Follow Along My journey to 200$ per day

[cgonel]

My goal is to replace my full-time job with affiliate marketing.

Milestones

I've broken it down into different milestones.

1. Get my first conversion - September
2. 50$/day
3. 100$/day - October
4. 200$/day - November

My Plan: Advertise affiliate offers on native platforms.

Tools:

• VPS: Linode
• Spy tool: Adplexity
• Tracker: Voluum
• Course: CPA Evolution 3.0

Progress
Past
I started a month ago and ran my first 2 campaigns on Facebook. Ultimately, the niches that can be advertised are very limiting, and I didn't like that I couldn't use good spy tools to learn what was working. So, I switched to native.

My first native campaign was run on Outbrain. Poor results (low CTR ads and landing pages) that I associate to running a sweepstakes offer on native (didn't have Adplexity at the time).

Current
Using Adplexity, I decided nutra offers would be a great place to start. I chose an offer similar to the ones being run (nutra product targeting Mexico) and scraped a few landers, creatives. After modification, I ran my campaign on Evadav. After optimizing and talking to my advertising manager, the ads and landing pages are performing well, but no conversion.


Evadav Statistics

For a total of 2076 impressions of the offer (integrated order form on the landing page).

Next move
Now, I'm scratching my head thinking of my next move. I have to choose between trying a different offer or a different traffic source.

Maybe Evadav is not the best suited for nutra. I've read of other verticals working well. So, I might look into a different vertical...

Campaigns on Adplexity suggest MGID and AdsKeeper would be best suited for this nutra offer. So, I might give one of them a try...

To be continued...

 

[infraviolet]

Evadav trafic is all bots.

 

[Graybeard]

I chose an offer similar to the ones being run (nutra product targeting Mexico) and scraped a few landers, creatives.

; 5839*0.01
58.39
; 58.39*0.65
37.9535
You should have seen 38 conversions (statistically IMO)

1. bad traffic
2. bad offer
3. dishonest practices

You need to investigate and audit the results --before dumping any more money.
That is only a 0.65% **conversion ratio that is very minimal for any reasonable situation.

Mexico's economy isn't the best but it's probably not that bad. But is that nutra product overpriced for the Mexican market? Affordability matters more that how much money you can make.

 

[cgonel]

Example average wages:
Mexico/France 18.20/100
Mexico/USA 15.53/100
So if the nutra offer is $49.00 that is like $315 to the average Mexican worker --lets say that Mexican Internet users are better off that the average worker in Mexico. Then maybe that nutra offer is more like $100 to that better off Mexican Internet user (perhaps). Still, that affordablity factor is still a real issue. That offer costs maybe a half a day to one and a half days wages.

So, maybe 0.20% conversion might be more in line? Even then, at
; 5839*0.002
11.678
there should be 5 or 10 conversions --WTF something is wrong.

They're average daily salary is 537 pesos, the product is about 1.5 day of work (790 pesos). I noticed it's the price for all the top products of AdCombo. Plus, the ad is one of the top in terms of total order count, so I doubt that's the problem.

You mentioned bad traffic, so I'll try testing the traffic source for bots. Is there anything else about the traffic that could cause it to not convert?

Also, I got told my call-to-actions were pretty discreet and weak. Could be what was preventing the visitors from taking action.

 

[Graybeard]

Example average wages:
Mexico/France 18.20/100
Mexico/USA 15.53/100
So if the nutra offer is $49.00 that is like $315 to the average Mexican worker --lets say that Mexican Internet users are better off that the average worker in Mexico. Then maybe that nutra offer is more like $100 to that better off Mexican Internet user (perhaps). Still, that affordablity factor is still a real issue. That offer costs maybe a half a day to one and a half days wages.

So, maybe 0.20% conversion might be more in line? Even then, at
; 5839*0.002
11.678
there should be 5 or 10 conversions --WTF something is wrong.

 

[Evadav]

Evadav trafic is all bots.

Good afternoon, why do you think so? Are you dissatisfied with something? We can always help you.

 

[T J Tutor]

Evadav trafic is all bots.

That isn't reflective of my experience, or that of our membership in general. Bots are everywhere and definitely an issue, but the networks work hard at filtering for bots and publishers need to do so as well. It's part of the counter culture and they are here to stay. I think maybe you need to learn to filter traffic and learn to properly target.

 

[Graybeard]

Do you want to sell nutra products or sell a product/service in the Mexican market?

Since you have Spanish (I am assuming here) creatives and landing pages --try Spain and see if the product sells in a higher income market. That is one way to sort out local markets.

If you are trying to leverage your ad-spend by limiting the cost of ads in that market (i.e.; Tier2 on or Tier3) I think you need to adjust the price point to the market's affinity.

My first native campaign was run on Outbrain. Poor results (low CTR ads and landing pages) that I associate to running a sweepstakes offer on native (didn't have Adplexity at the time).

What country was this sweepstakes offer in. Was it a credit-card or pin submit?

 

[cgonel]

UPDATE
First milestone completed

After doing more research, I reassessed my strategy.

In short, I have to "learn to walk before I run". So, I'm focusing on SOI/DOI adult offers.

TrafficStars
Ran my first campaign on TrafficStars. I did mess up the offer linking, so the CPA was 1.30$ instead of 5.50$. Ultimately, there's so many traffic targeting strategies to try I decided to move to a more straight-forward platform to test my creatives. I might give it another try with the best performing creatives.

Evadav Campaign
Did more research on my target audience and improved my creatives. Then, ran it on Evadav. Still hadn't realize the linking mistake.

Finally, this is after fixing the link. I'm currently split-testing 2 offers, and I've set up auto rules to blacklist the worse publishers. So, I'll leave it running and see where it goes from there.

 

[cgonel]

Do you want to sell nutra products or sell a product/service in the Mexican market?

Since you have Spanish (I am assuming here) creatives and landing pages --try Spain and see if the product sells in a higher income market. That is one way to sort out local markets.

If you are trying to leverage your ad-spend by limiting the cost of ads in that market (i.e.; Tier2 on or Tier3) I think you need to adjust the price point to the market's affinity.

What country was this sweepstakes offer in. Was it a credit-card or pin submit?

Neither Atleast for now.

Good observation, I'll remember to think about market affinity when I go back to CPS.

It was a USA offer. SOI, but those long multi-page ones where they ask for name, DOB, address, cell phone, etc.

 

[cgonel]

UPDATE

I've been A/B testing a lot of different aspects with this smartlink. I found profitable geos and creatives that achieved 60% ROI.

Now, the problem is that these campaigns stop converting after a few days.

I have a few hypotheses I need to test for:

• lack of traffic volume for geo/ad format (inpage)
• traffic's tired of seeing the same ad/creative angle

Going through the forum, it could be just the normal lifecycle of this campaign/smartlink.

However, many case studies have been posted of campaigns with this smartlink lasting weeks/months.

 

[Graybeard]

It was a USA offer. SOI, but those long multi-page ones where they ask for name, DOB, address, cell phone, etc.

What would be informative is the drop off rate from each additional page ... 10 start and 2 finish <like that

 

[Graybeard]

Now, the problem is that these campaigns stop converting after a few days.

I have a few hypotheses I need to test for:

• lack of traffic volume for geo/ad format (inpage)
• traffic's tired of seeing the same ad/creative angle

I think after a person sees and ad a few times --either it happens or it doesn't.
The other factor is the nature of the site ID and whither or not the website has a new viewer ratio that shows your ad to fresh faces.

When developing websites, once the website is established; You need a new/return ratio of at least 3/7 for continued *strong* growth --same probably applies toward ad response and conversion too. This may be the reason you are seeing campaign *burnout* ...

My `dog` barks :

 

[Graybeard]

AI Dog makes some sense with this argument I think:

• Application to Ad Campaigns:
  • Campaign Burnout: In the context of advertising, campaign burnout refers to a situation where the effectiveness of your ad campaigns diminishes over time. This can happen if you primarily target new audiences without paying attention to retaining previous customers.
  • Conversion Rates: Achieving a 3/7 ratio not only applies to website traffic but can also be relevant to ad response and conversion rates. High-quality ad campaigns should not only attract new customers but also aim to re-engage previous customers who are more likely to convert (make a purchase or take a desired action).

You might try tracking the viewer IPs --but how? You can't (I think) with any all ad networks (DSP) --unless you host your own creatives and track them as to the views directly with individual websites --not just the clicks in native or any CPC. This scenario is not in the scope of CPA affiliates so it's rather moot.
Also, in order to host your own creatives you need: fast servers, coding proper of the tracking, possibly post-back to your hosted remote SaaS tracker [assuming that]; and the volume to justify all that work.


That is one advantage with pops of landing pages on your servers. The big disadvantage is popup blocking and the *annoy factor* of popup/popunder ads.

My best thought for you is to use 3 to 5 different ad networks and rotate the ad networks' traffic on/off --to try to optimize the conversion --not a guaranteed solution but one to consider.

 

[Honeybadger]

Hows your journey going
or to rephrase it
what have you learnt so far?

 

[cgonel]

Hows your journey going
or to rephrase it
what have you learnt so far?

I've learned a lot since the beginning of my journey.

In the past weeks though, I had a few concepts really help me progress.

The first I'd mention is mindset. It's something that's often not talked about by successful people, but I believe it really has an impact on your life. The principle of law of attraction and how your thoughts have an impact on the physical world.

A clear vision of your goals helps with the dedication and the consistency that must be applied everyday to reach it.

Back to affiliate marketing.

Secondly, one of my mistakes was trying to get results out of RON networks and tier-2/3 traffic for too long. Personally, for me it was hell to try to make a campaign work with it. Having to parse for converting sources, then when i wanted to scale... not enough volume.

It's great for learning and building confidence with your tools without blowing your budget though.

Going with premium traffic has allowed me to focus on optimizing other aspects of the campaigns. Plus, Tier 1 countries have the volume needed for scaling.

Third, the importance of always learning, seeking information. This forum is a gold mine of information. I regularly return to it and pick up new things to further my knowledge of affiliate marketing.

 

[cgonel]

UPDATE

I moved on from smartlinks and RON networks. I've been running SOI/DOI offers on premium sites.

After a week of split testing and optimization, I was finally getting somewhere. I found a flow steadily generating 50% ROI.

On the third day, I was getting ready to scale it to 100 daily leads. Surprise, I wake up to 0 conversions and the network closed the offer.

So, back to square 1. I'm confident it's only a matter of time until I build another profitable flow and reach my milestones.

 

[azgold]

Surprise, I wake up to 0 conversions and the network closed the offer.

Yeah, stuff happens, that's why being able to pivot is really good. Still sucks when it happens, though.

I'm confident it's only a matter of time until I build another profitable flow and reach my milestones.

Yup. You've done it once and you'll do it again. Thing is, it'll be a bit faster and easier because of what you've learned this time around.

 

[behindtimeriver]

So, based on your experience, the final conclusion is, don't attempt to acquire traffic from Tier 2/3, and beginners should start with SOI/DOI offers, right?

 

[rauoffi]

So, what have you learnt so far?