Mobile campaigns questions
Hi all,
I've been trying to get into promoting mobile CPA offers and had a few questions concerning running mobile campaigns. I would really appreciate it if some of you with mobile experience could pass on your wisdom and provide some guidance.
Also, if you know of a good mobile WSO guide, please share a link and I'll be happy to purchase it.
1. So, first of all, and most importantly to me, how much do you generally spend on a campaign to see if it has potential and if it's an offer worth promoting? I've read in a guide somewhere that 5-10 times the payout is a good guideline. Is that so? Or does it make more sense to go by the amount of clicks? And if yes, how many is enough? 100, 500, 1000, 2000 clicks?
2. Once you go through the initial budget, either based on the amount of clicks or offer payout, what determines whether it's an offer worth promoting? Obviously, if the campaign is profitable or breaking even from the get go, I'd keep running it to gather more data, but what if the campaign is losing money? How much of a loss is acceptable and at which point do you decide that it's not even worth optimizing and simply cut your losses and move on to a different offer?
3. When it comes to optimization, some guides refer to it as "cutting the fat," how do you determine which creative/device/carrier/OS/publisher/etc. is underperforming and needs to be cut? Do you go by ROI? CR? Does it matter how many clicks did the creative/device/carrier/OS receive? Should the optimization be based on the amount of clicks per creative/device/carrier/OS or the total amount of clicks the campaign received? I guess what I'm trying to ask is, what exactly is a "poor performing" creative/device/carrier/OS/publisher?
For instance, based on one of my campaigns (2700 clicks):
Device 1: 546 clicks, 5 conversions - CR 0.92%
Device 2: 11 clicks, 2 conversions - CR 18.18%
Device 3: 362 clicks, 3 conversions - CR 0.83 %
Device 4: 112 clicks, 3 conversions - CR 2.68 %
Device 5: 51 clicks, 1 conversion - CR 1.96%
Device 6: 48 clicks, 0 conversions
Now, obviously Device 2 is greatly outperforming other devices, but should, let's say, Devices 1 and 3 be cut even if they are a major source of traffic? Since there is no guarantee Device 2 will retain the 18.18% conversion rate (or even receive enough traffic going forward), what factors should I take into account to help me decide which devices to cut? Over the span of the campaign (2700 clicks) some devices received 20-70 clicks with no conversions (e.g., Device 6) - should these be cut or do you normally wait until these devices receive more clicks? And if it's the latter, how many clicks would you wait for before cutting the device? In comparison, some other devices had between 5 to 61 clicks with 1 conversion (e.g., Device 5), resulting in CR of 1.64% to 20%.
In terms of creatives (again, after 2700 clicks total), which ones should be cut?:
Creative 1: 339 clicks, 5 conversions - CR 1.47%
Creative 2: 429 clicks, 3 conversions - CR 0.70%
Creative 3: 22 clicks, 2 conversions - CR 9.09%
Creative 4: 145 clicks, 1 conversion - CR 0.69%
Creative 5: 349 clicks, 1 conversion - CR 0.29%
Creative 6: 143 clicks, 4 conversions - CR 2.80%
Creative 6: 398 clicks, 5 conversions - 1.26%
Creative 7: 68 clicks, 0 conversions
Additionally, is there a recommended optimization order? Would you normally start cutting underperforming creatives first, then devices, then carriers?
4. Lastly, I'm still trying to figure out how can some offers even be profitable. Let's say the offer payout is $1.75, and the network claims a CR of 3% (which is pretty good apparently). Now, most mobile networks have a minimum bid of 0.05-0.06 per click, that's with pretty broad targeting, and this bid will likely need to be higher to be able to receive a good amount of traffic once targeting is narrowed down.
So with a payout of $1.75, CR of 3% and bid at $0.05 per click, the ROI is -12.5%. Is the CR provided by the network an initial estimated CR for a non-optimized campaign? Should I expect to be able to achieve a CR of 4% or higher once the campaign is optimized?
With the campaign I was running, I was only able to achieve a CR of about 1% (while the network claimed around 3%), which resulted in a pretty huge loss after 10,200 clicks (same offer, different campaigns split-testing countries and carrier vs. WiFi). If my cost per click was $0.01, the campaign would actually be pretty profitable, but aside from BuzzCity, I don't know of any other network that would have a minimum bid that low.
I think these are all the questions I have for now (I know it's a lot - my apologies). Thank you all in advance for reading and for your advice.
Cheers,
Russ
I've been trying to get into promoting mobile CPA offers and had a few questions concerning running mobile campaigns. I would really appreciate it if some of you with mobile experience could pass on your wisdom and provide some guidance.
Also, if you know of a good mobile WSO guide, please share a link and I'll be happy to purchase it.
1. So, first of all, and most importantly to me, how much do you generally spend on a campaign to see if it has potential and if it's an offer worth promoting? I've read in a guide somewhere that 5-10 times the payout is a good guideline. Is that so? Or does it make more sense to go by the amount of clicks? And if yes, how many is enough? 100, 500, 1000, 2000 clicks?
2. Once you go through the initial budget, either based on the amount of clicks or offer payout, what determines whether it's an offer worth promoting? Obviously, if the campaign is profitable or breaking even from the get go, I'd keep running it to gather more data, but what if the campaign is losing money? How much of a loss is acceptable and at which point do you decide that it's not even worth optimizing and simply cut your losses and move on to a different offer?
3. When it comes to optimization, some guides refer to it as "cutting the fat," how do you determine which creative/device/carrier/OS/publisher/etc. is underperforming and needs to be cut? Do you go by ROI? CR? Does it matter how many clicks did the creative/device/carrier/OS receive? Should the optimization be based on the amount of clicks per creative/device/carrier/OS or the total amount of clicks the campaign received? I guess what I'm trying to ask is, what exactly is a "poor performing" creative/device/carrier/OS/publisher?
For instance, based on one of my campaigns (2700 clicks):
Device 1: 546 clicks, 5 conversions - CR 0.92%
Device 2: 11 clicks, 2 conversions - CR 18.18%
Device 3: 362 clicks, 3 conversions - CR 0.83 %
Device 4: 112 clicks, 3 conversions - CR 2.68 %
Device 5: 51 clicks, 1 conversion - CR 1.96%
Device 6: 48 clicks, 0 conversions
Now, obviously Device 2 is greatly outperforming other devices, but should, let's say, Devices 1 and 3 be cut even if they are a major source of traffic? Since there is no guarantee Device 2 will retain the 18.18% conversion rate (or even receive enough traffic going forward), what factors should I take into account to help me decide which devices to cut? Over the span of the campaign (2700 clicks) some devices received 20-70 clicks with no conversions (e.g., Device 6) - should these be cut or do you normally wait until these devices receive more clicks? And if it's the latter, how many clicks would you wait for before cutting the device? In comparison, some other devices had between 5 to 61 clicks with 1 conversion (e.g., Device 5), resulting in CR of 1.64% to 20%.
In terms of creatives (again, after 2700 clicks total), which ones should be cut?:
Creative 1: 339 clicks, 5 conversions - CR 1.47%
Creative 2: 429 clicks, 3 conversions - CR 0.70%
Creative 3: 22 clicks, 2 conversions - CR 9.09%
Creative 4: 145 clicks, 1 conversion - CR 0.69%
Creative 5: 349 clicks, 1 conversion - CR 0.29%
Creative 6: 143 clicks, 4 conversions - CR 2.80%
Creative 6: 398 clicks, 5 conversions - 1.26%
Creative 7: 68 clicks, 0 conversions
Additionally, is there a recommended optimization order? Would you normally start cutting underperforming creatives first, then devices, then carriers?
4. Lastly, I'm still trying to figure out how can some offers even be profitable. Let's say the offer payout is $1.75, and the network claims a CR of 3% (which is pretty good apparently). Now, most mobile networks have a minimum bid of 0.05-0.06 per click, that's with pretty broad targeting, and this bid will likely need to be higher to be able to receive a good amount of traffic once targeting is narrowed down.
So with a payout of $1.75, CR of 3% and bid at $0.05 per click, the ROI is -12.5%. Is the CR provided by the network an initial estimated CR for a non-optimized campaign? Should I expect to be able to achieve a CR of 4% or higher once the campaign is optimized?
With the campaign I was running, I was only able to achieve a CR of about 1% (while the network claimed around 3%), which resulted in a pretty huge loss after 10,200 clicks (same offer, different campaigns split-testing countries and carrier vs. WiFi). If my cost per click was $0.01, the campaign would actually be pretty profitable, but aside from BuzzCity, I don't know of any other network that would have a minimum bid that low.
I think these are all the questions I have for now (I know it's a lot - my apologies). Thank you all in advance for reading and for your advice.
Cheers,
Russ
I Eat Grass :) :) ;)