[Case Study] Propellerads advertising for CPA offers

[Kratos168]

Is there any good reason for using propellerads traffic?

It is easy to setup campaign and traffic is cheap. Though I see very little conversion chance of using this network.

Don't burn money on propeller. Poorest traffic I have ever seen.. on some source you will get 10 conversation in 1000 traffic and in propeller - 100000 and no conversion. Stay away..

Actually, propellerads can be good for blackhat ads. Force install on android, fake virus attacks but you need to cloak your link well to prevent Propellerads team from banning your ad account.

 

[Bots-Scrapers]

It is easy to setup campaign and traffic is cheap. Though I see very little conversion chance of using this network.



Actually, propellerads can be good for blackhat ads. Force install on android, fake virus attacks but you need to cloak your link well to prevent Propellerads team from banning your ad account.

Can you do that? Yes? Just do it man. Be rich!

 

[czsamzzy]

More Updates:

I have finished spending $500 test budget with only one conversion.

Total loss of $460 excluding cost of tracker, hosting,etc.

One point of observation, POP traffic is not suitable for newbie since you are spamming to people who might or might not be interested in your offering. And who knows how these traffic arrive at the publisher sites too.

Based upon my setup, I should at least be able to identify people who are interested in my offering. However this is far from the truth. I managed to get 30%-60% CTR on some zone ID but this only resulted in one conversion. My retargeting cookies placing were not that successful as well. Out of 10k traffic, I only managed to drop around 800-900 cookies. My thought on this is that people are closing the pop up too fast for the cookies to even be dropped and I am actually being charged by propellerads for unviewed pop up. As long as there is a pop, I will be charged regardless if visitors actually see any ads.

In conclusion, my test ends up with a big FAIL.

I will not advise anyone to jump into pop traffic advertising unless you are very sure or have past history of success.

I will be closing this case study and moving on to another case with MGID. I shall leave this thread open for any potential questions that you might have and try my best to answer them in my free time.

With MGID, things are a bit interesting as I will be using their account manager service to manage the campaign. I have set aside a test budget of $2k. So do keep a lookout for this thread when it is out.

Please Tag us Alone With the Mgid case Study when started

 

[Kratos168]

Can you do that? Yes? Just do it man. Be rich!

I did tried one malware install campaign and the conversion was very good and advertiser willing to pay. But eventually propellerads caught up and gave me a warning before suspending that campaign. This happens when i was about to scale.

 

[Sristy]

Most of them looks on profit initially. But it never happens. All the best!!

 

[ridersark]

My opinion drastically changed when these guys rejected my whitehat ad. I wasn't even promoting anything. I was just looking to inflate my analytics. They rejected my ad and suspended my account. Killer stuff lmao

 

[BHKing777]

I'd consider $500 to not be that little for testing purposes, especially for a newbie or if you are not a newbie, then let's say for an offer that shouldn't really get you that excited for that specific traffic source.

$100-200 should suit you well, however i don't recommend propellerads either as some other users have already stated, especially for the first pop-up network you will use.

@Kratos168 May i know why you selected a payday loan offer for pop traffic. Did you have success with that offer with other traffic sources?

Personally (and that's just my own opinion) i'd never promote a payday offer with pop traffic, or at least not for the US. There are certain types of offers which just do not work that well with pop-up and pop-under traffic and i will definitely have payday offers on my 'do not promote list with pop traffic'.

Now, you may have seen big boys promoting these offers with all types of traffic sources, however i really do not recommend newbies to go with them.

Find something more lucrative and likely that will work with that traffic source - again with a payout of $20 (preferably no less, but even $10-15 at the lowest end) to $50+ is a good candidate to be promoted.

The next part is whether the selected product/offer is RIGHT for promotion with pop traffic.

With that being said, you have to think:

- whether what you promote can be consider an irresistible offer/product for the general public - you have to consider the very basic stuff - demographics, age, gender, quality of life, salaries, interests, etc. (think from your perspective first and maybe ask some friends/colleagues; i don't ask anyone, but i know what i like to promote and i know my audience so to say very good)

- what will be the best way to present that product/offer

Simple .html landing pages with big titles, few strong claims, 1-2 pictures and some reviews are usually enough for the 'base' to get you going quickly.

- and last, but not least what are the traffic networks you are going to use

You have $500 budget and you don't have that special tree in your backyard where money grow on it, so you have to be careful with the testing budget and don't burn it for nothing. You could split that $500 in 10x $50 and try out 2-3 offers instead.

I'd first go with some networks which offer a minimum deposit of $50 or less up to $100 to test my idea and from there on you can continue, not vice versa and go with lots of $$$ or even worse $$$$ burned for nothing.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes you can spend $$$ or $$$$ for testing purposes, but only when you know what you are doing.

Good luck with your next campaigns!

 

[mikespike]

i liked the idea bro i was working with popads and amazon its work well but they deactivated my account ; any idea please to help me with pop ads too ? im leterraly brook

 

[Kratos168]

I'd consider $500 to not be that little for testing purposes, especially for a newbie or if you are not a newbie, then let's say for an offer that shouldn't really get you that excited for that specific traffic source.

$100-200 should suit you well, however i don't recommend propellerads either as some other users have already stated, especially for the first pop-up network you will use.

@Kratos168 May i know why you selected a payday loan offer for pop traffic. Did you have success with that offer with other traffic sources?

Personally (and that's just my own opinion) i'd never promote a payday offer with pop traffic, or at least not for the US. There are certain types of offers which just do not work that well with pop-up and pop-under traffic and i will definitely have payday offers on my 'do not promote list with pop traffic'.

Now, you may have seen big boys promoting these offers with all types of traffic sources, however i really do not recommend newbies to go with them.

Find something more lucrative and likely that will work with that traffic source - again with a payout of $20 (preferably no less, but even $10-15 at the lowest end) to $50+ is a good candidate to be promoted.

The next part is whether the selected product/offer is RIGHT for promotion with pop traffic.

With that being said, you have to think:

- whether what you promote can be consider an irresistible offer/product for the general public - you have to consider the very basic stuff - demographics, age, gender, quality of life, salaries, interests, etc. (think from your perspective first and maybe ask some friends/colleagues; i don't ask anyone, but i know what i like to promote and i know my audience so to say very good)

- what will be the best way to present that product/offer

Simple .html landing pages with big titles, few strong claims, 1-2 pictures and some reviews are usually enough for the 'base' to get you going quickly.

- and last, but not least what are the traffic networks you are going to use

You have $500 budget and you don't have that special tree in your backyard where money grow on it, so you have to be careful with the testing budget and don't burn it for nothing. You could split that $500 in 10x $50 and try out 2-3 offers instead.

I'd first go with some networks which offer a minimum deposit of $50 or less up to $100 to test my idea and from there on you can continue, not vice versa and go with lots of $$$ or even worse $$$$ burned for nothing.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes you can spend $$$ or $$$$ for testing purposes, but only when you know what you are doing.

Good luck with your next campaigns!

Not sure how I missed your post. But let me reply to you now.
I choose Payday loan niche as I assume people in USA have such demands. Not backed by any stats but simply an assumption. Though I know for now, free signup, SOI, email submit type of offer seems to perform best.

I do modified my method slightly by inserting a redirect script so that users who do not click through will be shown ads that pays per impression. eCPM is not great for such exit traffic, sometime as low as $0.001 per 1k but it does help to cover some costs.

With regards to budget for testing, actually I do agree with you to a certain extend. I also noticed a pattern that if conversion happens, it usually happen within the first 50 impression. Anything beyond, chances of conversion happening is quite rare. It might be better to kill off that ad zone.

 

[RealDaddy]

Following

 

[QueenAnnesRevenge]

@Kratos168 It seems to me that buying traffic to send straight to a CPA offer is always a losing proposition. First you have to spend a bunch of money 'testing' and if you manage to reach positive ROI the offer gets pulled or the traffic source shuts you down. Do the 1 in 1,000 campaigns that you can successfully scale up for a week or two before saturating the traffic source make up for all of these losses?

And just how much money do you need to bank roll all of this testing? From everything I've read it seems you should have at least $25-$50k before you should even think about trying to buy traffic. Until then stick with free traffic. Then again, if you built up from nothing to $50k that you can afford to blow on tests from free traffic...maybe you should keep using free traffic LOL!

 

[jeffro89]

@Kratos168 It seems to me that buying traffic to send straight to a CPA offer is always a losing proposition. First you have to spend a bunch of money 'testing' and if you manage to reach positive ROI the offer gets pulled or the traffic source shuts you down. Do the 1 in 1,000 campaigns that you can successfully scale up for a week or two before saturating the traffic source make up for all of these losses?

And just how much money do you need to bank roll all of this testing? From everything I've read it seems you should have at least $25-$50k before you should even think about trying to buy traffic. Until then stick with free traffic. Then again, if you built up from nothing to $50k that you can afford to blow on tests from free traffic...maybe you should keep using free traffic LOL!

Buying traffic to DIRECTLY LINK/SEND traffic to a CPA offer is stupid, but money can be made.

1 - The offer doesnt always get Pulled, work with network that is reputable, make sure your aff manager has your back and youl b fine. To many networks and offers to moan about offers "being pulled".

2 - Testing is the name of the game, no way of you knowing an offer can convert with SAID traffic unless you test. Try sending traffic to win an Iphone X to anyone in the age range of 18-25, see how many conversions you get. You only find out if that converts or not with testing and with testing comes statistical significance for you to make the right move going forward.

3 - "And just how much money do you need to bank roll all of this testing? " - It depends on the offer, 3X offer payout is a good start point. For sweeps $10 - $15 on testing for each offer, doesn't convert move on.
Everyone has thier own magic figure of how much to spend on testing. It depends on offer and payout, the Higher the payout, the more hoops to jump through. Creatives testing, Headline testing, image testing, video testing and the Fukin rest.

4 - No you do not need $25-50k to make a living form CPA, who ever told you that IS A BIG FAT LIER.

All traffic has its own variables, SEO isnt free either by the way, just CHEAPER!

Hope this helpes

 

[Kratos168]

@Kratos168 It seems to me that buying traffic to send straight to a CPA offer is always a losing proposition. First you have to spend a bunch of money 'testing' and if you manage to reach positive ROI the offer gets pulled or the traffic source shuts you down. Do the 1 in 1,000 campaigns that you can successfully scale up for a week or two before saturating the traffic source make up for all of these losses?

And just how much money do you need to bank roll all of this testing? From everything I've read it seems you should have at least $25-$50k before you should even think about trying to buy traffic. Until then stick with free traffic. Then again, if you built up from nothing to $50k that you can afford to blow on tests from free traffic...maybe you should keep using free traffic LOL!

I think with or without sending traffic directly to a CPA offer will still requires you to do traffic testing. For free traffic, I am assuming you are talking about SEO or Social media, both of these will require money upfront without any guarantee of success. You can not longer just build backlinks for free in the hope that you get rank on Google, times have changed. For social media, you need bulks of accounts due to limited actions allowed per day. And these bulk accounts will cost alot when you factor in PVA, proxies,email setup, etc. And bearing in mind the occasion account, I do not think there is really anything free in terms of traffic.

In terms of free traffic, I have the most success with hacked email database for dating offer. The email database consist of existing customers of a competitor website. Conversion rate was well through the roof and lots of purchases so advertiser was kept happy and I make alot of profits from it. However, eventually I have to stop due to legal issue as I was eventually caught by the owner of the database and the CPA network that I was working with a given a legal warning to suspend working with me.

The next successful free traffic channel is spamming on social network (those smaller ones that do not require PVA and allows usage of VPN to bulk create accounts). Cost is extremely low and profits are high. But such network are dying as we speak now due to poor spam control.

This month I have spend around $8k doing testing of offer. Both direct or to a landing page. My biggest problem is this, when a profitable ad zone is discover and I try to scale, the ad zone will simply have crazy bid rate to get traffic volume or simply vanishes (publisher decides to stop working with ad network). This is why i have a twist nowadays for campaign testing that uses a landing page and redirect script to redirect the visitors to other method of monetization to avoid wastages on these junk traffics.

Buying traffic to DIRECTLY LINK/SEND traffic to a CPA offer is stupid, but money can be made.

1 - The offer doesnt always get Pulled, work with network that is reputable, make sure your aff manager has your back and youl b fine. To many networks and offers to moan about offers "being pulled".

2 - Testing is the name of the game, no way of you knowing an offer can convert with SAID traffic unless you test. Try sending traffic to win an Iphone X to anyone in the age range of 18-25, see how many conversions you get. You only find out if that converts or not with testing and with testing comes statistical significance for you to make the right move going forward.

3 - "And just how much money do you need to bank roll all of this testing? " - It depends on the offer, 3X offer payout is a good start point. For sweeps $10 - $15 on testing for each offer, doesn't convert move on.
Everyone has thier own magic figure of how much to spend on testing. It depends on offer and payout, the Higher the payout, the more hoops to jump through. Creatives testing, Headline testing, image testing, video testing and the Fukin rest.

4 - No you do not need $25-50k to make a living form CPA, who ever told you that IS A BIG FAT LIER.

All traffic has its own variables, SEO isnt free either by the way, just CHEAPER!

Hope this helpes

1. I have to agree to disagree on this. Offer that gets pulled frequently are those freebies/ email signup/free account signup,etc type of offer. From an advertiser point of view, they will only find that paying us is profitable when these opt in visitors buy something or completes bulk of surveys so that they can get make positive ROI. If we cost more than the profits, the advertiser will request network to pull the campaign or publisher. Nothing to moan about as we cannot assume that advertiser will pay us for free. Some advertiser will not pull but they will do shaving on their end. It is very easy for advertiser to do this. I am not saying that CPA network does this but advertiser can do this very easily.

2. Certainly testing with various different marketing angles helps, totally agree with you on this.

3. 3x offer payout, isn't this too low a point for testing? You won't incur enough ad zones to identify if the campaign is profitable. Example, if an offer pay $1.60, in your point of view, we should only spend around $4.80 to test? Isn't this way too low? Or did I understand you incorrectly?

4. $20k to make a living? I am with you on this.

5. Totally agree that there is no such thing as free traffic.

 

[traffic_freak]

Looks like propeller ads is into some shady stuffs. This is definitely a red light for me. Thanks alot OP for this thread. Hope you find success in your next try.

 

[IhateSpam]

@Kratos168 : Your study is very helpful. Thanks. Did you also work with popads? Same experience there like propellerads?

 

[Kratos168]

@Kratos168 : Your study is very helpful. Thanks. Did you also work with popads? Same experience there like propellerads?

Popads is more or less the same with propellerads. I won't say that you cannot monetize but you need to identify converting zones. The trick here is to min your testing cost by having a secondary income source on the landing page. Some might disagree with this approach but it certainly helps me in reducing cost. Once you identify profitable ad zones, start another campaign targeting these zones.

But do take note that if conversion rate starts to drop, abandon those zones (keep the zone ID as you can do further testing using other offers).

Nowadays I uses alot of blackhat trick during testing pharse to reduce my cost. Not going to say that it makes me money but all these tricks on the landing page is just to reduce my cost for testing. This is why I can afford a few grand of testing budget.

 

[Dennis Wong]

Popads is more or less the same with propellerads. I won't say that you cannot monetize but you need to identify converting zones. The trick here is to min your testing cost by having a secondary income source on the landing page. Some might disagree with this approach but it certainly helps me in reducing cost. Once you identify profitable ad zones, start another campaign targeting these zones.

But do take note that if conversion rate starts to drop, abandon those zones (keep the zone ID as you can do further testing using other offers).

Nowadays I uses alot of blackhat trick during testing pharse to reduce my cost. Not going to say that it makes me money but all these tricks on the landing page is just to reduce my cost for testing. This is why I can afford a few grand of testing budget.

May i know which cpm network are you using?

 

[AIDominar]

i think other native ads better performing than propellerAds