Thread: Day 11: Intro to Testing & Optimization (Funnelflux)

In the previous lesson, we've set up your very first campaign together.

The $10 budget should have been spent by now. So we should have some stats to look at!

You may have made your first conversion by this point - if that's the case, then CONGRATULATIONS! Seeing your first conversion is always exciting! And I wish you many, many more in the near future.

If you don't yet see your first conversion, don't be disappointed - they will come, and very soon.

I'm not going into details on HOW to optimize a campaign - because we likely don't have enough conversions at this point to make any optimization decisions.

What I'll do in this lesson is just to guide you through how to drill down to various stats in Funnelflux, and give a VERY general overview of what campaign optimization is about.

I'll talk more on optimization in later lessons, but this primer will prepare you well for what's to come.


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ACTION & EXPLANATION

In this section I'll be weaving explanation into action, as I'll be asking you to drill down into various stats, and describing briefly what we're looking at/for. After that I'll have a separate EXPLANATION section to cover further explanations.


In Funnelflux, click on "Analytics" from the left menu > "Reporting" tab at the top.



Click in the "Date Range" field and specify a date range to include all the stats you've run up to this point ("7 days" should be enough). Click "Apply".



There are 2 drop-down menus you can work with to display stats. There's the "Show Attributes" menu which lists all the values that are detected by Funnelflux. Funnelflux has the ability to detect information about each visitor sent by the traffic source, such as what device and OS they're using etc. etc.



And then there's the "Custom Field" menu, which contains a list of values that are passed back by the traffic sources - including PropellerAds and PopAds:



So where did these names come from? Remember when you were adding PopAds as a new traffic source in Funnelflux, you loaded a template of PopAds that was provided by Funnelflux? Let's take a look right now.

Go to "Page and Sources" in the left menu > "Traffic Sources" tab > click on the edit icon for "PopAds":



Expand the "Tracking Fields" section - remember how I took you through how to modify those tracking tokens? The names in the "Field name" column are what you saw in the "Custom menu" menu earlier.



And how does PopAds pass these values? Remember when you were creating a campaign in Funnelflux, you had to choose PopAds as the traffic source? When you did that, the resulting Funnelflux campaign url automatically included PopAds tokens:

https://ffdomain.com/fts/alphanumeri...sid=[OSID]

So every time PopAds sends a visitor to this campaign url, it would automatically detect information such as what device and OS each visitor is using etc. etc., then replace all the variables in curly brackets with actual values. And Funnelflux would store these values in its database - which is why we can drill down to them now.

All these variables you can choose in tracker reports are a mix of values detected by Funnelflux and values passed back by PopAds (and other traffic sources) every time it shows a visitor your campaign url.

(Don't worry too much if you're not understanding how tracking tokens work - I'll explain tracking in detail in a future lesson.)


In Funnelflux, you can drill down to virtually UNLIMITED levels of data deep, unlike most other trackers which limited you to a few. So let's see an example now!

Go back to "Analytics" from left menu > "Reporting" tab. Choose values to display from both the "Show Attributes" and "Add Custom Field" menus for example in this order:




Spend 15 minutes drilling down to the various variables and different levels of different combinations yourself, just to get an idea on what kinds of data is available.


All this data can give you the insight required to make wise campaign optimization decisions. This is one of the main reasons why having a tracker is so important.



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EXPLANATION

First of all, let's define the goal of optimization.

The goal of campaign optimization is to maximize profits.

(You may be thinking "DUH!", but you'd be surprised at how many new affiliates would try to optimize for highest ROI - they are not the same thing. See "Mistake #7 " in this post.)

And how can you accomplish that goal? Answer: By controlling the 3 main campaign elements:

Offer, Landing Page, and Traffic.

These are the 3 pillars of a pop campaign. You buy visitors (traffic) and send them to a landing page to presell them on the offer, a percentage of them will click through the page to arrive at the offer, and a percentage of those will convert on the offer. We need to optimize these 3 elements so that the campaign will generate profits for us.

And how do you optimize a campaign to profits by manipulating these 3 campaign elements?

1)By split-testing landing pages and offers until finding a combination that converts well.

2)By controlling which traffic segments to target - which can be achieved by a)optimizing the bid, and b)optimizing campaign targeting (country, device, browser, carrier, etc.) at the traffic source.

Here's my definition of a "Traffic Segment": It's a segment of all the traffic you receive, that you can drill down into stats to display. Examples of traffic segments are: Android OS, Chrome mobile browser, T-Mobile USA mobile carrier, and any specific placement - or "zone" as PropellerAds calls them.

(If you're not familiar with how pop ads work: The traffic network - PropellerAds in this case - are in collaboration with webmasters that are willing to add to their site a piece of code given by PropellerAds, that would allow PropellerAds to display ads on their site. I refer to these sites as "placements" - they're also called "publisher sites" by the traffic source. PropellerAds charges us to show our ads on these publisher sites, then pays a part of that money to the webmasters.)

In any specific campaign, and at any given time, when you drill down to the various variables to view the different traffic segments, some will be in green (i.e. profitable) and others will be in red (i.e. in loss). The trick is to either just target the profitable segments, or to stop targeting (i.e. "cut") the unprofitable segments to make the campaign profitable.

Everyone does testing and optimization a bit differently, but here's the general approach in a nutshell:

1)Split-test landing pages and offers until finding a combination that turns enough traffic segments profitable, to result in a satisfactory amount of total profits across these green segments.

2)At the traffic source, either a)target the profitable traffic segments (an approach also referred to as "whitelisting") or b)exclude the unprofitable traffic segments (an approach also referred to as "blacklisting"). (The testing of bids is also a necessary part of this process - more on this in a future lesson.)

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Of course there is a LOT more to campaign optimization than just what I've described above, and I will go into campaign optimization in more detail in the next lesson and in future lessons. But I hope this lesson has provided you with a bird's-eye-view of what campaign optimization involves.



Amy

Hi @andybd! Sure you can post here! But another good idea would be to create a follow-along thread here:

https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...-Follow-Alongs


Some advice for your first campaign:

-You should test at least 3 landers. 5+ would be even better, but at least 3 - one per popular sweeps styles: Survey, gift boxes, spinning wheel. And please make sure they are all functioning correctly (i.e. all the links work, all the text and images are displayed, the wheel spins, the boxes open, etc. etc.) Lastly, make sure to optimize them to load FAST!

-Also make sure you're bidding average, to ensure traffic quality is OK.

-Only IF you are sure your landers and traffic quality are good, that you can conclude your offers are bad. This is important. So if you've included enough popular and fast-loading landers, and bidding average to ensure traffic quality, and an offer STILL doesn't convert after a cost of 10x payout, then you can conclude that the offer is probably bad. So just test another offer.


Some advice for your second campaign:

-If you think an offer may convert with and without a landing page, you can split-test landing pages AND direct-linking at the same time, to see which converts the best. Results will be more accurate than to test direct-linking first, and then test landing pages.

-Please test landers that are COMPLETELY different first (i.e. lander STYLES), before testing landers that are only slightly different (i.e. lander VERSIONS). For example, test a survey lander, a spinning wheel lander, and a gift box lander first. Then take the winner lander and test different versions of that, e.g. different images and colors.

-Please make sure your landers are optimized for speed - the lander CTRs are very low.

-You mentioned that the speed of traffic was slower with a lander? That is very strange, because theoretically the traffic source shouldn't have a preference whether you're using a lander or not. Are you sure you're not looking at the number of clicks from lander to offer?


Regarding the postback: We should do some troubleshooting together!

Please show me the following urls (you can change a few digits/letters to protect privacy):

1)The original postback url from your tracker.

2)The modified postback url you inserted into the affiliate network.

3)The original affiliate offer link you copied from the affiliate network.

4)The modified affiliate offer link you inserted into the tracker (when adding a new offer).

5)The outgoing url you inserted into your landers.

Also: Please PM me your campaign links - I want to check your tracker redirect speed and landing page loading speeds.

Please reply here to let me know you've PM'ed me - otherwise I don't check PMs. Thanks!



Amy

Hi Antonio! You're very welcome! No need to apologize at all! You work at your own speed - just know we'll be here to help!

For checking lander speed: What tool are you using? And what are the speeds? Are you using a CDN?

As for traffic speed: 3 hours vs. 3-7 days? Something doesn't sound right - are you sure the targeting and bid were exactly the same in the direct-linked vs. lander campaigns?

Please post in this thread to let me know when you've PMed and I'll check for it - thanks!



Amy


Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums

Originally Posted by vortex

Hi Antonio! You're very welcome! No need to apologize at all! You work at your own speed - just know we'll be here to help!

For checking lander speed: What tool are you using? And what are the speeds? Are you using a CDN?

As for traffic speed: 3 hours vs. 3-7 days? Something doesn't sound right - are you sure the targeting and bid were exactly the same in the direct-linked vs. lander campaigns?

Please post in this thread to let me know when you've PMed and I'll check for it - thanks!



Amy


Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums

Hi Amy,


I don't use any tools to check the lander speed or traffic speed. I saw, in the stats of propeller ads that they match the pace to give some feedback. As I told in the previous post, this is completely automatic by themself, and there is a disclaimer that it's something in a beta version.


Furthermore, for the big difference between direct link and landers, I follow the same pattern found in this guide, so I supposed that the targeting was the same.


Last but not least, I sent a PM to you.


[edit] I use cloudflare as requested by funnel flux


Thanks for your help.

Ciao
Antonio

I don't use any tools to check the lander speed or traffic speed. I saw, in the stats of propeller ads that they match the pace to give some feedback. As I told in the previous post, this is completely automatic by themself, and there is a disclaimer that it's something in a beta version.

You can use something like : https://tools.pingdom.com/ to test the loading speed of your campaign/landers. It's not 100% accurate, but should give you an idea where you stand and whether you need to improve it.

Originally Posted by andybd

Hi Amy,


I don't use any tools to check the lander speed or traffic speed. I saw, in the stats of propeller ads that they match the pace to give some feedback. As I told in the previous post, this is completely automatic by themself, and there is a disclaimer that it's something in a beta version.


Furthermore, for the big difference between direct link and landers, I follow the same pattern found in this guide, so I supposed that the targeting was the same.


Last but not least, I sent a PM to you.


[edit] I use cloudflare as requested by funnel flux


Thanks for your help.

Ciao
Antonio

*whince* Please DO check lander speed and optimize it so that your landers load as quickly as possible! Try to get the loading speed down to 1s or lower if possible, and at the slowest absolutely not over 2s. The lander loading speed can break your entire campaign - it's THAT important!

Because pop traffic is interruption traffic - i.e. it just pops up out of the blue without any initiation/request from the visitor - NOBODY will wait around for the pop ad to load. So if your lander loads slowly, people will close it before they even see the ad. I go over all this in the 40-day tutorial.

Thanks for the PM'ing all the links! The offer link you insert into Funnelflux is incorrect - it should look like this:

https://www.offerlink.rocks/offer/123456|12345?tag={hit}&website={trafficsource-id}

(The first part of your link will look different - just make sure to mirror everything after the question mark. All your other Mobidea offers can follow the same format.)

The rest of your links look correct.

This should work - but in the off chance that it doesn't, please do let me know!



Amy

Hey there, did you create a separate offer for each landing in FF or do you run all landings through one offer URL?

In case you run all landings through one offer URL you won´t find the stats in FF, you find it in Zeydoo directly.

In Zeydoo go to statistics



Then click "Select Filter" and select "Offer" from the dropdown



Click in the middle field and choose the offer you want to check



In the right dropdown then select "Landings"



Then you can see the stats for the different landings for that offer.

Glad to help you let us know when there is anything else.

Originally Posted by leo999

Good day!
One day my company was running in propellerAds with one offer from Haka.
https://yadi.sk/i/Lz9TjVQWjXtUBw
few conversions - nothing to analyze, what i can improve?
The next lessons are already on the topic of PopAds, and then landing pages. But I was stuck at the initial stage, you have no action to do if there are no conversions. Do I need to change the offer, bid, offer source, check several offers at once?

I go into what to do if there aren't enough conversions, in this lesson:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ing-Placements

Bid testing is explained here:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...7-Testing-Bids

I want to introduce landing pages early on, because many newbies try to put it off for as long as they can, and this can really limit the types of offers they can run.

My best advice would be to just follow the entire tutorial through once, without going hardcore into testing offers etc. Once you have a basic idea how the whole process works including optimization and bid-testing, there will be time for mass-testing later.



Amy