ACTION (CONTINUED…)
How to Optimize Your 1st Campaign
I’ve spent many hours pouring over past data, and drafting different optimization approaches, hoping to find a one-size-fits-all optimization strategy that is really simple and yet sufficiently effective.
In the end I settled on starting you off with the following optimization plan. IMPORTANT: Only use this step-by-step optimization plan to run direct-linked campaigns for carrier-billing offers in tier 3/4 geos.
This plan will only be a learning tool, to serve as a temporary crutch for you. In the next lesson, I will explain the fundamental concepts of optimization, so that you can tweak your optimization approach for every specific campaign. Treating each campaign differently will make you 10 times more efficient, than following the one-size-fits-all approach below.
Without further ado – here is the process flow:
Notice that each step in the process flow chart has a number. I will now explain each.
1)Set up campaign to direct-link to one offer. Run $10 of traffic.
This you have already done.
2)Kill-Whitelist Calculator does not say “KILL!” with Min. ROI = -50%, AND campaign is receiving at least $20/day in traffic.
Here we need to assess stats to see whether the campaign has hope of reaching profits, before running further. We will be checking for 2 conditions.
a)It is my experience that, for a direct-linked offer, if the ROI is less than -50% ROI before optimization, it would be difficult to reach profits via cutting placements etc.
Firstly, please download the “Kill-Whitelist” Calculator described in this thread:
https://stm.groupbuyexpert.com/forum/showthrea…Banners-Part-2
Set “Confidence” to 80%, “Min. ROI” = -50%, and “Payout” to the payout of your offer.
Fill-in the first row of data:
-CPM ($): Put the amount you’ve set your bid to in PropellerAds.
-Impressions: From Voluum > “Campaigns” tab, set the date range from start of campaign to present, note the number of “Visits” your campaign has received so far and enter that into the spreadsheet.
-Conversions: Also found in Voluum > “Campaigns” tab, in the “Conversions” column.
(Note: The multiple rows of data is just an example – you will only enter one row of data for the single campaign.)
If the “VERDICT” shows “KILL!”, stop the campaign now. Otherwise, continue.
To stop a campaign in PropellerAds: In the left menu go to “Campaigns”, find your campaign. Then, either click on the stop icon at the end of the row, or checkmark the box at the start of the row and click the “Stop” button at the top:
If the “VERDICT” shows either “KEEP RUNNING” or “WHITELIST!”, then proceed to check for the second condition.
(Please note: We’re using the calculator spreadsheet NOT to evaluate which placements to cut – as is the usual purpose of the spreadsheet – but to evaluate whether the offer would be worth running further.)
b)If there’s not enough traffic volume, then we shouldn’t even bother to run further. Confirm that you will receive at least $20’s worth of traffic daily before continuing.
“But I haven’t kept the campaign running for a whole day yet – how would I know how much it would spend per day?”
It’s OK – all we need here is an estimate, which we can get by extrapolating based on current stats.
What you do is go to your campaign’s stats in Voluum (“Campaigns” tab, right-click on your campaign and select “Report”), set the start and end of the date range to the day traffic started for the campaign, and select from the first drop-down filter, “Hour of Day”.
Make sure that the $10 budget was exhausted within 12 hours or less. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be enough traffic to justify investing in this campaign any further – if this is the case, stop the campaign.
(Note that if traffic was running past midnight the first day to continue into the second day, then you’ll also need to see “Hour of day” stats for the second day, and add up the total hours over 1st and 2nd days.)
3)Check placement stats and cut placements, using non-aggressive rules.
Next, let’s review placement stats, to see if there are loser placements that are spending money, but not converting, or not converting well enough.
Those placements, we would want to cut, or stop buying traffic from. This is also called “blacklisting”.
We will want to cut placements using the following rules-of-thumb – I call them the “Non-Aggressive” cutting rules:
Non-Aggressive Placement Cutting Rules:
-Cut when placement is > 2 times payout in loss, with no conversions.
-Cut when placement has spent 4 times payout, and still in loss.Here’s a step-by-step on how to identify and cut placements that meet these criteria:
a)View your placement stats and identify placements that are > 2 times payout in loss. In Voluum, go to Campaigns > right-click on your campaign > Report. Then in the first slot choose from the drop-down, the “zoneid” variable. In the date range drop-down menu, specify the date range you’ve been running traffic to this camp. Click “Apply”. Then, click on the “Profits” column header twice, to sort in order of increasing profits – or decreasing losses depending on how you look at it.
In this case, since the payout is $1.50, placements 634917 and 717266 are ready to be cut. Make a note of these in your Campaign Journal (e.g. “Zones cut: 634917, 717266”).
b)View your placement stats and identify placements that have spent 4 times payout and still in loss.
Still in Voluum’s placements stats screen, click on the “Cost” column header twice, to sort by decreasing spend.
Look through every placement that has spent at least 4 times payout, but is still red. Make a note of these in your Campaign Journal. In this particular case, zones 717266 and 634917 meet the criterion (which, in this particular case, happen to be the same placements that were identified in the last step – this is not always true.)
c)Cut those placements. After you’ve determined which placements to cut, we need to cut them!
Log into PropellerAds, go into campaign edit for your camp (by clicking on the little pencil icon under “Actions”):
Scroll down to the “Zone Limitation” section, and paste the zoneids in there – in either comma-separated format or with each zone ID on a new line – in the latter case Propeller will automatically convert the list into comma-separated format for you. Don’t forget to toggle the “Add/Exclude” bar to set it to Exclude (it will appear in red when you do). Remember to click on “Save Changes” when done.
4)Resume camp, run to a total of 20 times payout in spend.
Calculate what 20 times payout equates to, and see if you’ve already spent this much – e.g. if your payout is $0.50 or below, then you’ve already run 20 times payout using the initial $10 budget. If this is the case, proceed to the next step.
Otherwise, calculate how much more you’ll need to spend (in addition to the $10 already spent) in order to reach a total of 20 times payout. Go into PropellerAds, edit your campaign settings (by clicking on the pencil icon for that campaign, in the “Actions” column), and add this value to the “Total Campaign Budget” field.
Make sure the “Daily Campaign Budget” is larger than the incremental amount you added to the “Total Campaign Budget” value, so that the new budget will be reached as soon as possible. If not, then increase the “Daily Campaign Budget” accordingly. (Make sure to deposit more money if necessary.)
Scroll to the bottom and click “Save Changes”.
To resume the campaign, go to PropellerAds > Campaigns tab in left menu, find your campaign and click on the play icon in the “Actions” column:
Example: Let’s say the offer payout is $1.50, so 20 times payout equals $30. You’ve already run $10 of traffic in the beginning, which means you’ll need to run $20 MORE. Therefore, change “Total Campaign Budget” from $10 to $30. The increment is $20 which is more than the $10 you’ve set the “Daily Campaign Budget” to before, so just change “Daily Campaign Budget” to $20 accordingly, so that the budget you’ve added will be spent in one day so you can get results faster.
Remember to update your Campaign Journal!
5)ROI > -50% OR have at least one Level 1 Positive Sign?
Next, we need to check 2 conditions – at least one of them needs to be met in order to proceed to the next stage.
a)Check the ROI.
You can find the ROI in Voluum. Simply set the date range to span the life of this campaign (from start date to current date), and grab the value from the “ROI” column:
If you don’t see the ROI column, simply click on the “Select Columns to Display” settings and checkmark “ROI”, as shown here:
If the ROI is > -50% (for example -30%), proceed to the next step. Otherwise, perform the next check: Look for Level 1 Positive Signs.
b)Confirm at least one of the “Level 1 Positive Signs”.
These are some signs I like to look for, that indicate the campaign has promise of reaching profits.
Level 1 Positive Signs:
-At least one Major Traffic Segment that is green with 2 conversions or more.
-Profitable placements account for at least 3/4 of the total conversions.At least one Major Traffic Segment that is green with 2 conversions or more:
A “Major Traffic Segment” is anything you can target at the traffic source – usually a OS, a carrier, a browser, or a device type – that when targeted alone, has the potential of making us enough profits to be worth our effort in running the campaign. I would say that if a traffic segment accounts for 1/3rd of the total traffic or more, then we can consider it to be a “Major Traffic Segment”.
How to check: Go into Voluum stats for your campaign (you should know the drill by now!), set the date range to the life of your campaign, and set the first dropdown filter to the various parameters: Mainly Browser, OS, and Device Type, but you can try some of the others as well (no need to see “Mobile Carriers” since we’re only targeting a single carrier).
If you see a green entry, and the “Visits” are greater than 1/3rd of the total traffic, then the condition is met.
In the example above, the Android OS is a positive sign, because it is green, and brought 210 visits out of the total 260 – a lot more than 1/3rd.
It is important to note that the Major Traffic Segment you’ve identified (e.g. Android OS), can be targeted by itself at the traffic source. Our example of Android OS would be a good choice, as we are able to target this OS alone on PropellerAds:
Profitable placements account for at least 3/4 of the total conversions:
In Voluum, set date range to life of campaign, display placement stats, click on the “Conversions” column header to sort placements by descending conversions. Add up the conversions in profitable placements – if this number is greater than 3/4 of the total conversions made, then the condition is met.
In this example, 7 conversions out of the total 9 were made by green placements, and since 7/9 > 3/4, the condition is satisfied.
If EITHER a)ROI > -50% OR b)you found at least one Level 1 Positive Sign, then proceed to the next step. Otherwise, stop the campaign.
Lastly – remember to update your Campaign Journal!
6)Check for placements to cut, using non-aggressive rules.
Then, check placements stats and cut any placements that satisfy the Non-Aggressive Placement Cutting Rules, as described in a previous step.
When checking placement stats, set date range to life of campaign. And remember to update your Campaign Journal.
7)Spend an additional 30 times payout, while cutting placements using non-aggressive rules.
You know the drill by now.
Calculate what 30 times payout equals to, add the amount to “Total Campaign Budget” and “Daily Campaign Budget”, and resume the campaign. (Make sure to deposit more money if necessary.)
Because 30 times payout is a larger sum of money, I would recommend that you not wait until the budget finishes spending, before cutting placements. If you have the time, check placements stats multiple times throughout the day and cut placements according to non-aggressive rules.
When checking placement stats, set date range to life of campaign. (Reminder: Update Campaign Journal.)
8)ROI > 0% OR have at least one Level 2 Positive Sign?
Checking for ROI > 0%:
First, find a list of zones you’ve blacklisted – you can find these in PropellerAds’ “Zone limitation” section in your campaign’s settings.
For each of these blacklisted placements, look up in Voluum, their revenue and cost, and subtract them from the campaign’s total revenue and cost.
Compare the resulting revenue and cost – if revenue > cost, then the condition is met.
Checking for Level 2 Positive Signs:
If the first condition of ROI > 0% is NOT met, check for the following “Level 2 Positive Signs”.
Level 2 Positive Signs
-Amount of profits from placements that have made 2 conversions or more, add up to greater than $5/day.
-At least one Major Traffic Segment that is in profit by more than $5/day, with 2 conversions or more.
Amount of profits from placements that have made 2 conversions or more, add up to greater than $5/day:
In Voluum, set date range to life of campaign, display placement stats, click on the “Profits” column header to sort placements by descending profits. Add up the profits ONLY for placements that have made 2 conversions or more.
We’re not done yet – to estimate the profits per day, we would need to extrapolate based on data we have.
Next – find out how many hours the campaign has been receiving traffic up to now. To illustrate using an example: Let’s say the campaign has been running on and off during the dates 30-Oct and 31-Oct, you would set start and end dates to 30-Oct, set the dropdown filter to “Hour of Day”, count how many hours have received visits, then do the same for 31-Oct, and add the two to find out the total hours.
Lastly – calculate the estimated profits per day. If it’s >$5, then the condition is met.
Here’s an example to illustrate the calculation: Let’s say total profits from placements with 2 or more conversions, is $4. And the total hours the campaign received traffic, is 15 hours. We can estimate the daily profits over 24 hours like this:
24 hours x $4 / 15 hours = $6.40/day profits
Since $6.40 > $5, the condition is met.
At least one Major Traffic Segment that is in profit by more than $5/day, with 2 conversions or more:
We’ve already defined above what Major Traffic Segments are. Here, we need to look for a Major Traffic Segment that is 1)in profit, 2)has 2 conversions or more, and 3)profits/day > $5.
How to check: Go into Voluum stats for your campaign, set the date range to the life of your campaign, and set the first dropdown filter to the various parameters: Mainly Browser, OS, and Device Type, but you can try some of the others as well (no need to see “Mobile Carriers” since we’re only targeting a single carrier).
When you see a Major Traffic Segment that’s in profit by 2 conversions or more, calculate the profits/day like we did for the placement stats in the other Level 2 Positive Sign above.
Example:
Let’s say that the total hours the campaign was receiving traffic, is again 15 hours. We can estimate the daily profits over 24 hours like this:
24 hours x $5.51 / 15 hours = $8.82/day profits
Since $8.82 > $5, the condition is met.
Again – it is important to confirm that the Major Traffic Segment you’ve identified, can be targeted by itself at the traffic source.
If at least one of the 2 “Level 2 Positive Signs” above is found, proceed to the next step. Otherwise, stop the campaign here.
(Reminder: Update Campaign Journal.)
9)Run campaign for approximately one day, while cutting placements using non-aggressive rules.
First of all, you need to estimate how much the campaign can spend in a day, then increase your budget by this amount.
Previously, you’ve already checked the total number of hours the campaign had been receiving traffic. And of course you already know how much money you’ve spent up to now (if you forget, just check Voluum stats – you’ve already updated that manually, remember?)
So again, estimate how much the campaign can spend in a day based on that information.
Example: Campaign had been receiving traffic for 15 hours, and the total spend is $25. 24 hours x $25 / 15 hours = $40/day <— This would be the estimated daily budget.
You can then add $40 to both the “Daily Campaign Budget” and “Total Campaign Budget” values on PropellerAds. (Make sure to deposit more money if necessary.)
Again, because quite a bit of budget is being spent here, I would recommend that you not wait until the budget finishes spending, before cutting placements. If you have the time, check placements stats multiple times throughout the day and cut placements according to non-aggressive rules.
When checking placement stats, set date range to life of campaign.
(Reminder: Update Campaign Journal.)
10)Campaign profitable when blacklisted placements excluded?
First, find a list of zones you’ve blacklisted – you can find these in PropellerAds’ “Zone limitation” section in your campaign’s settings.
For each of these blacklisted placements, look up in Voluum, their revenue and cost, and subtract them from the campaign’s total revenue and cost.
Compare the resulting revenue and cost – if revenue > cost, then the condition is met, proceed to Step 11.
Otherwise, proceed to Step 12.
(Reminder: Update Campaign Journal.)
(CONTINUED IN POST BELOW…)
发表评论