Swimming With the Sharks- My Media Buying Journal

First, I'm not going to give any kind of introduction. I'm not setting any kind of monetary goals, because I want to make as much money as possible. So, with that, let's get started.

I've already signed up to Sitescout, deposited my $500(I have a $2000 budget right now). I'm going to be working with a number of different networks, and offers. I will be incorporating CPA lead-gen offers, along with hocking some products in the health-niche. Furthermore, I will be experimenting with direct-linking, building my own landers, as well as doing the same with my creatives.

I have read Wasted's threads, and I'm disappointed some of it is open-ended. Also, what happened to that guy??? Anyway, there are some great nuggets in all of his threads. That guy is where I want to be. He suggested targeting small sites with <60,000 impressions/month. The point of this is to start small, optimize the shit of your campaign, then port it over to a larger site, and cash in. So, that's what I will be doing.

What I've done thus far:



So, what you'll see is a whole bunch of unexciting-newbtastic-shit...it's all part of the process I suppose. I have 0 conversions so far, but this is far from enough data to really do anything with.

The one's that are offline are because I did not know that some sites listed on SiteScout are bundled with other sites. So, I thought I was targeting what I thought were good sites, but in reality I was getting tons of traffic from sources that had nothing to do with the offer. I'll have to keep an eye on that next time.

Notes:

• Make sure your sites aren't bundled.
• It takes a while for campaigns to get approved over the weekends.
• Adbeat sucks.
• I need to make landing-pages.
• I need more creatives.

I'm in like Flynn

Yeah Wasted had some good threads. I was a member of a skype group from some people from BHW about a year ago but it isn't active anymore

Good luck on your journey! Out of curiosity, why do you have a poor view of Adbeat? I haven't used it, myself, but am considering it.

Best,
Red

The trial and error process is tough, psychologically. Good luck and keep your eye on the numbers.

Good luck and subscribed. Are you using a good landing page?

Also I recommend you to check out some user behavioral tracking sites such as Inspectlet in order to see user activity over the page.

Then you can see when they quit the page.

What kind of product are you selling? CPA?

candybar said:

Good luck and subscribed. Are you using a good landing page?

Also I recommend you to check out some user behavioral tracking sites such as Inspectlet in order to see user activity over the page.

Then you can see when they quit the page.

What kind of product are you selling? CPA?

Click to expand...

No, I haven't been using a landing page. I was direct-linking. I just wanted to see how it all worked. So, I threw up some campaigns promoting CPA, and a couple of fat-burning products. This weekend I'm going to rip a lot, and go with the landing pages.

RedOctobre said:

Good luck on your journey! Out of curiosity, why do you have a poor view of Adbeat? I haven't used it, myself, but am considering it.

Best,
Red

Click to expand...

Well, I think I just get frustrated with Adbeat. Most of the ads are large companies. So, I find it hard to get affiliate landers to rip. I'm going to contact them, and ask for some advice on how to do this.

Alright, a little update for those of you keeping an eye on this. It's not going to hot right now. It is all part of the process I suppose. I'm doing some pretty dumb stuff, though, and I need to fix it. I've been direct-linking with some crappy banners I ripped. I suppose they are a little misleading, because the user just goes directly to a site trying to sell them a fat-burner or friggin bird-feeder.

Also, I need to create some banners to get my CTR up. With the bird-feeder one I had a CPC of $6.68, and that is ridonkulous...I can get cheaper clicks on Adwords.

So, my plan is to work on some banners over the next two days. Lots of banners. I'm not going to outsource, because I watched some videos on Youtube about creating banners on Photoshop. It doesn't seem that hard to be honest. So, I torrented Photoshop CS6, and I'll be using that. It'll save me some moola too. I'll start with creating banners that get a good CTR, then I'll move on to experimenting with the landers. Now, that I have some experience with setting up campaigns on Sitescout I can get more technical with campaigns.

Notes:

• 
  
  
• -I need to create/rip more banners.
  
• -Start working on landing pages.
  
• -Work through Media Buying Academy Reloaded.
  

Good luck to you!

Any updates? Did you think Media Buying Academy Reloaded was worth the cost?

You have to work for lower PPC create landing pages and start testing
what country are u using?
what is your traffic source?

highly recommended to use whatrunswhere (or other) to see what other publishers is doing

Also remember that even when you do find a winner, you need to be so constantly updating banners etc as it can always be better! Keep going and good luck!

F u c k SiteScout.

You will only lose money there. Stop the bleeding now. Trust me, I pissed away $4k trying to find the 'big campaign'.

Let me grab you by the shoulders and shake you a little.... there IS NO BIG CAMPAIGN!

"What Mrlivethedream? No big campaign? Then how the F are all those guys making money?"

I'll tell you... you have to CREATE the big campaign.

What does that mean?

I'll tell you.

Right now your in the chase for sales. You just want one sale. Somehow, someway. May the gods bless you and give you sales. Just Toss up campaigns and pray.

Eff that. That doesn't work.

You know what works?

Numbers.

Here. Let me tell you how media buying works.

Your job is simple.

1.Find the Audience....whether be it through ad network, direct to site, whatever.
Find them, keep advertising to them, then figure out on average what it cost you to get a sale...your AVERAGE COST PER ACQUISITION.

Once your know how much your paying per sale...you need to figure out what your AVERAGE EARNINGS PER CUSTOMER are. How much is each customer paying you? What is each customer worth?

Your biggest formula is


So how do you create profit?

Only three ways...

1.get more $ from a customer.
2.Drop the $ cost of getting a customer.
3 Or Get more customers.

Your every action should be do one of those things.

For media buying, know all your variables. Usually it is:

Traffic --> Banner ---> Landing Page ---> Offer


Once your know your Cost Per Acquisition... you want to lower it. How do you lower it?

Take each one of those variables and try different marketing angles and see if any one converts better.

This is called Optimization. To do this you MUST track every step of the way, the banner, the LP, Offer.

You create different banners/landing pages/offer pages with different angles.

I.e For a anti virus software ..."Identity theft has increased by 94%..Protect your private information!" compared with "New viruses can destroy your computer in seconds... Save repair costs by protecting your PC!"

You have to hold all the variables constant..and test one. I.e have the same lander, same offer, same traffic.. but test 10 diff banners. Then you get the best one.
Now you do hold all the other variables constant... and test landers.
Then do offers.

You then see which one people are responding to more and buying your product more..thus lowering your Cost Per Acquisition.
The reason SiteScout doesn't work for 99% of people is because you don't know your numbers, and there are too many variables. Your just shooting in the dark.

Once your CPA is below your EPC .....SCALE!

You find other similar sources with similar traffic and make sweet sweet bank.

This is how you retire.

Yeah it's alot of work, it's grind. But that's what seperates the losers from the winners.
Get it done or get it packing
Get to work.

good luck bro any updates

Good luck with your journey mate. I wish you all the best.