My experience with Propellerads as advertiser

[Sephrata]

So my thought was to use a third party tracker to eliminate the bot traffic or at least detect them as I am bleeding money away. Below is the reply of their customer support when I asked how can I setup the tracker to identify bot traffic.

Quote"
We are one of the leaders in the market for popunder traffic volumes, we got a strong anti-bot, anti-cheat system in place some of our publishers can try to cheat. We do not provide such fraud traffic.


Kind regards,
William Carrington
PA Support Team
"UnQuote

Not very impressive as it seems they are reluctant to allow third party tracking bot traffic in my personal point of view.

Popunder traffic is notoriously bad for the amount of bot traffic, especially in Tier 1 geos. Some networks are better than others, however you need to go through the traffic with a fine tooth comb and aggressively cut bad placements. It is essential to do this otherwise you just end up throwing money away.

The issue I have with Propeller is their 'response' when you identify bot traffic. Now this is a network I was doing a lot of business with (at the peak, buying 5 figures a week of traffic) and they were one of my main traffic sources for non-adult.

In the middle of last year, I saw quite a big drop off in the profitability in a number of campaigns I was running with Propeller. When I looked through some of the data with deep analysis (as low as IP level), I found there was large amounts of traffic originating out of data centres around the world. At first thought, I assumed this might be VPN traffic however further analysis showed that the user agents were being spoofed (I figured this out by correlating the screen size x user agent).

I reported this to my AM at Propeller and the response I received was that, if I don't like the traffic, I should block the site ID. I immediately reacted and told him that his response was ridiculous because I was reporting a sophisticated fraudulent traffic setup. He then said he would refer it to his technical team for further investigation.

The technical team contacted me to let me know that they found nothing suspicious with the traffic I had flagged. There was no explanation, no detail, nothing more than a single line answer. I provided a in-depth 2 page report, with the help of a security specialist, about why this traffic was fraudulent. One of the most obvious signs was that I had bought more than a million popunders which originated from a data centre literally located in the middle of a field (the closest village had a population of less than 200 people).

I eventually got a response which was a copy/paste of the previous email from the technical team. So I pulled the plug on them. They never responded to me after that and even when they were in Prague in the Autumn, no one made any attempt to meet with me.

I was seriously considering suing them, however I had so many projects going on at the time and I've already had too many legal battles already in my life. Anyway, I decided to leave them to it. A lot of big guys stopped running with Propeller and I knew that with the Google Chrome changes, they would end up screwed anyway.

Now whether the traffic was orchestrated by Propeller or they just turned a blind eye to it, I'm not sure. But their reaction to customers reporting fraudulent traffic is farcical, to say the least.

 

[Postercamp]

Maybe that will be better in terms of monetization. But I am not saying that propellerads do not work, the traffic might work for certain niches that is targeting the general crowd. However you need to find the right offer to fit this traffic source as most offers will not work well with this traffic source. Even if there is conversion for CPA offers, advertiser will pull the campaign due to poor traffic quality aka none paying customers.

Ah, okay, girl.
Wait. Are you female for real?

 

[tophi]

I thing the problem with all networks except is google and bing is that they are too much greedy for money. They lie to their advertisers, lie to the publishers and at the end nobody likes them, poor traffic, poor conversations.
Just think about what people user peopelerads on their websites... mostly bad quality websites. You can not expect to get real conversations of a websites made to be traffic consumers and nothing more.

 

[honestIM]

Popunder traffic is notoriously bad for the amount of bot traffic, especially in Tier 1 geos. Some networks are better than others, however you need to go through the traffic with a fine tooth comb and aggressively cut bad placements. It is essential to do this otherwise you just end up throwing money away.

The issue I have with Propeller is their 'response' when you identify bot traffic. Now this is a network I was doing a lot of business with (at the peak, buying 5 figures a week of traffic) and they were one of my main traffic sources for non-adult.

In the middle of last year, I saw quite a big drop off in the profitability in a number of campaigns I was running with Propeller. When I looked through some of the data with deep analysis (as low as IP level), I found there was large amounts of traffic originating out of data centres around the world. At first thought, I assumed this might be VPN traffic however further analysis showed that the user agents were being spoofed (I figured this out by correlating the screen size x user agent).

I reported this to my AM at Propeller and the response I received was that, if I don't like the traffic, I should block the site ID. I immediately reacted and told him that his response was ridiculous because I was reporting a sophisticated fraudulent traffic setup. He then said he would refer it to his technical team for further investigation.

The technical team contacted me to let me know that they found nothing suspicious with the traffic I had flagged. There was no explanation, no detail, nothing more than a single line answer. I provided a in-depth 2 page report, with the help of a security specialist, about why this traffic was fraudulent. One of the most obvious signs was that I had bought more than a million popunders which originated from a data centre literally located in the middle of a field (the closest village had a population of less than 200 people).

I eventually got a response which was a copy/paste of the previous email from the technical team. So I pulled the plug on them. They never responded to me after that and even when they were in Prague in the Autumn, no one made any attempt to meet with me.

I was seriously considering suing them, however I had so many projects going on at the time and I've already had too many legal battles already in my life. Anyway, I decided to leave them to it. A lot of big guys stopped running with Propeller and I knew that with the Google Chrome changes, they would end up screwed anyway.

Now whether the traffic was orchestrated by Propeller or they just turned a blind eye to it, I'm not sure. But their reaction to customers reporting fraudulent traffic is farcical, to say the least.

Yes that is one of my chief complains. The support towards advertiser is almost none existence. Neither Google nor Facebook dares to claim 100% none bot traffic. So I was very surprise to receive that response from the support. In terms of new chrome update, I think propeller came up with direct in app messaging. However having tried that, I would say that it is equally none effective for advertisers and not recommended.

I think going forward, native ads and influencer marketing will be my chief media buying for now. Had enough of pop traffic. The smartCPA is simply a marketing gimmick because in the first place if the traffic converts that well, Propellerads will run their CPA offers to monetize.

 

[Billy Batts]

Yes that is one of my chief complains. The support towards advertiser is almost none existence. Neither Google nor Facebook dares to claim 100% none bot traffic. So I was very surprise to receive that response from the support. In terms of new chrome update, I think propeller came up with direct in app messaging. However having tried that, I would say that it is equally none effective for advertisers and not recommended.

I think going forward, native ads and influencer marketing will be my chief media buying for now. Had enough of pop traffic. The smartCPA is simply a marketing gimmick because in the first place if the traffic converts that well, Propellerads will run their CPA offers to monetize.

I still wonder how those guys on the leaderboard of monetizer.com do it. They make 1-3k a day every day with smart links.

 

[Sephrata]

I still wonder how those guys on the leaderboard of monetizer.com do it. They make 1-3k a day every day with smart links.

Some of them are affiliate networks monetizing redundant traffic.

If you look at the eCPMs now compared to say, 6 months ago, the difference is massive. I know a number of guys who were making a lot using smart links but now the ROI is so low, or even negative, that they've given up.

 

[soa0611]

Popunder traffic is notoriously bad for the amount of bot traffic, especially in Tier 1 geos. Some networks are better than others, however you need to go through the traffic with a fine tooth comb and aggressively cut bad placements. It is essential to do this otherwise you just end up throwing money away.

The issue I have with Propeller is their 'response' when you identify bot traffic. Now this is a network I was doing a lot of business with (at the peak, buying 5 figures a week of traffic) and they were one of my main traffic sources for non-adult.

In the middle of last year, I saw quite a big drop off in the profitability in a number of campaigns I was running with Propeller. When I looked through some of the data with deep analysis (as low as IP level), I found there was large amounts of traffic originating out of data centres around the world. At first thought, I assumed this might be VPN traffic however further analysis showed that the user agents were being spoofed (I figured this out by correlating the screen size x user agent).

I reported this to my AM at Propeller and the response I received was that, if I don't like the traffic, I should block the site ID. I immediately reacted and told him that his response was ridiculous because I was reporting a sophisticated fraudulent traffic setup. He then said he would refer it to his technical team for further investigation.

The technical team contacted me to let me know that they found nothing suspicious with the traffic I had flagged. There was no explanation, no detail, nothing more than a single line answer. I provided a in-depth 2 page report, with the help of a security specialist, about why this traffic was fraudulent. One of the most obvious signs was that I had bought more than a million popunders which originated from a data centre literally located in the middle of a field (the closest village had a population of less than 200 people).

I eventually got a response which was a copy/paste of the previous email from the technical team. So I pulled the plug on them. They never responded to me after that and even when they were in Prague in the Autumn, no one made any attempt to meet with me.

I was seriously considering suing them, however I had so many projects going on at the time and I've already had too many legal battles already in my life. Anyway, I decided to leave them to it. A lot of big guys stopped running with Propeller and I knew that with the Google Chrome changes, they would end up screwed anyway.

Now whether the traffic was orchestrated by Propeller or they just turned a blind eye to it, I'm not sure. But their reaction to customers reporting fraudulent traffic is farcical, to say the least.

You are right and another issue that their own marketing team can steal most profitable campaigns from advertisers

 

[Billy Batts]

Some of them are affiliate networks monetizing redundant traffic.

Hmm yeah that makes sense

 

[KHer0]

Yes that is why I am not ranting here. But you need to have really matching offers to get conversion from those traffics without problems given from advertisers. So that is really challenging in my opinion. I do not think there is bad traffic (unless it is bot) but it is about finding the right offer to match with the right traffic. However in this case, you need very generic offer for propellerads. One click flow pin submit should work well but I have not tested this yet.

The offer isnt the only challenge

How and when to show it to decieve the visitor is the whole trick

And I agree with everything said above

You need Voluum or similar tool. You need a spying spying tool to know which landpages work with which offer

 

[Sherb]

Always post the image stats with these as they increase the reader trust.

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/ebay-adding-bitcoin-payments.1006495/#post-10785506

You, less than a week ago, https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/ebay-adding-bitcoin-payments.1006495/, when people simply asked you to post a link for a thread whose content was "Read an article on a reputed site Ebay may add Bitcoin as payment option."

Check your privilege, dawg. People nitpicking solid contributions right off the bat are why users are reluctant to contribute in the first place. And @honestIM has contributed some solid stuff. Still waiting for yours.

 

[Webbers UX]

Yikes, glad I didn't go with them.

What would you suggest for pop-up/under traffic? We're looking to spend $xxx/day for starters.

 

[awesomewebsites]

"You can trust me based on the age of my account and past contributions (if that is enough for you)."

You, less than a week ago, in this thread, when people simply asked you to post a link for a thread whose content was "Read an article on a reputed site Ebay may add Bitcoin as payment option."

Based on my experience here, I will not suggest anyone to share any "link" here. Here I asked for a image which I think is safe for the member sharing it.

 

[megaone]

Propellerads is one of the Networks with less Bot Traffic then others.
Depending on the Network we count between 10 - 90% Fake traffic.

I'm working in a strong Tier 1 country, and spend much time and money into a solution to detect many kind of fake traffic. Most Networks don't wan't to know any about it, i understand if they block them it will reduce 50%+ Traffic it's in my eye a kind of Fraud by them.
But OK the Live goes on, I go and block all Sources that send Fake Traffic and I'm happy.

Someone mention he see Traffic from Datacenter and VPN IP's... in the Country where I'm active I don't fight witch such easy to catch fake traffic... we fight as example with Fake traffic coming from real user that never see our offer, its the most advanced way the last 3 months.

 

[theRevolt]

Based on my experience here, I will not suggest anyone to share any "link" here. Here I asked for a image which I think is safe for the member sharing it.

You did miss the point completely didn't you? All you said as a reponse for someone calling you out was "i've been here a long time!" but you are asking someone else for some sort of proof ... lol Hypocrisy

 

[awesomewebsites]

You did miss the point completely didn't you? All you said as a reponse for someone calling you out was "i've been here a long time!" but you are asking someone else for some sort of proof ... lol Hypocrisy

Please see "link" written in bold in my response here. I said in my thread that I am not going to post a "link", as I think it can be risky for my account. Here I asked for "stats image" not "links". Both cases are different.

 

[DeniX3]

Back in the days we spend high 5 figures on propeller per month with MMO offers and it worked really nice.

You should talk and get along with your AM. Ask for bid prices for your GEOs for example. If you run RON than you need a big budget.

Maybe run on the top 10-20 sites only.

Propellerads had some really nice and cool AMs back than. Talked every day to them and they did everything they could to make you profitable etc. Just talk openly.

 

[CoolAdvisor]

So my top paid traffic methods:
1)
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/m...ellerads-as-advertiser.1007603/#post-10798634
2) viral trustreach-like comment campaigns + fb ads + chatfuel messages
3) working with microinfluencers, big influencers are too expensive
4) buying posts from model pages (I think about buyng on snapchat or telegram, not on fb due to lack of reach) based on this thread:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/how-i-earn-90k-a-year-with-fb-and-adsense.887099/
5) viral giveaways (upviral/kinlee types) + fb ads
6) twitter global trending hashtags + buying 2k retweets from a social panel
buying 1k repins from a cheap social panel for a megapin and making it go viral
I'm not sure what works the best.
Maybe I'll add more methods later...

 

[honestIM]

Yikes, glad I didn't go with them.

What would you suggest for pop-up/under traffic? We're looking to spend $xxx/day for starters.

I will rather not go for pop traffic, instead native ads will be much better. As you can bid for CPC. Paying by impression is a waste of money if traffic is not targeted. Example, on facebook I can target age, gender, etc. But on pop traffic network, all of these are missing. If you are really bidding for pop traffic, then you should bid as low as possible and filter out none performing traffic zone by zone. Time consuming process.

Based on my experience here, I will not suggest anyone to share any "link" here. Here I asked for a image which I think is safe for the member sharing it.

Hmm.. I have just lost close to $1k with only $16 returns, and you are asking for images of proof of spending? I only ever hear people boasting about how much they earn but never know of anyone who like to show off how much they money they lost. I think there is nothing beneficial sharing screenshot of my losses to fellow members. And it is going to be ironic if someone were to press the thanks button on that image shared, should I be happy about it or simply feel stupid?

Propellerads is one of the Networks with less Bot Traffic then others.
Depending on the Network we count between 10 - 90% Fake traffic.

I'm working in a strong Tier 1 country, and spend much time and money into a solution to detect many kind of fake traffic. Most Networks don't wan't to know any about it, i understand if they block them it will reduce 50%+ Traffic it's in my eye a kind of Fraud by them.
But OK the Live goes on, I go and block all Sources that send Fake Traffic and I'm happy.

Someone mention he see Traffic from Datacenter and VPN IP's... in the Country where I'm active I don't fight witch such easy to catch fake traffic... we fight as example with Fake traffic coming from real user that never see our offer, its the most advanced way the last 3 months.

I know what you mean but the it is going to be a very time consuming process. Remember that Propellerads have 100k if not more zone ID. And only 10% of those are performing. Unless you can automate the process of blocking, else it is going to be really difficult in my point of view.

Back in the days we spend high 5 figures on propeller per month with MMO offers and it worked really nice.

You should talk and get along with your AM. Ask for bid prices for your GEOs for example. If you run RON than you need a big budget.

Maybe run on the top 10-20 sites only.

Propellerads had some really nice and cool AMs back than. Talked every day to them and they did everything they could to make you profitable etc. Just talk openly.

The AM nowadays do not value advertiser, maybe only the really big advertisers. Look at their reply to me. I am willing to work with them to derive a profitable campaign but it takes two hands to clap. I think the Good AMs have mostly left the Company. (assumption)

 

[awesomewebsites]

Hmm.. I have just lost close to $1k with only $16 returns, and you are asking for images of proof of spending? I only ever hear people boasting about how much they earn but never know of anyone who like to show off how much they money they lost. I think there is nothing beneficial sharing screenshot of my losses to fellow members. And it is going to be ironic if someone were to press the thanks button on that image shared, should I be happy about it or simply feel stupid?

See, whether you say good or bad about a service or product, you can benefit from both ( depending on you are the service provider, referrer or competitor). I know that most of the senior members share genuine results but a lot of newbies abuse this without proper proof. I am really sorry if I hurt your feelings.

 

[honestIM]

See, whether you say good or bad about a service or product, you can benefit from both ( depending on you are the service provider, referrer or competitor). I know that most of the senior members share genuine results but a lot of newbies abuse this without proper proof. I am really sorry if I hurt your feelings.

I get you but in this case I do not think any newbie will be proud of LOSING money and boast about it. Nevertheless let us move on as I can see you have good intention in place.

Back to topic. I think I am going to give propellerads one more try but this time with a little twist to it.

I am going to setup different lander with retargeting codes input to it.

1st landing:
[Do you want to get an iPhone X for free?]
{Yes} -> Redirect to 2nd landing page w/ question below. Retargeting code input here and label as people who are interested in freebies
1. Are you willing to complete a short survey in return for a chance to get an iPhone X? ->Yes, redirect to freebies offer.
2. No, redirect to landing page A. Retargeting code input here and label as Potential for simple email submit offer. State clearly on this landing page that there is no survey to fill. Just submit email to stand a chance to qualify for a free iphone X. Build your listing here using autoresponder if you cannot find matching offer for iphone x giveaway.

{No} -> Redirect to 3rd Landing page. Ask below question.
1. Do you have dog as your pet? -> Yes , redirect to landing page B with retargeting code input and label as dog lovers. Ask if they are if they are interested to get a free trial of dog food (CPA offer). If yes, redirect to CPA offer. If no, redirect to your blog that is monetize with adsense/propellerads/or whatever ad network.

-> No, redirect to landing page A. Hopefully they will enter their email for list building.

Promote email submit offer to the list built.

Then advertise through retargeting (which means very cheap rate per impression) and target the right offer to the niche that you have built.

I will try out the above setup and update my findings here. Most likely in a month time as I need big enough database. The above method can be twisted to suit your own use. So if you find this useful, please customize it and do not just follow blindly. There is a lot of potential with the above setup if you know what you are doing.