Failed at media buying - lost $215

This post is so interesting. You payed 1$ per click in the first campaign with zero conversions while content marketers drive 100 clicks to their sites "for free" by writing an article in 10-60 minutes and with allot better conversions.

This just shows how important is the quality of traffic such services provide. Was it even targeted or people clicked out of curiosity? Also it looks impossible to have a positive ROI if you don't own the product (affiliates are doomed).

I was simply sending traffic to clickbank offers, no landing page of my own because I simply couldn't be bothered just for this test

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The 2 highlighted parts are where you went wrong. First off all clickbank products aren't exactly known for their quality. If you don't have your own product OR you somehow managed to find an untapped site for the ads itself, you're making it reaaally difficult to get positive ROI.

Also, if you "couldn't be bothered" then these results aren't really surprising tbh.

But as others said, those $215 weren't all for nothing, you can still get some good lessons out of this if you choose to do so.

Hinkys said:

The 2 highlighted parts are where you went wrong. First off all clickbank products aren't exactly known for their quality. If you don't have your own product OR you somehow managed to find an untapped site for the ads itself, you're making it reaaally difficult to get positive ROI.

Also, if you "couldn't be bothered" then these results aren't really surprising tbh.

But as others said, those $215 weren't all for nothing, you can still get some good lessons out of this if you choose to do so.

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Yeah it seems the only way to make real good money is to have your own product like someone else mentioned.

I know I'm not annoyed or anything by these results, as I was pretty much expecting them in a way because I was never planning to go full on into learning everything about media buying. I don't have enough spare capital to do it properly and it just seems like it is for big players unless you get lucky

Sleinad said:

After seeing a few posts here about some people having success with media buying, I though I'd give it a go. Signed up to SiteScout, deposited $500, set up a campaign. I was simply sending traffic to clickbank offers, no landing page of my own because I simply couldn't be bothered just for this test (could have wasted hours on landing page to learn the niche isn't profitable at all).

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Started reading and got here. Face landed in palms.You've spent a whopping $215 after direct linking to some cb offers because you couldn't be bothered putting in any effort and now you've come on bhw to tell us you've failed? Come back when you've spent 3 months, working 18 hours a day, 7 days a week and have spent 5 figures on testing 100's of banners, landing pages and types of buys.What you've done is essentially no different than putting $215 on black on the roulette table. If you find media buying frustrating then it's not the right thing for you. I find the whole testing experience extremely exciting, not frustrating. The problem seems to be that your primary goal is to make money quickly. I've never seen anyone who's just in business to make money, actually make money. Business isn't about the money. The money is just a bonus that makes it that much more fun. If you don't wake up in the morning looking forward to your day, then you're probably wasting your time.

After 2-3K spent you finally will see some earnings.

Sleinad said:

If I could go back before I deposited the money and use it elsewhere, I'd probably just use the money for more content/SEO or just build a new site with that much. Oh well, at least I know now I'm not exactly good at media buying, and should just stick with what works for me.

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You have no idea how laughable this is. It's like someone who decides to become a doctor and they read 1 page of a medical book, then decide "Oh, I'm not really good at medicine, I'll just stick with what works for me"

You're not cut out for business right now and that's because you're a quitter, no other reason. Set aside $50k and 6 months for a media buying project and work 60 hours a week every week for those 6 months, building lists, testing, tweaking, creating products and learning from each spend and THEN if after that you've still failed, do another 6 months with $50k. If you've done a full year, spent $100k and have still not made any money then yes, you're not cut out for media buying, but I'd eat my hat if anyone with an IQ over 80 did that and failed. Heck, even someone with an IQ of 70 could probably succeed if they just dedicated themselves day in day out.

Forget this "Oh someone told me I could direct link and make money" bull. That's dreamland. Business is tough as hell and you need to be both mentally and physically capable otherwise your spirit will be crushed early like yours was after only a day. If you can work your azz(uh, I can't swear without triggering moderation. Pathetic) off for 10 years and fail non-stop and STILL after 10 years have so much energy that you bloody LEVITATE out of bed every morning, then you're guaranteed to be mega successful. If the thought of that makes you sick and you'd rather just have money and go and party, then stick with getting a good job that'll give you a pay check at the end of each month that you can spend on stuff to keep you happy.

to be honest, i dont understand what you guys try one of the hardest form of advertisement out there.

thats like saying; ill test on youtube pre-roll when you guys dont even have a clue..

my advice for what it's worth: stick with adwords & fb. You want display, be prepared to have deep pockets.

jinsandy said:

to be honest, i dont understand what you guys try one of the hardest form of advertisement out there.

thats like saying; ill test on youtube pre-roll when you guys dont even have a clue..

my advice for what it's worth: stick with adwords & fb. You want display, be prepared to have deep pockets.

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Adwords and fb *are* display. "Media buys" encompasses everything. ppc, ppv, ppm, banners, text, videos etc, so this isn't that meaningful.

Are you saying adwords and fb are easier than sitescout? Easier than going direct to web sites and buying ad space? Easier than trafficvance? Easier than X.. I could go on for hours, there's 1000's of places you can buy advertising space.

I would say adwords is one of the hardest out there because Google are so strict and it's a much older platform with higher competition, but adwords isn't *significantly* harder than the others either. Some people find fb very hard and pof very easy, others find pof impossible and fb effortless.. It really depends on your campaigns, but ultimately none of them are "hard", they just require time, money and dedication, but then again, so does absolutely everything in business and online marketing. Everyone out there who's making money takes their business very seriously.

ringle said:

Adwords and fb *are* display. "Media buys" encompasses everything. ppc, ppv, ppm, banners, text, videos etc, so this isn't that meaningful.

Are you saying adwords and fb are easier than sitescout? Easier than going direct to web sites and buying ad space? Easier than trafficvance? Easier than X.. I could go on for hours, there's 1000's of places you can buy advertising space.

I would say adwords is one of the hardest out there because Google are so strict and it's a much older platform with higher competition, but adwords isn't *significantly* harder than the others either. Some people find fb very hard and pof very easy, others find pof impossible and fb effortless.. It really depends on your campaigns, but ultimately none of them are "hard", they just require time, money and dedication, but then again, so does absolutely everything in business and online marketing. Everyone out there who's making money takes their business very seriously.

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I mention adwords and i apologize for being vague. I meant search-based marketing on google search.

would you recommend newbies to buy youtube upfronts?

Feel free to tell me how banner ads, even in an RTB exchange, can compete with user intent in search marketing. I would love to hear it.

I recommend adwords (specifically search) is because that is towards the lower end of the consideration funnel. People are looking for something. It is closer to attributing a last click attribution model than with display.

I worked with automotive clients (not retail, corporate country level) and they run display ads as well as a thorough digital marketing mix. I can tell you that they have different kpi's and they can afford to spend $$$$$$ on display for simply "brand awareness" and "share of voice" with no clear attribution to a sale. can people here do the same on a couple hundred dollars?

At the end of the day, i am sharing my opinion, based on my experience in digital media agencies and spending $. Feel free to suggest to newbies how buying youtube pre-rolls will make them big money.

The four-figure stuff is nonsense. On a self-serve platform, you never spend more than about 3x the payout or expected value of something on any given creative and segment of a traffic source, particularly when you're learning and/or have a small budget, and you should be promoting things that convert easily and usually have a lower payout.

That said, CPM's a little tricky in that you have to learn to manage your eCPC first, which usually means averaging at least a 0.15% CTR, and again you should have a clear indication of if you're going to manage that after 6k-10k impressions, and if you don't you terminate with extreme prejudice, probably after spending only $5-10.

Bottom line $200 on self-serve CPM can go a very long way and teach you a lot if you use it like you have a $200 budget, not if you blow $100 on a hopeless campaign because the bids are cheap.

I wouldn't recommend newbies touch any media buying until they've got $10k they can afford to use for testing.

If you haven't got that kind of budget then any paid advertising isn't smart. I see thejake says you can do it for $200 if you're smart and I've seen countless people say that, but I've never seen even an experienced marketer use a $200 budget to successfully establish themselves in the world of paid advertising.

You aren't going to blow $10k overnight, but you need to be able to sit down and burn through $50-$100's a time with different tests. If your budget is even $1k then you're going to be very uncomfortable during testing, make rash decisions, panic and potentially give up.

Anyone that wants to get into paid advertising needs to spend a year running other things to build up as much money as possible. If you can build up $50k or $100k and you're smart with that money you're guaranteed to have success. Most people I see either don't make any money at all, or they get lucky and make $20k with bots and go away and buy some stupid car. Just look around the forum and you'll see examples of people making their first 5 figures and buying a car.

jinsandy said:

I mention adwords and i apologize for being vague. I meant search-based marketing on google search.

would you recommend newbies to buy youtube upfronts?

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ringle said:

I wouldn't recommend newbies touch any media buying until they've got $10k they can afford to use for testing.

If you haven't got that kind of budget then any paid advertising isn't smart. I see thejake says you can do it for $200 if you're smart and I've seen countless people say that, but I've never seen even an experienced marketer use a $200 budget to successfully establish themselves in the world of paid advertising.

You aren't going to blow $10k overnight, but you need to be able to sit down and burn through $50-$100's a time with different tests. If your budget is even $1k then you're going to be very uncomfortable during testing, make rash decisions, panic and potentially give up.

Anyone that wants to get into paid advertising needs to spend a year running other things to build up as much money as possible. If you can build up $50k or $100k and you're smart with that money you're guaranteed to have success. Most people I see either don't make any money at all, or they get lucky and make $20k with bots and go away and buy some stupid car. Just look around the forum and you'll see examples of people making their first 5 figures and buying a car.

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I am assuming you're really into Media Buying, right? When did you started and what platforms do you actually advertise on?

Tim Roth said:

I am assuming you're really into Media Buying, right? When did you started and what platforms do you actually advertise on?

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I've been doing paid advertising for years and I've used pof, fb, adwords, direct media buys, sitescout, many more including various mobile ad networks.

I have my own tracking/data management systems, probably very much like zen's building in his 10k hour thread. I don't do one-time monetization at all, either direct linking or landing pages. I use paid advertising to build my own data and then promote to them multiple times, updating the data to reflect clicks/conversions and other important information.

$215 is a drop in the hat.. TBH but if you want to micromanage a campaign, you can get away with a small media buy on fb and get some cheap cpc's if you target smaller areas in north America.. thats how i would go about approaching this. I did an optimized cpm campaign driving likes to my page and got around 13 cents a fan from north america.

And if you check out fb ads, they now let you add a conversion pixel which will allow you to track how much your cpa would cost.

Just curious, if one were to deposit the initial $500 and realized that they bit off more than they could chew after lets say $100, then how easy or what are the steps needed to get the remaining $400 back into your bank account? Thanks for this info.

It's all about optimization, on each optimization round (banner color, text, placement... change) you should set up a budget. You really need something in the 3k-5k to really start understanding the game. Also that 3k-5k must a be a throw away money you can afford to lose.

You really need to strategize your campaigns. Maybe setup at least 10 tests with budgets of 25 dollars and start analyzing that data to start with.

Start again with proper setup .. may try to CPA

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you have some spying tools to see what kind of offer works and on which sites there work best, but those tools cost 500-1000$ per month

i remember the first time I tried a media buy set up a banner to a clickbank weight loss program, then I deposited 100 bucks, and started looking up the ferrari I was going to purchase lol. but at least you tried all a part of learnin