[JOURNEY] Conquering Mobile Email Submits

[vidb]

Hi Fixers,

After about a year of reading journeys, case studies on the Fix, I'm starting off with my first email submit. The reason for announcing this here is to stay on track and be accountable. Also, this'll be like a diary about what I'm doing, what was I thinking & how did it go + hope this share helps others as well. Reading @Maxin 's journey... I decided to start mine too and with Robert from Envyus Media.

Initially I maybe rambling but I'm sure my head will get clear along the way... so bear with me.

Network: Envyus Media
AM: Robert Moore (@RobEnvyus) He is the man!
Offer: Email submit
Traffic: Display & Pops
Device: Mobile.
Tracker: Adsbridge (super helpful people here + the basic package is free currently)
Geo: US (Go Big or Go Home!)... eer.. maybe not the best geo for starters (looking back)


Day 1
I created a banner and ran it on a display network (300x250) - Desktop Targeting - Got a 1.03% CTR - Zero Conversions - Ran this without any tracking initially to see if it's worth the effort setting up tracking (I'm still getting a hang of it & didn't want to bother the really helpful support staff @ AdsBridge initially). Ran 3 variants of the same banner & noticed one had a lower CTR than the other 2. Both of the better CTR banners were pretty much the same.
Kept looking at the 3/4 sources giving the traffic and paused the 2 lower CTR ones, till 2 were running.. the ones with the highest CTR & random smaller sources. The best CTR source ate up 95% sources & Total Spend was a little over $10.

Day 2
Had a skype chat with Robert and he advised keep it running but pause the better CTR one too, since it didn't yield a single conversion & let the traffic network give impressions from other new targets. But my budget desposited with the source had just about run out. Just before this conversation, I had created a campaign for the same offer with LP ver 1 on a mobile pop traffic source, so I went ahead and ran that. Setup Adsbridge tracking to capture the zone tokens, but I messed it up (Duh!!) & didn't end up with any intelligent data. By now, I had decided that I'll work only on mobile for this offer and will crack this... in for the long haul... put my blinkers on to keep a check on my shiny object syndrome

POP Traffic Source 1 - gave me loads impressions all right, but not a single went from my LP to the offer page)... I kept running this for 2 hours odd, to realise that either the traffic was crap (which I doubted, since they are quite big) or my LP sucked Big Time or worse...it wasn't working! Checked the LP and it was working (big sign of relief)... so now I was inclined to blame my LP angle. So I paused this campaign on POP Traffic Source 1 and checked Google Analytics Real Time report to confirm that there were no live visitors on the LP.

By now, I had replicated the same campaign on another traffic source with LP ver 1 (don't ask.. I had some money deposited earlier & figured I'll use that). But made a mistake in my LP CTR. Instead of plugging in the Adsbridge click link, I put in the Offer URL and ran the campaign with no token capture. (Stupid!!) Saw better results on POP Traffic Source 2 in terms of LP CTR 2.91% and kept monitoring the traffic sources.... with a little pause & resume on the highest traffic source, figured out the 1 target that was giving my LP a CTR of 3.5% and the rest were dragging it down. Setup buggy tracking for this too, but constant refreshing of stats on the traffic source and the network helped me get a grip on this. Anyway I was too tired to make any changes to the URL and set the budget with only the better CTR target running and went off to sleep... blame the timezone.

Day 3
Woke up and checked my stats and got 2 conversions! YIPEE!! Felt I had just had my pre-workout. 55 people went through to the Offer page (2.9% CTR of LP ver 1) and 2 conversions, so that's a 3.6% CR on Envyus Media. It's always encouraging to see the first conversion on a new launch and luckily (somehow) this was ROI+ve too. Now I was feeling good about myself Updated tokens on AdsBridge and updated the campaign URL in the traffic source as well. I started the campaign on Traffic Source 2, this time with only the best CTR target whitelisted. Setup the postback on Envyus Media Offer page as well (Why didn't I do this earlier). Now something weird happened... Zero conversion.. 5X spend of yesterday. Hmmmm... rechecked and everything same as yesterday was running. Wierd huh? I wouldn't have been in a situation of pulling out my hair, if I had setup everything properly at the onset of the campaign launch... lesson learned.

Day 4
Created LP Ver 2 & ran that on Traffic Source 1 and got a CTR almost 11.41%! A nice jump from 3%-5% on LP ver 1 earlier. No setting change on traffic front, just a new LP. But still no conversions. So I tried LP ver 2 on Traffic Source 2, first with all targets except the best one... better than before CTR, not conversion yet. And now only with the better CTR target, 12.57% CTR, but still no conversion. Budget spent was 80% of payout per traffic source.

Day 5
Still not convinced... I ran LP ver 2 again today on Traffic Source 2.... this time only with the hight CTR target... 19.75% CTR... that was exciting... but no Conversion Spend $8.68 and paused the campaign. Had a chat with my super AM, Robert, who also advised to pause it since there wasn't a single conversion from the 1753 that went from my LP to the Offer page. I was wondering if it could be bot traffic...

Day 6
Now I wanted to double check the code in my LPs and setup tracking properly on AdsBridge. Updated the tokens and the Destination URL in the both traffic sources and ran the campaigns with a limited spend... just to see if I was capturing relevant tokens properly. Went to the Dojo and implemented the back offer script....spent about $0.30 and paused it. checked my reports.. figured I need to get some more tokens.. updated it and ran it again on Day 7. Was happy now that tokens were being captured properly.

Day 8
There is date gap b/w Day 6 & 7.... what did I do during the gap... well I created more LPs and Angles... 5-6 more.... what was the difference? These were multiple click ones to get to the offer page & the earlier ones were single click ones. Now I ran LP ver 3 & LP ver 4 and LP ver 2 (33% odd on both traffic sources, got see how each LP performs and see single click vs multiple click type lander performance with the same traffic & Robert suggested I send my traffic to another offer (Offer 2)... slightly lower payout than Offer 1 but he's the expert, so I'll just do as he says. Today it will only be Offer 2.


Traffic Source 1 (RON)
LP ver 3 (multiple click)
Imp: 11,505
Clicks: 342
CTR: 3%
Spend: $10.05
Conversions: 5
Revenue: $8.75
CR: 1.46%
ROI: -13%

LP ver 4 (multiple click)
Imp: 10,975
Clicks: 22
CTR: 0.2%
Spend: $10.00
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%


Traffic Source 2 (RON)
LP ver 3 (multiple click)
Imp: 6
Clicks: 3
CTR: 50%
Conversion: 0

LP ver 2 (single click LP)
Imp: 527
Clicks: 122
CTR: 23%
Conversion: 0

LP ver 4 (multiple click)
Imp: 6
Clicks: 1
CTR: 17%
Conversion: 0

Why did I pause Traffic Source 2 campaign so soon? Because the bot traffic thing is now stuck at the back of my mind & I look suspiciously at this traffic source

Traffic Source 1 was showing some light at the end of the tunnel. I decided to stick and master this one now. The postback wasn't working so I had to manually pick up the conversion IPs from Envyus Media and find the target & LP in AdsBridge. Not the best way to do it, so I now knew my postback setup was the issue.

Day 9
Today I moved to a VPS from Beyond Hosting (they were very helpful in the setup, domain transfer etc & have the first month discount running) & setup LP ver 3 (figured this is working, atleast better than the rest) on it on a new domain. LP ver 3 is also hosted on my old domain on shared hosting. Made one change in the postback token hoping that it would now work properly.

Started the campaign on Traffic Source 1, with 50% TD initially and paused the shared hosting LP after a short while (data below + speed better on GT Metrix)

LP ver 3 (Shared hosting)
Imp: 4027
Clicks: 27
CTR: 0.67%
Spend: $6.03
Conversions: 1
CR: 3.70%
ROI: -71%

LP ver 3 (VPS hosting)
Imp: 10,703
Clicks: 116
CTR: 1.08%
Spend: $16.03
Conversions: 5
CR: 4.31%
ROI: -45%

Still in the Red

Day 10
Made some changes to LP ver 4 and moved it to VPS as well today. The stats made no sense.... or basically there wasn't enough run time and I got impatient.

LP ver 3
Imp: 2,121
Clicks: 14
CTR: 0.66%
Spend: $4.13
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%


LP ver 4
Imp: 687
Clicks: 1
CTR: 0.15%
Spend: $1.34
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%


Day 11
Running low on funds... 3 new LPs... new angles...

LP ver 5 (single click)
Imp: 479
Clicks: 31
CTR: 6.47%
Spend: $0.74
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%


LP ver 6
Imp: 470
Clicks: 4
CTR: 0.85%
Spend: $0.73
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%


LP ver 7
Imp: 463
Clicks: 7
CTR: 1.51%
Spend: $0.72
Conversions: 1
CR: 14%
Revenue: $1.75
ROI: 143% (Green... but data set too small to celebrate)

By now, I had started a log of all targets that gave atleast one conversion.

Day 12
Today, I decided to try out Offer 1 again along with Offer 2 with this LP data... with Traffic Source 1, 2 & 3 (new redirect traffic for about $5 just to see some data) I'm not splitting data per offer, but about 9 peple of the total lot landed at the offer page for Offer 1, no conversion. The 2 that did happen, still happened on Offer 2. So here goes the data overload!! Sorry!! Just ignore Traffic Source 2 & 3... I'm doing that too going forward. Started Pausing targets on Traffic Source 1 which are 1X the offer payout & with 0 conversion.

Traffic Source 1
LP ver 3
Imp: 1619
Clicks: 13
CTR: 0.80%
Spend: $2.43
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%

LP ver 5
Imp: 425
Clicks: 29
CTR: 6.82%
Spend: $0.64
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%

LP ver 7
Imp: 860
Clicks: 0
CTR: 0.00%
Spend: $1.29
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%

LP ver 8
Imp: 3714
Clicks: 18
CTR: 0.48%
Spend: $5.58 (more spend on this since it's a new LP)
Conversions: 2 (WooHoo!!)
Revenue: $3.50
CR: 11% (Nice!!)
ROI: -37% (Damn!!)


Traffic Source 2 (ran this more with the intent to finish off my deposit with them)

LP ver 5
Imp: 194
Clicks: 65
CTR: 33.51% (Insane!!)
Spend: $0.10
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%

LP ver 3
Imp: 194
Clicks: 22
CTR: 11.34%
Spend: $0.10
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%

LP ver 7
Imp: 746
Clicks: 44
CTR: 5.90%
Spend: $0.39
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%


LP ver 8
Imp: 620
Clicks: 6
CTR: 0.97%
Spend: $0.33
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%


TRAFFIC SOURCE 3 (redirect one)

LP ver 5 (single click)
Imp: 99
Clicks: 9
CTR: 9.09%
Spend: $0.48
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%

LP ver 4
Imp: 97
Clicks: 4
CTR: 4.12%
Spend: $0.47
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%

LP ver 3
Imp: 131
Clicks: 3
CTR: 2.29%
Spend: $0.64
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%

LP ver 7
Imp: 131
Clicks: 1
CTR: 0.76%
Spend: $0.65
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%

LP ver 8
Imp: 133
Clicks: 1
CTR: 0.75%
Spend: $0.65
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%

LP ver 6
Imp: 67
Clicks: 0
CTR: 0.00%
Spend: $0.33
Conversions: 0
ROI: -100%

I sure hope I've not dumped too much of data here... if it's a bit crazy, imagine what I'm going through. Since I'm running on fumes right now, I didn't have alot for traffic source 3, but then again I reminded myself not to be tempted by another source, but first figure out my LP, Angle & make it work on 1 traffic source. Read @Maxin's journey & @TrafficYoda & IamAttila's case study again to clear my head. No more Traffic Source 3 & 2... Only 1... must tame it.

Spending the next 4-5 days working on LPs... putting in more AffKit tools... refining the graphics... asking friends & family how my LP looks... checking on multiple phones... wifi... carrier etc....


Day 13
Traffic Source 1 - Ran for $0.88... too tired, red eye... I think I'll sleep, won't be able to make much sense of the data anyhow in this state. Zero clicks. Here are the stats though.

LP ver 7
Imp: 325
Spend: $0.39

LP ver 3
Imp: 322
Spend: $0.39

LP ver 8
Imp: 45
Spend: $0.05

LP ver 5
Imp: 34
Spend: $0.04


Day 14
Now I figure that LP ver 3, LP ver 7 & LP ver 8 are good and need to be worked upon (all are multiple click ones, entry pop, exit pop, timer, back, protection implemented) thanks to AffKit... The Dojo is really worth it just for the AffKit Tools & the case studies inside are a bonus. If you haven't signed up for The Dojo, then please do ASAP.... the lifetime membership is worth the savings in time & getting the most from purchased traffic.

Started off with equal traffic distribution, but then paused LP ver 7 & 8 since the CTR was lower compared to LP ver 3.

Traffic Source 1
LP ver 3
Imp: 2649
Click: 47
CTR: 1.77%
Spend: $7.59
Conversion: 0
ROI: -100%


LP ver 7
Imp: 391
Click: 1
CTR: 0.26%
Spend: $1.12
Conversion: 0
ROI: -100%

LP ver 8
Imp: 309
Click: 1
CTR: 0.32%
Spend: $0.89
Conversion: 0
ROI: -100%


Since I was out of funds on Traffic Source 1 now, I decided to check where all did I have idle funds parked. Found Traffic Source 4 that also did mobile pops & basically blew $16 on one new (single click LP) so fast (6.61% CTR) with zero conversions that I just paused it to take stock of what just happened.

Day 15
Traffic Source 4 - Tried the LP ver 3, 7 & 8 here with an average CTR of 1.56% & no conversion. Stopped the campaign to take stock of the past few days, changes I made to above average LPs and how that impacted their performance. No more Traffic Source 4.... must master Traffic Source 1.

Day 16
Back to Traffic Source 1
LP ver 3 (Yes... only 1 LP today ... changed 1 targeting option)
Imp: 658
Click: 14
CTR: 2.13%
Spend: $1.65
Conversion: 1
CR: 7%
Revenue: $1.98 (Robert got me a pay bump on his own... he's the best!! )
ROI: 20%

Took 2 days off... had some other things to take care of & connected with Alex & Irina from Adsbridge to help me with the postback. Irina was super nice to send screenshots with instructions and explain some changes to the postback for CPA vs CPS. Made those changes. Hopefully it will work. Watched Taiwo's video on mobile marketing and went through mobile immersion 101 again & made another LP with a new angle (LP ver 9)

Day 17
Changed the image on LP ver 3 & decided to run the new LP ver 9. Since I've limited funds, I am having a tough time giving each target/zone 1X the payout. I realise it's the best way to gather data, but I have my own constraints. Doing the best within these limitations. From what I read, almost all Super Affiliates went through their fund crunch time during testing... just keep at it.

Traffic Source 1
LP ver 3 (changed image and header color)
Imp: 6860
Clicks: 64
CTR: 0.93%
Spend: $9.62
Conversion: 2 (And Yes, the postback worked beautifully. Thanks Irina )
CR: 3.13%
Revenue: $3.96
ROI: -59%

LP ver 9
Imp: 1778
Clicks: 8
CTR: 0.45%
Spend: $1.65 (Should I have let this run some more? Statistically insignificant for any action)
Conversion: 0
ROI: -100%


Day 18
Pausing some target/zones and increasing the bids on the ones that gave atleast one conversion to get more traffic from them and hopefully more conversions.

LP ver 3
Imp: 6835
Clicks: 78
CTR: 1.14%
Spend: $7.06
Conversion: 1
CR: 1.28%
Revenue: $1.98
ROI: -72%

And this is where I am today. Whew! Got some insights into my own data while I was slicing & dicing it to share here.. that's an unforseen benefit

Any tips? Guidance? Insights? Recommendations? Advice on any LP? I'm all ears!! Thanks for reading through this super long daily log & I'll start sharing this on a daily basis now.

 

[T J Tutor]

You are on track. I know @servandosilva is great at Pops. Maybe we can get his input on this. You should be able to get this on a steady positive earnings track pretty quick with advice from some of prominent Pop marketers.

Keep this moving!

 

[servandosilva]

Thanks TJ.
There's a lot of info here, but, @vidb could you share your best campaign with details and stats from your trackers so maybe we can chime in and work on it?
The one with better potential so far as the stats are all over the place here with several days and traffic sources so it's hard for me to see any patterns or give any specific advice

 

[vidb]

Big Thanks @tjtutor & @servandosilva for reading and offering to help.
I have prepared an excel which basically ignores all the failed attempts and only looks at the traffic source, offer & LP ver that gave me minimum 1 conversion. I have 3 LPs that gave conversions, 1 Traffic Source & 1 Offer.

LP 3 Performance

LP 7 Performance

LP 8 Performance

 

[vidb]

I've created 5 variations of LP ver 3, with some text changes, instructions for next page as a pop & as bold text, some "Hurry!..." text before the CTA Button and running 20% traffic to each LP to see which one has a better CTR and that should help me nail it further, since I made changes over the days but didn't keep a track of the changes and it's impact on the CTR & CR.

Keeping my fingers crossed!

 

[vidb]

Day 19

This is what I found out after yesterday's run.... which again leaves me a bit like my profile pic, due to 0 conversions. What am I missing? Or should I have run these variants only with the site ids that gave a conversion in the past? I'm also checking on their contribution to yesterday's traffic. Will update soon.

Update
Out of the entire traffic received yesterday for this campaign, the contribution of the converting site ids was 5% which is ~300 visits.

Thinking of running the best CTR LP today in the VIP Room campaign.

 

[vidb]

Day 20

I ran LP Ver 3A today and got 2 conversions...just 2 I think I'm messing up my CTR data by enabling re-direct on countdown expiry to the offer page. In order to get the real effectiveness of my LP, here is what I'll do tonight. Button CTA -> Offer 2 & Timer over redirect -> Offer 1.

While this will help me slice the CTR data, but my main issue is I'm bleeding $$. Feel free to comment/suggest... I'm all ears!!

 

[servandosilva]

What methods are you following so far to increase the number of conversions? What's your optimization process?

Aso, your CTR even for pop traffic might be a bit low. What kind of verticals and traffic sources are you using?

 

[vidb]

Thanks @servandosilva for your time.
I have tried 1 click landers and multiple click (quiz, game type landers). Single click landers give me a CTR of 10% - 19% and Multiple click ones under 2% CTR. I've tried different angles on the landers, changed images, text, text-effects, urgency timers, limited quantities (scarcity tactics) but my CTR remains in that range.

Initially I was sending people from my LP to a sweepstakes offer, but that had no conversion, so my AM suggested I try an email submit and that's when I started seeing some conversions.

I pause any site id that hits 1X the offer payout without any conversion, irrespective of the CTR (since I've sent traffic to a sweepstakes and an email submit offer). If I've received a conversion from a particular site id, I increase my bid on it to get more traffic but I continue to monitor it for the spend. If the spend starts going up, but no additional conversion, I drop my bid on it but keep it running.

What sort of CTR should I aim for on RON to classify it as a winning one for email submits?

 

[servandosilva]

Are you using some scripts like exit pop ups, entry pops, redirects, etc?
Also, maybe 1x is not enough. I usually let it run for 2-3x before pausing based on my decision and optimization.

As for the CTR, it's difficult to say. I normally aim at 10% for sweepstakes, but for 1 traffic source 3% could be enough and for another 15% could be not enough.

 

[vidb]

@servandosilva.... using an entry pop, an exit pop, countdown timer redirect, text effect on my LP H1, geolocation detection (mentioning city on LP to make it more personalized). But you're right, my CTR is horrible right now, which is why I'm not making any money

Apparently, I had messed up my own data by redirecting to the offer page on countdown using the aff_kit timer, which was causing my CTR to show more than it really was.

I'll be sharing the data from my last run in a bit and the I'm busy moving from one host to another... as soon as the domain propagates and hosting is setup, I'll start the campaign again (making some LP changes in the interim)

 

[DoubleDouble]

@vidb absolutely fantastic follow along - credit to you and I hope you manage to keep it up! I am in the process of testing some offers out myself as well. some questions for you

a) did you design the LPs from scratch based on ones you may have spied on, or are they completely your own designs?
b) did you test without all the pops and scripts in, and then slowly add.

point b) @servandosilva or @tjtutor will probably know better than me, but is it always best to go with all the scripts form the start? my current optimization plan is :

3 LP designs
3 Angles (run each angle on each LP design)

no scripts or anything on the LPs. Run to x2 spend. cut the worst angle.

Step 1 (test to x2 offer)
+ intro pop run to spend cut the worst angle (monitor increase in CTR)
Step 2 (test to x2 offer)
+ exit pop/back button redirect (monitor CTR)
Step 3 (test to x2 offer)
+ alert/sound ( monitor CTR)

Cut worst 2 performing launders/Angle.

Test colors on landing page/images. x2 offer cost per test.

Hopefully at this point you have a pretty decent CTR on the LP and some conversions. Whilst I am not 100% i think you should test all variables as I am sure in optimization not everything all at once is going work.

Regarding source:
From a campaign I recently ran, I cut anything that had 300 impressions and no conversions, or was 1.5x offer price with no conversions.

Cashmoneyaffiliate recommended to cut based on CTR and if for example overall campaign CTR is 20% cut anything with say 1% CTR.

If from experience by putting all the scripts on a page at once you are better off from the start feel free to tell me I am wasting my time or full of sh** and I will happily make my life easier and cheaper.