Today, we present a case study of BobZhang, an affiliate marketer and an active Afflift forum user. His story is rather interesting, because BobZhang did a lot of experiments, discoveries, reconsiderations, and conclusions that may encourage and help every affiliate marketer.
Basic details
BobZhang has been in affiliate marketing for 5 months already. He was doing pretty well, but at some point, he realized that he wanted a self-challenge that would bring some more money and boost his skills. He wanted to get $3000 in 30 days, and this is how this case started.
Here are the campaign details:
- Traffic Source: PropellerAds for the test and some other sources for scaling + ProPush for additional monetization
- Tracking Tool: Voluum + Binom
- Affiliate Network: Zeydoo + Mobidea
- Type of Offer: Sweepstakes + Mobile Content
- Offer Payout: < $ 1
- GEOs: Tier-2 and Tier-3
- Goal: to make $3000 in the next 30 days (from August 16th to September 14th)
The last two months were pretty productive for BobZhang, but did he get what he wanted? Read to find out!
Day 1
BobZhang started with a couple of CPA campaigns to make a test and see which traffic satisfies him more - PropellerAds or Broker. And, of course, he used the ProPush Smart Tag and TrafficBack feature for additional optimization, which was a really good idea (you will see why). He had doubts about the pricing model to choose, so he switched between two of them, but finally stopped on RevShare.
The stats of the first day looked this way:
The earnings of the first day make $38.38, which is BobZhang’s average income. In total, he has 80+ campaigns at PropellerAds, around 20 GEOs, with only 30 campaigns that cost more than $1. Plus, he was running “some survey offer from Zeydoo and Mobidea”, as he also mentioned on the forum.
And the statistics look this way:
Here are the GEOs:
Day 2
The second day brought these numbers:
Since BobZhang changed his pricing model at ProPush a couple of times a day before, his profit from Smart Tag decreased a bit, but still the numbers continued growing.
Our partner did some more A/B testing of the same Survey offer from Zeydoo and Mobidea and concluded that Zeydoo was more efficient. As such, Mobidea stayed for backup.
Also, BobZhang found the three most profitable GEOs and tested them in a range of ad networks, spending about $8000 in three months, which was a significant sum.
However, the results were far from desired. Still, BobZhang gathered some useful data from his testing and distinguished the most converting offers, landing pages, GEOs, and targeting settings. Now he was trying to find another profitable traffic source in addition to PropellerAds.
Day 3
BobZhang’s efforts were rewarded with $38,5 in total, where PropellerAds brought:
And here are the numbers from ProPush Tag:
And also some additional money from TrafficBack, a special link that redirects users to a relevant offer in case they block/close/swipe away the opt-in window:
Basically, ProPush brought the most part of profit that day: $25. PropellerAds brought less income this time because BobZhang tested new offers, which took a part of his budget. One of the most efficient ways to use ProPush Tag is to cover your testing budget, which worked for BobZhang.
Another step of our partner was testing and comparing top GEOs for two chosen offers with a couple of different landing pages for each (also, for testing). Also, BobZhang’s personal manager at PropellerAds recommended two more Survey offers for testing.
So, in general, he created 6 campaigns at PropellerAds:
Day 4
Unfortunately, the 4th day was far from gladdening - BobZhang realized that he accidentally lost almost $100, because after topping up one of the advertising networks he used, not only the new offers were launched, but also the old ones. It happened automatically, and our partner didn’t notice that at once. When inactive offers started rolling, part of the purchased traffic went nowhere.
However, this day also brought some good news, and namely - profit.
It was $21.38, where most of the amount comes from PropellerAds and $1.48 - from TrafficBack.
Even when profits decrease, ProPush TrafficBack can still help you get at least some of your money back.
As for the changes, BobZhang added 4 new GEOs for 3 campaigns - these were aimed at data gathering and further optimization, plus - one campaign to test and distinguish which offer is the most converting.
Also, BobZhang started checking and stopping low-performing campaigns so as not to waste his budget in vain.
Day 5
The fifth day brought BobZhang $28 in total, where $6.8 was from ProPush Tag and $1.26 from TrafficBack. Here are his campaigns, launched for data gathering and testing:
Current strategy of BobZhang was launching a lot of campaigns and testing numerous offers and GEOs. Also, he used to choose the cheapest offers regarding payouts - not higher than $0.149.
These were two things he decided to rethink - offer prices and the amount of regularly launched new campaigns.
Day 6
This day was one of the most demonstrational in terms of ProPush efficiency. Namely, BobZhang lost $27 in PropellerAds, but ProPush brought him $25. So, thanks to ProPush, BobZhang lost only $2!
And here are the stats by GOEs:
BobZhang realized that the time had come to reduce the number of tests and try some offers with higher payouts to save his money.
He also made some optimization efforts and focused only on the most successful offers. He still continued testing creatives, GEOs, targeting, and more - to find the best way to promote chosen offers.
Day 7
This time, BobZhang did some polishing - he stopped testing new campaigns and optimized his most-converting ones. Now he stopped working with non-efficient targeting settings, landing pages, and scheduling.
One of the forum users suggested that BobZhang should try Direct Click traffic type, and he picked five GEOs and two offers to launch ten campaigns of this kind:
Day 9
This was the “greener” day for BobZhang, supposedly because Direct Click:
As you can see from the numbers, ProPush Tag and a TrafficBack feature are doing a great job. This time, they are rather sources of additional income than life-saving pillows to cover traffic expenses. As you can see, ProPush has a number of earning scenarios - all beneficial.
Day 10
Finally, BobZhang found his most successful GEOs due to the tests performed:
These were a bit more expensive than those he used to work with, but all in all - they also brought more profit. Unfortunately, a switch to more expensive GEOs ended up with some ROI drop (which is natural):
The offer performance still was not as stable as BobZhang expected:
And the budget invested in traffic was still pretty high. Thanks to ProPush, our partner managed to get a significant part of the testing budget back. Still, the deadline BobZhang set for himself just ended, so he decided to share some conclusions.
Small bottom line: Lessons learned
So, in general, BobZhang earned $871.42 in 30 days, where ProPush brought about 35%:
Even though the goal was to get $3000, this is also a very nice result. What is more, BobZhang managed to gather tons of useful information from his numerous tests and optimization efforts.
His main insights were:
- Always create black-and-white lists for the zones - this will help you reduce expenses and keep you working budget-efficiently;
- Test GEOs one by one and avoid numerous tests at the same time - this way, you will save your budget and won’t get confused with lumps of data;
- Ask fellow affiliates and your personal manager for recommendations and advice - sometimes, you really need a fresh look at your campaigns and some guidance.
But our partner decided to continue this challenge, so read what happened during the next month.
Challenge continues
After two weeks, 50% more profit was a reward for BobZhang’s efforts:
So, BobZhang decided to analyze campaigns by weeks, not by days, to get clearer information. And the third week of this big challenge ended up successfully - with $472. ProPush brought an additional income of about $260, which is more than a half.
Another week later, the challenge was finally over and BobZhang could boast of $1725, which was almost 60% of his initial aim - $3000.
So many things happened during the challenge period: BobZhang did a lot of testing, optimization, and communication with other affiliates. Some of his attempts were successful, some - not really. The only thing that stayed stable was ProPush - additional income to cover traffic expenses and extra money.
Whatever campaign you launch, never forget to add ProPush Tag to your landing page or website - this will help you get more money and feel more confident about your experiments. Good luck!
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