My experience with Propellerads as advertiser

honestIM said:
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.
Click to expand...

Please don't forget to update with results in later time - seems really interesting and would love to know the results. Best of luck!
 
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honestIM said:
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.
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Yes, it take some time, I generate one time weekly a report of fraud sources and then go to the Networks and add them to the Backlist/Filter/HowEverNamedList. After we burn last year high 5 figure Amount for Fake Traffic it's worth to take the time, speaken in CPA we had many Networks where we only used to hold market share (as we don't realized then that most traffic is not real) and a CPA cost us around $90-$120 after we cleaned them up we have before never seen CPA's of $4 - $30, only problem the Networks could not provide much more clean traffic and after 15 years with our one Geo we now expand to two more Geos.

For Propellerads, I have take a look we got traffic from 600 sources only (my Geo is small) of them we blocked 20 and I'm happy now.
 
honestIM said:
I was searching around this forum for the past few months and could not find a decent review on this traffic source despite asking experience media buyers like @Sephrata (did not receive a reply but I guess he must be too busy and overwhelm with PMs, he is a nice gentlemen).

So I decided to go ahead and test out this traffic source and runs it for CPA campaign.

$100 (initial deposit) - ROI = 0
$300 (a further $300 as I was advised by their support to use this amount for USA traffic SmartCPA) - ROI = 0
$100 = 2 conversions and make $16
$200 (targeting the site ID that gave me this conversion) ROI = 0

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.

My overall feedback:
Traffic on propellerads are just like spamming on social network or email spamming. The database are not focused and niche. Meaning you have to find a offer that is rather general by nature to get conversion.

Conversion is very unpredictable. The same site ID that gave you conversion would not be giving you any further conversion so scaling is really hard due to this unpredictable nature.

SmartCPA only works if you have an offer that is general and popular that easily gets conversion. Eventually you still need to pay for impression if your offer is not converting well.

Basically you are better off spending your time spamming to get conversion. As this traffic network is very expensive to get positive ROI. Propellerads is just a legal way to spam to get conversions.


I have also tried their in app messaging adverting (which they term as native ad). Promoting sports gaming. Cost me around $100 and my budget was fully used up in less than 30min. Zero conversion as well. Got many clicks but no conversion.

I am writing this review in the hope that it will benefit others on this forum but not as a rant to complain about Propellerads. I decided to try out the traffic so I am already prepared for this losses.
Click to expand...
You save me wasting money just in time thanks
 
This is also really unprofessional, Mainly because of the third party tracking but also the grammar mistakes. Thats an instant turn-off on any service for me.
 
Quick Update:

  1. Instead of simply starting a campaign and collecting stats, what I have done here is slightly different. I am using a third party tracker on other free traffic sources that is giving me conversions currently and related to the offer that I am promoting using Propellerads.
  2. I am collecting stats as follow: ISP, Wifi-3G, OS, Browsers,time conversion happens.
  3. Based upon the time range where conversion happens, I will schedule my ads on propellerads the same. Note conversion does not happen 24 hours a day.
  4. My filter for the ads will be based upon the ISP, OS, Browsers types. as I know for sure these are most likely none bots traffic as they are already giving me conversion through other traffic sources.
In fact the above can be use on native ad network setting as well to reduce my advertising cost. I do have other stats like cities where conversion happens the most. I think this could be very useful info that I can use on other ad network that allows filter like this.
 
Following.. about to lunch my first campaign with them
 
mastino said:
about to lunch my first campaign with them
Click to expand...
You must be real hungry :D

OT yes you should always do deep data analysis with your own tracker and don't focus too much on ROI but more so on the CPC/EPC ratio to make your decisions.
 
ancientaliens said:
Especially now that we have retargeting, stuff like propeller ads and other popunder traffic is a goldmine..

Propeller ads in 2018 shouldn't be used with the goal of getting conversions as that's wishful thinking. Firstly it's the most aggressive type of interruption marketing. It's akin to trying to seduce a woman that doesn't know you by jumping in front of her, screaming "SURPRISE", then continuously poking her hoping that she'll fall in love with you..

You come off as a creep, and extremely annoying. Not saying popunder traffic doesn't convert, as it does for some people. But this is only after they have tested a lot and identified sites that convert and is congruent with their offer..

An example of a site which has popunders that convert is flaticon.com. This site offers free graphic design icon assets. And each time an icon is about to be downloaded, a popunder leading to a highly contextual keyword triggered Shutterstock page opens. So if someone searched for football helmet icons, the free site has a limited amount of icons, but the popunder opens up shutterstock with a wider range and possibly more professional icons. Well they're doing affiliate to shutterstock which I don't think is the best offer to explain this, but at least it is congruent and well timed pop.

Why does this work?

Well this is a private popunder script so the site owner chooses which URL to pop, so it's not the same as running popunder campaigns on propeller ads where the publisher can't choose which url to pop as that's decided by the network's algorithm.

The popunder only opens when someone downloads an icon. If someone downloads a free icon, they are likely to buy some graphic design assets as they're most likely needing a lot of assets.

Also compared to popunder publisher sites which are mostly adult, hack or blackhat stuff, there aren't a million popunders popping at every click which is annoying and people are blind to. Like if you spend $300 which I guess shows your popunder to hundreds of thousands of people and you have 0 conversions, then something must be wrong with the whole system..

What should popunders be used for?

Traffic to retarget. Extremely cheap AF traffic. I haven't used much platforms, but most of them offer a lot of targeting options.

In terms of targeting options, I probably won't bother with topic or niche, but focus on device and location targeting buying traffic from porn sites. The reason for porn sites is most people don't use vpns or proxies for porn, compared to other sites you'd find on pop networks like streaming, movies etc and also most people use mobile devices, so the chance of getting bots or adblock is almost impossible I guess. Also everyone watches porn, so traffic is pretty much unlimited.
Target by location to retarget with location specific offers and device for the same.

Example scenario. I have an iphone related ecom site. I just simply go on plugrush or trafficjunky, target people using iPhone 5 on blah blah network in california and buy 100,000 visitors for £50 or something. Obviously the more variables, the less potential traffic. I don't send them to my store but just a random site with my retargeting pixel.

Now run a retargeting ad with my offer + calling out the location and you have a formula for conversions. That's 100,000 potential customers acquired for extremely cheap.
Click to expand...

Which retargeting platform do you use??
 
honestIM said:
Quick Update:

  1. Instead of simply starting a campaign and collecting stats, what I have done here is slightly different. I am using a third party tracker on other free traffic sources that is giving me conversions currently and related to the offer that I am promoting using Propellerads.
  2. I am collecting stats as follow: ISP, Wifi-3G, OS, Browsers,time conversion happens.
  3. Based upon the time range where conversion happens, I will schedule my ads on propellerads the same. Note conversion does not happen 24 hours a day.
  4. My filter for the ads will be based upon the ISP, OS, Browsers types. as I know for sure these are most likely none bots traffic as they are already giving me conversion through other traffic sources.
In fact the above can be use on native ad network setting as well to reduce my advertising cost. I do have other stats like cities where conversion happens the most. I think this could be very useful info that I can use on other ad network that allows filter like this.
Click to expand...

A little update on this.

Currently I have completed 100 conversions from free traffic sources. So on hand I should have a sample database to identify patterns for conversion.
Based upon propellerads setup, I am targeting the below setup.

1. Devices (in my case, mobile and desktop converts equally well)
2. OS
3. Schedule time of running ads as I can see from what hours conversion is likely to happen
4. Browser that commonly converts

Currently targeting only USA traffic since my sample database is based upon USA conversions only.

Shall update again within the next few weeks on test results.
 
"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"

That kind of poor grammar from support right there should be a red flag alone.
 
Current update:

Sunday: Ran a test campaign using the filter gathered through actual conversion from free traffics.

Monday: Remove site that do not convert. Any impression above 500 without conversion are removed. Setup a separate campaign targeting only those site ID that offers conversion. Using SmartCPM to bid. Total of 7 conversion after spending $200. Each conversion pays out $2.40, total revenue of $16.80. Made a loss of ($183.20)

Tue: Remove the test campaign and focus on the campaign that consist of only site ID that converts.
 
DulalKisku said:
you are losing too much money. Why aren't you shifting to fb?
Click to expand...

I am already on facebook but not for CPA offers. Agree with you that this test is getting expensive relative to the ROI. But there is some positive news today though for update.

Currently I am targeting only a few site ID that has given me conversion.
7,000 visits yesterday costing me a total of $21..
210 conversions (Yes you read this right)...
Gross profits= 210 x $2.40 = $504
Less previous losses from testing ($1,121)
Net loss of ($617)

Not sure if this level of conversion rate will continue. Shall update again tomorrow. If this level of conversion rate persist, then I might have stumble upon a winning combination on Propellerads. But generally I am quite surprise with the result after so many disappointment with this network.
 
honestIM said:
I am already on facebook but not for CPA offers. Agree with you that this test is getting expensive relative to the ROI. But there is some positive news today though for update.

Currently I am targeting only a few site ID that has given me conversion.
7,000 visits yesterday costing me a total of $21..
210 conversions (Yes you read this right)...
Gross profits= 210 x $2.40 = $504
Less previous losses from testing ($1,121)
Net loss of ($617)

Not sure if this level of conversion rate will continue. Shall update again tomorrow. If this level of conversion rate persist, then I might have stumble upon a winning combination on Propellerads. But generally I am quite surprise with the result after so many disappointment with this network.
Click to expand...
That's crazy lol, you've found the popunder goldmine. Your offer is really relevant to the audience on this site. Great work and I hope you have consistently similar results with this journey.

If only you could manually check the site IDs actual site, so you can see if it's a piece of shit site.. Could probably be done with scrapebox.
 
honestIM said:
I am already on facebook but not for CPA offers. Agree with you that this test is getting expensive relative to the ROI. But there is some positive news today though for update.

Currently I am targeting only a few site ID that has given me conversion.
7,000 visits yesterday costing me a total of $21..
210 conversions (Yes you read this right)...
Gross profits= 210 x $2.40 = $504
Less previous losses from testing ($1,121)
Net loss of ($617)

Not sure if this level of conversion rate will continue. Shall update again tomorrow. If this level of conversion rate persist, then I might have stumble upon a winning combination on Propellerads. But generally I am quite surprise with the result after so many disappointment with this network.
Click to expand...



That's awesome, you got laser targeted audience, make some profit then play with offers. again
 
Today update:

Currently I am targeting only a few site ID that has given me conversion.
30,000 visits yesterday costing me a total of $60..
576 conversions
Gross profits= 576 x $2.40 = $1,382.40
Less previous losses from testing ($617)
Net Profit of $765.40

Points to note: It seems like those few site IDs that are giving me conversion has gone up in average bid rate, meaning more expensive to bid ad slots there.

Advices:
From my observation if you are targeting mobile android, target version 6 and above. Bots are usually coming from below version 6.0. If possible always try to target the latest OS version to avoid bot traffic for mobile.

Also, very important that you have tracked the data of actual conversions using other traffic sources that are giving you conversion. You need to know exactly what type of OS, browser and etc is giving you conversion so that you can target them to achieve good ROI rate. If you cannot get such data from actual conversion, DO NOT use propellerads as you can easily lose a lot of money doing so call data collection.

I am quite happy now with Propellerads due to the good ROI. I am going to test out other offers to diversify from overrelying upon a single campaign.
 
100,000 visits yesterday costing me a total of $250..
912 conversions
Gross profits= 912 x $2.40 = $2,188.90
Less cost advertising ($250)
Net Profit of $1,938.80 + Previous profit of $765.40 = Total profit of $2,704 for this campaign so far.
This is the third day of running this campaign. Let us see how long can this campaign run in terms of profitability now that traffic issue is resolved.
 
ContentExpert said:
Of course not, you had them beat and there was no response for them to say other then "we were wrong".
Click to expand...

I have to agree to a certain extend that Propellerads is giving out a lot of poor quality traffic but on our part as advertiser we really need to be very selective on the type of traffic we want to receive by being ultra targeted. In my case, due to targeting I was able to get profits from this traffic network. However I did lose money in the beginning stage as I try to do data collection (which is a very wrong move).

Data collection with propellerads is extremely costly due to the amount of site IDs that they have on hand and bulk are really poor in terms of quality aka how the web master obtain these traffics. Therefore to succeed with this traffic network, it is a must to know the exact configuration that causes conversion to occurs and target them. There is always a specific pattern when you do deep data analysis on the conversion that occurs.
 
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