Follow Along My first PropellerAds campaign

[JonathanB]

Hi AffLIFTers!

This is my first PropellerAds campaign and I thought sharing it with you is a good idea ;-) I always used to write a journal for myself and doing it this time as a follow-along will hopefully benefit you as well (and hold me accountable) ;-)

So here are the details:
Offer type: Sweepstake & Vouchers
Traffic source: Propeller Ads
Tracker: BeMob

Since some tutorials here have been direct-linking this type of offer I'll do the first approach direct linked as well. I might add a lander later to see if I can increase conversion rates of an offer that already worked direct linked. I plan to do that using BeMob's option to add 2nd path (one direct-linked, one with lander). But for now I'll start with direct.

In order to set up my first campaign I basically followed Lukes tutorial here:
https://afflift.com/f/media/setup-a-campaign-on-propellerads-with-peerfly-and-voluum.5/

My main goals are:
- Learn to set up campaigns properly
- Learn how to use and to understand a tracker's reports
- Learn basic optimizations (zone ids, devices etc.)

I've been running "normal" marketing campaigns in the past for my business (generating leads, email marketing etc.) But this CPA type of marketing is very new to me. So wish me luck ;-)

I hope you too will find some value in this follow along and I look forward to hear from you!

Best,
Jonathan

 

[Luke]

Awesome! Excited to see how it goes for you. I’m planning to test some more offers on PropellerAds too soon.

Did you already sign up and do your deposit? There’s a promo code somewhere here in the forum if you’re making a new ad account.

 

[dood]

Awesome! Excited to see how it goes for you. I’m planning to test some more offers on PropellerAds too soon.

Did you already sign up and do your deposit? There’s a promo code somewhere here in the forum if you’re making a new ad account.

Maybe it would be good to add a new link in main menu:

named "PROMO CODES" near Forums?

 

[JonathanB]

Hi Luke,
thanks for your reply. I'm excited as well and super curious

Yep, I have signed up and already made the deposit. I've seen the promo code as well, but that was too late then. Hehe...

So here's a little update:
I decided to create a "native push ad". I found that format very interesting especially because we get the chance to presell through banners and text. It's submitted now for review and I'll let you know once it's running and receiving impressions etc.

A couple of things I realized along the was:
1. It seems like the push ads are only served to android devices and desktop (no iPhones, no iPads).

2. There's an option for "user activity" which is very interesting. Based on PropellerAds algo they can predict user activity level. Here's a detailed post on that: https://propellerads.com/blog/adv-pick-the-right-audience-with-user-activity-targeting/

3. Campaign Scheduling:
Not sure if it makes much sense, but I didn't wanted to send my ads during the night. I know people are online all the time, but I still decided to schedule them during day-time. It's important to know that the schedule (at least in my case) is in EST time zone. My target audience is NOT in EST, so I had to use a time zone calculator. I used www.worldtimebuddy.com (screenshot). This way I could check the EST timezone and "translate" it to my timezone.

 

[JonathanB]

After my first ad has been rejected (copywriting was misleading) I know have an approved campaign live. Yey

Now my next steps would have been creating 3 more ads to have them run against each other. The only thing I would split test in this early stage would be different images. Like if it's a fashion voucher I'd try out different fashion images (male vs. female, shirts vs. shorts etc.)

In facebook you can simply duplicate the ads and replace images... This doesn't seem to be able with Propellerads.

Does someone of you know how I can have 2-3 ads run against each other?

Or will I have to create a completely new campaign (in PropellerAds AND BeMob) each time I want to split test images of a push or pop campaign?

Update: I found an option to duplicate the campaign. It's at the right end of the stats in the dashboard. Now when duplicating it, will I need to get a different campaign URL for it inside BeMob, correct?

 

[Luke]

Maybe it would be good to add a new link in main menu:
View attachment 594

named "PROMO CODES" near Forums?

yeah, we need a place to easily list all the promos. I'll work on that this week

 

[ajaxprd]

@jonathanbouchard If you are doing Push Notifications Ads campaign. Please be absolutely sure about type of offer.
Split testing offers in Push Notifications is not available in Propeller Ads for Push Traffic. Even if you launch a campaign for Push Traffic for 2 days and paused. Then earlier sent push notifications once clicked you will be charged accordingly.

Please find Data from Propeller Ads that might help you. This data given by Propeller Ads support. You also ask them about this data

High Converting offers for Push Notifications
our best converting verticals include:
mob app utilities (browsers, launchers),
e-commerce,
content on demand (entertainment subscriptions, 1click subscriptions, pin submits),
all kinds of Paid/Free online cinema,
dating,
finance (binary, forex, crypto),
mob games
desktop games

Here are our top GEOs in the system, if you have offers to run in these targets - that's definitely a great time to test them and make $$$
Android
country conversions
US 25855
IN 23383
ID 14635
BR 11473
ZA 9842
RU 6846
IT 5028
TH 2386
DE 2199
CA 1691
MY 1321
GB 1285
SA 1007
FR 729

iOS
country conversions
US 4835
IT 677
GB 608
SA 458
CA 269
AE 216
DE 166
KW 122

Desktop
country conversions
US 8426
ID 3163
DE 2109
RU 1860
FR 1326
GB 982
CA 961
JP 913
SA 331

Please keep us updating about Push Traffic. I never had any conversion. I might get an idea from your journey. Cheers bro

 

[JonathanB]

@jonathanbouchard If you are doing Push Notifications Ads campaign. Please be absolutely sure about type of offer.
Split testing offers in Push Notifications is not available in Propeller Ads for Push Traffic. Even if you launch a campaign for Push Traffic for 2 days and paused. Then earlier sent push notifications once clicked you will be charged accordingly.

Please find Data from Propeller Ads that might help you. This data given by Propeller Ads support. You also ask them about this data

High Converting offers for Push Notifications
our best converting verticals include:
mob app utilities (browsers, launchers),
e-commerce,
content on demand (entertainment subscriptions, 1click subscriptions, pin submits),
all kinds of Paid/Free online cinema,
dating,
finance (binary, forex, crypto),
mob games
desktop games

Here are our top GEOs in the system, if you have offers to run in these targets - that's definitely a great time to test them and make $$$
Android
country conversions
US 25855
IN 23383
ID 14635
BR 11473
ZA 9842
RU 6846
IT 5028
TH 2386
DE 2199
CA 1691
MY 1321
GB 1285
SA 1007
FR 729

iOS
country conversions
US 4835
IT 677
GB 608
SA 458
CA 269
AE 216
DE 166
KW 122

Desktop
country conversions
US 8426
ID 3163
DE 2109
RU 1860
FR 1326
GB 982
CA 961
JP 913
SA 331

Please keep us updating about Push Traffic. I never had any conversion. I might get an idea from your journey. Cheers bro

Hey, thanks for your detailed post. I'll have to read this again to fully understand the numbers

 

[JonathanB]

Happy to make an update so quickly after launching the campaign To be honest I'm a bit surprised but very happy to see progress.

So what this dashboard shows is 56 visits (in propellerads it's called clicks), 1 conversion and $3,27 profit.

HOWEVER it's not actual profit. I spent $10,11 on propeller ads. Not sure why it's not tracking the cost. I have the cost ID added to the target URL in PropellerAds (but the &cost={cost} is not added inside bemob.) Maybe that's the issue...

Tracking is the "hardest" part for me to learn to be honest. It's a little bit frustrating not understanding what these numbers/ids etc. mean and I'm pretty sure I messed up my tracking links...Otherwise it would show cost I guess

How do you learn/manage your tracking?

 

[Luke]

The template for PropellerAds in BeMob does not have the cost variable by default. You have to add it. Click on Traffic sources and then click to edit PropellerAds and add cost:

You will need to update your campaign URL on PropellerAds (the BeMob tracking link) to include the cost variable. I believe you should be able to just copy/paste your updated campaign tracking link.

 

[Luke]

Congrats on getting a conversion so quickly!

 

[afiq]

Or will I have to create a completely new campaign (in PropellerAds AND BeMob ) each time I want to split test images of a push or pop campaign?

You can track multiple PropellerAds campaigns with one BeMob campaign url, you just need to pass the campaign ID - then drill down the report according to campaign ID.

HOWEVER it's not actual profit. I spent $10,11 on propeller ads. Not sure why it's not tracking the cost. I have the cost ID added to the target URL in PropellerAds (but the &cost={cost} is not added inside bemob .) Maybe that's the issue...

PropellerAds does not pass the cost token, so you can't track the cost with this type of ad format. The {cost} is only for onclick popunder. If you create CPC push campaign however, you can track the cost by setting a fixed CPV in Bemob.

 

[JonathanB]

The template for PropellerAds in BeMob does not have the cost variable by default. You have to add it. Click on Traffic sources and then click to edit PropellerAds and add cost:

View attachment 606

You will need to update your campaign URL on PropellerAds (the BeMob tracking link) to include the cost variable. I believe you should be able to just copy/paste your updated campaign tracking link.

Thanks a lot for your help. I have updated the traffic source and campaign URL accordingly.

 

[JonathanB]

You can track multiple PropellerAds campaigns with one BeMob campaign url, you just need to pass the campaign ID - then drill down the report according to campaign ID.

Hi Afiq, thanks for your reply. Hm, good idea. I'll think it through. Here's a suggested campaign structure from the PropellerAds blog. According to this image they suggest creating a new campaign for each creative and device.

PropellerAds does not pass the cost token, so you can't track the cost with this type of ad format. The {cost} is only for onclick popunder. If you create CPC push campaign however, you can track the cost by setting a fixed CPV in Bemob.

That's interesting. In order to set a fixed CPV I'd first have to know how much I'm really paying, right? Since prices change all the time the cost-data would be a rough estimate when using CPM. The correct cost-data would only be available for CPC. Is that correct?

 

[afiq]

The correct cost-data would only be available for CPC. Is that correct?

Yes, only for CPC.

 

[JonathanB]

Hi everyone,

so here's a quick update.

1. Since my daily budget has been spent within 2h yesterday I decided to lower my CPM to spread the traffic throughout the day. Otherwise my budget will be spent in the early morning hours...
2. I also set up a "B"-version for the same offer with different images and it's approved and getting clicks. The goal is to increase CTRs and to lower my CPCs and hopefully make more conversions.
3. What's a bit disappointing is the extremely high CPCs. For 13 push-ad-clicks I paid $5.67 which is roughly $0.43 per click. That's almost as much as I pay on Facebook mobile ads. I now lowered my bids and we'll see if that also lowers my CPC. If it doesn't I don't see the point of running push-ads for low-payout offers. Margins would simply be too low and PropellerAds CPCs to high.

(the screenshot shows the first 2-3h of the day.)

4. To split test ad formats I also set up a POP campaign (not Push).
5. I also added a simple 1-page lander to it and have the traffic 50/50 (50% to lander, 50% direct-link)

Unfortunately my data on this entire campaign makes no sense. Maybe you can read it?

This is the new pop campaign on PropellerAds (popunder, on-click). It says 4.805 impressions, 0 clicks.

Here's the campaign inside Bemob: It shows 400 visits (impressions) less, which I think is OK to have a slight difference (is 10% different OK?). It also shows clicks and I guess it's the clicks from my lander to the offer. So only 7 (or 5 uniques) people actually SAW the offer if I'm interpreting it correctly...

Since I run 50/50 (direct vs lander) I wanted to check into the stats. The report in the "flow"-section shows this. I don't understand it. I set up the flow to be 50/50 between direct and lander. But the stats doesn't show that. Am I missing something?

My network stats also show a completely different number then all of them before: 985 clicks.

I have absolutely now idea why that is. Logically it should rather show something like 7 (or 5), because that's the clicks to the offer. It could also be showing a number like 4.800 or 4.400 because that's the impressions PropellerAds shows. But 985 is completely un-logical and I don't know what that means.

Any suggestions? Maybe PropellerAds can help here too?

 

[JonathanB]

Alright...

So is a final update to my very first PropellerAds campaign:

Here's the setup:
Offer type: Sweepstake
Traffic source: Propeller Ads
Tracker: BeMob
Payout: €2,80 (around $3,22 usd)
Test-Budget: It's widely recommended to use 3-5x the payout. In my case it's would have been roughly $10-16. I think it's a good benchmark but for me as a newbie I wanted to collect more data. Remember, I'm still learning tracking, setting up campaigns etc. In the end I did a 10x payout. But even after that I don't have any significant data to make decisions on. I hope you can help to make a conclusion ;-)

Ad spend: Roughly $30 + VAT ($35)
Conversions: 3
Revenue: $9,80
I think that's a great result for a first campaign, direct-link, with no optimization at all...

Unfortunately my ad cost still doesn't show up in my tracker. I have updated my propellerad settings, inserted the new campaign url and even launched some other campaigns... But the cost doesn't show up there either... Not sure what I'm doing wrong...I'll have to look into that again...

I also watched Luke's tutorial for optimizing. Negative optimization could be an option like excluding zone ids that waste money, however the data is too low. Based on these low numbers I can't make any exlusions...

Here's what I mean:

These 2 zone IDs made 3 conversions

And here are the zones sorted by visits...Exlcuding makes no sense yet, because it wasn't enough traffic/data...

Soooo....based on the informations and learnings from this campaign I'm now wondering what to do with it:

- It converts direct-linked
- I could test more images and different headlines
- I set this up using push-ads to that "Medium user activity", so I could try to target a broader audience as well
- I could also set up a test with a landing page to see if I can get more people to sign up...

What do you think about it?

 

[afiq]

3. What's a bit disappointing is the extremely high CPCs. For 13 push-ad-clicks I paid $5.67 which is roughly $0.43 per click.

Port your campaigns to CPC-based, this way you can set a fixed bid for each click for your ads. With CPC-based, even for USA, the recommended bid is around $0.077, way cheaper than what you paid for. CPM-based is great if you have a proven high CTR ads.

This is the new pop campaign on PropellerAds (popunder, on-click). It says 4.805 impressions, 0 clicks.

Impressions refer how much people see your ads, clicks refer how much people click on your ads. Since popunder ads automatically display your ads to the audience, it simply referred as impression. You can refer your push notification campaigns, there will data for both impressions and clicks. Hope that make sense.

Since I run 50/50 (direct vs lander) I wanted to check into the stats. The report in the "flow"-section shows this. I don't understand it. I set up the flow to be 50/50 between direct and lander. But the stats doesn't show that. Am I missing something?

Can you snap your campaign setup for the flow?

Unfortunately my ad cost still doesn't show up in my tracker. I have updated my propellerad settings, inserted the new campaign url and even launched some other campaigns... But the cost doesn't show up there either... Not sure what I'm doing wrong...I'll have to look into that again...

You can't track the cost because you set the campaign on CPM, the cost is not based on how much people click on your ads, but it is based on how much people see your ads. Anyways, the {cost} PropellerAds tracking token is only for onclick popunder.

Maybe PropellerAds can help here too?

If you have a very specific questions about your campaign setup, you can also contact them directly through online chat. Their support pretty good.

 

[JonathanB]

Port your campaigns to CPC-based, this way you can set a fixed bid for each click for your ads. With CPC-based, even for USA, the recommended bid is around $0.077, way cheaper than what you paid for. CPM-based is great if you have a proven high CTR ads.

Hi Afiq, thanks for your reply. Unfortunately CPC is not available with Push Ads. But I agree: $0,077 would be fantastic.
EDIT: I just created a new push campaign and it seems like I was able to choose CPC with a suggested bid of $0,075. Thanks for the tip!

Can you snap your campaign setup for the flow?

Too late, sorry I already deleted the lander flow in order to have more people see the VSL. I think the $10 initial budget was spent within 1h. However I registered 3 more unique clicks with makes sense to how you describe the impression/click thing with popunder. So I guess they saw the lander long after it has been served when they close their browser or so...

You can't track the cost because you set the campaign on CPM, the cost is not based on how much people click on your ads, but it is based on how much people see your ads. Anyways, the {cost} token is only for onclick popunder.

Alright, gotcha. So how would I be managing a campaign like this? By adding costs manually by the end of every day?

If you have a very specific questions about your campaign setup, you can also contact them directly through online chat. Their support pretty good.

That's good to know, thanks.

 

[Luke]

That one zone with 2 conversions is looking very promising. Hopefully they have a lot of traffic you can buy