Wiredniko's Journal - Adventures of the Newbie

So my ad copy CTR, since some people referenced it in the last post and I have been thinking about it...I asked the PoF ad manager what is the average CTR for dating ads on PoF.

He replied back saying .1% to .15% is reasonable after a lot of split testing and that he has seen as high as 0.5% for highly targeted microniche dating.

So my stats...they are kind of fucked I guess, but I already knew this from yesterday. $0.15 CPM is just too low to compete.

Well with 9 total clicks I am not going to do my usual breakdown.
Total spent $5.06
Impressions: 34k
Male target estimated CPC: $0.42
Female target estimated CPC: $0.85
Clicks: 9
Sales: $0

This is when I changed my ads and my CPM. I have today's stats kinda, $0.17CPM is still low, raising it back to $0.20 I might still lose money but at least I am getting some data. Can't do anything with 9 clicks.

Speaking of which...data...its all about the data. Personally I do not feel like I have been paying as much attention to them as I should have. Like right now my female targets cost me twice as much...are they converting? I don't know I did not keep track of it correctly.

Now I am all setup with tracking202...but of course I got no sales yesterday so my data is not really helping. I should build an excel file to properly track things including my A/B tests. I think 50% of affiliate marketing if not more is understanding statistics...when to keep trying and when to bail. What is working to scale it right and what to shut down.

Data...give me data.

CPM is all back up to $0.20

Doing some research on offers. By some I meant for about two hours apparently.

Found something I really like, still in the dating niche.

Starting another campaign this one only targeting males in an even smaller niche.

Hour 15....tracking202 refuses to display my new ad copies so I can link them.

Well I guess my new campaign will have to wait till tomorrow.
 


Crazy thought of the day.

The more I get involved in this the more my entire world view changes.

I pay attention to all offline ads, internet ads. How they are pitched. Do they have a call to action? Are they leveraging brand names? Short time frames?

I have signed up to 10 "guru" email lists just so I can see their style of email marketing not what they have to offer.

Funny thing is I started writing emails at work with linkbait subjects.

I am breathing affiliate marketing sooner or later I will make it. :food-smiley-010:

I started working today at 8:00am...its now 1:30am....I need to write one PM to someone and call it a night.
 
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> $283.30 left before I start wondering if its worth it or not

Do you mean for this particular PoF/FB dating campaign, or is that what's
left from the money you initially set aside for starting the whole PPC game?
 
Chianti said:
> $283.30 left before I start wondering if its worth it or not

Do you mean for this particular PoF/FB dating campaign, or is that what's
left from the money you initially set aside for starting the whole PPC game?
Click to expand...

For PoF of course.

Every month I have an amount of money I feel comfortable spending so I use it for a project.
 
Failure aint an option yo!!

Dude, Niko, one you start making money i think this journal should get stickied so newbies who think this is a get rich quick game can think again and look at all the bullshit that goes into it!!!
 
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A new day starts. Time to grind.

Tracking202...too many connections error. WTF. Why is tracking so difficult.

Great so prosper202 does not record things right for me. Tracking202 is user limited and bevomedia does not support non traditional PPC and PPV sources very well. :music07:

10/1/10 stats
Male Impressions: 53199
Clicks: 18
Avg CTR: 0.034%
Estimated CPC: $0.55
Total Spent: $9.85

Female Impressions: 41323
Clicks: 18
Avg CTR: 0.044%
Estimated CPC: $0.43
Total Spent: $7.74

Clicks to offer: 33
Total Sales: 3
Approved %: 9.09

End result: Loss

I keep being around -50% ROI and I can't break through.

Also my ad copies for female targets have soared, but the new image I used for my ad copy for male targets totally fucked me....weird it had more boobage. I just checked for today, the ad copy that was 0.018% yesterday is 0.085% today, must have been a fluke due to my low numbers.

Some interesting facts.

I get more Canadian clicks than American ones, about 50% more.

Tracking202 still doing its BS. God damn it.

Doing some more research on PoF ads. Random thought why is it that every case study I read I never see anyone making profit? Its not like I am different, but if you have a blog you might as well know what you are doing....

I guess the same way there are a bunch of people in WF that have big post counts but do not really do anything than read...I guess it also happens to bloggers.

I mean I can fucking make a blog and talk out of my ass for days...learn the new traffic source better than Google...OMG give me your moniez!

Ads.pof.com Blog it would have been nice if I was informed that this existed.

I have some thoughts about PoF. Something that Ruck said on one of his ustreams is starting to ring true. Reading the PoF blog also kind of confirmed it. Well I will talk about it at the end of this experiment.

On a random side note, PoF does not allow you to target straight or gay people specifically. You might think so what...but think about this, here you are having a dating ad and gay people are seeing it...so you are wasting your targeted clicks. Same would apply if you are targeting gay or lesbians...actually you really can't because straight men and women would see your ads. Statistically speaking there are probably a lot less gay men seeing straight ads...than vice versa.

That's kind of a huge omission though.

Random thought of the day: Eliminate negative thoughts, but be aware of reality.

...having said that tracking202 pisses me off with their too many connections throttle.

Back to prosper202 with lower stats that I at least can access it when I want to. This is totally messing up with my tracking...sigh.

I decided I am going to split my test results by age groups. I am following the same breakdown as PoFs tracking mainly because its convenient. Also now that I am looking at the stats people 50+ are totally not clicking on my ads...60+ 0.00171% CTR.

Alright so I am dropping anyone 50+. That means I have three groups to test x 2 for male vs female. 6 ad copies. Taking my best performing ads for both genders and replicating them x 6 but now I can have separate tracking for each one of them.

Uhm, I just noticed the View Cross Tab Reports inside my campaigns. Wow that is some nice specifics, why is it so small of a link? The info there is awesome.

Hmm keep the campaigns I have and create more ads, or have one ad per campaign. I think the Cross Tab Reports kind of sold me on separate campaigns. That way not only can I see ages, but also pretty much every metric PoF keeps track of.

Male targets all complete. I even updated my winning ad copy a bit more for branding...and with the help of a friend it looks even more pimped out now.

Female targets all complete.

So today I am running 8 campaigns total. I am going to kill my 2 campaigns tonight where I have not broken things down by age group.

Amusingly I just checked my stats, I am actually doing better than yesterday without any changes, I think its just a fluke though. Its like they know I am killing them tonight. :ak:

Hmm 4:20...so I have been working for 5hrs 20mins already. No wonder I am getting hungry.

Well now that I have setup everything up for PoF, might as well spend some time on my mega site. The biggest problem with is, is I need to learn more about how to handle user sessions and some database design. I know how to create DBs but for massive info I wonder what the best way to handle is. Of course AFTER I create everything I would have to SEO it, so yeah...mega project sounds about right.

...so I talked to some people. My mega site idea has a lot of potential, but being able to work on it, my regular job, PoF and all the other things I am working on will not likely happen. So I am putting it on hold till I quit my job.

Then its on.

Which means I got some free time to uhm, I guess work on a niche SEO site.

Going for lunch to clear my mind a bit and think about an SEO based blog.

Well I said lunch, really it was dinner.

Doing some reading, debating on my next step, I am starting to feel weird not working for 12 hours today. Re-reading this Nobody is Going to Tell You Shit Part 1 | ppc.bz

I love that post, its almost like I have to visit it once in a while to balance myself.

I have two books to read. Ca$hvertising and Eat That Frog. If I am right those two books will really help me out. I think I am going to start with Ca$hvertising since time management wise Getting Things Done has been a tremendous asset at my real work....affiliate marketing wise I must admit I do not use GTD at all, mainly because its easy to keep track of things. (the beauty of only working on one project at a time)

...oh my...Ca$hvertising is ridiculous....holy fuck, this is mind magic, jedi trickery. I just read the best ad copy I have ever read and that is just the book description. Blown away...must devour this book.

Still managed to spend 13 hours doing AM related stuff.
 
This is sad, prosper202 totally fails. Its even sadder that I trust the PoF stats over prosper202. Could this be a hosting issue? As in my host is too slow?

Well in any case, I am using fucking PoF as my tracking platform because its the most accurate. At least its stats and EWAs stats match exactly.

I am actually reading Eat that Frog instead. For some reason it feels like I need to read that before I read Ca$hvertising.

I started taking notes for Eat that Frog, that book is pretty good, combining it with GTD is going to be mind blowing. I think I am going to save my notes and post them in the AM section of WF. Probably someone can get some use of my thoughts.

Well this book grabbed me. I actually read the whole book in 6 hours while taking notes.

Posting it on WF to help others...you can read it here: http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate-marketing/103869-eat-frog-brian-tracy-book-notes.html
 
wiredniko said:
This is sad, prosper202 totally fails. Its even sadder that I trust the PoF stats over prosper202. Could this be a hosting issue? As in my host is too slow?

Well in any case, I am using fucking PoF as my tracking platform because its the most accurate. At least its stats and EWAs stats match exactly.

I am actually reading Eat that Frog instead. For some reason it feels like I need to read that before I read Ca$hvertising.

I started taking notes for Eat that Frog, that book is pretty good, combining it with GTD is going to be mind blowing. I think I am going to save my notes and post them in the AM section of WF. Probably someone can get some use of my thoughts.

Well this book grabbed me. I actually read the whole book in 6 hours while taking notes.

Posting it on WF to help others...you can read it here: http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate-marketing/103869-eat-frog-brian-tracy-book-notes.html
Click to expand...

You are now using abbreviations for E-Books. I don't know what to say.
 
yo Niko!!!

Bro! while ur working on PoF..dont take ur eyes off that mega project dude...shit will blow ppls minds one day!! shit will be bananas if u actually go thru with it
 
Just a quick update, it seems that I am only losing a couple of $ a day now that I killed the age groups that where not converting at all.

For the time being I am letting things ride out a little bit for the next couple of days to see how things turn out. The plan is to scale the age groups that are converting and kill the groups that are not. Once I make my converting groups even more profitable I will start focusing on the rest of the age groups and try to optimize a bit better with my images, and ad copies.

In the meantime I got Ca$hvertising today, so I will be reading that.

Tomorrow is my off day so I won't update things until Wednesday.
 
It would be a wise decision to build up a stock pile of creative ad images since images on POF tend to go stale rather quickly.
 
My day job is kicking my ass, worked 10 hours today, 13 hours yesterday...fuck

Real job please relax I got moneyz to make on the internetz.

Thanks,

- Niko

Checking my stats, I should have enough data to see which age groups are doing better than others.

Btw got new speakers, they are bumping....I missed my music so much.

First observation my CTR is getting lower, I knew this was going to happen as my ads where again. I wanted to change things on Wednesday but I got so busy at work I just came home and collapsed.

By killing my older groups...I am almost making profit, I am basically spending $1-2 a day net loss. So if I tweak just a little bit...oh boy.

Er I was about to post the actual breakdowns but I realized that would be kind of dumb, I did not spend $200...about $6 really after profits so you can mooch off me :action-smiley-052:

Its all in jest...it might be a bit more than $6...haven't gotten there anyway ;)

Clicks and conversions
group1: 194,411impressions / 51 clicks / 0.0262% CTR / 2 Conversions / 3.92% clicks to conversions
group2: 215,843 / 64 / 0.297% / 8 / 12.5%
group 3: 73,205 / 29 / 0.0396% / 5 / 17.4%
group 4: 150,800 / 49 / 0.0325% / 5 / 10.2%
group 5: 140,600 / 32 / 0.0228% / 5 / 15.625%
group 6: 57,418 / 23 / 0.0401 / 3 / 21.7%

random interruption: Finch rocks. Finch Sells - London Affiliate Marketing Blog check it out, good articles, helpful and he does not try to sell you his ebook.....and no fucking annoying popups, give me your email shit.

Why am I doing this by hand? Go, go Excel...well OpenOffice, even better and free...what?

Btw, want to get in the mood to grind and make money.
Rick Ross - In Cold Blood
and while I am still working on my spreadsheet Rick Ross - Mafia Music

So I calculated my $ per 1K impressions. Here is the formula:

(Conversions * Payout) / (Impressions / 1000)

Why?

Because I pay by 1,000 impressions so I have to compare the value above to my 0.20CPM.

Some funny things happened doing that calculation. First of all I can make profit on one campaign right off the bat.

I am also killing two age groups for being too low profit/1k and also have a low clicks to conversions. (imagine that combination working)

Amusingly my highest approved % is actually not my highest profit/1K, my highest CTR is. I am including a screenshot, if you can follow me cool...

I had to hide my age groups for my personal benefit...and my $ per 1K impressions to abide with EWAs don't talk about our payouts, but I left the column there to give you an idea of what I am talking about.

So group 4 can turn profit right now, I raise my CTR back to 0.059% as it was in day 1, that would be even more money.

Group 1 and group 6 are the ones I dropped, as you can see the approved % is very low the CTR is not high either, so both of them are like a death touch. Those campaigns are paused.

Now lets analyze the stats a little bit more. Group 2, see how they are converting well but not clicking? My guess is my ad does not target them well. So I need to update Group 2 ad to be more clickable for that age group. Basically the CTR is so low that the high approvals are still creating a loss.

Group 3, I need to tweak just a tiny bit and I can make it go to profit

Group 4 I am scaling, aka spending more money on it, see how my impressions are low comparatively? I think the CPM on that space is more competitive so my ad does not show as much, I will raise my CPM just a tiny bit, update my image for better CTR and I will be profitable

Group 5, hmm this group is borderline low CTR, kind of ok Approved %, but see how its the highest impressions? Lowering my CPM on that, and updating my ad, I think my image needs to be a bit more tailored for them.

Imagine that using the same image for all the age groups is a dumb idea....obvious statement but now its backed by statistics.

On another note the groups I killed, I think I have an offer that they could convert well just on them, but I will tackle that a different day.

Getting to work...

hours 14, I got 30 mins left

Group 2, updated image to be more age oriented for that group, left CPM the same

Group 3, updated image to be more age oriented for that group, left CPM the same...since it can almost make profit raising the CPM is like shooting myself on the foot

Group 4, my profit group, raise CPM slightly, updated image (added breasts woo) to beat lower CTR due to time

Group 5 updated image to be more age oriented for that group, lowered CPM...damn found a super cute pic and in the meantime an awesome source of images.

Lets see how things turn out tomorrow....even though I am travelling to New York so for the next four days I will not be working very hard.
 
wiredniko said:
My day job is kicking my ass, worked 10 hours today, 13 hours yesterday...fuck

Real job please relax I got moneyz to make on the internetz.

Thanks,

- Niko
Click to expand...

Hahahaha ... add a wife and a newborn and welcome to my life.

Join the club with a lot of other AMers trying to make this work.

::emp::
 
When you say "approved" in your stats, you mean the conversion rate of sales : clicks to offer page, right? Although it doesn't seem to match in your post #96 (10 out of 72 = 13.9%)? And what exactly is "approved" and by whom? Do your signups/sales need to be verified by someone?

Also, seems so far you've been mostly cash-flow negative. Can you give us an idea of your total balance, spent and recouped, since you started in July?

Thanks for the great thread. I've so far worked almost only in SEO but want to push into paid traffic too and this is good stuff.
 
Lets say 10 people visit the offer page and one makes it through and sign up.

So 1 out of 10 people singed up, that's 10% approval rate.

I just started using the word since EWA keeps track of it and its convenient to see, you can think of it as offer CTR I guess.

In terms of cashflow you are correct I am in the negative still :food-smiley-010:

If you read my posts it clear....except the one super duper day I had in BizOp that I thought I had found the golden ticket...but I was totally wrong.
 
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