From ZERO to 5 FIGURES from scratch with mobile cpa

[Mr.Z]

I know this a lil off topic but can someone tell me what metrics your supposed to be tracking when it comes to pop traffic , I'm talking about inside the tracker is it cpv or is it cpc ?

Hi @BigmanNc. I'm not an expert, but I'll try to answer: you have to watch quite few metrics, if I had to choose the most important ones, I'd say CTR (Click Through Rate), CR/CVR (Conversion Rate) and obviously ROI (Return On Investment). I'm not so much interested in CPV as you setup max CPV in your traffic marketplace dashboard (like ZeroPark), so the CPV in your tracker is normally close to the number you setup there. I'd suggest you to get some solid course (I highly recommend 'Mobile Immersion' by @cashmoneyaffiliate) and learn all the basics + intermediate stuff before you do anything else. This will save you ton of money! Good luck

Hi @Mr.Z & Everyone,
Thanks a lot @Mr.Z for sharing great tips.
I have 2 questions:
1. It's very important to care about the page loading speed, but what about the tracker loading speed, it will really increase the campaign loading speed. How can you deal with this ??
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2. I have a cloudflare account but i can't figure how to upload my landers to my server, i searched about that and i found nothing, please if you have any tutorial or hint to do that i'll be thankfull.
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Thanks.

Hi @Kc-Tan.
1. I don't think it takes that much time for the tracker to redirect to your offer. The best trackers have multiple data centers across the globe, so redirection time is minimized (Voluum.com, Adsbridge.com). I wouldn't worry about this too much. You should focus on loading your landing page in shortest possible time. I explained how to do this in few other posts earlier, but here's a short summary:
- compress images (Compressor.io and Caesium);
- use CDN (Content Delivery Network), this is huge! I use CloudFlare and their new feature called 'Argo' (Argo delivers significant latency improvements), plus I have selected 'auto minify' for JavaScript, CSS and Html code, which speeds up page load time even more. CDN is really awesome and I highly recommend it!
- check how many redirects is there before landing to final offer landing page: use Urlitor.com. I explained this in my last update #8.
2. Did you figure it out yet? If not, have a look at this: Getting Started – Cloudflare Support
Also remember to change your domain DNS in your domain registrar account and remember this change may take few hours to take effect, depends on registrar. It's a bit tricky to setup everything in CDN account, but once you have this done, it works like a charm and makes your site load in split of a second! Let me know where you stuck exactly, if you have, and I'll try to help.
P.S. I remember I found quite few tips on YouTube how to setup Cloudflare.

 

[Mr.Z]

My two cents. But 250 per month for traffic is too low. You will be spending much more on tools, subscriptions and servers that it won't be profitable at the end.

I am of course encouraging you to continue and love the fact you took action, I know my advice can seem blunt but it is to help you realize that the more money you put in your camps, the faster you will find a converting offer and be able to get back your initial investment and make a profit.

I would suggest between 50 to 100 a day as a starting budget. Do not forget that networks can pay you weekly if you are generating enough conversions. So even with 1000 to 2000 dollars, you will be able to generate enough conversions, and gather enough data to learn the traffic source quicker, test more offers and


Let say you test a couple of offers with 100 to 200 dollars. 10 initial offers with one converting landing page. The best offer (and most of the time, you will have several offers that convert well for a specific carrier / placements, type of traffic adult/mainstream and so on, but to keep it simple we will say that only one looks promising).

You are at -50%, and in a whole of 200 dollars (not enough conversions to get paid from the aff network).

Ok great, time to go to step 2.

Now that you have an offer that converts, you need to work on it to reach a positive ROI. You decide to test different landing pages for this same offer by aggressively cutting bad placements.
Let say 5 landing pages, so total is 20 per landing, by 5. It is another 100 dollars.

Your best lander is at -30%. Great. Time to go to step 4.

You will need to test even more landing pages (or testing different angles for the best performing landing page, it depends really and every marketer has a different opinion) while not blacklisting too many placements to keep the traffic rolling, you don't want to be making 5/10 a day, after all these efforts.

5 angles tested with the best performing landing page. 20 dollars per angle. You need statistical significance, and hence the offers you should be testing need to be less than a dollar to make sure that the changes you are making are not due to luck but are really making a difference in conversions. This is very important in order to be able to scale confidently.

Ok, now you spent another 100 dollars and found your best angle, while praying traffic doesnt drop too much. Popads is very competitive, and you can get outbid pretty quickly.

Next step, I forgot the count... Yeah, step 5.

Now that you generated enough conversions, and got to a -10% to breakeven stage, you have several possibilities to reach 50%+ ROI:
-Ask for a payout bump.
-Create whitelist camps (some people prefer to have one campaign per carrier operator from the beginning, this is why it is very important to get in touch with your aff manager and ask for the best offers available and not blindly rely on the reports they send. The traffic most of the time is coming from a single affiliate and you don't know what kind of traffic he is using. For example social traffic ie fb can convert 10% easily in some cases while pops can't get past 1 or 2% in the best case scenarios).
-Test different bid levels.
-Create a camp for adult and mainstream.
-Test the same offer from a different network. This might be done earlier depending how tight in budget you are etc..
-Start testing the same offers in different geos from the same advertiser.
-Scale to other traffic sources etc...
And the list goes on.

As you can see, you will need a minimum of 400 dollars before breaking even. And from that step you will certainly need about 1000 dollars to scale the campaign and make a profit.
This process can take as much as a week to a month or more, it depends, you can get lucky and find a profitable campaign off your first 200 dollars batch testing. Or it can take two rounds or three.
So 400 dollars is really a minimum, the more realistic budget is as I said 1000 to 2000 dollars to reach a solid breakeven/profit.

Don't forget that offers get paused, competition jumps on board etc..., so let say you use your 250 dollars the first days of the month and in the best case you find a profitable campaign. Waiting a couple of weeks to resume traffic may be too late. When you find a profitable camp, you need to hit it hard and fast, squeeze profits and move to the next one.

I hope it helps.

@medvih thanks for your awesome post, I appreciate your tips, it does help a lot! I'll add some bits to my mindmap
I know $250 isn't much. I wasn't clear about that: I plan to spend that $250 per month just to test campaigns (I may increase it slightly if needed), however, once I find profitable campaign, I'll be able to top-up up to $1000, then start optimizing etc.

I try to be very careful with my budget and I spend it very economically. My strategy before I find profitable campaign is to test each campaign with 3 different landing pages, different angle for each page. I spend 3 times offer payout, but no more than $10 per LP (I choose sweepstakes/voucher offers with payout between $1 and $5) and looking for an offer making -50% ROI straight away, before optimizing, then go from there.

 

[Mr.Z]

Guys, sorry for so long break from posting. I had absolutely no time to continue my journey lately. If you read my story, you know I bought a flat in mortgage at the beginning of this year and for last 5 weeks I had to organize more bits and pieces for it, plus sorting out some bureaucracy. Above that, I have to work full time to cover all the expenses, pretty much like everybody else. So I had no time left after that. However, I'm back, I'm still determined and ready to test some campaigns. I'll try to focus on testing campaigns and nothing else in my spare time, no writing scripts like for Clickdealer etc. just testing. My priority is to find profitable campaign now! Anyway, sorry for being quiet for a while, now you can expect another update some time next week. Thanks for your support, patience and tips (@medvih).

 

[Mr.Z]

​

***** 10 WEEKS BREAK *****
​

 

[bnz229]

nice post. thanks

 

[Mr.Z]

UPDATE #9 [07 August - 13 August / 1 week]


Yeah, I'm back. You probably thought that I gave up But no, I simply had no time. Well, I don't want to make excuses, I'm just gonna be honest. I was dating girls, lol No, seriously, I was. There's my sister's wedding next Saturday, so I wanted to have a partner to go with to the wedding.

Now, I back to 3h/day routine, starting today and I'm gonna report my progress every day, day by day to the end of current week in this update, then another update would look the same: started at the beginning of the week and updated daily (edited every day). That will motivate me to do 3h days without postponing things.

Well, 10 weeks off is a lot, I know. Then I also had 1 week off during Easter time and I plan to take another week off in September, because I can't remember when I had vacation last time and I really need it, so that's 12 weeks in total, about 3 months off. It's almost like I started testing campaigns on 1st of July, here's why:
- I started this journey on 16th of February and I was learning stuff for about 6 weeks, up to the end of March
- Now counting my 3 months off from 1st of April, we get the gap up to 1st of July
I hope that makes sense. It's just my calculation as I like calculate and analyze things

So, I managed to have a campaign with -40% ROI straight away before, without any optimizing, therefore I think it's just a matter of time when I get it again, then I'll hit it with optimizing process and hopefully get positive ROI, that's the plan for now
I'm not gonna waste my time on learning more and more things, the priority is to have converting campaign, that's it! And I focus on nothing else, but this, as I think I have enough knowledge now to hit it!

Once again, I apologize everybody who follow this thread and could feel disappointed that I stopped updating it. Alright, let's get to work! Today I won't do much probably, as I'm just getting back on track slowly, tomorrow I plan to start testing.


DAY 1 (Tuesday, 3.5h)
- I spent a while to get back on track. I analyzed how much time I spent on this journey in total so far and there's a quick summary above.
- I logged into my 2 new network accounts I created a while ago: Mobidea and Pinox to look around and see what kind of offers they've got and to check payment terms. I may try some offers from one of those networks as my AM from Clickdealer is on vacation at the moment, so I won't bother her.
Payment terms for networks I'm subscribed to:
Mobidea: min.$50, daily
Pinox: min.$500, weekly Net15; Net7 for $1000, No hold for $2000
Clickdealer: min.$500 weekly Net7 or monthly Net15

DAY 2 (Wednesday, 3.5h)
- I applied for offers from one particular country in Europe on Mobidea.com, have been approved. Now I need to figure out how to setup Mobidea with Voluum.
- For the first time I played with manual "spy on competition" method using Opera Emulator and Hide My Ass VPN and I've downloaded some landing pages. I'll decide which ones are worth editing. I have just 1 proven LP at the moment that has about 1.5% CR.

DAY 3 (Thursday, 3.5h)
- I checked Mobile Immersion area, read latest posts there and downloaded landing page for sweepstakes that @cashmoneyaffiliate uploaded there for the subscribers.
- Now I'm struggling with Mobidea setup...

DAY 4 (Friday, 4h)
All setup for Mobidea
- Global postback. For newbies: you just paste first part of Voluum subdomain. You find it in 'Settings' -> 'Domains' and if it's for example abc10.voluumtrk2.com, then you copy only abc10 and paste it in Mobidea settings. Now I don't need to do anything about the postbacks when setup offer in Voluum, which is good. All I need to do now is copy offer link in Voluum when creating new offer, that's it.
- Custom tracking domain. I bought new domain from GoDaddy where I have my other domains and VPS. Then I setup Nameservers for it in GoDaddy and verified it in Mobidea.
- I haven't tested it yet, but according to Mobidea support that should work fine

DAY 5 (Saturday, 3h)
I continued playing with Mobidea.
- They are pretty damn awesome! They have so called 'smartlinks', I understand the idea now
- They have 'safety fallback', and a guy from customer support said this:
"This option basically sends users from a single offer to smartlink in case the user doesn´t match the segment (Country + Operator + Operating System) of the offer; this is for you to not lose traffic."
- Opportunities where you can view best offers from last 7 days and sort them / view the best ones based on CR, EPC, Revenue etc.

DAY 6 (Sunday, 3.5h)
- I played with Pinox, same thing as with Mobidea. I had to figure out couple of things, like Global postback again, setup payment system etc.

So, I haven't promoted any offers yet and the main reason for that was that I had to remind myself couple of things after the break and also I had to figure out how to integrate Mobidea and Pinox with Voluum. I consider myself as a tech guy, but I was little bit confused about some bits there, well.

Next step: Test some offers and landing pages! Now all setup with Clickdealer, Mobidea and Pinox. All I need to do now is just test!

P.S. I told you about another week off in September, but I'll take it now I'm affraid. I promised my sister to help her to sort out some bits and pieces about the wedding, but mainly, to be honest, I want to spend some time with my girl I'll be back in next couple of days! Thanks for your support, I appreciate it a lot!

 

[SirOdds]

It was for the noblest of causes you are forgiven

g'luck mate, I'm here for the ride

 

[Mr.Z]

It was for the noblest of causes you are forgiven

g'luck mate, I'm here for the ride

Haha, I appreciate it mate, cheers!

 

[azgold]

You probably thought that I gave up

Never!

There's nothing wrong with taking a break. Sometimes, it's the best way to refresh and recharge then you can come back strong.

We'll be waiting with bated breath for your return! Good luck and welcome back.

 

[cashmoneyaffiliate]

UPDATE #9 [07 August - 13 August / 1 week]


Yeah, I'm back. You probably thought that I gave up But no, I simply had no time. Well, I don't want to make excuses, I'm just gonna be honest. I was dating girls, lol No, seriously, I was. I've been alone for about 18 months now, and also, there's my sister's wedding next Saturday, so I wanted to have a partner to go with to the wedding. So I was busy looking for the perfect girl, that's my excuse And yeah, I found beautiful girl and she is perfect

Now, I back to 3h/day routine, starting today and I'm gonna report my progress every day, day by day to the end of current week in this update, then another update would look the same: started at the beginning of the week and updated daily (edited every day). That will motivate me to do 3h days without postponing things.

Well, 10 weeks off is a lot, I know. Then I also had 1 week off during Easter time and I plan to take another week off in September, because I can't remember when I had vacation last time and I really need it, so that's 12 weeks in total, about 3 months off. It's almost like I started testing campaigns on 1st of July, here's why:
- I started this journey on 16th of February and I was learning stuff for about 6 weeks, up to the end of March
- Now counting my 3 months off from 1st of April, we get the gap up to 1st of July
I hope that makes sense. It's just my calculation as I like calculate and analyze things

So, I managed to have a campaign with -40% ROI straight away before, without any optimizing, therefore I think it's just a matter of time when I get it again, then I'll hit it with optimizing process and hopefully get positive ROI, that's the plan for now
I'm not gonna waste my time on learning more and more things, the priority is to have converting campaign, that's it! And I focus on nothing else, but this, as I think I have enough knowledge now to hit it!

Once again, I apologize everybody who follow this thread and could feel disappointed that I stopped updating it. Alright, let's get to work! Today I won't do much probably, as I'm just getting back on track slowly, tomorrow I plan to start testing.


DAY 1 (Tuesday, 3.5h)
- I spent a while to get back on track. I analyzed how much time I spent on this journey in total so far and there's a quick summary above.
- I logged into my 2 new network accounts I created a while ago: Mobidea and Pinox, to check payment terms and I may try some offers from one of those networks.
Payment terms for networks I'm subscribed to:
Mobidea: min.$50, daily
Pinox: min.$500, weekly Net15; Net7 for $1000, No hold for $2000
Clickdealer: min.$500 weekly Net7 or monthly Net15

DAY 2 (Wednesday, 3.5h)
To be updated

DAY 3 (Thursday, 3.5h)
To be updated

DAY 4 (Friday, 3.5h)
To be updated

DAY 5 (Saturday, 3.5h)
To be updated

DAY 6 (Sunday, 3.5h)
To be updated

Happy to see your back on it hopefully you used the time off to recharge and now have a renewed focus. Looking forward to seeing your updates.

 

[Mr.Z]

Never!

There's nothing wrong with taking a break. Sometimes, it's the best way to refresh and recharge then you can come back strong.

We'll be waiting with bated breath for your return! Good luck and welcome back.

Happy to see your back on it hopefully you used the time off to recharge and now have a renewed focus. Looking forward to seeing your updates.

Thank you guys, I appreciate it a lot! I feel super motivated, especially when I have attention of mobile CPA legend

 

[clark.1331]

Loved reading your journey! Lots of good nuggets of "lessons learned" to keep an eye out for in my own journey! Keep it up and excited to continue to watch you through your journey! Keep it up!

 

[Mr.Z]

All updated for the UPDATE#9 now. Sorry for not updating it in time. I'll be back in next couple of days

 

[Mr.Z]

***** 5 WEEKS BREAK *****

​

 

[Mr.Z]

[deleted]

 

[ronaldv]

I'm new to this thread, congratulations for your hard work! I see you have been tweaking LPs and offers. Maybe the problem is with traffic sources? Apart from ZeroPark, what other sources have you tried?

 

[abdellahi]

good luck

 

[Mr.Z]

I'm new to this thread, congratulations for your hard work! I see you have been tweaking LPs and offers. Maybe the problem is with traffic sources? Apart from ZeroPark, what other sources have you tried?

Hi Ronald, I use only ZeroPark at the moment. I didn't test that many offers yet. Today I start my "marketing month" and will test as many offers as I can during this period and I expect to find converting offer either this or next week, we'll see. I haven't been much active here lately, but I'm going to fix this and work hard for a month now starting today. I take a risk here, but I'm very positive and almost sure I can succeed very soon from now.

P.S. I just noticed this thread is in first 10 threads in "Follow Alongs and Online Journeys" section, by replies and views. Thanks!

 

[Sephrata]

Unless you buy Zeropark's 'premium' traffic (which is overpriced in some geos), I would advise you to look to other traffic sources. A lot of the normal Zeropark traffic is either rebrokered or remnant traffic and the quality is quite low.

There are better traffic sources out there that you will need to find a converting offer.

 

[thelegend]

Good luck to you .Please keep us updated