Choosing a Country for a campaign

[Delyte]

So people often talk about testing an ad that's successful in a country in similar countries if they work. This made me think about where I should start my first campaign(s). Unfortunately I only speak English, so without a translator I trust, I am limited to English speaking countries. Which leads me to my first question/concern about this decision, is that should I choose the country with the largest amount of disposable income per person, or should I focus on the country with the least competition? The US, my home country, is a very developed nation with a high average salary compared to most other English speaking countries, with the exceptions of Australia, Canada, the UK, and Ireland. I imagine promoting big ticket items would be the most successful in these countries, however they easily could have the most competition, so how should I decide? My instinct is to just go with the US to start since that's where I live. Could this be advantageous or disadvantageous? Are there any significant barriers to running campaigns outside my own country? Is traffic just cheaper in less profitable countries?

Some more direct questions for more experienced affiliates:

1. Are there countries that are just overall less/more profitable across the board for all (or at least most) types of offers?
2. Do you ever/often work in countries that don't use your language(s) as a primary language?
3. Do you ever run ads in a language other than the country's primary language?
4. Any advice for an english-only speaker choosing a country for my first campaign(s)?

 

[Daria_WapEmpire]

Hi @Delyte
I only speak for mobile marketing, but I thinks it's all alike.
There are many countries where you can use English, not only Australia, Canada, the UK, and Ireland. Check South Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia. English works there, at least with what we work. I also believe international offers can be easily converted in English. At least, Europeans will understand what you meant to say.
You may also use some freelance services, native speakers usually offer translation for not really big prices.

Geos work like this: the higher payous you get, the smaller is CR, and vice versa. E.g., the payout for Indian mobile cpa offer can be $0.60, while the average CR's 2%. The similar offer for UK can give you $18 per conversion, but the CR will be about 0.20%.
The thing here is it's often easier to start with the cheaper geos' traffic, just because you may gain knowledge spending less money.

 

[Delyte]

You make some good points, especially regarding gaining more knowledge with less money, and anything budget conscious is especially important for me.

With the example you gave:
1000 people see the Indian ad, 2% = 20 * $0.60 = $12
1000 people see the UK ad, 0.02% = 2 * $18 = $36

So the payout per impression is 3x higher for UK. Is the traffic 1/3 the cost? I guess my main question here is do these formulas typically balance out so that the overall %profit is roughly the same for all geos? Or are there some countries that are more profitable? I suppose the market would balance it out so that the profitability is roughly equal, albeit never exactly.

Is it your experience that all countries are roughly equally profitable?