[Case Study] How I Boosted the Conversion Rate by 172%
Last updated on March 16, 2021 by Garywell 7 min readIntroduction
Hello there, media buyers!
For years of intensive media buying, I have collected a number of successful stories in many different verticals.
I want to share one of those.
This one made me a rich man!
The offer is no longer active but I suppose this success story may be super inspiring for those who still have doubts and apprehensions when it comes to the wonderful world of media buying and affiliate marketing.
The algorithm is simple here!
Indeed, every media buyer should know it:
Look for an offer – Test – Optimize – Scale-up – Profit
Easy!
Wait?
What’s the offer I’m gonna be analyzing today?
This one!
Vertical: Mobile App
Offer: Uber National IOS
Price model: CPI
Traffic type: Popunder
GEO: US (+others)
Rate: $1.5 – $2.3
Volume: 27M impressions
CR: 1,2%
Ready for this tremendously helpful case study of a mighty profitable offer?
Go for it!
Looking for an Offer
How does every successful media buyer go about the task of seeking hot offers?
There are two simple answers:
You can enter Mobidea and check high-converting offers!
Related: How to Choose High Paying CPA Offers on Mobidea
Or you can spy!
The internet is an ocean of opportunities and it’s actually filled with different spy tools.
As for me, I like analyzing the ad space using AdPlexity (AdPlexity lifetime coupon).
I usually focus on the amount of traffic driven to the offers.
I recommend you explore AdPlexity (25% Lifetime Discounts).
It’s a well-known tool and needs no introduction.
If you find that the tool is mysteriously hard to use, fear not!
I shall lend you a helping hand!
Ready?
On top of the main dashboard, you can see all the possible offers captured by AdPlexity.
Now, understand that you can use a drop-down menu to choose from.
Still, it’s only half the battle.
AdPlexity is still trying to show you a bunch of offers.
Pick the ones which showcase a higher number of hits.
Why?
Because your task is to select the offers which are at the height of popularity!
Does the description above sound a little too vague for the likes of you?
No biggie!
The internet is teeming with great articles about this ad spy tool.
You can even enter AdPlexity’s website.
It’s got a whole bunch of incredibly useful tutorials for you to dive into.
I’ve also used several other tools.
In fact, my team and I are now coming up with our own.
That’s a whole other ball game, though!
AdPlexity, brothers!
That’s what it’s all about right now!
It’s a phenomenally important tool and it’s allowed me to find this Uber offer I wanna explore today.
From the get go, I could see it was something really special.
It was the fastest-growing offer and it showcased a huge volume.
Of course, we were excited to make sure it was on the top of our test-plan list.
We arranged a test super quickly, and ran it while the offer was still smoking hot.
Fortune favors the bold!
Don’t you forget this age-old truth!
The faster you react, the more chances you have of actually scoring big.
Testing
We found the offer in three networks with satisfying rates.
It got pretty small conversion cappings but enough to allow us to understand which network was performing better.
Our first test was extensive (we usually run $10-$20 tests.)
The offer was fed with $50K US impressions split into 6 parts – 3 for every CPA network, and 2 traffic sources.
Which traffic sources, you ask?
The problem was that we were so excited that we forgot to set whitelists during the first launch.
The result for Adcash was -60% ROI.
What about Clickadu?
0% ROI.
Optimization
As for optimization, there are two crucially important parts:
Traffic sources + zones.
There’s another one that you must also take into account.
Which one?
The creatives.
We checked all these parameters for both Adcash and Clickadu.
Adcash was showcasing several zones which performed with a decent ROI.
We inserted them on our precious whitelist.
As for Clickadu, there were quite a lot of zones with a positive ROI.
To scale up, we repeated a test at Clickadu with a volume of x10.
Moreover, we didn’t stop the traffic flow from this point because we were making a whole lotta moolah.
The game was definitely worth the efforts:
We were receiving new data and optimizing on the fly.
As a result, our work was effectively split into two stages:
- Target optimization
- ROI improvement by testing the creatives
Guess what?
These intelligent efforts helped us advance and improve.
Usually, most apps convert better without any pre-landing page.
Trust me:
The screenshots provided by the App Store and Google Play are good enough.
Adding something in the middle is just gonna drop that sweet CTR!
Wondering what is a fundamental must when it comes to media buying campaigns?
A/B testing the promo pages for hot offers!
Here’s a list of ideas that we’ve added to our plan after a fruitful brainstorm!
List of Brainy Ideas
Discounts
What message can be more effective for this offer?
A discount coupon?
Uber offered coupons for a discount on the first ride!
That really converted for installs.
We got to 80% ROI and seriously increased the amounts of traffic.
Still, there’s always room for improvement.
Personalization of Promos
We decided to try personalized ads.
We received detailed information about top-converting cities, which made it easier.
Then, it was time for us to integrate some macros detecting and using the precise city location.
The numbers were different from one city to another.
Even so, there were times when we were getting a ROI of 500%.
All we had to do is ask to increase the caps.
Limited Offer
Has the optimization reached its limits?
Hell, no!
We used a limited offer, since we needed a massive growth of installs and instant orders and…
Jackpot!
We received an extra growth of ROI.
A bunch of our A/B tests with promo materials weren’t that impressive.
In fact, there’s no massive growth to be reported here.
Nevertheless, they were useful because they allowed us to play with a variety of CTA elements such as backgrounds, fonts, colors etc.
Targeting
We knew the cities which had the highest ROI rate.
This means we were able to narrow the targeting, focusing on specific cities.
We have successfully used this for more than a month for Uber national to make extra ROI.
We were buying traffic from all the decent networks that allowed for city or IP targetings.
Alright!
Time to wrap this up!
Let’s write some important theses to make sure you understand which insights to take from this affiliate marketing lecture!
What should you do?
Simple:
- Get a good offer
- Be sure of your sources – getting a good ROI without a whitelist is something rare. A good self-serve platform is a must
- Optimize: split traffic flows to cities by using city targeting. The previous test was used to determine the cities that have the best ROI and to set the options
- Create personalized creatives along with the city location
- Use a discount offer
- Use a limited offer
- We tested over 16 landing pages
- 32 A/B tests with promo materials
- CR +172%
Summing up, we witnessed 27.4 M impressions which were driven to the offer with a 1.2% CR.
Conclusion
This conclusion may sound a bit trivial.
Why?
Because the whole process is like a race.
Target the goal, spot the strengths, act quickly, do not hesitate, and never give up.
I know you’ll be able to learn from this and have the chance to celebrate some successful campaigns!
Cheers!
See also:
Garywell
Top Publisher
Garywell is one of those old school webmasters with a whole lotta expertise! He started in the early 2000s. Back then, he was rocking the world of Search Engine Optimization. Then, in 2008, he started playing the Media Buying game. This guy is super experienced when it comes to creating effective teams and is the co-owner of four different affiliate programs! Read his posts and rise to the top!
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