The Man and the traffic: traffic never sleeps

Hi there! This is the editorial team speaking. You are reading the eighth volume of our experiment. The Man started driving traffic two months ago, and it can’t be said that he had a smooth start. However, Oleg didn’t hang his head down. He continues launching campaigns, analyzing the results and setting new goals. He has a very serious attitude towards affiliate marketing, as this is his chance to change his life for the better.

All this time, it was you who helped Oleg. You answered his questions and shared your invaluable experience. We hope that you will continue monitoring his progress and giving advice.

This week, the Man started driving traffic to several new GEOs, and while some campaigns brought a positive ROI, others turned out to be not so successful.

So, Oleg, we give the floor to you.

Good afternoon, dear readers! Just like last time, today I’m going to speak up to the point.

Overall, some campaigns turned out to be profitable, but I messed up here and there.

Last week, I launched a few campaigns targeted at different GEOs: Taiwan, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Japan. The results are discussed below.

Taiwan

This is the only campaign that was generating a positive ROI throughout the week.

I got a lot of traffic from MegaPush. Similarly, I launched the campaign in PropellerAds, but there was little traffic available for this GEO.

Having driven traffic for a day, I optimized the campaign and left only well-performing creatives and landings:

Here are the pre-landers that converted the best (2):

I found all the pre-landers I used through Anstrex spy service. Then, I downloaded and changed the pre-landers a bit before adding them to the tracker.

Data on the campaign from the tracker:

Data from Clickdealer the affiliate network:

Surprisingly, it was a campaign without hardcore creatives and pre-landers that generated profit. Later on, I’m planning to launch a campaign targeted at Taiwan once again.

Norway

This campaign also brought a positive ROI, but clicks turned out to be rather expensive. I launched the campaign in the two push traffic sources, but, as is the case with the previous campaign, there was little traffic available in PropellerAds. Again, only two creatives performed well:

The simplest pre-lander turned out to be the most effective:

Data from the tracker:

Of course, the overall ROI turned out to be rather low, but on the first day after the optimization, it accounted for 42% and started to decrease later. I assume that the reason behind it is that creatives burn out. However, as the campaign brought a positive ROI, I’m planning to relaunch it and use new pre-landers and creatives.

Finland, Denmark, Sweden

Encouraged by the “green” tracker, I started driving traffic to other GEOs. Unfortunately, not a single campaign yielded profit. Moreover, there were only a few conversions. The most disastrous campaign was the one targeted at Sweden: having generated the first leads, I optimized the campaign and increased the limits, but I messed up with optimization and failed to monitor the campaign throughout the day, and so I lost $150 in MegaPush and $20 in PropellerAds. Summing it up, you should check your active campaigns from time to time, and this is particularly true for “expensive” GEOs. In relation to Sweden, I generated 14 conversions that brought $70.

Data from the tracker:

Note: the campaign in the tracker is colored green because I didn’t set up the tracker so that to receive conversions from the traffic source.

Japan

I launched a campaign only a day ago and so I don’t have much data to analyze. The campaign generated one conversion through PropellerAds, but it’s too early to arrive at conclusions.

Conclusions

There are some positive shifts. Two campaigns brought a positive ROI, but the overall weekly results are rather poor. You should always stay focused and not indulge in complacency: any campaign, especially if it’s targeted at an expensive GEO, needs to be monitored. As a matter of fact, I lost most money on weekends: having launched a campaign early in the morning, I had to handle some family stuff and didn’t have time to open the tracker page again.

If you are at home and have children, it’s next to impossible to work on your computer and stay focused: you daughter will climb up on your knees straight away hinting that it’s high time to watch a cartoon instead of staring at your pre-landers and tracker page. However, traffic never sleeps, and so the campaigns plunged into the red because of the mistake that I made while optimizing them. It feels as if I have six children rather than five.

Hence the conclusion: you shouldn’t launch campaigns targeted at “expensive” GEOs if you can’t monitor them at least from time to time. Otherwise, you’re going to lose a lot of money. How do you monitor your campaigns? How often do you refresh the stats in a tracker? Do you launch campaign on weekends?

Plans for next week

1. Start driving traffic to new GEOs, both Tier 1 and Tier 2
2. Analyze the data on all campaigns more thoroughly
3. Try using SmartLink instead of direct offers
4. Secure $500 on the network’s balance and top up traffic source accounts. By the way, where should I transfer the money to be able to top up traffic source accounts most cost-effectively?

Summary

The resources spent so far:

Money spent: ad campaigns in push networks: $829.

Money earned: the account balance in the affiliate network Clickdealer (hasn’t been withdrawn yet): $454.

Balance: $1498.

Time: 83 hours.

Yours faithfully,

the Man