Giude: Which approach is the best for campaign optimization

[Affmy]

Which approach is the best for campaign optimization​

Finding the way to make your campaign profitable is probably the most important task for you as an affiliate marketer. There are two different methods that can be used for this issue. They are called whitelisting and blacklisting.


These methods have a totally different approach to the optimization process. Each one has both advantages and disadvantages, but the second one is more preferable. If we look at the two ways of optimization a bit closer, it’ll be clear why.

Blacklist method key features​

This approach uses a quite simple principal: you cut the worst placements and leave all the others running. Still, it won’t be so easy as it seems to be. Blacklisting requires persistence and relatively big budget. Surely, there will be some initial losses and you should be able to cover them.


Unlike the whitelist marketers, the ones that use blacklisting work with the whole available market in order to monetize it. For example, if there are 1000 placements, blacklister will cut 50 that don’t work and leave all the others.


Whitelister will do the opposite thing. He’ll use only 10 that are 100% profitable according to his info. And now the situation is the following: whitelist marketer has 10 placements, which were profitable earlier and there is no guarantee for this in the future.


At the same time, blacklister has 950 variants and each one has a chance to hit the jackpot.



This approach aims to create a better traffic funnel. It includes such things as:


1. Choosing the best possible offer (it’s the first thing you should do).


2. Landing pages upgrade to improve the content quality.


3. Creating better ads for your campaign.


4. Focusing on long-term perspective.

And now the best thing about the blacklist strategy. It leaves you a huge space to scale up your campaign, which is almost impossible using the opposite approach. So, if you want to play big, then blacklisting should be your choice.




To be continued…

 

[azgold]

Awesome, thanks @Affmy ! I actually didn't have a clear idea of the advantage of blacklisting vs whitelisting. Whitelisting is just easier for some reason.

 

[Affmy]

Whitelist method main characteristics

​

The key point of this strategy is to focus on something that is undoubtedly profitable (according to your info) and to receive an immediate revenue. Whitelist marketer will choose 10 placements out of 1000 available and work only with them.



This approach is common for affiliates with a small budget. They can’t afford losses because of scarce funds, so they grab the first profitable thing they see. Then these marketers set their bids to the appropriate level in order to get the biggest amount of valuable traffic.



This strategy looks rather good initially, but only if market leftovers are enough for you. The whitelist method creates a border that makes it almost impossible for you to scale up the campaign. There are a couple of reasons why it is so.



First, such approach significantly reduces your volumes. You work only with a small amount of placements, which were profitable some time ago. And you can’t be sure it’ll be so in the future. Second, if you ignore all the other placements, you’ll never see when the new awesome one will appear. At last, banner blindness will be as fierce as possible when you use this strategy.

If you’re still a whitelisting fan, just keep in mind the following things:​

1. Only stick to the placements with the highest volume among the profitable ones.


2. Your campaign will require active management, so be ready to monitor it every day.


3. You’ll definitely have to change ad creatives very often.


4. Don’t expect your profits to last for a long time, market is very volatile.



Still, there is one really good thing about the whitelist strategy. It allows the new affiliates with small funds to enter the market with high competition level. However, it’s not a great idea to grab every placement that seems to have ROI a bit more than zero.

Is there a universal strategy to follow?​

Definitely, you can’t say that a certain approach will always be better. Blacklisting is the best one for scaling up, but there are some networks, where the opposite method will be much more lucrative.



Whitelisting isn’t bad. You just don’t have to stick a group of profitable placements like a madman. It won’t let you to go any further. For really big campaigns a single placement doesn’t matter much.


Whichever strategy you choose, there is one thing you should always avoid. It’s over-optimization. It’s a really bad idea to kill every placement that isn’t undoubtedly profitable. That will block you the way to any possible growth in the future.


So, be wise and think of what you can reach in a long term perspective

 

[azgold]

More awesome info, thanks!

I assume that a person could use WLing a profitable campaign would work to raise money to continue running but switch to BL.

 

[lumeire]

One option would be to run both, use the blacklist method to search for placements all the while running a separate, whitelist campaign for the placements that turned +ROI on your blacklist campaign.

 

[AstroBoss]

great article!

 

[Patrick3333]

thanks for this

 

[Maxxx333]

good thread!