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CASE STUDY: Live Profitable Adwords Campaign

by Cataclysmic
32 replies
Hi Everyone,

I've benefited from being a member of the Warrior Forum, so I thought I'd give back by sharing a case study from a live profitable campaign that I've been running for months.

These four 728Ã--90 banners are running in a live, profitable campaign on Google Adwords and are targeted to appear on Android phones only. They are promoting a mobile dating website which is available on many of the CPA networks. It's only making low $xxx in profit per month, BUT it's running totally on autopilot and I think you can probably learn something from it.

Here are the banners, their CTRs, and conversion rates (these numbers are accurate as of a few weeks ago - the stats have changed slightly since then, but so far this month all of these ads are still profitable!):



The conversion rates above are based on the amount of money spent on each ad (which is what really matters) rather than the conversion rate "per click", since the per click price varies.

The Adwords campaign running these ads has only one ad group per ad size (all of these 728Ã--90 banners are together in one ad group). Each ad group has the same set of keywords - all related to singles & dating. The campaign is running on Google's Content Network only, and also includes some standard mobile banner sizes such as 300Ã--50.

You probably noticed that the ads look unprofessional - you might even call them ugly - I think that their ugliness makes them stand out. The images & text in the ads are intentionally large, to make them easily legible on a mobile phone.

Warning: If promoting dating offers (or ANY offers) on Adwords as an affiliate, be certain that you're promoting squeaky clean offers - nothing shady. Also be very cautious about using your own pre-sell landing pages; direct linking is safest. Adwords has a reputation for being trigger happy when it comes to banning affiliate marketers, so advertise at your own risk!

...and there you have it. Hope you enjoyed this short case study!

If you have any questions go ahead and ask and I will try to answer.
#adwords #campaign #case #live #profitable #study
  • Profile picture of the author williamrs
    Very nice, mate!

    And I totally agree about the "ugly/unprofessional" banners performing well. It doesn't apply only for mobile, but for pretty much any type of media buys. I always focus on the contrast (e.g. a blue banner on a red page) and try to make my banners look amateurish so that people won't overlook them... you know, our brains are already programmed to ignore the traditional banners / ads.

    Thanks for sharing!


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  • Profile picture of the author GeorgR.
    Wow..this is eye opening.

    May i ask what that offer pays per conversion?
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  • Profile picture of the author mtmjohn
    Very good case study. Thanks for sharing. I am just curious - what's the visible size of a 728x90 banner in an Android smartphone?
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    • Profile picture of the author jeffrey73
      Very good case study!
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    • Profile picture of the author Cataclysmic
      Originally Posted by GeorgR. View Post

      May i ask what that offer pays per conversion
      It pays between $2.95 and $3.40 per lead. There's more than one version of the offer, and I'm promoting two of them. I'm using CPV Lab to split the traffic between the two. I'd stick to just one if one of them produced a significantly better ROI than the other, but they're about the same.

      Originally Posted by mtmjohn View Post

      I am just curious - what's the visible size of a 728x90 banner in an Android smartphone?
      I actually am not certain, but I believe that the size depends on the size of the website on which the banner appears. I'm quite sure that my 728x90 banners are not appearing on mobile-optimized sites. They're just appearing on regular websites that get shrunk when viewed on mobile phones.

      If a website was 728 pixels wide, the site would get shrunk on your Android phone so that the original 728 pixels occupied the full width of your phone's screen (regardless of how many actual pixels across your phone has). On that website, a 728 banner would appear across the entire width of your phone's screen.

      If a website was 1,456 pixels wide, the site would get shrunk on your Android phone so that the original 1,456 pixels occupied the full width of your phone's screen (regardless of how many actual pixels across your phone has). On that website, a 728 banner would appear across the HALF the width of your phone's screen (unless you zoomed in). Hope that makes sense!

      I don't think a mobile optimized site would include 728x90 banners. Instead, it would include standard mobile banner sizes such as 300x50.
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  • Profile picture of the author Naveen K
    Excellent case study mate!
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  • Profile picture of the author Jetmir
    Thank you for sharing this cool case study.
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  • Profile picture of the author Aniket
    Good info. Do you use custom landing page ? Or do you direct link dating CPA offers ?
    Does Google allows it ?
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  • Profile picture of the author MarathonMan
    Extremely sexy data, mate. Good karma to you for sharing this.

    What was your process of optimizing this campaign? Also, I'm especially curious as to how many clicks you have to buy to earn your monthly profits?
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  • Profile picture of the author GeorgR.
    You should be really proud if you manage it to make *some* profit even with the rather low payouts, and seeing that banners usually have so terrible low CTR.

    ESPECIALLY on adwords. So if you're "only" making a low hundreds per month, this IS still impressive given there are so many factors which make this not easy to achieve.
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  • Profile picture of the author Same
    'Good info. Do you use custom landing page ? Or do you direct link dating CPA offers ?
    Does Google allows it ?
    '

    I have same questions as Aniket

    I tried to work with google adwords too, but never get accepted with direct linking to aff offer.

    Needed to create blog and there put some links after ads is accepted.

    Very nice case study
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    • Profile picture of the author Cataclysmic
      Originally Posted by Aniket View Post

      Good info. Do you use custom landing page ? Or do you direct link dating CPA offers ? Does Google allows it ?
      I'm direct linking to the offer. I'm afraid that Google would slap or ban me if I tried to use a custom landing page.

      Originally Posted by MarathonMan View Post

      What was your process of optimizing this campaign?
      In a nutshell, it was this: upload a bunch of ads and target them using keywords (i.e. let Google decide which sites to place my ads on based on the keywords). Then after I've accumulated some statistically significant data, start pausing poorly converting ads or placements. More extensive optimization is possible of course (i.e. adjusting bids based on placement performance, creating new ads specifically designed for certain placements, dayparting, etc) but since this this campaign is low volume I haven't bothered with that.

      Originally Posted by MarathonMan View Post

      Also, I'm especially curious as to how many clicks you have to buy to earn your monthly profits?
      It varies. I can tell you that I'm averaging around $0.12 or $0.13 per click.

      Originally Posted by Marxy View Post

      I tried to work with google adwords too, but never get accepted with direct linking to aff offer.
      I'd guess that you were linking to an offer that Google doesn't like. I don't think you'd have a problem if Google liked the offer.

      Originally Posted by Marxy View Post

      Needed to create blog and there put some links after ads is accepted.
      IMHO it's a bit risky tricking Google like that. I personally try to avoid doing anything Google doesn't like (even if I think I can hide it from them for the time being) - been banned once before and don't want it to happen again!
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  • Profile picture of the author MarathonMan
    Excellent data again man.

    Have you had any problems with G disapproving or banning ads? How do you avoid this?
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    • Profile picture of the author Cataclysmic
      Originally Posted by MarathonMan View Post

      Have you had any problems with G disapproving or banning ads? How do you avoid this?
      I'm guessing that you mean the same thing by both "disapproving" and "banning", right? (I'm not sure what the difference is!)

      Yes I have had ads disapproved by Google, including ads within the campaign that this case study is from. The solution is to either fix the problem with the ads (if they're breaking one of Google's rules) or if you're pretty sure they're not breaking any rules, delete & resubmit the same ads (personally I wouldn't resubmit the same ads to Google TOO many times - anything to avoid making Google angry!)

      Whether or not an ad is breaking a rule of often subjective. One reviewer might think that your ad is too far into a grey area, whereas another review may not. So if you're in that grey area you might want to consider resubmitting a disapproved ad, or making a minor tweak to it and resubmitting.
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      • Profile picture of the author MarathonMan
        Originally Posted by Cataclysmic View Post

        I'm guessing that you mean the same thing by both "disapproving" and "banning", right? (I'm not sure what the difference is!)

        Yes I have had ads disapproved by Google, including ads within the campaign that this case study is from. The solution is to either fix the problem with the ads (if they're breaking one of Google's rules) or if you're pretty sure they're not breaking any rules, delete & resubmit the same ads (personally I wouldn't resubmit the same ads to Google TOO many times - anything to avoid making Google angry!)

        Whether or not an ad is breaking a rule of often subjective. One reviewer might think that your ad is too far into a grey area, whereas another review may not. So if you're in that grey area you might want to consider resubmitting a disapproved ad, or making a minor tweak to it and resubmitting.
        By "banning", i meant the whole account - from what I hear it happens alot with Google.

        Can you show us which ad was disapproved from the ones you posted? that's one of the things I'm worried about, making ads that they'll like so i don't have to keep remaking em..
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        • Profile picture of the author Limemist
          I am also having trouble getting an ad approved on adwords. I tried direct linking to the offer and they kept disapproving it because of the display url. I changed the ad a bunch of times and even made sure the destination url was the same as the display one.

          I got some free credits I wanted to practice with but I didn't think that adwords would be so picky.
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          • Profile picture of the author MN786
            Same problem here....
            adwords don't allow us to direct linking....
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            • Profile picture of the author Cataclysmic
              Originally Posted by MarathonMan View Post

              By "banning", i meant the whole account - from what I hear it happens alot with Google.
              Ah yes, that has happened to me. Luckily I had two accounts at the time and only one of them got banned, so I still use the other one.

              Originally Posted by MarathonMan View Post

              Can you show us which ad was disapproved from the ones you posted? that's one of the things I'm worried about, making ads that they'll like so i don't have to keep remaking em..
              Recreating ads is a part of paid advertising online so I'd get used to it

              As you requested here is an example of a banner for this campaign that got disapproved:

              The disapproval reason was "Unacceptable Image/Video Content".

              Interestingly, I had some banners in 300x50 size that got disapproved, but the identical (almost) banners in 728x90 size got approved. This is where the subjectivity comes in - obviously a different person had reviewed each size.

              Originally Posted by Limemist View Post

              I am also having trouble getting an ad approved on adwords. I tried direct linking to the offer and they kept disapproving it because of the display url. I changed the ad a bunch of times and even made sure the destination url was the same as the display one. I got some free credits I wanted to practice with but I didn't think that adwords would be so picky.
              Originally Posted by MN786 View Post

              Same problem here....
              adwords don't allow us to direct linking....
              One thing you can do is contact Adwords support and ask them specifically what they don't like about what you're trying to do.

              If they don't let you direct link to a certain offer as an affiliate, they probably don't like that offer for some reason and I personally would just pick something different to promote (I'd rather play it safe). You can always try building your own landing page or website, but Google doesn't like it when the sole purpose of the site or LP is to promote an affiliate offer. You might be able to trick Google for a while, but again I think it's risky. My philosophy is to play by Google's rules or go advertise elsewhere, although many people would no doubt disagree with me on that.
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  • Profile picture of the author chuawenching
    Thanks for sharing. Mind to share on this "I'd guess that you were linking to an offer that Google doesn't like. I don't think you'd have a problem if Google liked the offer."

    How do I know whether a cpa offer is liked by Google? I check the content guidelines, but it is quite general. Are there any guidelines or checklist you follow?
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    • Profile picture of the author Cataclysmic
      Originally Posted by chuawenching View Post

      Thanks for sharing. Mind to share on this "I'd guess that you were linking to an offer that Google doesn't like. I don't think you'd have a problem if Google liked the offer."

      How do I know whether a cpa offer is liked by Google? I check the content guidelines, but it is quite general. Are there any guidelines or checklist you follow?
      Aside from testing and finding out, or hearing from other people who have done so, there is sometimes no way to know for 100%. Some offers that seem legitimate to me have been blacklisted by Google.

      Other things you can do are:
      • Read Google's guidelines (as you mentioned)
      • Ask your affiliate manager (but they won't always know)
      • Search or ask in a forum like this one
      • Contact the Merchant themselves if you're using a network like Clickbank (some merchants know that their offer isn't accepted on Google and will tell you)
      • Check Google's organic search results!!! (If the offer ranks well in Google's organic search results for relevant keywords, I usually take that as a sign that Google likes the offer and I assume it's safe to promote on Adwords)
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  • Profile picture of the author swingin4dafence
    Just curious whether you have expanded out to other PPC providers to see if you could lower PPC costs and increase ROI - or tried media buys to see if it scales 10x, 50x, 100x. How far have you pushed your Adwords campaign ceiling to test scalability?
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  • Profile picture of the author PPC-Coach
    I think there's some confusion judging by the questions asked above.

    This is a mobile media buy targeting android phones.

    I think most are missing that it's not a typical search or content network campaign that we're all used to running. So that's why the direct linking thing keeps coming up.

    You can run these on Adwords, just target mobile only and in this case smartphones. WPA works a bit better I've heard, but sending people to a mobile dating site on their mobile phone would convert higher then the search or content network campaigns we all automatically think about.

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    • Profile picture of the author outwest
      Originally Posted by PPC-Coach View Post

      I think there's some confusion judging by the questions asked above.

      This is a mobile media buy targeting android phones.

      I think most are missing that it's not a typical search or content network campaign that we're all used to running. So that's why the direct linking thing keeps coming up.

      You can run these on Adwords, just target mobile only and in this case smartphones. WPA works a bit better I've heard, but sending people to a mobile dating site on their mobile phone would convert higher then the search or content network campaigns we all automatically think about.
      So the campaigns which are mobile media buys have less stringent rules?
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  • Profile picture of the author Smilix
    This is some very informative information.

    Thanks for sharing.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ohagan1234
    Banned
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    • Profile picture of the author markkro88
      Can you tell me which network has similar dating offers? I cant seem to find a decent one.
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  • Profile picture of the author faysal969
    Nice case study and thanks for sharing. I also believe 728x90 pixel banner is not a problem. It will be optimized for phone browser.
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