Home > Paid Traffic Sources > POP / PPV / Redirect

Bidding Strategy on Trafficvance (6)

08-06-2012 11:35 AM #1 interweebz (Member)
Bidding Strategy on Trafficvance

Hello all,
I've been trying to figure out Trafficvance's bidding algorithm for quite some time now and I have to say, I have no solid conclusions.

It seems that quite often when you bid on variations of a target (domain.com, domain.co, domain.c etc) and they all have the same bid price, you can have rank of 1 for one target, then rank2 for another target, and rank 3 for another target.

So it seems that TV compares the variations against each other and treats your other variations as competition.


Here's the funny (funnier?) part....

I set up two campaigns within my TV account, with the same targets in both campaigns.
One campaign has all targets bidding $0.02, and the second campaign has targets bidding $0.025.
When I look at the results, sometimes the lower bid target has a higher rank than the same target in the other campaign (which has a higher bid).

I get charged more for the target where I bid higher (this is expected) but i did not expect to pay a higher price and get a lower rank.

I spoke to Jon Vogel on the phone and he said to just bid what I can afford...so if I know that my EPC is $0.25 then to bid lower than $0.25. (Groundbreaking stuff right?)

But how do you know what to bid if you haven't got the data yet?
I understand that TV is a business and it works in their favor.
In my opinion, their bidding system sucks balls.


Has anyone here managed to figure out how TV's bidding system works?
Maybe we can assemble some of the pieces here?

08-06-2012 08:44 PM #2 zeroonedigital (Member)

+1, TV's newer bidding system is hard to figure out. I miss the old days when you could see the high bid and bid accordingly. Now even when I bid above the opening bid price I have no idea how high I have to bid in order to be in the #1 position. They always end up charging me my maximum bid price but I never seem to get #1 rank. I'm convinced the system is designed to get you to bid into oblivion so they can make more $$$$$. With that being said, I find that I don't complain about LI as much as I used to lol.

08-06-2012 11:59 PM #3 Nigel (Member)

Try to check your ranking by generating hourly targets report - that way you will know what's your rank per target on a hourly basis instead of an average ranking of your targets in last 24hours. With that said, I still prefer the previous platform, made me more money and pretty straight forward.

08-07-2012 12:49 AM #4 jroes57 (Member)

Yea its really confusing trying to figure out there new something and I have always wondered if bidding on varations is causing a bidding war within myself.

08-07-2012 04:59 AM #5 interweebz (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by Nigel View Post
Try to check your ranking by generating hourly targets report - that way you will know what's your rank per target on a hourly basis instead of an average ranking of your targets in last 24hours. With that said, I still prefer the previous platform, made me more money and pretty straight forward.
Good tip Nigel. Thanks!

08-07-2012 03:36 PM #6 paycoguy (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by liamtheterrier View Post
I'm convinced the system is designed to get you to bid into oblivion so they can make more $$$$$.
Obviously. It sure as shit doesn't do anything to help out us...despite the claim on their web site that we asked for this new BS system of theirs.

Home > Paid Traffic Sources > POP / PPV / Redirect