MaxCDN
LP Styles: 1) Deal Button 2) Prize Spin 3) Gift Card+
Budget: $25-$50/day
1) Deal Button - This is the daily deal angle and will resemble the example in the airpush icon ad overview sheet w/ maybe a diff color scheme.
2) Prize Spin - Users can spin (once a day) to get a prize. I will have 3 levels of prizes, and the goal is to create a user habit of remembering to do their "spin" everyday. Design should feel like wheel of fortune.
3) Gift Card+ - This will be some sort of angle that pushes only gift card offers. I will have to iron out the specifics more to make it a little more unique. Design should feel like coupons/shopping.
For each of these ideas, there is no actual functionality. I will simply have a redirector script that sends users to a certain page based on day, and I will predetermine the offers/awards for a given day. This means all users will see the same offers/awards as other users.
In the two weeks I will hope that at least one will not flop and I can split and re-test that particular angle. Who knows how many iterations I'll be able to get through. Who knows if they will work at all. We must test to find out!
Update #1
Designing LPs
Fired up photoshop and started designing the concepts for each of the LPs.
1) Deal Button - Self Explanatory
2) Prize Spin - 2 step lander. The first step is actually just set to auto-advance after a 5 seconds.
3) Gift Card Box - I changed the original idea to use a box instead. Everyone loves opening boxes.
For both the Spin and Box, I am going to add testimonials to the appropriate step. I think for the gift card I will be making it look more like a gift card by adding random numbers etc, barcode, or coupon cutout outline. The tough part will be coding the layout as I'm not too experienced yet in what size to optimize for, or how to do a fluid design properly. May take a few days to iron out the LPs and set up the offers.
NEXT:
- Lots of coding and googling LP design for mobile.
Update #2
I've learned quite a great deal about coding for mobile. Luckily it turned out to be simpler than I had previously imagined. The tough part is thinking in fluid layouts and learning what guidelines you need to design by:
- Use mobile friendly headers
- CSS gradients (awesome)
- Using width as an anchor for divs and imgs, then em to control heights and fonts (http://kyleschaeffer.com/best-practi...s-px-vs-pt-vs/)
- media calls? still learning the ins and outs of this (calling image sizes depending on device reso)
- redundant code to accommodate as many different browser requirements. example:
background: #169bd4; background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #169bd4 0%, #1480af 100%); background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,#169bd4), color-stop(100%,#1480af)); background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #169bd4 0%,#1480af 100%); background: -o-linear-gradient(top, #169bd4 0%,#1480af 100%); background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #169bd4 0%,#1480af 100%); filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#169bd4', endColorstr='#1480af',GradientType=0 ); background: linear-gradient(top, #169bd4 0%,#1480af 100%);
I've been using the offermobi preview tool: http://preview.offermobi.com. But it hasn't been entirely accurate. I have an iPhone4 and it doesn't match. Presumably because of the mobile header calls that auto scale the page.
Next Steps:
- I should be able to get everything coded fluid by the end of today and build out the unique content for each day.
- I'm not sure what the best way is to track so many different offers. The MobAff tracker dynamic payout reporting hasn't worked for me in the past, but the ideal solution is just a postback from all my offers.
Update #3
I got everything coded and loaded up into Airpush. Everything should be approved shortly and we will get the ball rollin!
I basically used php to pull the current date, and set up a file structure where each new day is a different php file with different offers in them. So there are two examples where I am using it to set up the link. In the latter, it's an php redirect:
Setting it up is extremely easy in Airpush. The only thing I'm confused about is how do people agree to put it on their phones? I was expecting to have to write text ads, but it's simply upload the icon image and name...
Next Steps:
I have really no idea what to expect, but once we get some data we can figure out what to do next! Anyone else running icon ads and have any insight???
Update #4
These are the offers I'm using for the deal button. both spin and box have only 1 offer a day and i picked one out from each list everyday to test for those.
Update #5
I ended up just spending a small amount on a burst of traffic just to get a feel for what i'm dealing with. I'm still not clear on how AP delivers the icon to someones desktop. What I'm really curious about is how many people will click the next day? The day after?
Here is the data. It seems like they are forcing an install? and then the user may or may not decide to click on it or keep it. There seems to be an exponential curve in the drop of users. Initially people are curious but then only the user really sold on the idea stick around.
I had 2 conversions for the spin button on the first day, and then a conversion 2 days later when someone revisited. These were just mobile optimized email submits.
I feel like there is a lot to test and optimize and I've only grazed the surface. I do believe the most critical factor is revisits to the icon. After that, optimizing the offers. I'd like to come up with an angle that incorporates higher EPC offers (dating, or pin subs) and see how that works. I think a "babe of the day" calendar-esque type of icon might work well with a lead-in into various hook up/dating offers.
Total Spend: $49.32
Total Rev: $3.90
It's clear that something about the spinning really primes the user for winning a prize, even though it is really just a static image. I could easily just turn it into a gif to make the wheel actually spin. My clear next steps would be to:
- test some variations of the spin concept
- try to vet out different types of promo offers, namely pin submits
- up the adspend for more significant data
Overall this was a great experience to really move outside of my comfort zone and test some crazy ideas. While I wish I had more time for testing, I did learn a great deal about coding LPs for mobile. This has already had a direct impact on my other mainstream mobile campaigns. It's clear to me there is still some potential in the idea. There is certainly a good deal of traffic available. The key is to get a sweet angle that keeps users comin back and to have an offer integrated into that experience.
This contest is so fucking exciting.
I was about to launch my own follow along but let's be realistic, I have no chance lol.
Good luck sir 
sick landers man
Love the gift box idea. Bet it wins!
Finally got everything up and running. The coding took a lot longer than I expected and organizing all of the offers was a pain in the ass too. I'm having doubts as to if this will amount to anything, but I'm just so damn curious about how icon ads do in general. Anyone else doing icon ads that can chime in with their general experience?
Whatever you do, make sure you test just the general traffic with this. It's worth a shot on mainstream channels.
Keep us updated, this is a wonderfull follow allong
I've seen them perform similar to regular push traffic the only downside is in my experience it's taken up to 2-3 days to get most of the clicks/conversions from the installs.
Great stuff. Thanks for the share. Has anyone found icon ads anywhere besides Airpush?
Wow! KICKASS landers! Thread subscribed! Gonna try some icon ads right away.
Awesome ideas man, love your angles and landers. Anxious to see how well it does for you.
After the first week of testing, I tabled this campaign. Even though the pages are dead I still get a couple clicks every day to the spin and box camps from the icons. Off a measly $16 spend per icon, i think its not bad to have that much trickle for that long of time.
The main problem was conversions. I think my concept was on the right track but i didn't have a solid revenue model.
If I was going to start up icons again I would test the dating vertical:
- broad so your ctrs will be good enough to get decent cpcs while still maintaining relevancy
- lots of angles, daily calendar babe, random pickup line generator
- lots of offers to split into it. if youre doing a daily babe, or even if the angle is something like cats, you can pitch the wallpaper offers (thumbplay). dating offers are pretty straightforward here too (not for cats though).
Airpush does not allow dating though...
Originally Posted by nissangtr
Home > Mobile > Follow-along Campaigns