What Budget For Tesing Rebill Offers

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Killface

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Mar 20, 2013
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I gave up on Bing (banned) and I still have an active Adwords account but I can't really advertise anything on there due to their rules.

I'm now giving Clickbooth's CPC platform a try.

I know people say noobs should start with low-payout email submits. I am working with a credit-card submit free trial rebill offer. So I guess I'm swinging for the fences. Is this a stupid idea?

My question is this: when testing an offer, what kind of budget do you allow before declaring it a dud/reworking LPs/switching offers? I've read a few threads that give vague ideas, but wanted some opinions from experienced marketers.

Right now I'm at 200 clicks and 0 conversions, roughly $200 spent, across 4 sources (websites where my ad is displayed). I'm running 3 different landing pages and my offer has a minimum payout of $47, usually $87 if the second product is also purchased (almost always happens). This is after experiencing a solid 2% conversion rate on Bing Ads search.

I'm thinking of giving each of the four sources 100 clicks or up to the $87 payout, and if I don't see a conversion I'll go to a different offer or switch verticals entirely. However, $400 is alot to lose without any data gained. I don't fear losing cash if I get data with which I can optimize, but without conversions that's not really possible, is it? I can go about it obliquely by optimizing based on the CTR of the landing pages, the CPC of the sources, etc, but that doesn't seem very beneficial if I'm just plain not converting.
 


Test 3x what the payout is. Evaluate and adjust. Did you get clicks? If yes, then your creative/ad copy is probably ok. What are people doing once they hit your lander? You need some kind of analytics, even better is when you have some kind of system like Real Time Web Analytics | Lucky Orange

Change things up, run some more traffic, etc.

Always adapt and change up what you are doing to see if you can get it to convert better.
 
Ive gotten about 75 clicks from each of the four traffic sources. Engage rate of 90% over 3 seconds on my lander. 10%ish CTR on the lander. One finally converted this morning. I think I'll give another 25 clicks to each source before I start cutting. I'd like to focus only on the LP and source that just converted, but I feel like 1 conversion isn't quite enough data. Or am I wrong?

Then the other problem is that even if I cut out everything but the winning combo, I don't think I can make a profit with these $1 clicks. My account manager says that I'm paying a premium because I'm new an it will fall over time, but I'm wondering to what level it will fall and how long it'll take.
 
500 clicks. 60 clicks of BUY NOW on the LP. 1 conversion. $47 on $470 spent. My ad is proven and identical to what works for others, the sites are proven, and my LP is 99% identical to the other flogs running on the site. How can I convert only 1 person when 60 clicked buy now?

Should I leave it as is and throw more money at it hoping it was just a bad streak?

Should i turn off everything but the source/LP combo that converted? It was only once though.

Should I switch my offer to another similar one? I find it hard to believe that this would make a difference, but I have no experience so enlighten me. I know it's not being shaved since the advertiser is a good friend and lives next to me.

Should I scrap it and switch verticals? I have another offer that was recently featured on an Oprah type show and it's google trends score has gone from 3 to 100 in the last month. I don't want to waste time getting my current offer to work and end up missing out on the next açai type insanity. I also, however dot want to get offer ADD and end up broke with no useful data.
 
A LESSON FOR NEWBS LIKE ME:

I found out why! The advertiser is pissed that some (other people) sent bad leads two months ago and is shaving prodigiously. I'm
Going to replace the offer tonight. Judging by the conversion rate of this offer in the past, I would probably be up $1000 now if I was seeing my real numbers. So NEWBS, BE CAREFUL.

If all your metrics are spot on and you're losing a ton of money, reassess. Advertisers DO shave and I learned the hard way, but Im glad it was only $500 lost and when I replace the offer I may just make that back in a day.
 
Killface said:
500 clicks. 60 clicks of BUY NOW on the LP. 1 conversion. $47 on $470 spent. My ad is proven and identical to what works for others, the sites are proven, and my LP is 99% identical to the other flogs running on the site. How can I convert only 1 person when 60 clicked buy now?
Click to expand...

This could also have something to do with the traffic source. Other people have most likely found a cheaper source for the traffic, so they can make it profitable.
 
Killface said:
A LESSON FOR NEWBS LIKE ME:

I found out why! The advertiser is pissed that some (other people) sent bad leads two months ago and is shaving prodigiously. I'm
Going to replace the offer tonight. Judging by the conversion rate of this offer in the past, I would probably be up $1000 now if I was seeing my real numbers. So NEWBS, BE CAREFUL.

If all your metrics are spot on and you're losing a ton of money, reassess. Advertisers DO shave and I learned the hard way, but Im glad it was only $500 lost and when I replace the offer I may just make that back in a day.
Click to expand...


People are always quick to blame shaving when something doesn't work out, but in my experience that is unlikely. Even shady advertisers or networks aren't likely to shave the first few leads a new pub sends, they'd be better off doing it after there was some volume so that the affiliate stuck around and those leads wouldn't be missed. The fact that you have had zero leads at all is probably due to other things besides shaving or scrubbing.
 
Turns out you're right!

The advertiser shaves my affiliate network when rebills don't back out, but he doesn't shave up front, meaning that these conversion numbers are REAL. I misunderstood my AM. I went ahead and swapped in a different skin care offer anyway.

My LP is quite similar to this one Daily Consumer Trends that I'm sure you've all seen everyone using. Has an exit pop and no disclosures since it's international, though :) . I have a 12%ish click rate of BUY NOW, not including exit pop redirects.

My ad CTR is good. My engage rate on my LP is good. My LP CTR is good (10%+ is considered optimal for a rebill yes?). So what gives, I wonder? Why are people backing out at the last second?

I've also lowered my max bid from a dollar to like, 25 cents. I'll sit on that for a few days and see if it brings any traffic. Despite the urgings of my account manager (who is AWESOME, but I know how they're paid), I bet it will. I'm sure it will take longer to get data this way, as in like a week instead of a day, but I can't afford to blow hundreds a day without conversions anyway. Slow and steady is better for me, unless my thinking is just horribly flawed here.

I have to crack this, bros. I can't live the life of an office drone...I wasn't made for it. I will not give up, no matter how much I spend nor how long it takes to get usable data. If this niche doesn't work, I'll do diet, or ecig, or bizopp. Eventually the right combo of platform + source + ad image + ad copy + LP + offer + vertical HAS to prevail, right? I know it's not Acai Party Time '08 anymore, but people are still making money doing this, and dammit I'm going to be one of them.
 
CPA > CPC IMO

Killface said:
500 clicks. 60 clicks of BUY NOW on the LP. 1 conversion. $47 on $470 spent.
Click to expand...

No bueno. Even though you say your page is very similar to others that are converting doesn't mean yours will. Differences in the traffic and the subtle differences in a cloned lander can make all the difference when it comes to conversions in a competitive niche. Not knowing more about your page it's just too tough to tell what could be wrong with it.

You could have better conversions on both of your LP and purchase page from the looks of it though. Look more deeply into the page experience (copy/flow/CTA's/etc.) and analytics on a per visitor basis (actions clicked vs. ignored/heat map patterns/exit pop metrics). Use google experiments or something similar to run experiments of dramatically different landers on the same traffic, find your winner after a couple/few hundred clicks and then run an experiment on different versions of that page. When it's converting like a beast, look back at how you got it there, then stay ahead of the game and throw another dramatically different page up suing those principles and test it out against the beast.

rinse/repeat

Killface said:
The advertiser shaves my affiliate network when rebills don't back out
Click to expand...
This is standard operating procedure for many advertisers to mitigate fraud in a practical way and maintain good relations with the network.

Killface said:
So what gives, I wonder? Why are people backing out at the last second?
Click to expand...

Have pages that don't suck. Ok.. usable advise is learn about what makes a good page good then make it BETTER. Conversion optimization. Can't say it enough. Look at every creative in the universe to see whats being done and get BETTER at creating them yourself. Use more and better analytics, learn what you don't yet know about the copy, graphic elements and overall page experience, then put it into a page or 80 and test test test.

Killface said:
I will not give up, no matter how much I spend nor how long it takes
Click to expand...

Good attitude and necessary to get out of that job and stay in this industry. If your innovative and have a set it prob won't take too long with that attitude. If your just cloning others creatives instead of learning from them then you'll need a thicker skin, a fatter wallet and eyes in the back of your head.

Now just go learn a metric shit-ton of best practices in all the different elements involved and carve your way into the community.
 
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