Plenty of Fish - A Case Study

80 replies
I took a few students under my wing, and they seem to think after spending $70 to make $50, that they should give up. I've decided to walk through from start to finish a profitable POF campaign. I'll try an update this thread everyday, but we'll see how that goes.

Day 1: Choosing A Vertical, Demographic and Offer


Vertical

Time and time again I find affiliates want to reinvent the wheel.

"Well, Anthony I think I'm going to try to push an email submit on pof. What do you think?"


I think that it is definitely possible to push something that is not dating on pof, why would you do that? You know everyone who joined plenty of fish is there to Date. Thus, dating will be the easiest kind of offer. If you're a beginner with affiliate marketing or plenty of fish, stick to dating.


Network

Stick to networks that are reputable. Nothing is more disheartening than doing a ton of work, testing creatives, and then having to worry about getting paid. Anything with animals in it, hosted on has offers, or fly by night in any way should be avoided. AboveAllOffers is solid. Convert2media is solid. Industry standard is $1,000 a week for weeklies. Generally if a network sees your trying, and you fall a little under this they'll pay you weekly anyway. One of the biggest things beginner affiliates struggle with is cash flow. Spreading out between networks means less commission per network, and possibly getting paid out on net15 payment terms. Focus on one network.

Offers

This is where your affiliate manager comes in handy. Ask your AM for a top offer report by REVENUE. This is where people are making money. Choose one of these offers. Convert2media has a nice google doc that they update with the top offers. My AM at AboveAllOffers is always around to answer my questions. I'm choosing Richmen. The offer has been around, and I know people are making money with it.

Demo
graphic
Obviousl
y I will be targeting women because I chose Richmen. Age group is 18-30. As you begin to advertise on POF, you'll see that younger traffic is cheaper and you'll be tempted to just target younger demographics. Do not do this. This is how you start getting shaved or booted off the offer. The advertiser has to make money off your traffic. We've all been 18. We were broke. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that older users are worth more than younger ones.

Here is the part that always thr
ows new affiliates for a loop. You now need to niche it down. It is possible for you to target broadly and make money, but you'll run low margins. Bigger affiliates can run small margins. You would much rather spend $50 and make $125 than spend $50 and make $60. In order to do this, you're going to need to niche down your demographic. The idea is that everyone seeing your ads will be the same in some way or the other. Are they mothers? Do they like puzzles? Maybe they're tall?

Check out
all the targeting options and pick something you focus on.


Stay tuned for Day 2. I'll walk thro
ugh the process of landing pages, finding images, and tracking. Lets make some money.

-AnthonyK


#affiliate marketing #case #case study #fish #plenty #plentyof fish #pof #richmen #study
  • Profile picture of the author jimojeda
    Wow Anthony! This is an awesome post! Thanks for the detailed explanation and for contributing something so valuable.

    I've only had experience making money by running email marketing campaigns, but I'm looking to venture into other things like CPA offers and I think your guidance here is very valuable.

    I'll be subscribing to this thread and look forward to your second day lesson.

    Sincerely,

    Jaime Ojeda
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    Something Good Is Coming Soon

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    • Profile picture of the author AnthonyKimmens
      Sorry about the weird font/size. No idea how that happened.

      Evidently, you can tell I spent a lot of time on forums. Stay tuned for tomorrow.

      -AnthonyK
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  • Profile picture of the author milanopcclub
    thnks bro
    but i would recommend facebook because yesterday i managed to get clicks for 0.08 from a start bid of 0.6
    the probleme is i got one converion only i think the probleme is comming from the offer because the offeer has only 2% cr
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  • Profile picture of the author Cash37
    Niche it dowwwwwwwwwn niche it dowwwwwwwwwn!

    Love it. I had some stuff running over at POF but got too experimental and lost some money lol.

    Stick to lead gen over there, I couldnt get anyone to pull out their credit card for the higher dollar offers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jerome Y
    This is great, to have a case study on POF. Case studies are gold and can learn a lot from them. Prepare to take notes guys, good stuff ahead.
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    • Profile picture of the author SaSh
      Great case study Anthony! Thanks for taking the time...it's much appreciated
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  • Profile picture of the author yuccarichard
    interesting case study Anthony...looking forward to see this one go further...thanks for sharing
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  • Profile picture of the author illmill
    Nice post, bro! Looking forward to the updates. Take note on the "niching down", this is the same as going after longtails in search advertising. It's all about getting your costs down WHILE increasing conversion rates.
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  • Profile picture of the author marketwarrior06
    Banned
    Thanks for sharing dude. its simply awesome.
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  • Profile picture of the author luckypig
    I would prefer something like ppc ,and Pleanty of fish only takes pay per impression when it comes for paid advertising.
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisBa
    Good work, keep it coming..
    any idea's on the number of ads, etc..
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  • Profile picture of the author slappytheking
    great post...waiting for day 2!
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  • Profile picture of the author Ruck
    Think International and don't be afraid of "Mature" audiences :-)

    There's a ton of traffic over 65+ years old :-)

    Good Luck!
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    [DELETED]
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  • Profile picture of the author igl0w
    for newbs i suggest to start PPC before CPM [even on POF].
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  • Profile picture of the author Jacqueline Smith
    I've just recently entered the CPA world and must say I love this section of the forum! Everyone in here is so willing to help others.

    Hopefully I'll be in a position soon to return the favor.

    Thanks Anthony....great post.
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  • Profile picture of the author AnthonyKimmens
    Day 2... A little late is better than never.



    So now we need to cover images, targeting, landing pages, and tracking.


    For the sake of an example, I've decided to target women with dogs. I was running this a few weeks ago and it did pretty well.


    Images for women in this demo should have muscles, and tattoos. Extra points for them doing something cute. I like to match 3 ads with the same demographic, and let them battle it out for a period of time to see which one does better. Ad decay on pof happens fast, so important to have a ton of images. Don't delete old campaigns. I let them sit for a week or two and then run them again. Test. Test. Test.




    I know everyone wants examples, so I'm going to borrow one from Greedy over at Greed Reports. Even if you only stay on for a month, there was plenty of stuff on there to make me start thinking out of the box.




    Here we have a man with muscles and tattoos AND a dog. The reality is, that people have already found and ran this image. We need to add some flair to it.




    We have 1 image. We need a ton more. I'm generally against spoon feeding, but I'm in a good mood so I'll show you where to get some images . . .





    Landing Pages are a lot simpler than people think they are. Your Join button should be large and above the fold, and almost everything should be clickable. I use one similar to the one this guy is giving away.


    However, here is where people get lazy. You decide to target women who have dogs, you need to CHANGE the landing page. Mention dogs. Have men with dogs on the landing page. Everything should be congruent. Dog image with dog lover. More dog lovers... that are rich. Richmen has dog lovers...



    As far as targeting, Dupre spent plenty of time on it here.
    And if you think you've got all this and want to taken tokens, z6 explains it well.




    As far as tracking is concerned, its a must. You need to know how you're doing. I'm a big fan of cpvlab, but if you can't afford that Prosper will work just fine. And if you don't have the know how to install it either figure it out or do what we all did. Excel spread sheet and subids.


    Now there is no reason you shouldn't be able to throw up a few campaigns today.


    Now bring on the questions, and good luck.



    -AnthonyK
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  • Profile picture of the author QtoBrooklyn
    Good post. What's your bidding strategy?
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  • Profile picture of the author AnthonyKimmens
    I'll see what I can do.

    -AnthonyK
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  • Profile picture of the author shifat
    Nice post with some great ideas.
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  • Profile picture of the author Solag
    Great stuff!

    Just a quick question, do you find your campaigns more profitable during specific times? From what I can see I don't get much conversions after 3pm, but get good conversions during the noon.
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  • Profile picture of the author AnthonyKimmens
    And day parting. I can handle that as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael_Le
    Banned
    bookmarked
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  • Profile picture of the author markmatthews
    this is a sweet info man. I'm saving this on my bookmark.
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    Skadoosh!

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  • Profile picture of the author john8954
    Deep analysis and high concentration req for this informative post. Heads off buddy.

    Fabulous job
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  • Profile picture of the author AnthonyKimmens
    Wrote my post, then had a great idea. I launched the campaign, and its doing really well. I want to let it run and then I'll give you a play by play of an amazing campaign.
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    • Profile picture of the author savaloi
      Hi Anthony, great post.

      However, I'm still really confused. I have been accepted by a couple of advertisers on Commission Junction, the example I'll use is be naughty. When I went to offervault there are hundreds of different offers, but under the search function, commission junction doesn't show up, is there a reason for this?

      I know this is a very basic question, but do you have any info on actually inputing this information into an ad? For example, do I use the javascript or HTML link, and why do all the offers have different EPC's etc. Or if you have links to anything that may explain this better, it would be very helpful.

      Sorry if this hijacked your thread, but I'm genuinely lost, and every time it seems to make sense something else comes up lol.

      Cheers
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      • Profile picture of the author AnthonyKimmens
        Originally Posted by savaloi View Post

        Hi Anthony, great post.

        However, I'm still really confused. I have been accepted by a couple of advertisers on Commission Junction, the example I'll use is be naughty. When I went to offervault there are hundreds of different offers, but under the search function, commission junction doesn't show up, is there a reason for this?

        I know this is a very basic question, but do you have any info on actually inputing this information into an ad? For example, do I use the javascript or HTML link, and why do all the offers have different EPC's etc. Or if you have links to anything that may explain this better, it would be very helpful.

        Sorry if this hijacked your thread, but I'm genuinely lost, and every time it seems to make sense something else comes up lol.

        Cheers
        Savaloi,

        No problem. I'm happy to help. Offers don't show up in offervault for commission junction because the network has to allow offervault to display their offers. CJ does not.

        As far as using links, just use the html link. The links have different epcs because people are running the offer different ways. Email vs Display vs PPC. I hope this clears it up and if you have any questions hit me up on skpe. I'll send you a message with my screen name and help you out.
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        • Profile picture of the author savaloi
          Originally Posted by AnthonyKimmens View Post

          Savaloi,

          No problem. I'm happy to help. Offers don't show up in offervault for commission junction because the network has to allow offervault to display their offers. CJ does not.

          As far as using links, just use the html link. The links have different epcs because people are running the offer different ways. Email vs Display vs PPC. I hope this clears it up and if you have any questions hit me up on skpe. I'll send you a message with my screen name and help you out.
          Thanks Anthony! I have added you on skype
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  • Profile picture of the author bsb85my
    Cool case study. I have success in PoF. But when it comes to learning, it doesn't stop
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  • Profile picture of the author JayKnowsCash
    Great case study!
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  • Profile picture of the author watsonovedades
    this is cool
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  • Profile picture of the author JVWhitaker
    Great case study Anthony!!!
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  • Profile picture of the author Hani D
    Cool case study and waiting for the updates...
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  • Profile picture of the author itravel2004
    What is the start up or minimum fee of plenty of fish?
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    • Profile picture of the author JayKnowsCash
      Originally Posted by itravel2004 View Post

      What is the start up or minimum fee of plenty of fish?
      You should have a couple hundred dollars to start out.
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  • Profile picture of the author NinjaTech
    wow really great case study, i have use pof for leads, just haven made much cpa cash from it will look at pof again after reading the post. Thanks anthony
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  • Profile picture of the author connorbringas
    Originally Posted by AnthonyKimmens View Post

    I took a few students under my wing, and they seem to think after spending $70 to make $50, that they should give up. I've decided to walk through from start to finish a profitable POF campaign. I'll try an update this thread everyday, but we'll see how that goes.

    Day 1: Choosing A Vertical, Demographic and Offer


    Vertical

    Time and time again I find affiliates want to reinvent the wheel.

    "Well, Anthony I think I'm going to try to push an email submit on pof. What do you think?"


    I think that it is definitely possible to push something that is not dating on pof, why would you do that? You know everyone who joined plenty of fish is there to Date. Thus, dating will be the easiest kind of offer. If you're a beginner with affiliate marketing or plenty of fish, stick to dating.


    Network

    Stick to networks that are reputable. Nothing is more disheartening than doing a ton of work, testing creatives, and then having to worry about getting paid. Anything with animals in it, hosted on has offers, or fly by night in any way should be avoided. AboveAllOffers is solid. Convert2media is solid. Industry standard is $1,000 a week for weeklies. Generally if a network sees your trying, and you fall a little under this they'll pay you weekly anyway. One of the biggest things beginner affiliates struggle with is cash flow. Spreading out between networks means less commission per network, and possibly getting paid out on net15 payment terms. Focus on one network.

    Offers

    This is where your affiliate manager comes in handy. Ask your AM for a top offer report by REVENUE. This is where people are making money. Choose one of these offers. Convert2media has a nice google doc that they update with the top offers. My AM at AboveAllOffers is always around to answer my questions. I'm choosing Richmen. The offer has been around, and I know people are making money with it.

    Demo
    graphic
    Obviousl
    y I will be targeting women because I chose Richmen. Age group is 18-30. As you begin to advertise on POF, you'll see that younger traffic is cheaper and you'll be tempted to just target younger demographics. Do not do this. This is how you start getting shaved or booted off the offer. The advertiser has to make money off your traffic. We've all been 18. We were broke. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that older users are worth more than younger ones.

    Here is the part that always thr
    ows new affiliates for a loop. You now need to niche it down. It is possible for you to target broadly and make money, but you'll run low margins. Bigger affiliates can run small margins. You would much rather spend $50 and make $125 than spend $50 and make $60. In order to do this, you're going to need to niche down your demographic. The idea is that everyone seeing your ads will be the same in some way or the other. Are they mothers? Do they like puzzles? Maybe they're tall?

    Check out
    all the targeting options and pick something you focus on.


    Stay tuned for Day 2. I'll walk thro
    ugh the process of landing pages, finding images, and tracking. Lets make some money.

    -AnthonyK


    This is some solid information. To many people give up after a few days/little time spent on researching verticals. If at first you dont succeed try, try again.
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  • Profile picture of the author 60MinuteAffiliate
    Hi there Anthony

    can you contact me urgently re the project you're doing for me please.

    Thanks

    Colleen
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  • Profile picture of the author jsmiz
    Any updates soon?
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    If you do POF ads, you need solid campaign tracking and managing. Contact me for more info!

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  • Profile picture of the author itravel2004
    I am planning to join as advertiser but seem like I can't select "Malaysia" when register
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  • Profile picture of the author johnnnson
    Hey...

    What do you guys consider a high bid? Like 0.40?
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  • Profile picture of the author fliphost
    Excellent information. To everyone who wants to know how to make money online, here it is. You have been given a wealth of information and not it is time to put cash in the bank.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnnnson
    Hello,

    I started with PoF, again, but not succeed yet... I tested out a ad with 10 different images and got one that show me nearly 0.13% of CTR with 13000 impressions, but 0 conversion. What you guys recommend? I was thing in using an Landing Page with email submit to create a list and after they submit the email taken them profile creation page! Anybody has used this before?
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    • Profile picture of the author Greedy
      Originally Posted by johnnnson View Post

      Hello,

      I started with PoF, again, but not succeed yet... I tested out a ad with 10 different images and got one that show me nearly 0.13% of CTR with 13000 impressions, but 0 conversion. What you guys recommend? I was thing in using an Landing Page with email submit to create a list and after they submit the email taken them profile creation page! Anybody has used this before?
      I would keep trying to build off of that CTR, and maybe test another offer of the same niche.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7418495].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Greedy
    Starting high then going low always works best for me.

    I tried starting low back when I first started.

    If it works for you more power to ya!
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  • Profile picture of the author mraudi
    Thank you so much for the case study! It really opened up my eyes and I'm anxious to learn more. Is there day 3 coming soon?
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    Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn't sell much of anything.

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  • Profile picture of the author nmunick5
    Thank you please post another.
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  • Profile picture of the author jsmiz
    This case study died a little while ago i'm sure...lol
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    If you do POF ads, you need solid campaign tracking and managing. Contact me for more info!

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  • Profile picture of the author mtlmarketing
    I started POF a few days ago, and I have to say, just to get your ad accepted is already a lot of work!
    I started with dating for men, and sometimes the same photo would get accepted and then the next day get declined!

    I switched to dating for women, with the case study of "curvy", and to my surprise, photos of men are even more difficult to get accepted, its really crazy.
    Here is a screenshot:
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  • Profile picture of the author johnbrown12
    Nice contribution...
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    http://forms.aweber.com/form/85/530278285.htm

    *JOIN 900+ Warriors*
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  • Profile picture of the author ATAC
    Hey bro any updates to how this ended turning out ?
    Pretty cool of you to do a case study ,I am not sure if I caught the
    tail end of a old post or how new this post was.

    Either way ..Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author yako
    Hi, I am a little confused about the landing page. From POF you direct link to the offer or I should create my own landing page and then send the user to the offer from there?

    Can someone share tips on a landing page? For example, what do you include, its just 1 page or a whole site?

    Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author yako
    Oh, sorry ... I have one more question.

    Why bidding higher is suppose to get a better CTR? I understand bidding higher will give you more impressions, but how does that affect the clicks?

    Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author Matthew Shelton
    "Stick to networks that are reputable. Nothing is more disheartening than doing a ton of work, testing creatives, and then having to worry about getting paid." - great advice - thank you!
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