Hey guys,

Newbie here. I just launched my first campaign on Facebook this morning. I came back in (after stepping away for 4-5 hours...) and see that i've earned a whopping $6 in my affiliate account! The problem is my daily budget is set to $25.

My maximum bid is set to 0.51 per click. I've had 147,063 impressions, 55 clicks, my CTR is 0.04, my average CPC is 0.45, my average CPM is 0.17 and it says I spent $25. SPENT $25 already?! Have I lost money?

If so, what could I have done to prevent this? I'm sure being away for 4-5 hours certainly DID NOT help.

The offer pays $1.20 per lead. What should my stats look like in order to make a good profit worth increasing my daily budget?

I've been looking at clips on various blogs and i've heard them mentioned running several campaigns for the same product as well as others for testing purposes. Simply put, cash is tight right now for me.

I think i'll try to drive traffic naturally until I get more dough.

Trying to stay positive here. Actually, win or learn i'm gonna stick with this!

You can view my actual report here: http://dummysite.weebly.com/

Also, Can anyone point me to any links where I might be able to get some Facebook coupons/vouchers?

Thanks!

OW

P.S.

Hopefully I can get feedback ASAP

Hey otherwhirl,

Losing money while testing is expected until you gather all the working data. If you happen to break even or profit during testing, that's gravy but its never expected. Not sure what offer or how the payout look like but chances are you're going to need to collect more data as you go before you can really optimize it for profit. Hope that makes sense.

I've been doing this PPC-affiliate thing for almost 3 years. I've tested hundredes of offers and zillions of keywords. There are only dozens of offers and keywords that really make money for you....testing is how you find them and you have to spend money to make money. That is just one guy's opinion.

The offers and keywords that have made money have made it worthwhile. It can be maddening at times. Tracking 202 can shorten the curve...I did hundredes of things wrong and I appreciate their tools and advice.

Hi Steven,

Thanks for replying. So Steve, i'm a TOTAL newbie here i'm not quite sure HOW to optimize at this point.

Here are my stats for today:

http://dummysite.weebly.com/1st-campaign-2nd-day.html

I don't know, but it looks like I lost money to make it simple and plain. Facebook has charged me $50 and I made $12. I lost $38.

Should I be lowering my bids for CPC?

You mentioned that I needed to "gather all the working data." What EXACTLY do you mean by that in terms of which factors should I be looking for?

This offer appears to be working well according to it's rank in my affiliate networks site. How can I optimize from here to actually get more traction and MAKE SOME $$$? Of course it's the money that i'm after, however there's no worse feeling than NOT knowing what to do!

Of course not knowing what the hell you're doing AND losing all of your money would probably qualify for a worse feeling.

I'm curious, how high is the "sabotage and campaign hating" within the CPA marketing community? I'm just wondering if i might possibly be experiencing a high click thru/low conversion rate because some hater promoting either the same or similar offer has decided to go on a clicking spree?

Thanks again,

OW

Hi Fulle,

Thanks for the reply. When you say you've "tested hundreds of offers" what EXACTLY did you do? Maybe I should reword that. How did you test and how did you determine if the offer was good or not.

I three years have you seen any success as well?

I don't mind trouble shooting and testing, I think i'm just unclear about HOW TO do so.

Thanks,

OW

P.S. At the end of the day, is the answer (and objective...) pretty much to keep "testing" for keywords that are cheap as possible while retaining top post position with the ad column?

If you could be more specific it would be appreciated.

Hey Otherwhirl,

By data I mean everything you need to find a successful campaign. Anyone can throw ads up in Facebook and get clicks and impressions to some level and hopefully conversions., however, that's like driving blind or not having tracking at all. The whole point of using tracking is to be able to find usable data that you know converts consistently hence obtaining working data.

Facebook, unlike Google and Yahoo, don't rely on keywords. Rather you bid base on demographics. Knowing this, you bid base on age, sex, etc... when creating your ads in Facebook. Your objective should be pretty straight forward. You test to see which ad copies get a high CTR (click-through-rate) and a high (conversion rate). PLEASE NOTE THESE TWO DO NOT COINCIDE AND SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH.

You also test to see which age groups and sex converts best for YOUR specific setup (landing page, ad copies, offers, etc...). This will VARY tremendously base on how your particular COMBINATION is. Once you test what works, you drill down your targetting to increase traffic for this particular data and throw out all the non-working data that you've tested. While the affiliate network you promote through can tell you how much you've earned, they can not tell you everything else listed above. Go from there and hopefully you understand everything in this post. Good luck

Hey,

Some things that you need to keep in mind are your CPC and your EPC. Judging from your stats, it looks like your paying 45 cents for a click that yields 8 cents. Now comes the question of how are you going to be profitable. Here are the steps you need to take.

1. Is it possible to get a higher payout for the offer?

2. Could I write a better ad copy to get a higher CTR and therefore a lower CPC?

3. Could I tracking my ages to see which age/gender converts best for my particular offer?

4. Could I use a landing page to improve conversions?

5. Should I try bidding CPM instead of CPC and see if that works better?

and finally...

6. Is this offer just not going to work and am I wasting my time?

After some time as an affiliate marketer you will realize upfront which offers will do well and which ones won't. Since your a newbie, I suggest you try running things that other people are running and you might get a better result out of it!

To success,

Gk Pai