Allocation of budget for testing offers vs. optimizing?

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Seasoned affiliate marketers:
When you’re working with a fixed testing budget—say $500 for push traffic or $5,000 for native—how do you decide what % to spend on:

1. Initial offer testing (finding potential winners)
2. Optimization (dialing in campaigns to reach profitability)

I’ve always assumed that uncovering a near-breakeven offer in the first day or two is a long-shot. In practice, you might burn through the budget testing 20 offers just to find one decent prospect. On the flip side, you could test only 5 offers, discover one that’s initially –60% ROI, then spend a week or two optimizing it into profit.

How do you strike that balance? What allocation strategy has worked best for you?