Traffic Factory Review

Introduction

You know the Mobidea Academy has a wicked ad network review series you’ve been checking!

Now, we’ll present to you the latest addition to this great tradition:

A top-notch Traffic Factory Review!

If you’re interested in this ad network but you’re not sure about how to begin, it’s time to pay attention and read this review.

Already work with Traffic Factory and have read both our Case Study and the post Traffic Factory – Part 1 – Everything You Should Know?

Then maybe it’s time to check our detailed analysis, exploring the different features that Traffic Factory has to offer.

In this thorough review, we’ll analyze targeting, banners, optimization and many more features.

It may look like an easy-going ad network with simple optimization rules.

Don’t be fooled, though!

You should always be careful because of the large volumes available that may exponentially increase your costs.

Ready?

Let’s go!

Traffic Factory Review: Overview & Features

Some years ago the owners of two sites, xnxx.com and xvideos.com, decided to create their own ad network in order to sell the traffic.

This was the trigger for the creation of Traffic Factory.

These are two of the most important adult websites with huge numbers of users every day.

Since the ad network has exclusivity for both websites, volumes may reach amazing values with high-quality traffic.

With these high volumes, it’s crucial that you get all the available info from the campaigns.

That’s why you should definitely check Mobidea’s new Affiliate Tracking Software Capabilities and get remarkable amounts of data fast!

Moreover, in order for you to get more info from your campaigns, you should always work with dynamic tracking.

Dynamic Tracking is a parameter added in the Smartlink.

It allows you to have info (the one that interests you) every time there’s a click, impression and conversion.

The most popular Dynamic Trackings are:

• campaign.id: the ID of the campaign
• user.device: device information
• banner.id: the banner ID
• categories: the category
• user.region: the region where the actions have been performed. You can access the region’s codes here.

Campaign Creation

It’s quite easy to create a campaign on Traffic Factory.

Here’s the first menu you’ll see:

Choose the core sites.

The core sites are those that are mentioned above.

Then, fill the next fields – Name, URL, Budget options and dayparting.

For the campaign type field, you’ve gotta choose one of the options.

Campaign types

The campaign type is divided by source (mobile, desktop or feature phone traffic) and by size (338 x 235, 928 x 244, 180 x 1030, feature phone sizes, and popunder).

There are two types of campaigns:

a) banner campaigns, which target smartphones and have higher volumes

b) feature phones, which target feature phones with lower volumes

Let’s go into detail and check them both!

Banner Campaigns

338 x 235

This banner is also called square banner.

There are always two spots – named “Next To Video” (NTV), NTVA and NTVB – associated with this banner.

It’s placed at the top right corner of the website, side by side with the video.

Traffic Factory has been updating this spot to be on the video player for a while now.

It’s called an in-player square banner.

It’s placed at the top of the video and it’s similar to an interstitial.

928 x 244

This is a footer banner placed at the bottom of the website.

180 x 1030

This banner is placed at the right side of the website and it’s called “tower.”

For the xnxx website, it’s already present on the homepage.

However, for the xvideos website, this banner appears only when you click a category or do a search.

You may see the correct placement of each spot in the next image.

Feature Phones

These campaigns target exclusively mobile phones which aren’t “Smart” but have an internet connection.

These phones are still being used in most of the regions with developing countries such as in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa.

The website offers two different spots and covers a wide range of phones.

These are the two banner sizes available:

• 120 x 60: called “Button 2” and placed at the top of the website of smaller phones
• 234 x 60: this banner is placed at the top of the website of bigger phones and is called “Half banner”

When you’re done filling the available fields, click “save” and you’ll automatically add a new campaign.

In this step, you’ll have two menus, as shown in the image.

I’ll later detail the banner options.

Now, I’ll go deeper and let you know more about the targeting options!

1. Targets

First, you need to detail your targeting.

You can do it by adding a new target under the targets menu.

You’ll have a new menu, where you can choose the different options you wanna target.

Here are the different targeting options available on Traffic Factory.

Geo Targets

Traffic Factory has the best GEO target options.

The basic selection is the whole world or the different continents.

I don’t recommend picking different continents.

Why?

Because you’ll be mixing different countries with different performances and targeting.

Want a better selection?

Then you should select the country you wish to target or even the region inside the country that you want to go for.

For a more specific targeting, you may also go to the option “GEO-fences map” and select a circle around a point in the whole world with a maximum radius of 50 km, as you can see in the next image.

It may be important, in case it’s a highly-unbalanced country with rich cities and a poor countryside.

With these fancy options, you can even target your favorite city!

Devices & Operating Systems

Traffic Factory has got some devices and operating systems available for you to select.

You may find options for Android, iPhone, and tablets.

Even so, not all devices/OS are available.

They’re included in an option called “Other Smartphones” which you may decide to target.

There are also special campaigns to target the older phones which already have an internet connection.

These are called “feature phones campaigns.”

Carrier Targeting

There’s no carrier targeting!

You can’t select a specific carrier or even just select 3G or Wi-Fi.

This has a huge impact on your media buying strategy as you’ll always have huge amounts of traffic, due to the Wi-Fi traffic.

Categories

You may find a number of Categories which you may target or uncheck.

Bid

On Traffic Factory, the bids are set in CPC.

This means that you pay for each Unique click (i.e. for each different IP value.)

There’s no SmartBid option available, which means you’ve gotta be careful with your strategy.

The bid method in this ad network has been recently changed.

The bid positions are split in different boxes.

Each box represents the page view per unique user.

This means the first box allows you to bid for the first page visualization of a unique user.

The second box allows you to bid for the second visualization and so on and so forth.

The tenth box controls more than 10 or more visualizations of a unique user.

Therefore, you can increase or decrease bids depending on your performance in each box.

It works like a capping control of your traffic where you can bid for each position.

As usual, your bid has to be higher than the minimum in order to receive traffic.

The bids are updated each Tuesday.

The bids which are below the minimum targets will cease to receive traffic.

The button below allows you to avoid that.

You can leave it ON in case you want the system to increase your bid and match the new one.

Later on, after you’ve run your campaign for a while, you can check a column called “Yesterday’s average position“ on the campaign’s menu targets.

This column gives you information about the average click position.

Let’s suppose you have this column equal to 3.

It means that – on average – the unique users that click your banner come from the box 3.

In other words, it means that – on average – you’re getting clicks from users’ page view 3.

As you finish and save your selection, the next menu has to be filled.

It’s called Banners so let’s check it out!

2. Banners

On Traffic Factory, banners have strict rules (besides the normal banner rules requested by the partners of the offers and applied to each operator.)

All words are allowed by the ad network.

Even so, images should always be present, otherwise the campaign/banner won’t be accepted.

The accepted formats are JPG, GIF and PNG with a maximum size of 1024 KB.

You may choose two kinds of targeting.

How to upload banners on Traffic Factory?

Regarding the upload of banners, Traffic Factory is different from the common ad networks.

Normally, you upload the banners you want to use when creating the campaign.

Here, in order to upload a banner, you’ve gotta go to the “banners” tab and click “upload banner.”

You’ll be asked to insert the Smartlink for this banner in the URL field which – at this point – is optional.

Since you’re now in step number 2, you can also select the banner files.

You can pick several banners by clicking on the “Add upload” field.

Once you’re done selecting all of the banners you wanted to upload, you can submit the banners for approval.

How can you submit banners for approval on Traffic Factory?

By clicking on “submit all upload fields.”

How Important are Banners on a Campaign?

As I’ve stated above, the volumes in Traffic Factory are huge.

This means the banners have an even more important role on the performance and future results.

CTR is the most important metric you have to define the quality of a banner because it gives you – in the form of a percentage – the proportion of clicks to the number of impressions for each banner.

There’s another parameter which is important in a banner:

CR (Conversion Rate)

The CTR – on Traffic Factory – is normally an indicator for the CR (the higher the number of clicks, the more conversions you have.)

There’s only one particular scenario in which it can be misleading.

Let’s suppose you have a banner which is very specific for an offer.

It’ll only generate a few clicks and visits, because the banner is just too specific.

Even so, imagine the person who clicks and checks the offer.

Who are these guys?

They’re probably people who were already expecting this too-specific offer.

This means the number of conversions for each click will be high!

Never forget:

You should always verify the CR by cross-matching the costs and revenue info, i.e. margin, for each banner.

A tracking platform such as the one provided by Mobidea will make your life easier at this point.

Why?

Because it combines all the information!

How to Have a Group of Banners With a Good Quality

If you’ve read our article on banner tips you’re on your way.

Even so, I’ll still emphasize some of the “rules” you should follow in order to have the best possible quality.

There’s a golden rule for the number of banners you can use:

A minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5.

This obviously depends on the volume of the campaign/segment.

If you use more than 5, you’ll have to spend precious time and money in order to be able to analyze and compare the different performances.

In case you use fewer than 3, you can’t compare performances for different banners.

If you have a campaign which provides you with a large amount of traffic, you don’t have to worry about the quantity of data.

Therefore, you can use up to 5 banners.

What if you have a campaign with low traffic?

Then you should use 3 banners.

Your traffic will only be divided by 3 and you’ll have enough have data to compare performances.

The banners you choose for the campaign should be directed to the users/public which you’re targeting.

The user’s reaction to a banner depends on the country, culture, language, age, sex and other parameters.

A first step will be to understand the public target you’re trying to reach.

Let’s suppose you want to target a specific region of a country where the public target speaks a particular language.

If you choose to use banners with text, you should write banner ad copy in the language of the region.

As you already know, Traffic Factory only has two websites.

You may try to take advantage of this and create banners which attempt to simulate the environment of the websites by using similar colors, and other features of the website.

In conclusion, if you have just begun optimizing, remember that banners are the first and most important parameter to optimize!

Banner Statistics

Traffic Factory doesn’t give a wide range of info.

You can get info per banner.

For each banner, you can check impressions, clicks and CTR.

If you enter “actions” and click the stats for this campaign, you’ll see a table containing impressions, number of clicks (which are unique clicks), CTR, spending, average bid, and eCPC (not important because it’s computed by dividing the spending by the impressions) by day for that specific banner.

If you’ve already optimized the banner and want to see the stats for the campaign, you can enter Actions -> Stats for this campaign.

You’ll see a table similar to the one for the banners shown below.

Each line corresponds to a specific day.

Banner Optimization

As you’ve already seen, in this ad network the banners are a core piece of the puzzle.

You may look at the performance of banners by looking at the CTR, the margin you’re getting, and the stats.

The first thing to do is to select a period which allows for a good amount of data.

Then, you get the revenues by banner for that period, recurring to either Mobidea or any other Affiliate Network.

You check stats by banner, select the same period and compute the margin by calculating the difference between costs and revenues.

The tracking platform automatically computes it for you.

Look at CTR and margin and compare the different performances for each.

A high CR (Conversion Rate) will increase your profit even if the CTR is not so high.

Do not forget that banners with a high CTR usually result in a high CR.

When needed, replace the banner with the lowest performance for a new, preferably similar to the best-performing banner of the campaign.

3. How to Choose Your Bid

Just like on other ad networks, the ranking position is connected with quality traffic.

A higher position corresponds to a higher quality; a lower position corresponds to a lower quality.

If you’re performing your first optimization and have already changed the banners, you should compute the eCPC for the campaign.

On this ad network, you pay per click (CPC) which means you’ve gotta divide your earnings by the number of unique clicks.

Let’s try to go step by step!

Step Number 1

You select a range of dates which give you the chance to gather an acceptable collection of data.

Try not to go too far in the past, though.

If the segment has large volumes, I recommend you get the last 5-7 days.

If the segment has a low volume of traffic and no fluctuations were observed in the offers, I advise you to consider a larger period (10-15 days.)

Step Number 2

You go to Mobidea (or another Affiliate Network) and select the dates for the campaign.

This is how you can get the revenue.

Step Number 3

You go to the global stats of the campaign on Traffic Factory and select the same period.

You’ll get the number of clicks.

Don’t forget:

This ad network works with CPC!

Step Number 4

You can get your eCPC by dividing your revenue by the number of clicks.

You may change it by clicking in Click for max Bid (CPC).

On the menu, you’ve got your current bid and “Yesterday’s average position.”

Step Number 5

When you reach this point, you have some options depending on your conditions.

Let’s think about three possible scenarios.

Scenario A

The easy scenario, in which your eCPC puts you in a good position.

For example, if you’re trying to get the best position for page view 1, you should leave the minimum in boxes 2-10 and increase the bid in box 1.

If you don’t like to be aggressive, you may leave the bid equal to the eCPC but you shouldn’t forget that there’s no Smart CPC available.

Scenario B

If you’ve got an eCPC which does not allow your bid to be high enough to get a good position, you’ve got two options:

Option 1

You invest more money, increasing the bid, which I wouldn’t recommend.

Option 2

You work the other boxes in order to have more clicks from boxes 2 and 3 i.e. try to increase the “Yesterday’s average position“ without going up to very high bids.

Option 3

If your eCPC only allows you to get an inferior position:

• you leave the bid equal to the eCPC and work the other bid boxes
• you’ve been defeated by the campaign and you pause it. This should be your last resort – the action after you’ve tried all the other available options

4. Capping

On Traffic Factory, each box works as a capping.

Let’s suppose you’re getting great results with a high bid in box 1 but you keep minimum bid at boxes 2-10.

Maybe it’s time to think about getting more traffic from these ones.

You’ll see that your profit will go through the roof!

5. New Targets

I advise you to begin with two or three campaigns and do a specific targeting on each one.

For example, you may choose Mexico, Android.

Let’s suppose you have begun with an “In player square” or a “square campaign.”

If the results are positive, you may consider creating a new campaign for the other two spots, tower and footer.

Thanks to the dynamic tracking or the tracking platform which you should implement, you have important info about categories and regions.

You may run test campaigns for the ones in which you’ve got good results.

To do this, just target specific regions or cities (using the GEO-fence tool) in Mexico or categories.

If the results are even better, you should consider getting all the traffic to increase capping.

Another test you may run is to open the devices target.

If you’re just targeting Mexico-Android, you should create new campaigns in order to target iPhones, Windows Phones, Other Smartphones, Tablets and iPads in Mexico.

Don’t forget to test feature phone campaigns for developing countries.

Traffic Factory has large volumes in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

6. Knowing When To Stop

Stopping a campaign should always be a kind of last resort.

Nevertheless, there are some cases in which the segment just isn’t profitable.

If you’ve tried the different ranking positions and banners as a last strike, I advise you to leave the best-performing banners and set the minimum bid.

If you’re still losing money with this selection, you should consider resetting your target choice or even stopping the country.

It seems pretty simple to understand that Traffic Factory is an easy-going ad network.

On Traffic Factory, you can test different banners, putting your designer skills to good use.

You can invent, and create new and – hopefully – better banners.

Traffic Factory Verdict

Traffic Factory was created to be easy to use.

The targeting is defined in a simple way and it’s a really intuitive display.

There are only two websites for mobile – xnxx.com and xvideos.com.

However, the volumes for these websites are crazy.

You can easily get high costs in a few hours.

You only have one payment model – CPC – but you can control several boxes which correspond to the page view of each unique user.

The interface is also quite easy to work with and the optimizations are simple.

The banner rules are super strict:

Traffic Factory will only approve non-misleading banners.

A less positive point?

The lack of carrier targeting on the platform.

Indeed, the percentage of Wi-Fi traffic you receive is larger than the percentage of 3G.

You’ll get around 80% of Wi-Fi traffic and only 20% of 3G traffic, depending of the segment.

This means that – when you create your campaign – you can never forget to take this info into consideration.

The minimum transfer of 300€ for all payment methods is a little high for beginners, but it’s still within the average when it comes to ad networks.

The support is efficient: in normal conditions, you always get an answer within the following 24 hours.

I truly hope this Traffic Factory Review was all you needed to carry on doing your thing on the websites represented by this ad network.

See you!

Traffic Factory: Offers & Verticals

• Ad Types: banners and feature phones. Banners – 180 x 1030, 928 x 244, 338 x 235 and Popunder. Feature phones – 234 x 60 and 120 x 60
• Cost model: CPC
• Verticals: Adult

Traffic Factory: Payment & Investment

• Minimum deposit: the minimum deposit is 300€ for any payment method
• Payment Methods: PayPal, Bank Transfer, Paxum

Traffic Factory: Support

• Personal Account Manager: yes
• Support Response Speed: reply within 24 hours
• Support Rating: good. Clear answers
• Contact Methods: form contact on Traffic Factory’s website to create a ticket or you can contact your account manager directly on the help section
• Contact: support@trafficf.com