I've been lurking the newbie forums for a week before registering and I've greatly enjoyed reading the various journals. I wasn't going to make one for my own experiences, but I figured I should give back. So, here I am. I'm doing a lot of trial and error on this so you are warned for retarded moments!
To start:
I signed up with an affiliate network. I've installed prosper202 on a friend's dedicated server. I had a few kinks to work out of it, but it's up and running now with a few weird issues. After talking to my AM, I decided on an offer to work with and a place to run ads (Facebook). I made several versions of my ads. I set the budget at a low $15 daily. Sent them to Facebook a few days ago.
Facebook is fucking slow.
Yesterday:
My ads were finally approved! I've done awful the first day. This is suppose to be one of the top converting offers and I'm not converting. It's okay though because I've learned my first lesson.
Lesson #1: Target your audience, you dumb fuck!
So, yeah. I didn't target properly. My ads were very very broadly targeted. I need to narrow it down a lot more. Reviewing the offer page, it looks a lot more male friendly... oops. I've removed the ads that were targeted to females.
I've also decided to do something else: start another campaign. This is probably not the best idea, but I learn by doing!
I picked another top converting offer as my second campaign. I did a lot of research for this one. I looked at tons and tons of facebook ads with the same sort of offer and tried to mimic them. I've targeted my ads and separated them by age group to test. Put them up on Facebook feeling pretty good about it. Facebook is fucking slow, part 2. They're finally approved! I get 7 clicks before my daily budget is reached.. fuck. Where did I go wrong? ….. I somehow had it on CPM instead of CPC. I've changed them all to CPC and am now waiting for them to reapprove. Damn it.
Lesson #2: Double check what you put into Create an Ad, moron.
On the plus side, I did get two converts for the seven clicks. Am I on the right track? Who knows.
Questions:
Why is my tracking202 database on some random moon time? I have it set to my timezone and yet recent clicks are logged as 2pm when it's 4am here.
I am starting out with 10-40 ads from go. Am I stretching myself here? It's hard to split test when one ad has 1k impressions and another has 122k impressions.
Finally, I can't promise I will update this thread every day. I will try to do it at least once a week though until I feel like I'm no longer a newbie (this may be awhile). I'm in the negative so far. I started not expecting to make anything but nice red numbers for awhile.
Long term goal: Break even.
Short term goal: No really dumb mistakes today (like having CPM instead of CPC).
To start:
I signed up with an affiliate network. I've installed prosper202 on a friend's dedicated server. I had a few kinks to work out of it, but it's up and running now with a few weird issues. After talking to my AM, I decided on an offer to work with and a place to run ads (Facebook). I made several versions of my ads. I set the budget at a low $15 daily. Sent them to Facebook a few days ago.
Facebook is fucking slow.
Yesterday:
My ads were finally approved! I've done awful the first day. This is suppose to be one of the top converting offers and I'm not converting. It's okay though because I've learned my first lesson.
Lesson #1: Target your audience, you dumb fuck!
So, yeah. I didn't target properly. My ads were very very broadly targeted. I need to narrow it down a lot more. Reviewing the offer page, it looks a lot more male friendly... oops. I've removed the ads that were targeted to females.
I've also decided to do something else: start another campaign. This is probably not the best idea, but I learn by doing!
I picked another top converting offer as my second campaign. I did a lot of research for this one. I looked at tons and tons of facebook ads with the same sort of offer and tried to mimic them. I've targeted my ads and separated them by age group to test. Put them up on Facebook feeling pretty good about it. Facebook is fucking slow, part 2. They're finally approved! I get 7 clicks before my daily budget is reached.. fuck. Where did I go wrong? ….. I somehow had it on CPM instead of CPC. I've changed them all to CPC and am now waiting for them to reapprove. Damn it.
Lesson #2: Double check what you put into Create an Ad, moron.
On the plus side, I did get two converts for the seven clicks. Am I on the right track? Who knows.
Questions:
Why is my tracking202 database on some random moon time? I have it set to my timezone and yet recent clicks are logged as 2pm when it's 4am here.
I am starting out with 10-40 ads from go. Am I stretching myself here? It's hard to split test when one ad has 1k impressions and another has 122k impressions.
Finally, I can't promise I will update this thread every day. I will try to do it at least once a week though until I feel like I'm no longer a newbie (this may be awhile). I'm in the negative so far. I started not expecting to make anything but nice red numbers for awhile.
Long term goal: Break even.
Short term goal: No really dumb mistakes today (like having CPM instead of CPC).
I have brought in lots of clicks but no converts today. 
