Sitescout and direct media buying for beginners advice?

by affie
7 replies
Hey,

I am quite new to media buying, about 2 months of action (campaigns and testing) and another 2 or 3 of studying before that.
I promoted mainly a dating advice for men product from Clickbank (a high gravity one) on Sitescout. The main method that I used was to find websites with the same demographic as my offer using Quantcast, Alexa and Adbeat. I would then make campaigns on those found in Sitescout using direct linking. I tested almost all the websites that were recommended by Quantcast, Alexa and Adbeat but usually there weren't enough impressions available on the sites that were more promising or the sales came from completely unexpected sources. I also tried to use demographic targeting but with no positive results.
(one useful tip for beginners in Sitescout is to choose the site you want for your campaign from Traffic Sources but at the same time use Domain Targeting - whitelist with the name of the site)

For tracking I use Tracking202.

My intention was to test traffic sources on Sitescout and then go direct, but the sales were split between many sites usually with no clear winner. At one point I had more sales on one site (Alexa ranking 2100) and I contacted them directly but got no answer.

Till now I spent around $950 and made $730 in sales. At some point I was even at the break-even line, but generally I'm still struggling.
So far I've had 800,000 Impressions, 3,100 clicks and 15 Conversions.
The best selling site had 180,000 impressions, 1000 clicks and 7 conversions with a peak on 2 and 3 January, and now it's almost dead (1 conversion/week) although my CTR is >1.1%.

Currently I feel a bit lost on how I could progress any further...

Any tips you might have would be much appreciated.
#advice #beginners #buying #direct #media #sitescout
  • Profile picture of the author carpozi
    Affie, first of all - well done buddy!

    You've gone out and taken action. BIG action to use sitescout. You've done everything right.

    I have a question though. Why are you direct linking?

    Here's what you should do:

    Build a list. As soon as they opt-in, direct them to the product you're pushing. (Even split-test that product.)

    Then write an awesome email sequence. That's where the money is. There are so many products in the dating niche to sell.

    Split-test squeeze pages. Like crazy!

    You've taken massive action. Don't stop!

    [Hint] Use ad spy tools...

    Tim
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    • Profile picture of the author affie
      Thanks for the advice Tim

      Originally Posted by carpozi View Post


      Build a list. As soon as they opt-in, direct them to the product you're pushing. (Even split-test that product.)

      Then write an awesome email sequence. That's where the money is. There are so many products in the dating niche to sell.
      ...
      [Hint] Use ad spy tools...

      Tim
      The truth is that lately I was thinking that this should be one of the next steps, but I wasn't very sure.
      Any advice about what software I could use for the squez-pages and for sending the e-mails?
      What other ad spy tools did you have in mind? I use Adbeat
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  • Profile picture of the author affie
    Originally Posted by eagleflux View Post

    why you are not sending traffic to the landing pages?
    Because i don't know how to make a landing page... yet. I just started to learn how to make them. Thanks for the advice
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  • Profile picture of the author tac88
    Hey you are doing a great job and are almost there.
    You have got to think about the fact that their is thousands of people sending the same traffic to the same lander.

    These days you can not compete for traffic direct linking besides not only will you be able to pay more for impressions because you will be converting on the back end.

    Their is a bunch of guys on this forum that will build you a few squeeze pages for cheap and yes I said a few because you are going to want to test to see which ones convert best on which sites.

    Besides you will be building a valuable asset for yourself in the meantime..
    I myself use this forum, fivver and optimize press for my squeeze pages.

    This way you will get more then one chance to sell them and capture some of those clicks to convert later on the back end. This is my method I use and add in a couple solo ads and swaps and before you know it you have a large enough list in your niche to start your own product..

    Best of luck keep up the testing and tweaking ...
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    • Profile picture of the author affie
      Any suggestions of better alternatives to Sitescout?
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      • Profile picture of the author junkdna
        Originally Posted by affie View Post

        Any suggestions of better alternatives to Sitescout?
        ClickCertain can be alternative to SiteScout. CC gets its traffic from MediaMath which is one of the high quality players.

        ClickCertain can be cheaper than SiteScout, because they charge only a fixed fee of $150, while SS puts some margin on a top of every buy.
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  • Profile picture of the author FXdarling
    Sitescout might be very tricky, especially for beginners. I have burned lots of money there. Try PPV or bing ads for example.
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