Diary it till i make it!

[akj]

I hope it isn't too early for a brand new member to create a diary for he's affiliate marketing pursuits and I am not very sure whether i need to put this thread under case study. Anyway, I did some research before joining Cpafix so I hope what I am doing is correct, if not hope you guys can lead me to the proper path to success.

So as of now, I am already accepted by Adsimilis. And thinking of promoting a international dating offer. I will be getting traffic from FB ads and unless my ads are disapprove i will be direct linking the offer.

As this is a non-us offer I was not able to get demographic for the offer from quantcast, adplanner. So I will target male between age of 21-50.

I am still confuse regarding angles, So if my definition is wrong please correct me.
As of now, I assume that angle have to do with the interest of targeted audience. So far I what I am thinking is to target male whom are interested in a certain sport. I had made a research and find out this particular sport is super popular in this country. So i am going to target audience whom had interest in the above mentioned sport and also target the those whom had interest in the legensd of the sport of this particular country.

I will proceed with selection of photos for the ad as well the short copy for the ad if only my idea of angling is correct.

So that is all for now.. hope to get opinions from you guys.

 

[david15923]

I always recommend to read this -> [STEP-BY-STEP] Facebook Ads Guide: Here is why you’re not making money! It's VERY indepth for a free guide, read it all, it will eliminate most of your questions

About direct linking: you shouldn't do it, a lot of people said it worked for them at first but then they got banned. What you should do (this is the minimum) is to get a free .TK domain and then track like you would.

For example: dategirls.tk -> redirect to sub-id1. Sub-id 1 if for 21-25
datechicks.tk -> redirect to sub-id 2. Sub-id 2 is for 26-30
etc.

Also, what you can do is, let's imagine you are promoting the site match.com. If you put the link of your offer it will geo redirect people from other countrys. So, if you say it is a dating site, but the reviewers get redirected to a survey site they won't accept it. If you put your .tk domain redirecting to the match.com you won't have problems.

Good luck

 

[akj]

hey david15923, thanks for the advice. About the direct linking.. So ur suggestion is that there is no need for landing page but i have to redirect my selected offer with a domain and also track it at the same time. but do i exactly do that?

I have heard of prosper202 but what is the purpose of tracking and the benefits? Would not the cpa network have a tracking for the offer?

Plus getting the tracking done will need money for the hosting, I am afraid that will affect my budget. Is it necessary to get propser202 set up?

And also my concern is the angle. Is my idea of angle is correct? Do i need to change anything?

Sorry for the strings of questions please pardon this fresh newbie.

 

[Randize]

I think there's a bit of misunderstanding in the term direct linking. Direct linking means sending the traffic directly to the offer page. You can still use a direct link to track from your subid, so if you have different traffic source, you know where it came from.

The purpose of tracking is to optimize your campaign with the data that you have tracked, some network may have the tools you need to track your campaign. But often times, some just done have what you need, plus having to track all data at multiples place can be real pain in the ass. Prosper202 allows you to track everything under one roof for all your campaigns, if you are using ppc, you can find out the keywords' CTR with the specific ads that showing to the audience. I've just started with p202 too, it was really confusing at first, and still is now, but the best way is to start using it soon, a lot of it will soon be clear. It's really hard to explain tracking in linear way, as it can be complex under different types of campaign, it's one of those thing that you have to take action in order to get the feel out of it. So far it's most useful for my ppc campaign.

And yes, you will need to have you own hosting site to host p202. If you want to be successful, I believe every successful CPA marketers track their campaigns, the tools may be different, but tracking is essential.

Your idea of angle is correct, I've been trying lots of angles, and sometimes the best angle may not turn out to be what we had expected. Sometimes the least anticipated angle will turn out to be the winning campaign, at the end, it's all about split testing. It's normal for beginners to try 10-20 campaign, and only find 1-2 winning campaign. It's the learning curve, if it's that easy, everyone would have been rich.

Keep asking questions, I'm sure it'll help me too. If what I said here is wrong, somebody will correct me as well, in the end we all learning.

 

[akj]

thanks for replying randize. which hosting is affordable and recommended for tracking?

 

[Randize]

A lot of people recommend, bluehost, though the common hostgator is fine too. You can use any web host with cpanel (for it's common and easier to get support when you are having trouble), and make sure they support php and mysql. If you use the two I mentioned, you shouldn't have any problem with hosting p202. Further more, you can use the hosting space to do you landing pages, so there's a lot of benefit to have a hosting site.

If you are just looking for tracking tool alone, there are bevo media and few others paid service. Maybe you can try bevo.

 

[david15923]

hey david15923, thanks for the advice. About the direct linking.. So ur suggestion is that there is no need for landing page but i have to redirect my selected offer with a domain and also track it at the same time. but do i exactly do that?

I have heard of prosper202 but what is the purpose of tracking and the benefits? Would not the cpa network have a tracking for the offer?

Plus getting the tracking done will need money for the hosting, I am afraid that will affect my budget. Is it necessary to get propser202 set up?

And also my concern is the angle. Is my idea of angle is correct? Do i need to change anything?

Sorry for the strings of questions please pardon this fresh newbie.

I wasn't saying you need a landing page, I was saying that you need to redirect. You can do that with any domain (.com, .net, etc.) but the .tk ones are free so you don't spend any money. And by redirecting I mean: You have a unique link to promote your offer. In peerfly it is PeerFly :: We Have an Offer for That. When people see "Date bla bla at Match.com" and look at the link and it says "peerfly.com/xxxxxxxxxxxxx" the CR will probably be lower.

If you are worried about low budget do the tracking as I told you:

1st get a .Tk domain related to your offer
2nd It will ask you where you want your visitors to get redirected. Put your offer link with a sub id. Ask your affiliate manager how you can use insert sub ids. Name it for example "adcopy_1"
3rd open word or exel or something like that and say that "adcopy_1 = 22-25 Male"
4rth do the same thing but get another domain, name it "adcopy_2" and in word write "adcopy_2 = 22-25 female" etc. (do this for each ad copy)
5th Run the campaign and then if you have "adcopy_1" = 5 conversions and "adcopy_2" = 0 conversions you will know that males are better suited for this offer (that's an example).

It will give you more work, but if a domain costs you 10$ + 3$ for a cheap domain, and if the offer doesn't do well you will have to buy more domains, but it's more simple to track i think. In the end depends on your budget.

Also:

4. DECIDE ON THE ANGLE

It seems that most people don’t even know what an angle is, and it’s sad, because building a successful campaign on Facebook without having an angle is very, very hard.

Bascially, an angle is an approach, a strategy that you use to reach a specific audience and make them relate to your campaign.

For example, if you’re going to promote a dating offer to young males, you could try to target men who like soccer. It’s very easy, you just need to use interests related to soccer such as name of teams, events and famous players. Then, you could use images of girls wearing t-shirts of famous soccer teams and say things like “Girls like it too!” or “Find someone like you”.

We are not allowed to mention the interest we’re targeting in the ad copy, but it’s easy to find a way around it using the images.

Of course, this was just an example, you could use other sports, movies, books, events, hobbies, food, drinks, etc… The most important thing is that you use an angle to reach a specific audience and then find a way to connect the dots between your offer the interest of your audience.

I also recommend you to come up with more than one angle before you start testing a campaign. It’s not every angle that works, so you want to have options.

 

[Miles_Ahead]

For domains, you can also check free hosts like dyndns.
They have a lot of host names which would work with different verticals, and then you just use a prefix-subdomain that matches your offer.
The easiest way to set up the site is to have the subdomain point(ip) to your server/hosting and have a virtual host directive to catch the subdomain( depending on if you use a cpanel or not this might be different).
I have only been dealing with non-panel dedicated boxes for a couple years-so I am a little rusty to cpanel.

**good advice david15923

 

[akj]

hey david thanks again for the heads up. reading thru and trying to apply what i can.