Big_Bear

id work on the banner. that ctr is really low... can you show us example of the banner youre using? can you change the banner?

Kenster

Yep, welcome to paid traffic...it can be expensive to learn. The important part is that you are learning and are being methodical about running your campaign. Not every campaign is a winner, but without exact tracking and organization of your campaign, you will be shooting in the dark!

But as I like to say....test small, fail small, find the gem and suceed large!

Best of luck buddy and keep us updated!

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inter123

I am no expert but of the 65 clicks, one would have thought at least 1 or 2 would sign up especially as they don't have to whip out their credit card and buy something.

Could it be that the landing page is not effective? (I would have thought the company would have a landing page that is tested and tweaked for better conversions). And does the banner tell them what they are in for when they reach the vendors page? Is the message consistent with the offer on the table? Click through rate may have improved if the banner was on above the fold but is it possible 200 people could have gone to the landing page and still not signed?

Maybe on the last day of the campaign or so, it might be an idea to post the blog where the banner resides for people to provide more feedback?

Jim.

WFParadise

That's right, I would stop campaign already. Something is very wrong, see from which country are this clicks, cause they may not be from that offer accepts, banner can rotate with others on some unrelated theme and so on. Plus CTR is not that good at all, but that is very common thing.

BSA do not allow to refund it seems anyway. $60 not much, forget about it.

Cash37

Congrats on the courage to do this publicly Russ. Ive launched many wildly profitable campaigns this same way- simply browsing BlogAds, BuySellAds, and a few other self serve networks that will go unnamed here, then doing my homework and launching a campaign quickly.

You'll hit on some duds, as Quantcast and DoubleClick aren't 100% accurate but you will hit on some home runs as well.

My advice for anyone doing this is:

1. Check the ads already running. What niche are they in? Are they brand advertisers or affiliates? Is there adsense on the site? If so, where is it located? This will clue you into how "clicky" the audience is.

2. Where is YOUR ad going to be run? On the top? Left hand side? Right hand side? Halfway down the page? You want to go for an ad as close to the content as possible. And yes... below the fold ads can print you several $100 bills if they are in the right spots.

3. How tech savy is the owner and the audience. This right here is going to vary wildly but I tend to profile using my own stereotypes here... and profit off those stereotypes as well. Think about it... if the site is a basic wordpress theme and only monetized by Adsense and a new fresh BSA account chances are that the guy running the site isn't tech savy, nor are his readers. You can definitely use this to your advantage (with a flog) .

Those are just my 2 cents on this and once again good work Russ!

I may start my own live case study thread of this sort.

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the_icon

any updates?

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melzar

Nice try man atleast! I hope your next venture will be a success. If not the next one, then by doing constant training and gaining experience and not giving up you will eventually succeed

espresso

I'd say the problem is the offer 65 clicks and no conversions is bad
I would expect 10% to convert

I am interested in this method of traffic generation but as mentioned its expensive to learn

swayman

Is this PPV really works? I always feel annoyed seeing pop up under and always close it before even get the chance of reading it.

jeffrey73

This is not PPV it's a media or banner buy. It has nothing to do with pop-ups or pop-unders, he just placed a banner ad on a very high traffic blog. Two completely different things.

Mike Morgan.

PPV really works and it is really effective .

Check this post to get some info

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You also have to be informed that this thread is not about PPV . It is about Media buying in the form of banners .

Hope it helps .
Mike

russells

Hi guys, sorry for not updating you sooner.

Here's the final stats:

241405 Impressions
88 Clicks
0.036% CTR

A Big Fat ZERO commissions.

My ad was running on the right-hand side UNDER the fold.

The site is FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis (Ad may still be showing for a few hours if you'd like to check it out - it's for a free $500 NFL giftcard).

Although I haven't made a return on my purchase, I learnt a major point:

Always run an ad above the fold to increase CTR.Anyone else like to chip in on what can be learned from this experience?

I really appreciate all the feedback and support guys, you rock.

~Russ

williamrs

Losing money when learning is normal, the most important thing is that you learned some important aspects of media buys.

You certainly got a very low CTR, but you still got 88 clicks and no conversions for a 1st page submit, so there can be other problems there.

When dealing with email/zip/short form submits that offer gift cards the major problem that I face is people thinking that the offers is a scam. So what do I do? The easiest thing that you can do is make the offer makes sense. For example, if you're promoting a $1,000 Wal-Mart gift card you can say something like Wal-Mart Is Giving Away $1,000 For Christimas!. Big companies do this type of thing all the time, so it won't look like a scam.

You can also use polls and offer the chance of winning a gift card as a way to say thank you for participating.

But don't lose motivation! You learned important lessons and your next attempt will certainly bring better results. So keep trying until you succeed!


William

jeffrey73

Wow! I never looked at it from that angle before. Always some good information coming from Williamrs.

mraffiliate

I clicked on your ad and it took me to a site that is offering a free Harry Potter Movie ticket for an email submit?

jeffrey73

Hey Russ,

I think this might be a BIG problem in why you aren't getting any conversions. Is this offer specific to any certain country? I'm in the US and am being redirected to a Harry Potter submit. This could easily be 1 reason that campaign failed, besides the fact it's below the fold.

BTW, nice looking banner! I'm not sure I'd put "details apply" next to FREE, unless you are required to. And we are not on Facebook, so I don't think it's necessary for you to do so.

And looking at the structure of this site, that is not really a bad spot you have it in at all. The only better spot you could have placed it would be to the left side maybe.

inter123

I am being directed to a UK site which is offering the chance to win a pink iPhone. Has the NFL offer expired and replaced with something new or was it these type of offers the 80+ visitors saw?

imkazu

^ thats probably a geo redirect; are you hitting in from the uk ?
maxbounty's international redirect usually defaults to ipad offers

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russells

I'm wondering now you know if the offer has actually expired. I've had 102 clicks now and no conversions. The ad has ended now of course, but maybe that's why I had zero conversions.

If so that's pretty annoying that MaxBounty still have it on their system.

If you're outside the US you will be re-directed, by the way.

~Russ

Kenster

Normally the link will still be live and redirect but normally the network will take off their network when its expired. Weird

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jeffrey73

Yeah, it's annoying. But doesn't really have anything specifically to do with MaxBounty. I've seen email submits with many other networks do exactly the same thing. Usually they send you an email when an offer expires though.

BloggerDeen

All do the same they redirect to some other offer so in the end they still make money. I guess you should rather go with USA targeted offer.

maricelu

I will try your method since I'll make my first 1k online

powerspike

Greetings russells,

It's to see somebody putting their neck out so to speak, you have learnt a lot in this thread.

I have done something similar with PPV - found an item on clickbank for sports bets, and running some PPV - it's broken even so far - but the items are rebills which is great.

But do you know what? I have blown around $400 on ppv so far testing, but in the end, not everything is going to work, if you can workout why if failed, and try to avoid the same mistakes, you'll get one or two that will work in the long run,

If you get 9 that fail, and 1 that works, and you've spent $60 each on the 9, but making 100/week on the good one, you will make the cash in the long run. Keep at it, you will succeed.

- justin

garyt

Thanks Russell ans Justin and others for some valuable tips, I will chip in.

Spent about $300 on buysellads and about $50 on Projectwonderful. Nothing to show for it. BSA is still running because its a monthly deal but no luck so far.

Some mistakes :

1. opting for small banners ads that sell cheap (125x125) when there are many such small ads running at the same time

2. below the fold (although some that are below the fold got some good ctr, so it depends)

3. rotating banners that reduce the impressions drastically

4. topic of the website or blog is not closely related to my offer although the demographcs seems is what I wanted

The result? A dismal ctr of 0.08 %. I read that PlentyofFish boasts a ctr of 0.15% so there is some room to improve. Before this, I thought I could get at least 1% ctr but that was wishful thinking

I also find that Quancast does not always give the demographic details and if it did, it may not be accurate anyway. So it is really trial and error.

Some things I intend to do after this:

1. try various networks until I get a winner, then go direct and scale
2. only go for bigger banner ads that are above the fold or close to the content or flows with the content
3. avoid rotating ads
4. only buy ads on sites that are closely related and of the right demographics
5. create banners with text that lure the viewer to click. Eg offering a few top secret tips and then create a email capture page
6. display my site URL on the banners for branding purposes so even if there are no clicks, I get some branding

This is not going to be easy but I vowed to get it right. After getting slapped by Google so many times, I cannot keep turning the other cheek anymore

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powerspike

greetings Garyt,


I think Cash37 Hit the nail on the head, And even google will back it up.

If you look at google adsense help, they recommend where you should put their ads for maximum return, the best place? with the content, after that it's above the fold.

If you can't get an advertisment in with the content itself, then above the fold is a must. English readers read left to right, so left hand side will get their attention first, then right hand side (but there's content inbetween!).

To sum up some of the recommendations and suggestions in here

1) ads with content and/or above the fold
2) bigger is better (more screen space means more attention)
3) make sure your advertisments match up with the site content and demographics, (ie your not going to get a 16yo ready to buy betting guides for the NFL or horse races).

and 4->4040939) TRACK TRACK TRACK!! =)

If you can't work out what is making you money, how are you going to stop what is costing you money?

azmanar

Hi,

Learnt 2 important lessons here from Russell.

1. Never buy Ads below the fold
2. Make sure Ads doesnt read like a scam

I hope you get back your investment soon in another endeavour.

Look4VGames

good luck dude

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costi

Maybe it's also possible to contact the owner of the site and ask him in what is the CTR in general for the ads in that position something like an average! Are there any sites that let you buy ads on blogs based on Pay Per Click?

bastiat

any update? I've been reading this thread and it's edifying, thanks for sharing your experience

Mike Morgan.

Hey Russells,

There are lots of things that you should learn from this test.

1. One thing that you should learn is the positioning of the banner. It is always recommended to position your banner above the fold.

2. The second point is about conversion.

Even though you have lots of clicks, you got Zero conversion. This indicates that there was also a problem in some part of your campaign.

Some of the reasons could be :

• Due to Selection of Low converting offer

• Miss match of the offer with your audiences demographics and psychographic behavior

• This also happens if there is inconsistency between what is claimed in the banner ad and the offer

Hope it helps .
Mike

chrosymodarsan

I am also from Maxbounty and currently promoting dating offers a hand did. Tell us how your creation will be on stage with BlogAds.com

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brendan301

there's lots of good infomrmation in this post.

however, what's a good CTR to shoot for when doing media buys? does it vary by niche?

jeffrey73

A good gauge would be to run ads on Facebook for a week.

under .10 = Poor ( scrap it! ) Unless it's getting positive ROI
.10 - .15 = Pretty good to good
.20 - .30 = Hot!
.40 + = FIRE!

Mike Morgan.

Nice tip ... Jeff.

I would also advice to test the CTR of your banners and conversion rate of your landing pages using Google content network , if you have some experience with Google .

Mike

Earn.cx

I used to have the exact same problems as you do.
I would like to make some recommendations.

You can try creating a landing page that will go to the offer.
A good fake blog is a good example, or even a simple squeeze page.

Then you should use userfly.com to monitor visitors.
Also see how long they spend on the site.

Some traffic sources will convert well. some traffic sources will convert poorly.

I've sometimes been unable to get conversions to my zip/email submits
but converted paid trial offers!

But try and use a landing page to pre-sell the next offer, because a lot of them
have become more savy and are skeptical.

Earn.cx

Ads that read like a scam attract stupid people, and those are the people who are MORE likely to take action; buy the eBook, sign up with the trial offer.

Leo McMackin

Thanks for posting this, it's good to see you're taking risks as it is the only way to succeed. I was also thinking of doing this but I think I may steer clear now

pedobear

Good luck with your method. Hope you will do well. I will follow your progress. Thanks for sharing

Leo McMackin

Unfortunately the fatal flaw here was that NFL offers should most definitely be targeted to the USA, you'd be hard pushed trying to find someone in the UK interested in American Football, and on that website. If US residents were redirected to random offers it's not surprising you got 0 conversions.

At least you can learn from this and try again. I'd say this campaign would actually work with the right offer, and in the right place on the website. I would also never promote offers giving away things like free gift cards, as the vast majority of people would assume this is a scam. Maybe one of those TV products, with American Football channels in particular might work.

jeffrey73

This is a very good idea too.

costi

@jeffrey73 are there any chances to have problems with google if we promote this kind of offers? Can you please suggest what kind of offers are doing good on google content network!

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