First ever campaign !

[stevedee]

Hi everyone,

Started my first ever CPA campaign this week which feels pretty scary, so any advice would be fantastic.
Already had a Peerfly account and decided to try Media Buys.
Found 2 email submits that I could advertise via banners, then went to BuySellAds and found 2 niche websites to put the banners on.

Banner 1 was 300x250 and cost $27 for 30 days, while Banner 2 cost $22.50 for 30k imps - total $49.50

Now into day 2 and the results so far are :-

Banner 1:
Impressions - 1803
Clicks - 0
Cons - 0

Banner 2:
Impressions - 2112
Clicks - 2
Cons - 0

Don't know what to do now, is this good or bad ?
Now, this is where I need to know what to do next !

I know it doesn't happen overnight, but should I not have gotten at least 1 conversion ?

Your help and advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Steve

 

[K]

Ok maybe not some conversions but at least some clicks, i would suggest your banners rant good enough or catching the eyes of people

the one bit of advice about banners i can give is to think outside the box, the eye is trained to skip past adverts online as we see the same old shit day in day out so think what would catch the eye? what niches are you using?

A simple banner in paint will work 2x better than a flashy banner!

KEEP IT SIMPLE! get some clicks first and then worry about conversion rates!

Maybe showing us your banners and niches may help!

 

[stevedee]

1st banner is a Gas Card on a Car Forum.
2nd banner is Free McDonalds Card on a Sports Forum.

Am using banners from the networks as this is my first campaign, and just wanted to get things moving.
You mention about flashy banners, aren't the network banners supposed to be already converting ?

 

[blillard]

Keep split testing your banners. The goal here is to drive your CTR up. You want more clicks. Look at the banner that is doing good and try rotating banners that are similar. The conversion will come but first click through rate. Remember ugly banners are good performers. Instead of promoting saying something like get a free $100 gas card. Try to come with an angle like gas company exec forces company out of business now their giving away free gas cards?. Give them a reason to click the banner make it interesting.

 

[K]

Agreed you need to seriously split test banners, put some other simple banners up for a day and see if the CTR has gone up at all? then once you getting clicks worry about the conversion - people are seeing your banners you need to work out why they aren't clicking them!

 

[stevedee]

You mention split testing, the cpa network gives you 1 banner (ie. 300x250), so how do you get more. Do you use other cpa networks offering a similar offer, or have your own made up ?
Instead of running 2 different campaigns, should I just concentrate on 1 only ?

 

[cucr3]

You need to make some banners yourself. Usually banners provided by the network are generic and won't convert as well as ones you designed. Try using different colors, fonts, images, etc. You could also try the same offer from two different networks and see who converts better as well.

 

[K]

Whats the latest update man?

 

[JohnCPAAlpha]

I always change creatives, make sure to get yours approved. The problem with having or using the creatives that the networks give you, is they are all over the place.

 

[stevedee]

Campaign update !
These campaigns have been running for just over 2 weeks now and here is the data so far.

Banner 1: 728x90 - 11 clicks - 16,321 imps - 0.07% ctr
Banner 2: 300x250 - 11 clicks - 12,490 imps - 0.09% ctr

NO CONVERSIONS !

I suppose the harsh lesson here is not to advertise on forums and not to use the network banners.

 

[K]

Ok so what forums did you advertise on? i would never use network creatives tbh they are to fancy - switch up the banners and test?

 

[stevedee]

OK, the month is now up for my banner campaign.
For the 2 campaigns I ran, I got around 20k imps and approx 20 clicks for both banners.
Conversions = 0

Question: If people click on the banner, what stops them progressing any further and entering a simple email submit ?
Surely if they click, they're interested.

 

[K]

Did you test the offer converts? Did you ask you AM about the offer?

 

[stevedee]

No, I did not ask AM.
Since i'm very green to all this, i just found an offer and ran with it.

 

[Emvee]

I wouldn't know the reason but gas offers just don't convert anymore, looks like people have seen enough of them.

Try an offer which is not one of the common ones so that people become curious and click through to fill in their details. Using unique banners which merge with the content on the website will also get some conversions.

 

[K]

I wouldn't know the reason but gas offers just don't convert anymore, looks like people have seen enough of them.

Try an offer which is not one of the common ones so that people become curious and click through to fill in their details. Using unique banners which merge with the content on the website will also get some conversions.

Nice, and also ask your AM what they think of the offer and what they'd advice using - make sure it converts!

 

[bernardosgr]

Good luck on this mate, I've found it and heard from everyone that persistance makes rich, stick with it, I'm also trying out for my first CAse Study

 

[Sharier]

For your banner you can also try splitting your banner. You shouldn't jag a lot of banners in your site. You can take 10 banner but you have make it simple and useful. And then your banners are clicked by your user.. Hope it helps.

 

[david15923]

2 tips: 1 Cut out the middleman (in this case buysellads) and ask the website owner (they generally always have a "contact" link) and ask him for a special price.

2. Split test and see what's better. NEVER use network banners because people have seen them a million times and because it isn't new the brain is already trained to ignore it.

Plus I think that media buys are pretty advanced for any kind of newbie, unless you have a lot of money for testing. Try to start with PPC/PPV that's your best option.