Media Buy Advice, Resource, Links, etc.
- Thread starter hydrogin
- Start date
Anytime I see a link to a post here. I hover it and check the link. Even do that sometimes I get hit. LOL
These are legit though. Stop being so nice. You could of at least made one of them you know what.
Things to keep in mind
- AB testing
- good call to actions
- Get references
- out clauses in contracts
- don't prepay
- be careful with ROS unless the offer fits that type of traffic
- AB testing
- good call to actions
- Get references
- out clauses in contracts
- don't prepay
- be careful with ROS unless the offer fits that type of traffic
I have limited experience in the space, but I've done few buys to give you a piece of advice:
1) Test your banner Ads hard on GCN or myspace and make sure you get at least 0.15 CTR. Quite obvious but so crucial. You have to have on hand few sets of banner Ads that are tested well. You have to consider their Conversion rate also. Having clear call to action on the banner would help increasing conversion.
2) Make sure you get 48 hours out clause. Insist on very short out clause. Your company not gonna give a fuck if you are spending 10k on a campaign that is making nothing. Some of them offer 48 hours after X days to deceive you so you think you got 48 hours clause.
3) Even distribution and low test campaign (5k). Ask for Even distribution over 2 weeks period for small test campaign (5k). You will be losing little cash if it went bad, and you can use your out clause. if campaign worked out, scale it by buying another 20k at least campaign for 1 week.
4) Measure BOUNCE rate for their traffic and/or CTR to offer. This is an indication if they are showing your Ads to appropriate demography. If they place your Ads on arcade games. You will end up getting tons of clicks from DP members testing their Ads
. If traffic bounce hard, tell your Rep to optimize or use your outclaise.
5) If within first few thousands, lead costing you two times what you are paid for, do not leave... Optimize. It takes time to get the CPA goal.
6) regarding companies: ValueClick, TribalFusion, Zedo... I just think ValueClick a solid one.
7) Avoid any CPM more than $1.75. Yes, it may work once at CPM of $3. But it will not work another 20 times. Some companies like Zedo ask for $3 CPM.. I was sure to fail, and I did.
8) Never agree on anything verbally; everything has to be written.
9) You can not promote anything on these media buys. IMO, bizOpps & diet work well as there is massive demography interested...
Given all what I said, I had few media buys, and I have no interest in doing further media buys.
Hope that helps!
Leadicious
1) Test your banner Ads hard on GCN or myspace and make sure you get at least 0.15 CTR. Quite obvious but so crucial. You have to have on hand few sets of banner Ads that are tested well. You have to consider their Conversion rate also. Having clear call to action on the banner would help increasing conversion.
2) Make sure you get 48 hours out clause. Insist on very short out clause. Your company not gonna give a fuck if you are spending 10k on a campaign that is making nothing. Some of them offer 48 hours after X days to deceive you so you think you got 48 hours clause.
3) Even distribution and low test campaign (5k). Ask for Even distribution over 2 weeks period for small test campaign (5k). You will be losing little cash if it went bad, and you can use your out clause. if campaign worked out, scale it by buying another 20k at least campaign for 1 week.
4) Measure BOUNCE rate for their traffic and/or CTR to offer. This is an indication if they are showing your Ads to appropriate demography. If they place your Ads on arcade games. You will end up getting tons of clicks from DP members testing their Ads
. If traffic bounce hard, tell your Rep to optimize or use your outclaise.5) If within first few thousands, lead costing you two times what you are paid for, do not leave... Optimize. It takes time to get the CPA goal.
6) regarding companies: ValueClick, TribalFusion, Zedo... I just think ValueClick a solid one.
7) Avoid any CPM more than $1.75. Yes, it may work once at CPM of $3. But it will not work another 20 times. Some companies like Zedo ask for $3 CPM.. I was sure to fail, and I did.
8) Never agree on anything verbally; everything has to be written.
9) You can not promote anything on these media buys. IMO, bizOpps & diet work well as there is massive demography interested...
Given all what I said, I had few media buys, and I have no interest in doing further media buys.
Hope that helps!
Leadicious
Some nice info right there.I have limited experience in the space, but I've done few buys to give you a piece of advice:
1) Test your banner Ads hard on GCN or myspace and make sure you get at least 0.15 CTR. Quite obvious but so crucial. You have to have on hand few sets of banner Ads that are tested well. You have to consider their Conversion rate also. Having clear call to action on the banner would help increasing conversion.
2) Make sure you get 48 hours out clause. Insist on very short out clause. Your company not gonna give a fuck if you are spending 10k on a campaign that is making nothing. Some of them offer 48 hours after X days to deceive you so you think you got 48 hours clause.
3) Even distribution and low test campaign (5k). Ask for Even distribution over 2 weeks period for small test campaign (5k). You will be losing little cash if it went bad, and you can use your out clause. if campaign worked out, scale it by buying another 20k at least campaign for 1 week.
4) Measure BOUNCE rate for their traffic and/or CTR to offer. This is an indication if they are showing your Ads to appropriate demography. If they place your Ads on arcade games. You will end up getting tons of clicks from DP members testing their Ads
5) If within first few thousands, lead costing you two times what you are paid for, do not leave... Optimize. It takes time to get the CPA goal.
6) regarding companies: ValueClick, TribalFusion, Zedo... I just think ValueClick a solid one.
7) Avoid any CPM more than $1.75. Yes, it may work once at CPM of $3. But it will not work another 20 times. Some companies like Zedo ask for $3 CPM.. I was sure to fail, and I did.
8) Never agree on anything verbally; everything has to be written.
9) You can not promote anything on these media buys. IMO, bizOpps & diet work well as there is massive demography interested...
Given all what I said, I had few media buys, and I have no interest in doing further media buys.
Hope that helps!
Leadicious
I have limited experience in the space, but I've done few buys to give you a piece of advice:
1) Test your banner Ads hard on GCN or myspace and make sure you get at least 0.15 CTR. Quite obvious but so crucial. You have to have on hand few sets of banner Ads that are tested well. You have to consider their Conversion rate also. Having clear call to action on the banner would help increasing conversion.
2) Make sure you get 48 hours out clause. Insist on very short out clause. Your company not gonna give a fuck if you are spending 10k on a campaign that is making nothing. Some of them offer 48 hours after X days to deceive you so you think you got 48 hours clause.
3) Even distribution and low test campaign (5k). Ask for Even distribution over 2 weeks period for small test campaign (5k). You will be losing little cash if it went bad, and you can use your out clause. if campaign worked out, scale it by buying another 20k at least campaign for 1 week.
4) Measure BOUNCE rate for their traffic and/or CTR to offer. This is an indication if they are showing your Ads to appropriate demography. If they place your Ads on arcade games. You will end up getting tons of clicks from DP members testing their Ads
5) If within first few thousands, lead costing you two times what you are paid for, do not leave... Optimize. It takes time to get the CPA goal.
6) regarding companies: ValueClick, TribalFusion, Zedo... I just think ValueClick a solid one.
7) Avoid any CPM more than $1.75. Yes, it may work once at CPM of $3. But it will not work another 20 times. Some companies like Zedo ask for $3 CPM.. I was sure to fail, and I did.
8) Never agree on anything verbally; everything has to be written.
9) You can not promote anything on these media buys. IMO, bizOpps & diet work well as there is massive demography interested...
Given all what I said, I had few media buys, and I have no interest in doing further media buys.
Hope that helps!
Leadicious
+rep, good stuff dude.
If possible, serve your own creative - you'll be able to negotiate better rates and optimize the creative much better. Having the network serve is a horrible idea -- also have a good flash designer, learn how to dynamically insert copy into your banners so you can split test the creative much easier. One flash banner with dynamic insertion can net you 100+ different variations and you can tag each copy combination separately for better reporting. Also, for anyone serving their own banners, make sure to think about how you are defaulting as well -- not everyone has flash and you don't want to serve each banner if you are retargeting and have some learnings.
yeah this should be at the top of the list too. having the company not allow you to do dynamic insertion (even if they want it contingent on approval maybe) for testing purposes would be a deal breaker for me
They always require prior approval in the contract, but once the offer's up and running call your rep and they'll usually let you slide or take a word document with just the copy / color variations that you are serving. Not sure how so many people get into CPM buys without this, I don't even know how I'd test creative without it.
I've been media buying since early 2007, if you want any help (suggestions on some good places to buy media, etc) feel free to hit me up on AIM. I've done a lot of testing. Lost a lot of money - but gained a LOT more. Media buying is my main source of income these days. It just takes a lot of capital to get started with an acceptable CPM.
Also, for anyone serving their own banners, if you have the resources go with creative retargeting. Tag the user on creative serve and again on successful conversion and then constantly hit that same user with relevant or similar offers (make sure it's a different offer, most offers payout only on unique sign-ups). I've had campaigns that are barely break-even for me but will net out later due to retargeting so I keep them running. If you're doing enough volume ask your network to place a pixel on the first page for the offer as well so you can get a bit more granular with creative and offer retargeting -- the next time you serve the guy either hit him with a specific campaign or have him default to another ad-partner in your niche.
I have limited experience in the space, but I've done few buys to give you a piece of advice:
1) Test your banner Ads hard on GCN or myspace and make sure you get at least 0.15 CTR. Quite obvious but so crucial. You have to have on hand few sets of banner Ads that are tested well. You have to consider their Conversion rate also. Having clear call to action on the banner would help increasing conversion.
2) Make sure you get 48 hours out clause. Insist on very short out clause. Your company not gonna give a fuck if you are spending 10k on a campaign that is making nothing. Some of them offer 48 hours after X days to deceive you so you think you got 48 hours clause.
3) Even distribution and low test campaign (5k). Ask for Even distribution over 2 weeks period for small test campaign (5k). You will be losing little cash if it went bad, and you can use your out clause. if campaign worked out, scale it by buying another 20k at least campaign for 1 week.
4) Measure BOUNCE rate for their traffic and/or CTR to offer. This is an indication if they are showing your Ads to appropriate demography. If they place your Ads on arcade games. You will end up getting tons of clicks from DP members testing their Ads
5) If within first few thousands, lead costing you two times what you are paid for, do not leave... Optimize. It takes time to get the CPA goal.
6) regarding companies: ValueClick, TribalFusion, Zedo... I just think ValueClick a solid one.
7) Avoid any CPM more than $1.75. Yes, it may work once at CPM of $3. But it will not work another 20 times. Some companies like Zedo ask for $3 CPM.. I was sure to fail, and I did.
8) Never agree on anything verbally; everything has to be written.
9) You can not promote anything on these media buys. IMO, bizOpps & diet work well as there is massive demography interested...
Given all what I said, I had few media buys, and I have no interest in doing further media buys.
Hope that helps!
Leadicious
Great post mate
I find it particularly discouraging that a guy who obviously has a smart head on his shoulders like yourself couldnt make it work, despite what appears to be solid advice.
Do you blame the offer itself? Do you feel the only way to make media buys work is to do something directly with an Advertiser and cut out the middle-man to make up the margins?
I wonder what the percentages are of people running successful campaigns. I often wonder if all the ads im looking at are people who are losing $ and ready to bail any second.
I really like to have full control on my campaigns. I want to change Ads, stop/pause campaign, optimize as I want and Google Adwords allow me to do that. In media buying, it is all about your account executive. If he is an idiot, you are screwed and you feel like walking in very dark area until you lose your money.
I did few buys, on the successful ones, my ROI was not high. So, you end up scamming people with shitty rebill and accept low ROI... But you may make big buck eventhough you have lower ROI. I am trying to build online legit business that adds value to the end user. I do not think this kind of business would have positive ROI from CPM traffic, and I want to feel that I have the full control on everything on campaigns, so I'll stick with the big 3 and promote what they like.
Good luck bro,
Do not get discouraged man. it is just the way I want to promote my business. I assure you that there are a lot of guys running successful campaigns on ValueClick, and tribal fusion. I've been seeing Kev Ads for so long time for the very same destination url... No one will tell you he had a successful campaign for certain niche for certain CPM seller...
Best of luck!
I think some of that is good advice -- but the CPM is relative. You can pay pennies for remnant traffic, or $30 for highly targeted, demo matching traffic that converts like crazy. Not sure how anyone can say only pay $1.75 - we can make CPM media buys work at $10 depending on the traffic and/or get killed at $1 depending on the traffic.
The key is testing, and if your system or ad-serving has the ability to test dynamically, track and optimize in real time, that is very key, especially if you can do the same with landing pages.
If you have all that testing technology working perfectly- PM me so we can license it - lol.
The key is testing, and if your system or ad-serving has the ability to test dynamically, track and optimize in real time, that is very key, especially if you can do the same with landing pages.
If you have all that testing technology working perfectly- PM me so we can license it - lol.