My Mobile Experiment

[azgold]

After setting up a blog and remembering that I don't particularly like blogging, I tried direct linking via second tier PPC. Like it but it hasn't resulted in a positive ROI yet. I'm still learning. Now, I'm running an experiment with my first mobile campaign.

I chose a pay per sale offer because it has the most gorgeous landing page I've ever seen and if I came across it, I wouldn't be able to help myself, I'd HAVE to check it out. Also, there is a one year cookie duration, which I thought was pretty awesome. It also can be pushed to about half a dozen different countries.

This is, by the way, the same offer that I screwed up the subIDs on and wasted more than 4,000 clicks (not conversions). So, some part of me wants to make atonement, I think.

On Eymard's recommendation, I signed up at Mobicow - great customer service! and only has a $5 deposit requirement, so I was able to start small and run a separate $5 campaign on a few different countries. I started with US, CA, AU. Those are the ones I messed up. Today, I took a different route, which I'll try to break down for you.

Vertical: Travel
Country: Brazil
Media Type: Mobile display
eCPM: $2.40 - $3.02 (Optimization of bid is on)
Conversion payment: $22.50
Deposit: $5.00

I only deposited $5.00 because I need 100 clicks to clear my "Excessive SubIDs" flag. I want to make sure that is all taken care of before I sink any more money into it.

Thought a lot about Luke reminding me that I don't have to use subIDs and so decided not to. Just to be extra cautious after what happened. So my link looks like this:

http://xxxxx.com/?a=319158&c=xxxxxx&m=24&

If I've done it wrong, yet again, please let me know.

My link was approved in about two minutes and it's been about an hour since I set up the campaign. Whereas before, with the tier 1 countries, I blew through my money very quickly. This is going slower. Here are the stats so far from Mobicow:

Zero conversions so far.

The Mobicow reports tell me the device, OS, carrier, city, etc. so I will have some data, despite not using any subIDs.

I did consider that the lander is in English and Brazil is a Spanish speaking country. Decided to go for it anyway, to see what happens and because it is so visually rich with little text. Much of the world speaks at least a little English and there's always Google translator, so fingers crossed. The location mentioned on the page, they will know.

Okay, so my first follow along, my first mobile trial. Thanks for reading. Any suggestions are most welcome.

 

[djcrunk]

A travel... sales offer... $22.5... brazil, on Mobi... Holly cow Azgold... there are so many wrong things in that sentence I don't even know where to begin... like no subids? This is gonna hurt just to watch >.<. Seriously just skype me, already added you. Don't get me wrong, it is AWESOME that you're taking action and Mobicow's traffic quality is great, service is top-notch, but I can't see this approach working for so many reasons.

To begin with you're not really tracking at all now (that is not what Luke meant, trust me), so you will have no clue, what variables are making you conversions. So no way to optimize at all (most campaigns will start losing money, if you can't optimize you will never make any money back). Yes mobicow will show you statistics about your traffic, but even they won't know what is making you conversions, cause you're not even using their postback url are you?

And picking a sales offer is probably not a good idea, cause you will have to spend hundreds/thousands to even realize if the offers will even convert. There are myriads of reasons why some of them won't besides design & aesthetics. Go with the lowest paying offers (like the $.30 - $1.50 ones) cause you will only spend a few dollars and you will already know if they convert, and after way less than hundred bucks, you may already have some decent data to begin making decisions and drop (stop losing money) or optimize and scale (start making money). Besides travel is a very specific category, and even kinda seasonal.

And people in south america rarely ever wanna whip out their credit cards online, trust me on that. I work online full time and even I'd rather not, is a cultural thing. They'd rather go make a bank deposit (you can do it through convenience stores and supermarkets now even). So you're fighting an uphill battle from the start. The freemium model rules latin america. They may wanna review hotels/airlines, but buying online, not so much, most of them will still pick up the phone.

Sorry don't mean to be blunt but I don't really wanna see you wasting time or money from some very simple mistakes. Good luck & profits.

To your success, Cheers.

 

[azgold]

Hey, DJ, don't be sorry, that's the kind of stuff I want to know, thx!

I know sales offers are hard, the one year cookie duration is why I decided to try it. Well, that and I wanted to try something different to see if I liked it.

I asked one of my AMs for an easier offer to run as well and grabbed an app download. I was sure it would convert easier but the creatives only have banners and Mobicow is only full screen, so haven't added it to run anywhere yet.

Re the tracking - DJ, I can almost imagine you slapping your forehead with the palm of your hand. I did get your Skype request and accepted.

Meantime....the latest 'cause that's what one is supposed to do when they start a thread like this:

- my excessive subID flag was successfully cleared, yay
- the landing page enticed others as much as it did me, I guess.....but not enough to buy right off the bat

Network stats, which are lower than Mobicow's:

I don't really expect immediate sales. I do know that doesn't normally happen. This is more a seed planting expedition of sorts, thanks to the year long cookie (assuming they don't clear them).

Re Brazil, I listened to a network webinar the other day and they mentioned it was a good target, although not specifically for this offer. So, since the tier 1's didn't bite, I figured, give it a try.

Thankfully, all of this hasn't cost me much money.

 

[cashmoneyaffiliate]

I got to agree with everything djcrunk said you'll be far better off by running low paying CPI offers on the budget you've got, as you'll be getting a lot more bang for your buck.

 

[azgold]

Thanks, cashmoneyaffiliate! I am going to do that.

 

[K]

Looking forward to your next update AZ, great to see everyone helping.

 

[newlxx]

Looking forward to you updates!

 

[Emvee]

How does it look like after 1 week - any conversions?

 

[azgold]

Naw, Perry, no conversions. I didn't expect any right away, did have the sense to understand that, if nothing else. Would be awfully nice, though.

I was offline for the past few days, so the campaign isn't running at the moment, funds ran dry but will get something going again soon. One of my AMs is going to help me find a good cpa offer that I can also use to try my hand at this. That should be easier.

 

[azgold]

Update:

I had one offer set to run but it was paused before I even got it to MC. So, last night one of my awesome AMs suggested a good one for me to run. It's an email submit and I think this may work. Assuming I can get it working, of course.

Blew through $5 in a blink but got two conversions worth $1.40 each. Ran another $5 this morning, no conversions, so won't run it in the early part of the day again, probably. So, I'm going to watch my traffic and see if I can get this profitable.

So far:

Yesterday
Spent: $ 5.00
Made: $ 2.80
ROI: - $ 2.20

Today
Spent: $ 5.00
Made: $ 0.00
ROI: - $ 5.00

I have also submitted the same offer to run on 7Search, as they have banner areas for mobile. Submitted it for approval last night but it's still pending.

In my sampling of CPA methods to figure out where I want to land and become good at first, this may be it. I find I'm enjoying it thus far.

 

[Dario]

What CPA network is that? Hopefully it`s Neverblue

 

[PiQano]

can u give us more info about banners or keywords that r u using ?