Why am i FAILING in native ads?

[harnur]

Yep! All good though, so how are you doing now then? Have you decided on a plan yet?

no, Outbrain is completely shitting me, i spent 32 hours building a landing page+doing research on diet-related product...but outbrain just doesn't approves it(whereas the people who are high spender and have a rep assigned to them by outbrain...get such ads approved by their rep...whereas people like me have to struggle...the headline and image for which i got banned is live since 8 months)...now i am looking to concentrate on game-related niche...i tried to sign up for a few affiliate programs...but they'll take atleast 7 days to approve my application...overall i have come to a verge of giving up...but i'll keep going atleast for next 20 days.

 

[marketingbro]

high spender and have a rep assigned to them by outbrain...get such ads approved by their rep...

I rest my case, Anthony.

 

[marketingbro]

Well it seems like he has at least some experience, there's lots of variables that can lead to spending even more than $10k, whereas someone could be profitable within their first $1k or $500 all depending on experience, knowledge etc.

Let's focus on OP's situation and not your abstract idea of what a profitable native ads campaign will take.

OP, I would love to give you words of encouragement. However you're running health related ads within the native ads traffic source with below average budget.

You're being denied because you're copying major affiliates that are paying these networks a lot of money.

Compare to your nickle and dime, why wouldn't they block you from stealing the whale's traffic?

Health + Native = bad time (unless you have a major budget and understand the vertical)

I don't want you to stray away from Native, but I personally learned the hard way that Native (especially health vertical) is for big budgets.

 

[harnur]

Let's focus on OP's situation and not your abstract idea of what a profitable native ads campaign will take. Ban me.

OP, I would love to give you words of encouragement. However you're running health related ads within the native ads traffic source with below average budget.

You're being denied because you're copying major affiliates that are paying these networks a lot of money.

Compare to your nickle and dime, why wouldn't they block you from stealing the whale's traffic?

Health + Native = bad time (unless you have a major budget and understand the vertical)

I don't want you to stray away from Native, but I personally learned the hard way that Native (especially health vertical) is for big budgets.

so, what niche shud i promote on natives?(half of the natives is filled with health products)

 

[marketingbro]

what niche shud i promote

I really dislike this question because it's the wrong question to ask.

Instead of immediately giving up and giving in to my low-level opinion, maybe you should be looking at the data you collected over the $300-$400 you've spent on traffic.

The whole point in purchasing traffic isn't to immediately convert.

The point is to gather enough data to cut the fat out of your campaigns and lean up on what works.

If you don't have any leads after $300-$400, there's an issue.

An issue could be
- Bot traffic
- Stale ad images
- Stale landing pages
- shady products
.. And many more.

You're the one that has to do the work and find these things.

If you think you spent $400 just to get leads, then you're in the wrong mindset.

You spent $400 to gain intelligence to further improve your campaign.

Figure out what you did wrong.

My question to you: What are you tracking?

 

[JonathanB]

I really dislike this question because it's the wrong question to ask.

Instead of immediately giving up and giving in to my low-level opinion, maybe you should be looking at the data you collected over the $300-$400 you've spent on traffic.

The whole point in purchasing traffic isn't to immediately convert.

The point is to gather enough data to cut the fat out of your campaigns and lean up on what works.

If you don't have any leads after $300-$400, there's an issue.

An issue could be
- Bot traffic
- Stale ad images
- Stale landing pages
- shady products
.. And many more.

You're the one that has to do the work and find these things.

If you think you spent $400 just to get leads, then you're in the wrong mindset.

You spent $400 to gain intelligence to further improve your campaign.

Figure out what you did wrong.

My question to you: What are you tracking?

Totally agree with you on the approach. Looking at the data would reveal a lot...

My assumptions would be:
- Some bot traffic (yes, even outbrain has it)
- Weak targeting (most likely running RON on such a low budget)
- Low CTRs because ads are copy/paste, leading to high CPCs
- Most likely bids are too low (giving you only the left-over traffic on low-volume sources)

And that's only the traffic source. You'd then have to look at the funnel too (Landers, Angles, Copy etc.)

I'm not trying to discourage you. I'm assuming all this, just because I made the exact same mistakes when I started on native. But that was exactly my mistake #1: Starting on native when budget and know-how was just on a basic/intermediate level.

Native is an absolute BEAST and I personally know a hand full of affiliates making 7-8 figures with it. But they understand how to buy traffic, how to read data, how to optimize a campaign into profits - and they understand that it can take 1-2 weeks (or more) of unprofitable data-buying (aka losing or investing money) until they have their targeting right (blocking zone IDs, optimizing funnels, etc.).

The only way I was able to run on native was to run campaigns in Tier 2 countries, translate landers and ads and go from there. (Thailand, Indonesia, Spain, etc.) where traffic is huge, but costs are lower.

 

[ltd79]

Hey mate, good job on getting into native ads.

To the people saying you need 5-20k to start is BS in my opinion..I got started with 1k. Maybe if you want to run in USA you will need a big budget, but I suggest try other GEOs, like Europe or Asia - can get traffic for 1-2cents not 50cents, that's crazy. Spark up your spy tool and see what others are running and copy those LP's and ads and run the same offer. Don't worry about having the same LP and ads as everyone else, I NEVER found it a problem with me.

Next, don't use Outbrain, they are a great network but WAY too strict for the average affiliate, join MGID or revcontent, they are friendlier for us and cheaper.

Also stay away from clickbank if your don't have loads of money to blow. I actually didn't get a single conversion when I tried similar offer to what you tried (diabetes).

Just remember, you will lose money at the start, that's the point, you need to weed through the ads/widgets/OS etc and cut the losers out. But if you run the smaller geos you will get conversions straight away if you pick the right offer...heaps of COD offers about. Look them up.

Hope this helps!

 

[harnur]

n't use Outbrain, they are a great network but WAY too strict for the average affiliate, join MGID or revcontent, they are friendlier for us and cheaper.

Hey mate, good job on getting into native ads.

To the people saying you need 5-20k to start is BS in my opinion..I got started with 1k. Maybe if you want to run in USA you will need a big budget, but I suggest try other GEOs, like Europe or Asia - can get traffic for 1-2cents not 50cents, that's crazy. Spark up your spy tool and see what others are running and copy those LP's and ads and run the same offer. Don't worry about having the same LP and ads as everyone else, I NEVER found it a problem with me.

Next, don't use Outbrain, they are a great network but WAY too strict for the average affiliate, join MGID or revcontent, they are friendlier for us and cheaper.

Also stay away from clickbank if your don't have loads of money to blow. I actually didn't get a single conversion when I tried similar offer to what you tried (diabetes).

Just remember, you will lose money at the start, that's the point, you need to weed through the ads/widgets/OS etc and cut the losers out. But if you run the smaller geos you will get conversions straight away if you pick the right offer...heaps of COD offers about. Look them up.

Hope this helps!

Thanks a lot..
1. Instead of selling something i am promoting CPA offers(solar, Games..etc). You said, you got success after spending $1k, What what kind of offers/niche got you success initially ...and what type of thing shud i stay away from as a newbie(who doesn't has too much budget).
After spending $400-$500 i realised, i shudn't be promoting clickbank products on natives...initially i just wasted my money.
2. And when you're spying on others you can copy their landing page and ad copy..but ...what about targeting? Do you target people based on their age/gender or only based on interests/likings? does demographic targeting makes a huge difference or shud i keep my targeting limited to interests only.

 

[ltd79]

I've done well with COD offers, there are some CPA networks that mainly do these types of offers. To be honest these are the only offers I've worked with coz they work really well with native - especially T2-T3 geos. I'm only saying to stay away from clickbank offers because I couldn't get them to convert even using the same creatives/funnel.

Your best bet would be to use a spy tool and see what others are running right now, you can use adplexity or I use spyover (not affiliated) which does a better job of finding non US offers...don't know why this is but I found it can pick up more ads.

As for targeting, if you're talking native ads, you can't target age/gender etc, you need to choose offers that have a broad appeal. So you would pick say Indonesia, mobile/tablet/desktop, choose your OS, choose browsers etc...then let it run. When I do it I either pick mobile/tablet or desktop running whole network (all os, browsers...), let it run a few days at $50 per day then choose the best ad/OS/browser etc. Most COD offers have their own landing page, but just run what everyone else is running and you should be good.

 

[harnur]

I've done well with COD offers, there are some CPA networks that mainly do these types of offers. To be honest these are the only offers I've worked with coz they work really well with native - especially T2-T3 geos. I'm only saying to stay away from clickbank offers because I couldn't get them to convert even using the same creatives/funnel.

Your best bet would be to use a spy tool and see what others are running right now, you can use adplexity or I use spyover (not affiliated) which does a better job of finding non US offers...don't know why this is but I found it can pick up more ads.

As for targeting, if you're talking native ads, you can't target age/gender etc, you need to choose offers that have a broad appeal. So you would pick say Indonesia, mobile/tablet/desktop, choose your OS, choose browsers etc...then let it run. When I do it I either pick mobile/tablet or desktop running whole network (all os, browsers...), let it run a few days at $50 per day then choose the best ad/OS/browser etc. Most COD offers have their own landing page, but just run what everyone else is running and you should be good.

just to clarify..COD means... Cash On Delivery..or something else? if yes, then on which affiliate networks COD offers are listed?
How much do you pay per click in tier2/3 countries?

 

[JonathanB]

Yes, COD means Cash-On-Delivery. It's very popular in the nutra space and in Tier 2 + 3 countries (eastern europe, south east asia, latam etc). You can get clicks for 1 or 2 cents with MGID for example. But I wouldn't focus too much on CPCs but on the EPCs you can do with it. A great network with plenty of COD offers is AdCombo. They also payout weekly or even bi-weekly.

 

[Graybeard]

Actually, the 'little fish' get the leftovers of the bigger fish when buying traffic for either resale or end use.
That will not change.

If you are the 'owner of the traffic flow' you might cream that traffic for yourself or sell it to your largest buyers first -- this is just self-interest.

 

[Flaxy]

I've done well with COD offers, there are some CPA networks that mainly do these types of offers. To be honest these are the only offers I've worked with coz they work really well with native - especially T2-T3 geos. I'm only saying to stay away from clickbank offers because I couldn't get them to convert even using the same creatives/funnel.

Your best bet would be to use a spy tool and see what others are running right now, you can use adplexity or I use spyover (not affiliated) which does a better job of finding non US offers...don't know why this is but I found it can pick up more ads.

As for targeting, if you're talking native ads, you can't target age/gender etc, you need to choose offers that have a broad appeal. So you would pick say Indonesia, mobile/tablet/desktop, choose your OS, choose browsers etc...then let it run. When I do it I either pick mobile/tablet or desktop running whole network (all os, browsers...), let it run a few days at $50 per day then choose the best ad/OS/browser etc. Most COD offers have their own landing page, but just run what everyone else is running and you should be good.

I can testify to cod offers being good on native. About to become profitable with about 850 spent.

 

[harnur]

I can testify to cod offers being good on native. About to become profitable with about 850 spent.

Ok, best of luck, but i have left native ads, cuz, it's costly.

 

[harnur]

hey ,Pls add my skype if you are looking for advertisers in SEA .Waiting for your feedback.

what is SEA? can you explain.

 

[azgold]

what is SEA? can you explain.

South East Asia is what I think s/he was referring to.

 

[Karen-ebat]

what is SEA? can you explain.

sorry ,I mean south east Asian. the geo I am targeting is Vietnam.