Guide You WILL NOT be profitable on your first try. Learn to OPTIMIZE.

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Luke

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The following is a transcription of my video here:


Hey everyone, when I first launched affLIFT I created this follow-along campaign using PropellerAds, Voluum as my tracker and the Apple Music Trial offer from PeerFly.

I started this on May 1st and Iā€™ve been using it as an example of how to run a campaign on PropellerAds, obviously using Voluum and Apple Music. I thought it would be worthwhile to do a quick video so that I could show you what exactly it takes to run a profitable campaign. I am going to do that showing you a campaign that is not yet profitable. Like I said, I started this campaign earlier in the month; if you take a look at my Voluum account here:



I started on the first; I got roughly 15,000 clicks and then I got 16,000 clicks. When I first ran this campaign I actually had zero conversions - this conversion came in later. If you take a look at this thread, I didnā€™t have my first conversion come in until the 14th.



So, I paused this campaign after the 2nd when I had spent roughly $30.00 and had zero conversions. Then my first conversion came in on the 14th and I started the campaign back up. The reason that I wanted to talk about this for a few reasons;

- You campaign is not going to be profitable, typically, on your first try. So I get a lot of questions from Publishers at PeerFly who spend $25, $50, $100 on a campaign that has zero conversions and they are like ā€œwhat did I do wrong?!ā€ and usually my answer is ā€˜youā€™ve spent too much money to begin with on this campaignā€™
- my recommended daily budget for a campaign is 3-5 times the payout. That varies based on what information you know about that campaign when you start. So when I started this campaign, I knew that the Apple Music offer will usually take a few days before a conversion will show up - somebody sees the offer on their phone or they go to the Apple Music Trial page, usually they donā€™t start their trial right then, this offer pays out when they start their trial. I know that because Iā€™ve run this offer before so this isnā€™t my first time running this Affiliate offer. When I first ran the offer, obviously I didnā€™t know that and I had to be more cautious. Now that I know that, once I had spent this $30



I decided I was just going to wait. So I did not blow $50 on this campaign thinking it was just going to get a conversion. I waited. Even before I got my first conversion I was still ready to do some optimizations; you can optimize your campaign without getting a conversion. There is both positive and negative data. Positive data is, letā€™s say I had 3 conversions on 3 different zone IDs on PropellerAds, so thatā€™s positive. I can try to optimize that data because I had conversions. You can optimize on the negative as well though. So I had 40,000 clicks here that I could try to do some optimizations with. The first thing I did was take a look at the Browsers:





If you take a look at the past 30 daysā€™ data you'll notice Safari Iā€™ve got 29,995 visits (which are clicks) and zero conversions. So this is about as negative as it can get. I spent $34, obviously I let this browser run after those first two days - once i realized that that traffic was not going to convert, I removed it.



So I am no longer buying traffic from Safari, I am exclusively buying traffic from Google Chrome. Actually, since Iā€™ve switched it over, the Google Chrome is profitable.

So itā€™s just a matter of time, I think, as long as I continue to do my optimizations and continue to run this campaign where Iā€™ll probably be able to recoup my loss here so overall Iā€™ll be able to get this thing ROI positive. If I hadnā€™t removed Safari, that would not be the case. I removed Safari, like I said, before I even got close to profitable overall. So you want to do optimizations both, for the positive and the negative.

You want to improve the positive - you want to get rid of the negative.

Thatā€™s not the only one, I also have some ISP Data. If you take a look at my Voluum:





This is for the past 30 days. Iā€™ve removed Verizon and Iā€™ve removed T-Mobile from this campaign. Iā€™m no longer buying this traffic, because this traffic does not convert. Guess what internet service providers I am buying traffic from? AT&T and Sprint. I changed that before I started even getting close to positive on these, as well. I changed it when i saw that these two (Verizon and T-Mobile) werenā€™t going to be positive. Once I had spent, this is $28 is roughly 5x this offerā€™s payout, thatā€™s a multiple of 5.



Iā€™d say itā€™s pretty obvious that Verizon is not going to convert on this campaign; at least not as well as the other two (AT&T and Sprint). T-Mobile is 2x, so this was a little early. I may end up adding T-Mobile back, once I do some more optimizations - but for now Iā€™m not going to buy that traffic. Iā€™m going to focus on the Internet Service Providers that proving to be profitable on this campaign.

Why are these profitable? I have no idea - that doesnā€™t matter. The data is what matters - and the data says that these two (AT&T and Sprint) have the most likelihood to convert. So thatā€™s what Iā€™m going to focus on. You may see different results than what i am seeing if you run this campaign on a different traffic source. You may even see different results on the same traffic source, I donā€™t know - but the point is: You have to be able to optimize and you have to be patient. Donā€™t blow all of your money on one offer, on one traffic source - spread it but be patient. Give you campaign time and learn how to go through and go through the data on your campaign.

Yesterday I did a video about BeMob. BeMob is a free tracker. There is no reason to not be collecting this data to try to do these optimizations, unless youā€™re just being lazy - and if you're just being lazy you're probably not going to get you campaign profitable.

So if you are interested in this kind of information, I definitely recommend checking out affLIFT! Obviously Iā€™m biased, but Iā€™m doing follow alongs and members are posting information. Weā€™re getting so much great information spread throughout the forum already and itā€™s only been a couple weeks since we launched! Check it out, and of course, let me know if you have any questions. Letā€™s Make Some Money!
 
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RollerAds
Thanks Luke. These are the signs that I'm always looking for. But I must have run about 8 or 9 campaigns now, each one quite different, and there are no trends or obvious cue that would lead me to optimise either positively or negatively. Were that there were!
 
This is really cool.

Why are these profitable? I have no idea - that doesnā€™t matter. The data is what matters - and the data says that these two (AT&T and Sprint) have the most likelihood to convert. So thatā€™s what Iā€™m going to focus on.

For a long time I found hard to learn that if I my campaign data is saying something then I need to listen, even if I was shocked, surprised or even indignant. This really only made sense after doing a lot of campaigns and confirming for myself that I can trust the data. I remember reading something Malan Darras wrote on his blog where he said something like (paraphrasing) "My job is to generate data, look for patterns in that data and exploit them". I think he referred to this something like hunting for 'streams of green' within 'oceans of red'.
 
Thanks Luke. These are the signs that I'm always looking for. But I must have run about 8 or 9 campaigns now, each one quite different, and there are no trends or obvious cue that would lead me to optimise either positively or negatively. Were that there were!
Give it time and be patient. Your 10th campaign might be a winner that produces profits for months.
(spend responsibly) :)
 
For a long time I found hard to learn that if I my campaign data is saying something then I need to listen, even if I was shocked, surprised or even indignant. This really only made sense after doing a lot of campaigns and confirming for myself that I can trust the data. I remember reading something Malan Darras wrote on his blog where he said something like (paraphrasing) "My job is to generate data, look for patterns in that data and exploit them". I think he referred to this something like hunting for 'streams of green' within 'oceans of red'.
Absolutely.
 
Hi @Luke , this is Intersting. You suggest to optimize negative data too. But what if this offer wouldn't give you any convertions at all after the 1st conversion on 2 may? Would you remove the same browser and carriers and spend 5 offer payouts more to test? Basically how do I know that I need to stop campaign even if there are some conversions, I would say I need to use Binominal calculator and minimal convertion rate but does it work in this case? What if there are no conversions at all or there are some but I spend more than 5 payouts? Should I start optimize by negative data in this case and wait that other carriesr/browsers/os will bring some conversions?
 
Hi @Luke , this is Intersting. You suggest to optimize negative data too. But what if this offer wouldn't give you any convertions at all after the 1st conversion on 2 may? Would you remove the same browser and carriers and spend 5 offer payouts more to test? Basically how do I know that I need to stop campaign even if there are some conversions, I would say I need to use Binominal calculator and minimal convertion rate but does it work in this case? What if there are no conversions at all or there are some but I spend more than 5 payouts? Should I start optimize by negative data in this case and wait that other carriesr/browsers/os will bring some conversions?
I will spend 3-5x on the initial test. If I see some conversions or segments that look promising, I will spend another 3-5x doing a second round of testing. I'll continue that as long as things are looking promising.

If I spend 5x and have a single conversion, then maybe I'll spend another 3x on that segment doing some further testing. If I don't see any conversions after that next stage, I would stop more than likely and move on to a new campaign.

You can spend a lot of money "chasing" a campaign you think should perform. Let the data decide. Now, if you have data from a similar campaign in the past that is influencing your decisions, maybe you spend a bit more than normal doing your test. BUT, it's important to have a budget in mind or you will quickly begin wasting budget :)
 
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