Pushing To Positive ROI on PPC: 1 New Campaign Everyday (26)
Rules
- All traffic comes from Bing Ads (formerly AdCenter)
- Offer must have payout under $10 for sufficient testing
- 1 new campaign will be created everyday
Background
I started my first paid traffic campaign on July 1st and have been toying with it since. I've since come to the conclusion I'm spending way too much time on a $2 toolbar offer.
To combat this I'm ready to start a new campaign everyday in an effort to quickly test a bunch of offers with hopes of finding some winners.
I'll be sticking with Bing Ads because that is what I started with. I'd like to master a traffic source before moving on to another one, which seems to be a popular newbie mistake.
All input from anyone with experience is highly appreciated. Feel free to add me on Skype as well
Pushing To Positive ROI on PPC: 1 New Campaign Everyday
- Day 1 - Maps Galaxy (CA) - MaxBounty - $2.15
- Day 2 - InsureSquare Health Insurance (US) - A4D - $9.10
- Day 3 - RichMen (CA/US/UK) - Above All Offers - $3.90
- Day 4 - TV Fanatic (US) - MaxBounty - $2.75
$$$
Day 1: Tuesday, September 11th - Maps Galaxy (CA) - MaxBounty - $2.15
This is my first PPC offer that I've been tweaking since July. Some days I'm positive, others I'm negative.
My ads are doing well (2%-3% CTR), but I can't seem to get my CVR% above 5 despite dozens of LP adjustments. My plan is just letting it run and making tweaks every 300 clicks or so. I feel I can get this to $20/day eventually then scale that by running my LP/ads for the UK/US offers. Gets me excited thinking about it 
Day 2: Wednesday, September 12th - InsureSquare Health Insurance (US) - A4D - $9.10
Ok, first "real" day of this experiment. I feel as though promoting things that actually matter (rather than toolbars) will be harder to pull off.
As with most offers I'm going to start this off with direct linking. My only worry about this is my quality score will probably take a severe hit because I'm not targeting the generic expensive "health insurance" terms.
I wrote 10 ads across 3 different angles. 1 targeting new families, 1 for seniors, and 1 for people who are sick. I feel like 1 of my angles could go really well. We'll see.
Bing takes a long time to update their interface, so I'll post stats so far for this tomorrow.
Maps Galaxy (Day 1) Stats:
Revenue: $23.65
Spend: $29.82
Net: -$6.17
4.1% CVR wasn't enough today. Made a pretty big change to the CTA, we'll see how that goes.
InsureSquare Health Insurance (Day 2) Stats:
Revenue: $0
Spend: $0
Net: $0
Bad news is no clicks, good news is 6K impressions. This is probably a side effect of not directly targeting health insurance terms, but I can't afford to do that, so I'm going to need to get better at targeting broadly. I'll write some new ads and throw them in the mix after this post.
Day 3: Thursday, September 13th - RichMen (CA/US/UK) - Above All Offers - $3.90
My first dating offer! I feel like Richmen is the best I can get for a dating offer with potential to work on Bing considering the audience is typically older and less "aware" than Google.
Finding keywords for this is really tough for me. The only affordable ones I've found so far with a decent amount of traffic (still low) are closely related to other dating sites (PoF, Match, etc.). My AM suggested I just stock pile as many longtails as I can find, so I'm doing that as well. Any ideas for finding affordable dating keywords on Bing?
I'll try going for the demographic, like I did for the insurance offer. Hopefully some better results 
Nice follow along. How are you breaking this down-- how many ad groups,
ads per ad group, keywords per ad group? Are you using Exact, Phrase, or
Broad keywords?
Originally Posted by starrmikeh
Maps Galaxy - 136
Health Insurance - 106
Richmen - 25 (Need to find more, having trouble)
Most are exact match with some phrase sprinkled in where I think it will work.
Today's offer will be another toolbar just so I can keep an eye out on my other 3 campaigns. I'll be running TV Fanatic from MaxBounty. I don't think I'll have an issue finding keywords for this one
Will post stats at the end of the day.
Try to get yourself into Neverblue if you're serious about promoting toolbars, they have way much better deal for them.
Originally Posted by wyffgoal
Performance Review for 9/13/2012
Maps Galaxy
Revenue: $19.35
Spend: $28.01
Net: -$8.66
Paused. I really want to get this one to work, but I can't seem to figure it out.
InsureSquare
Revenue: $0
Spend: $8.03
Net: -$8.03
Average CPC of 0.50 is way higher than expected, but I guess that's a product of my 0.15% CTR. That said, I wrote new ads for today which are doing much better. I'm going to let this run for another day, but I really need to learn how to properly find keywords that don't cost a ton.
Richmen
Revenue: $0
Spend: $1.19
Net: -$1.19
Only 5 clicks on 6K impressions. Not much better today either. Going to re-write another set now. At least having a low CTR doesn't eat my budget
Day 3: Friday, September 14th - TV Fanatic (US) - Maxbounty - $2.75
I'm pretty confident going into this one. I've got a lot of angles in mind that shouldn't cost too much. I created an LP very similar to the advertisers page, just finished setting up the campaign. Fingers crossed!
-
I'm kind of upset I can't get Maps Galaxy to convert above 5%, but it's stupid of me to let it run for much longer. It would probably be mentally beneficial for me to trash it soon. I'll try 2 completely different LPs over the weekend I think.
I've come to the realization I'm really bad at finding keywords when I'm taking an angle that's not the obvious one. Any tips for this? I'll probably just need to take the hits now in exchange for experience.
Current Total: -$24.05
Have some good news to report tomorrow
you should focus on one niche to get it profitable, rather than making all niches works.. focus focus focus...
another thing you should focus on using only a single cpa network (which is not suck) and not too high threshold to get paid, you're spreading yourself too thin...
Nice follow along! What offers is allowed on adcenter/bingads these days?
Originally Posted by hd2010
Originally Posted by hd2010
Originally Posted by flowmotion
Performance Review for 9/14/2012
Maps Galaxy
Revenue: $12.90
Spend: $18.61
Net: -$6.29
Cut the budget to $10. Will make 2 wildly different LPs like I said I would and test those for 300 clicks each. If they fail, I will finally cut this campaign.
InsureSquare
Revenue: $0
Spend: $9.71
Net: -$9.71
Expensive clicks that aren't even targeted enough to convert. Cutting this campaign now. It did reveal a weakness in my game (picking keywords), which is probably worth my accumulated $19 loss running this offer.
Richmen
Revenue: $3.90
Spend: $3.83
Net: $0.07
Success! Obviously this is not enough data to make any kid of conclusion, but it feels good to be in the green on something.
I need to spend some time on this campaign. My Ad CTR is still not good; it's around 0.45 now. I'm only utilizing 1 angle, so a brainstorming session may be in order.
TV Fanatic
Revenue: $8.25
Spend: $7.17
Net: $1.08
More green My clicks costs are a little higher than what I'm comfortable with.
Ad CTR is less of an issue here where I'm sitting around 1%. Testing should be able to bump that up quite considerably. Let's hope I can lower costs and increase traffic over the next week or so to start cutting back on all this debt I've covered this follow along in.
Day 4: Saturday, September 15th - Reflection & Review
Sorry guys, no campaign today. I've been thinking a lot about what HD wrote above about sticking to 1 niche being beneficial for learning. I like the idea of mastering 1 niche on 1 traffic source because I imagine it would be easier to scale on a new traffic source when you already have a deep understanding of a single niche. Am I making any sense?
My question, which I asked above a few hours ago, is how can I accelerate my learning best? Should I still try to create a campaign every day within the same niche, just targeting a different angle?
Looking forward to hearing from you guys
-
Current Total: -$38.90
yes you're making sense, some big dogs only able to get profitable on certain niches as they understand them , but not all, but it is decent to make an income out of it. network with others, talk to them
Performance Review for 9/15/2012
Maps Galaxy
Revenue: $12.90
Spend: $11.02
Net: $1.88
Interesting. Set budget to $10 and it profits. Maybe some day parting is in order?
Richmen
Revenue: $0.00
Spend: $0.86
Net: -$0.86
Paused. Going to focus on this pretty closely this week, didn't want to leak any wasted capital until I do that.
TV Fanatic
Revenue: $2.75
Spend: $5.74
Net: -$2.99
Not much traffic today. CTR sitting around 1% now, cutting out anything below that. Going to add some more angles this week to get the traffic up. Hoping the CVR sticks
Sunday - 9/15/2012
Alright guys, a follow along pivot is in order. I don't want to waste my time and money jumping around into different niches, I want to shatter that $400 profit goal in the next 14 days.
Here's my plan for this week:
- Test other countries on profitable/borderline offers. Specifically I'm looking to test my Maps Galaxy LPs on US and UK traffic. I'll set budgets for only double the offer payout. If it works, I'll keep it, if it doesn't, I scrap it.
- Increase budget and traffic on profitable campaigns. Adding new angles, bidding higher, and optimizing ads will be done per 1K impressions.
- Dedicate to 1 niche/offer and kill it. Spend a few hours each day brainstorming new angles and putting them to actions. Aim for 1 new angle each day rather than a new campaign.
I'm still going to test super low payout (<$5) offers fairly randomly without considering the niche, maybe less frequently to maintain a healthy sized budget.
-
Current Total: $-40.87
focus on this, drop others :
Maps Galaxy
Revenue: $12.90
Spend: $11.02
Net: $1.88
hi, u use lander or not?
Performance Review for 9/16/2012
Maps Galaxy
Revenue: $21.50
Spend: $18.46
Net: $3.04
About average for a decent day so far. Really excited to see how this looks tomorrow with the new LP. My goal for this offer is $20/day which I want to scale to $60+ over the 3 different countries.
TV Fanatic
Revenue: $8.25
Spend: $10.41
Net: -$2.16
I'd like to get more traffic to this offer and really test it. I like how high it converts, but I'm not getting enough traffic.
Monday - 9/16/2012
I put in about 11 hours of pure productivity today. I created what I think is my best LP I've ever made to test with Maps Galaxy tomorrow, so I'm real excited to see how that performs.
I also created 3-4 different angles for TV Fanatic which I hope starts to pay off. I'm only going to let it run for another day or 2. If it's not breaking even both days then it's time to stop chasing the "almost profitable" mirage.
It's going to be really great if I can get Maps Galaxy going at 50%+ ROI. I've spent so much time on it I was beginning to start spinning my wheels instead of do any productive testing. Pumped about this new LP though.
Tomorrow I'm going to load up on TV Fanatic keywords and give it 48 hours to show me what it's got.
Looking forward to getting both of these offers profitable before digging into something more serious
-
Current Total: $-39.99
Performance Review for 9/16/2012
Maps Galaxy
Revenue: $4.30
Spend: $14.19
Net: -$9.89
Yup.
TV Fanatic
Revenue: $13.75
Spend: $12.26
Net: $1.49
Another day of near break even for this offer.
Performance Review for 9/17/2012
Maps Galaxy
Revenue: $4.30
Spend: $11.65
Net: -$7.35
TV Fanatic
Revenue: $5.50
Spend: $10.83
Net: -$5.33
Today was rough. I'm a little rattled that my new LP for Maps Galaxy sucks. I'm starting to lose confidence and become less motivated based on what I have (or haven't) achieved so far.
I think my best move is to scrap these offers and get serious about Richmen, or another proven offer within an evergreen niche. I'll think it over tonight.
-
Current Total: -$52.67
Thanks for sharing your tests so far. What kind of CTR are you seeing on your landing page for Maps Galaxy and TV Fanatic?
Thanks js26.
In addition to the post above, are you building mini-sites to get around their T&C, or just using landing pages alone?
Are you using content or search or content and search.
This makes a huge difference too. If you have only text ads use only search.
If you want we can build you custom domains and pages for Maps Galaxy so you don't have to use a lander.
That's what we do for our other larger partners. This way you can run on Google with a unique domain which has much more traffic. Also, a lot of our stuff converts better then the standard maps, recipe, TV, etc pages.
Also can start you at 3.50 payout.
What I'd need to know is how many clicks and conversion rate you're getting as I know the standard conversion rate on those deals. What are you paying for clicks? How much budget do you have to invest if we can get it right?
My guess is based on payout increase, conversion rate bump you should be able to get this profitable. Let me know the data so I can analyze it more and I"m happy to help. I love the toolbar space once you figure it out it's nice and solid and scalable.
Success,
Jason
Smaxor, your kindness never ceases to amaze me. The world needs more people like you in it!!
@js26 - You're a lucky man
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