Journey from 0 - consistent $XX revenue in 2020

[Ben_King]

Hello everyone! I’m a regular member of another forum and wanted to share my progress that I wrote over there of how I went from 0 to consistent revenue months.

This was originally posted on **1st May 2020** and although I’m not expert level I made good progress.

Hope other members can learn from my mistakes and happy to answer any questions

This will be my journal to keep myself accountable and share the journey of me going from complete beginner to making making profitable campaigns with Push & Sweepstakes.

My set up is as follows: Tracker - Bemob ; Traffic Source - Propeller ads ; Offers: SOI & DOI from Maxbounty , Lander: Purelander (& custom HTML changes) which I learnt on a free but very helpful Youtube course.

Why Push? I was originally trying this with Bing search and Facebook. Although I got 2 conversions the CPC's were too high with my lowest being 0.19. With Push I can go as low as 0.055 for my T1 geo which gives me more margin for profitability.

I have sent my first campaign for approval that uses the landing page that got me conversions before on a very slow wordpress website via Bing ads. Now improved and set up with Amazon S3/Purelander it loads 2x quicker.

For creatives testing I have used one lander and 5 creatives at 10x payout across the campaign. Depending on the results I'll spend more for more data or start pruning if I see conversions.

As budget is tight I'll be taking on an additional job once covid-19 is over for more cash flow and will also lean on my account manager to give me better payment terms so I can re-invest more quickly. One step at a time though I'll come back with an update on my 1st push campaign.

So after several changes to my ads that had initially been rejected due to me using brand logos and guaranteeing results in my copy I paused my campaign after 11 clicks because for some reason they aren't being registered in my tracker. I know how important getting this right is so I've paused it until I get this fixed.

I'm clearly going wrong somewhere so I'll do some digging tonight and tomorrow with a fresh head. If anyone can point out what's wrong please let me know

1. I added push notifications in Bemob from the template and added the propeller ads S2S postback URL.

2. My Campaign URL from Bemob was then added to the target URL in my propeller ads through copy and paste. I did a search in my screenshot to double check they're identical.

3. I then used the "Test" Bemob URL and the flow works as expected but there are 11 clicks in Propeller that have not shown up in Bemob

Anyway while I try to get that sorted in other news my CTR from the outset looks horrendously low at 0.29% *BUT* when you dig deeper I can see that there are some real gold mine zones... One of which is sitting at 20% CTR.

Now obviously I don't have enough data to jump into any conclusions but it's cool to see how running a push campaign would work. Especially as other hot spot zones had CTR's of 4% & 7%.

My next steps are to get my tracking sorted, run the campaign for more data then really narrow down on what creatives & zones are working for me to see if this offer is worth scaling or not.

All the best!

 

[Honeybadger]

Thanks for sharing your strategy

 

[Aditya007]

Following! Let us know if you require any kind of help in the process!!

 

[T J Tutor]

Let us know if you require any kind of help in the process!!

THIS is what makes our day!

 

[NicoleW]

Great job, well done)
I had some new ideas after reading of your post, so, thanks)

 

[MaxBountyJoe]

Thanks for sharing, Ben!

Let us know if there's anything we (or your AM) can do to assist you further in your journey!

- Joe

 

[bafeng]

Can you introduce the YouTube course

 

[Ben_King]

**Originally posted 4th May 2020**

Unfortunately I didn't get anymore conversions after spending just under 10x the payout.

Nonetheless I'm keeping positive and already have another campaign running a sweepstake that my account manager has said is doing well and I have seen throughout a load of spy tools in different GEOs. It may be burnt out but my 3 day test will let me know either way.

For this new campaign I'm testing x5 creatives and x2 landing pages.

The lesson I learned was to be less emotional when choosing offers especially as I'm new to this and lack experience. I was convinced my previous offer was solid partly because I got my first ever conversion on it 2 weeks ago which may have blinded me as I couldn't find other people running offers in spy tools (suggesting it isn't that profitable) and the EPC's in affiliate networks were also relatively low even though I'm conscious that isn't the most dependable metric to go off.

Onwards and upwards! While my campaign runs I'll be reaching out to my A.M for more profitable offers and doing my research/drafting landing pages while I continue to learn HTML & CSS.

 

[Ben_King]

**Originally posted 5th May 2020**

Update on my most recent campaign:

Got my first conversion and running at -80% ROI before any optimizing. Will let this run another day before pruning bad performing zones and ads.

I have already removed 1 of my 2 LP's because one was literally bringing in double the clicks even though it was the one that I thought was too gimmicky and wouldn't perform well lol. Just shows the importance of testing.

Onwards & Upwards

 

[Ben_King]

**Originally posted 7th May 2020**

Another update:

Still found myself stuck at the 1 conversion as the elusive 2nd one still evades me yet again... Maybe this is the affiliate marketing universes way of teasing me to work harder before the floods of conversions and leads come in...

* The 2nd pic is me right now trying to make my pre-allocated budget spend stretch until June lol* If not a sense of humor what is there to have hahaha?

On the bright side there is real progression with my results. This campaign in comparison to my last one has had a CTR rate of 13% vs the previous 5% which naturally attracted more clicks and more than halved my CPC. I owe it to this being a more logical decision based on spytools & account manager recommendation.

I'm also getting quicker at setting up on Bemob and putting landing pages together so the only way is up.

For transparency the previous offers I tried was a paid survey website and a Samsung S10 giveaway. Happy to send people landers via PM.

Moving forward I'm going to take a slightly different approach and really focus on the quality of my campaign. Naturally the more campaigns I make the faster I'll get to a winner but I'm going to take a real conscious effort to put a unique flow together (that based on research is converting) rather than throwing some slight variants of Purelander templates to push and seeing what sticks.

This means I'm spending a lot more time in Brackets HTML editor & Canva than I would like but needs must. I'm now armed with 3 more offers recommended by my affiliate manager that I would of skipped as they're US based *GULP* but I'm zoning in on specific cities that seem positive after some adwords research in order to limit the competition.

P.S Another thing I'm focusing on is getting set up on Monetizer to gain an extra revenue stream with push subscribers. I got accepted super quickly (I think the Afflift mention helped a lot) and waiting to hear back from their support team but as they're based in the UK like me they likely won't be around until Monday as it's our bank holiday tomorrow.

Until Next Time Gang - Have A Great Weekend

Ben

 

[Ben_King]

**Originally posted 10th May 2020**

Hi Guys, I'm going to be leaving more days between updates so I can spend more time on making quality campaigns:

What I Have Been Doing

• I made x2 landing pages for my most recent campaign: x1 chatbot lander (that took me forever lol) and x1 advertorial that I thought would work well for this email opt in/ lead gen type niche

• Created x5 push ads loosely based on what has worked well for me in the past.

• I set up Monetizer publisher and although I only started my new campaign yesterday I'm already collecting subscribers!

I used the back button redirect and a rule in bemob to redirect all viewers who are not in my chosen GEO to a smart link offer. This is an incredible way to make additional revenue streams with not much work as I'll be running campaigns anyway. Big thank you to this community as this isn't something that would of come across my radar.

Summary Of Campaign Results So Far

Unfortunately they aren't looking good but the current spend is only about 2x payout. I'll run this until 10x payout unless it really shows no promise

My Theories For Current Results

1. The ads don't flow well enough with the landing pages
2. I have over-complicated the landing pages and a simple survey lander may perform better
3. It's just not a very good offer - even though it was an account manager recommendation he described it as "steady"

My Potential Solutions

*As getting top performing LP's is my struggle at the moment (my highest is 13%) I will only run campaigns on offers that:

Are confirmed to be doing well by my account manager or earning history (that Mobidea shows) AND I can see LP's on spy tools doing well.

This will reduce me shooting in the dark which is more or less what I am doing at the moment as I'm not being rigid enough with my selection and building process.

My Questions

1. I do not have a niche per say and focus on anything with a max 3 page submit between $1.50 - $3.00 payout. Do people think I need to be more granular and only focus on dating,biz op, sweepstakes etc?

2. What is a good CTR rate from landing page to vendor page on SOI offers? My record is 15% so far but I have heard of people hitting 30-40% so a benchmark that I can work towards would be super helpful.

3. My postback on Monetizer is picking up my clicks but not the subscriptions. Is there a resource guide that someone can link me to? I tried looking at their site and searching this forum and it looks like my settings are correct so not too sure why it's not fully working.

Next Steps

• Carry on monitoring my campaign to see if it's savable or should be left alone
• Look for top performing campaigns on Mobidea and spy tools
• Start building another campaign if I find an offer and LP combo that looks proven to work

Resources I Used That May Help You

Free Youtube video on Monetizer that help me set up > How to suck more cash from CPA Affiliate Arbitrage - Monetizer Tutorial

• Image Resizer for replacing Purelander pictures > resizeimage

• Easy to use image editor when creating push ads > canva

Thought I'd be more organised with my write up - onwards and upwards let me get back to work:

 

[Honeybadger]

The lesson I learned was to be less emotional when choosing offers

It's very important lesson Ben
Make data-driven decisions

 

[Honeybadger]

1. I do not have a niche per say and focus on anything with a max 3 page submit between $1.50 - $3.00 payout. Do people think I need to be more granular and only focus on dating,biz op, sweepstakes etc?

Totally different thing to you, its men and women fashion, and I learn to stay in my category (clothing)
When the bills get paid and it's money I can to lose (for testing) will try 1-2 different category
I learn some good tips from your updates, keep posting

 

[Ben_King]

**Originally posted 15th May 2020**

Hi guys,

I've been steadily working behind the scenes. Want to give a shout out to people who've helped me on my follow along or through PM (you know who you're)

What I've Been Doing:

• I tried to save the lead gen campaign by changing the lander for a simple one and it didn't go anywhere so I've ditched it

(slight improvement in CTR but not enough for profitability)

• Looking at Anstrex I saw the dominant niches for push are: Adult, dating, nutra and (less popular) app installs/ sweepstake offers
• From now on I'll be promoting Sweepstakes ONLY
• My Maxbounty A.M recommended an offer (that was also converting in Mobidea) and I saw someone running a similar one a few weeks ago in that GEO so I made x5 creatives & 3 LP's
• The LP's took me 2 days as I tried to be more advanced with custom Javascript shout outs & coding isn't my strong point

Summary Of Campaign Results So Far

Looking good! Have hit some the highest CTR's I've ever had:

It's early days so I'm going to let it run before making any edits.

• Another small win is my propeller ads are now consistently being accepted first time. The benefits of working with one traffic source is that it has allowed me to learn what I can and can't get away with a lot faster than had I been jumping around.

My Theories For Current Results

• My click through rate is improving because I'm making more data driven decisions and adding more variables in my testing
• The URL parameter shout outs also make it more customizable and get the user's attention too

My Questions

• One of my LP's didn't perform well overall but worked great with one specific creative (~50% CTR) - is there a way of making my Bemob tracker automatically redirect clicks from a specific 84395749 creative to one chosen LP in my rotation?

I'm guessing the only way to do this is to create a separate campaign but be good to know if I can do it automatically in my existing one

Next Steps

• Focus only on sweepstakes offers as they're commonly cited as the best for beginners, it's an evergreen niche and the low payouts mean I can get an adequate amount of data quickly on my limited budget. Sticking to 1 niche also makes me more efficient in making campaigns.

• T1 English Geo's are super competitive and my mentor outside of afflift has recommended I focus more on T2 & T3. I was avoiding this due to the extra language barrier but needs must lol I'm going to explore this option and pull favors from my international friends as well as use the likes of fiverr/transey.

• I also need to get my head around my monetizer set up and post screenshots here to get help with my subscribers not pulling through to Bemob. I've just been lazy lol as subscribers are a side income in parallel to my campaigns & not my main focus.

Resources I Used That May Help You

• Free Photoshop like tool for more advanced photo edits than Canva > pixlr

Onwards and Upwards - I'm going to figure this all out! Until then I'll be patient and taking action:

 

[Ben_King]

**Originally posted 18th May 2020**

Hi all - still keeping consistent with this. It's been a whirlwind but even though I have no more additional conversions I feel like all the information I've been taking in and implementing is slowly beginning to make sense and it will soon all click.

What I have been doing

• I ended my most recent sweepstake campaign as although the CTR looked promising it simply wasn't converting.

The offer may just be saturated for that particular GEO is my guess.

• Also still collecting push subscribers on Push Monetizer by adding simple non-geo rules and back button redirect scripts:

• Now I'm focusing on easier T2 & T3 Geos with less competition. I revisited my Mobidea account as per @jimmyvanilla's recommendation and read through Luke's guide on finding opportunities here:

• The reasons I've moved away from Maxbounty is because they have limited offers outside T1 Geos and they have lengthier and larger payment terms in comparison to Mobidea. It's a logical pivot and not me crying out that their offers "don't convert" I'm just in the process of figuring it all out and finding the system that works for me

• It's crazy how much I've had to learn and change since starting this journey! I'm really enjoying it. A.M is definitely one of those things that seems easy on paper but trickier in practice. Just a few months ago I would of been using hostgator & elementor for my LP's ‍

What I'll be doing next - FEEDBACK Appreciated

• Moving forward my plan is to find T2 & T3 offers through Mobidea's and Monetizers opportunities section then direct link up to 10 campaigns. Before focusing in on ones with potential I.E a few conversions by building LP's / optimizing.

• I found x4 offers with potential: 1 I have already tested and so far the results don't look great:
  
  
• The Other 3 were declined by Propeller because the end landing page has a delivery code on it. So I'll need to have a think on whether I can get creative, find a similar well performing offer or invest in another traffic source like Zeropark as per @Nick's handy suggestion.

• Looking at spytools the my most recent offer must of been profitable up until January this year as there were affiliates running it for like 3 months, so unsure if I have missed the boat or I need to create a LP for the best results.

• Either way this is why I feel like I'm getting closer for all of this to "click". I may be 4 months late to this profit party for this offer lol but with more fine tuning and practice I'll be able to ride the profitable waves of offers before they get saturated. As I think in A.M all you do is find offers & angles with potential before they get saturated, perfect your winning combo, then scale as quickly as you can for as long as you can. Again a lot easier said than done but I'm beginning to bridge the gap between my theory knowledge to execution knowledge.

• Be great to get feedback on this DL strategy - is DL a great way to experiment quickly with push and focus more on winners or am I just being lazy?

Resources I used that may help you

• I've been playing around with excel and made a spreadsheet to plan my campaigns and see if they're worth pursuing based on the CPC, CTR, CV and payout. I'm sure this already exists and more clever people than myself do this in their head aha but it may help others too

• It's accurately given given the ROI of my former campaigns based on what I've input and helps me understand what areas I need to improve.

Happy Monday all, have a productive week!

 

[Ben_King]

**Originally posted 19th May 2020**

I've had a mini-break through today guys!

I'm feeling good and building momentum as my work pays off but still have a lot to do.

Results

• From the 18th - 19th May my new LP got 7 conversions in about 15 hours beating my record of 1 conversion per 3-day tested campaign
  
  .

• You can't see all my conversions as I had some tracker issues (That Bemob has been providing me great support with).

• This is my most profitable campaign so far too! Also big jumps in my UCTR which previously had the record of 13% but has nearly tripled to 35%

Reasons for improved results?

• Focusing most of my time on making campaigns rather than reading info - experience/execution will always beat theory

• The money "lost" on previous -80% ROI campaigns allowed me to gain data through testing of ads & LP's to see what converted the best saving me money here to do better straight out of the gate

• Being more disciplined in sticking to 1 vertical means that when I see a hot offer I can quickly capitalise on it as my pre-made ads/creatives only have to be slightly adjusted rather than starting from scratch each and every time.

• Trying to figure things out on my own before asking for help based on actions I've taken. People are happy to help (especially this community!) but you have to make it easy for them by asking clear questions e.g. "What are the best traffic sources for converting app install offers in T1 Geos? I've tried X and got Y result" rather than "What's the best traffic source for me to make money NOW??"

Next Steps

• Start my paused campaign to test that my postback is now working properly before optimizing
• Continuing to look for additional offers with potential > I feel that I have a system that I can replicate which feels great

Onwards and Upwards!

 

[azgold]

One of my LP's didn't perform well overall but worked great with one specific creative (~50% CTR)

What was your conversion rate?

is there a way of making my Bemob tracker automatically redirect clicks from a specific 84395749 creative to one chosen LP in my rotation?

Maybe @Maxim Denisov from Bemob will see this thread and offer some advice.

• I was avoiding this due to the extra language barrier but needs must lol I'm going to explore this option and pull favors from my international friends as well as use the likes of fiverr/transey.

A number of members use One Hour Translation.

Onwards and Upwards - I'm going to figure this all out! Until then I'll be patient and taking action:

Keep going and learning. Ask for as much help as you need, we're all pulling for you.

 

[Ben_King]

**Originally posted 22nd May 2020**

Hi everyone this update will be short. I started another job so I can invest more into this but it also means I have less time.

Managed to make my first profitable campaign at 40% ROI

Admittedly it's only 40% ROI to a tiny amount of money spent especially to you full time or 6 figure+ guys but it feels good to know I can do this based on numbers on the screen AND that I have a system to find a profitable campaign again.

Thing's I've been doing

• Found about 5 offers I'll be DL testing (2 of which I think have big potential) as the CPC's in the territories are relatively low but the payout is $2+ with not many CPA steps involved
• Tracking tracking tracking. This hasn't been smooth but the postback between Mobidea & Bemob is now working.
• I optimized my current campaign by android version and zones/creatives leading to conversions. The carrier was left alone because the offer is for one specific carrier only.

Optimization 1

Optimization 2

Optimization 3

Next Steps

• My next updates won't be as frequent with me working more hours in a day job but I will be keeping consistent with this and will also have more capital for more tests and scaling winners.
• It's still very early for my campaign, literally the 3rd round of changes only went live earlier today so I'll have a better understanding in 24 hours of how successful this campaign can be
• I also want to experiment with propeller ads pop unders as right now I'm testing offers via push which means I need creatives. Although this makes me slower in testing it does mean I can scale quicker so there are pros and cons - I'll have a question about this below

Questions

• I previously had conversion postback issues between Mobidea and Bemob despite both support teams saying the settings were correct. It has now been fixed via a "custom" add on Mobidea's side as shown below.

• This method is annoying because I have to adjust the offer URL everytime to have "&tag={clickId}&website={custom1}&placement={custom2}" rather than have it append automatically

>>> Has anyone else had similar issues and managed to get the conversions set up automatically without needing to change the offer URL everytime? In case note - I'll make do

>>> What are people's thoughts on me using pop in propeller ads? Will this distract me from mastering push or is it okay as I'm just using it for tests rather than a full revenue generating strategy...

Have a great weekend people!

 

[Ben_King]

**Originally posted 30th May 2020**

Hi guys here's another update that will be on the short side as I haven't been working on this as much due to me having an additional job. I'm looking to change this as I get adjusted to the new routine.


Things I've been doing

• So my first green campaign did not stay green and went to -5% ROI after a full 24 hours of running. I paused the offer and before I got round to optimize it further the offer has since shut down. The lesson learnt is that I need to move quickly and not be complacent!
• I have found x4 offers in T2 & T3 geos from Mobidea & Monetizer that I am running DL campaigns via push traffic from propeller ads

Tools I've used that you may find useful

• AffiliTest > courtesy recommendation of @agentf (thanks again!) a site that gives you free 5 uses on offer URL links to see the final page. This is useful if for whatever reason you can't access it via your VPN.

Next Steps

• Create Lp's for the offers that get conversions
• Continue to look for offers and average about 2 new DL link campaigns a day in order to find a winner

Have a great weekend everyone!

BKL

 

[Ben_King]

**Originally posted 2nd June 2020**

Hi guys I've been steadily settling into my routine so raising up my activity levels again!

@JoelAmaya thanks for following! Look forward to us learning from each other

Things I've been doing

• Between now and my last post I ran x7 DL push campaigns and one of them converted after 130 clicks so I have improved my creatives based on the best performing ad and created x2 landing pages based on previous ones that performed well.

• I have also short listed x3 more offers to test before I create LP's for them if they show promise after initial testing

Next Steps

• Optimize and scale my new LP campaign if it converts well
• Continue to look for offers and maintain my current x2 new DL link campaigns a day in order to find more winners
• Set up a VPS with Vultr or something similar. I've been avoiding it but as I now regularly test different geos being able to deploy a virtual server as close to my target audience as possible is worth doing rather than relying on a CDN (according to my mentor at least!)

Questions

• Is there a simple API or software tool that I can use to automatically pause push ads campaigns after they have spent a certain amount or reached a specific number of clicks?

As I run sweepstakes x10 the payout can fall under the minimum spend required for propeller ads. Rather than manually remembering to pause after a certain spend or number of clicks having some automation tool would make me a lot more effective. For context I use Bemob as a tracker.

• Does anyone know how to create the following types of ads for push in android mobile?

More specifically how to add the "Don't Let me Wait" button and white border. They look like good pattern interrupts and I'm able to add them on Canva or free photoshop equivalent PixlrE but for the android mobile preview they get cut off.

1591109961802.png

benkingldn · Jun 2, 2020 at 4:24 PM

" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; max-width: 100%; color: rgb(20, 20, 20); font-family: "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: rgb(254, 254, 254); cursor: pointer;">

I've tried halving the pixel amount of the recommended 360 x 240 so that the whole picture fits but it hasn't worked

Example below: (you can see the preview on the right has lost the white border on the left hand side and the "click here" button

Thanks for reading and all the best with your campaigns.


BKL