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How to Start Mobile Marketing Learn How to Deploy, Track, and Optimize

Your Mobile Performance Campaigns

Congratulations, if you’re reading this, then you’ve already done the hardest part of getting started in mobile marketing, making the commitment to learn an unfamiliar traffic channel. This program was designed as a crash course to get anyone looking to run performance campaigns on mobile running as quickly as possible.

Mobile can be a very daunting channel. There are hundreds of traffic vendors and partners to chose from. Unlike Google or Facebook there are no mobile “goliaths” that can be your one stop shop for your marketing needs. The mobile space is constantly evolving as platforms, carriers, manufacturers, ad networks, and emerging technologies fight over new ways to reach customers.

Fortunately for you, mobile like any digital channel can be tracked. With the ability to attribute conversion events (calls, installs, registrations, etc.) to every single click generated, there really is no excuse for not tracking performance of your marketing budget. If done right performance marketing can allow you to attribute every dollar spent to dollar generated in revenue on the back end.

All too often we hear “mobile doesn’t work” and “I spend $500 without a single conversion” from people dabbling in mobile marketing. The truth is mobile performance marketing does work and here at MobAff LLC we have focused exclusively on mobile traffic and offers for over two years. We’ve generated over 2 million conversions for our advertiser, that’s over $5 Million in revenues, from mobile traffic. Our experience includes everything from app downloads, dating, lead generation, credit card transactions, and pay per call.

Mobile performance marketing works!

This training program has helped 1000s of publishers and advertisers since its original launch in 2011. This is the 3rd revision of the program. After two years of observing what it takes to succeed with mobile, we’ve boiled it down to one attribute:

Forget everything you know!

Yes, it is that simple. Most people who approach mobile marketing do not have an open mind. They are using techniques from search, social, display, and e-mail in hopes that it can easily translate to mobile. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. In order to succeed in mobile you have to treat it as a completely new channel. You don’t treat your social campaigns like you do your search campaigns, and neither should you treat mobile like it’s just another form of older marketing channels.

 

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Ok, now that you have an open mind here is what we will cover:

Chapter 1: Discovering Mobile Performance Marketing (page 3)

Chapter 2: Mobile Traffic Sources (page 5)

Chapter 3: Mobile Tracking (page 9)

Chapter 4: Evaluating Your Offers (page 17)

Chapter 5: Launching Your Mobile Campaigns (page 20)

Chapter 6: Analyzing and Optimizing Your Data (page 22)

Chapter 7: Scaling Your Mobile Campaigns (page 26)

 

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Chapter 1: Discovering Mobile Performance Marketing

I’m going to skip the statistics of how quickly mobile is growing, since I know if you’re reading this program you already know the staggering figures.

When we talk about mobile marketing we are referring to any marketing that occurs on mobile devices (phones, media players, tablets, etc).

There are many types of mobile marketing including SMS, QR Codes, Mobile Search, Mobile Display, Push Notification, Icon Marketing and more.

The mobile landscape is diverse, crowded and full of market inefficiency. For the savvy marketer this is an amazing opportunity to get volume of traffic at discounted prices. Below is info graphic as of Aug 2012 of the mobile landscape by Lumascape:

As you can see there are many players in the space, and traffic is often sold and resold many times before it gets to you the advertiser.

 

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Instead of focusing on all the different types of marketing we will focus on Mobile Display, or banner advertising that appears on apps and mobile sites. There are many reasons why we like to focus on Mobile Display including:

• Very scalable traffic source due to the amount of fragmentation • Includes all mobile devices not just “smart phones” • Unlike SMS it doesn’t hold as many compliance or legal hurdles • Has been proven to produce high ROI campaigns

If you can master mobile display marketing, the other forms of mobile marketing will naturally come easy to you.

When marketing on display there are two general categories, feature and smart device.

Feature Device

The first phones to have web were called feature phones. These are the basic Nokia’s everyone use to have that often came with a simple web browser to surf the web and other more advanced functions beyond just phone calls. DO NOT dismiss these types of phones; they are still dominant worldwide and even here in the US account for almost 50% of phones. With these phones you usually have two options:

• On Deck – Meaning ads that are hard wired to users phones. Think of the default homepage of your browser.

• Off Deck – Ads that appear on mobile optimized sites.

Smart  Devices  

Smart devices are what most people think of when they think of mobile including phones and tablets. The two main Operating Systems are Android (Google) and iOS (Apple). RIM’s Blackberry and Windows are two other platforms trying to gain more traction. There are new platforms emerging but not enough volume yet. These phones have 3 types of advertising:

• In App – Ads that appear directly in the app, most of the free apps will have these types of ads.

• Mobile Sites – These are ads that appear on mobile optimized websites • On Deck – Depending on the carrier some smart phones also have on-deck traffic.

When working with most display networks you’re going to be asked to pay for traffic in either CPC (Cost-Per-Click) or CPM (Cost-Per-Mille Impression) model. These outdated pricing models is what allow you to generate high volume and positive ROI campaigns and is the secret behind our success.

 

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Chapter 2: Mobile Traffic Sources

In this chapter we will outline various traffic vendors in the mobile space. We are going to use general distinctions, however, keep in mind that many companies are hybrids and offer many different services. We will also highlight some partners we recommend for advertisers getting started in mobile.

Note: Below observations are based on our experience and are meant as general guides. Please use your own judgment when working with different vendors and partners

Self Serve Ad Networks

These ad networks are great for people getting their feet wet in mobile. In many cases you can get significant volume of traffic, but just like CPA networks, each has strengths and weaknesses depending on the offer you want to promote. For example some networks specialize in app traffic, while other may specialize in Mobile Sites.

Typically you will be paying for traffic via CPC (Cost Per Click) basis. With this type of marketing it is important to track which sites, creative, and targeting is yielding you the highest performance.

InMobi – Tons of traffic in Asia and Africa. There is a fair bit of quality premium pubs, however, there are also a good amount of poor publishers. Make sure to track and cut what isn’t working.

Jumptap – Most of the traffic is US based. They have both mobile sites and mobile app traffic. Much of their inventory is exclusive to them including their on deck offerings, however, they use Exchange Traffic (traffic from other sources) to supplement. Make sure to track the various Site IDs to ensure optimal performance.

M-Media – With some of the most premium publishers and websites, this is a great traffic source to test campaigns. Their platform continues to improve over time so stay tuned for new features.

Airpush – This network is a bit different from what most other networks are doing. It is Android only traffic and their ads appear directly in the users phone via icons, in tray, or pop ups.

TapIt – One of the most powerful mobile media buying platforms. They have a mixture of direct relationships and exchange traffic. TapIt offers the most powerful tools right in your dashboard including detailed Macros and ability to block non-performing sites and publishers.

 

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There are plenty more traffic sources that allow you to load campaigns yourself. The key is to test as many as possible to find which ones have quality traffic at rates that back out for your offers. Most networks only require small deposits to get going so there is no reason not to do a test before committing to a larger investment. Also, make sure to ask for an account rep as often times these people can help make sure you’re not wasting time on targeting that has no potential for volume.

Media Buying Ad Networks

Media buying is for more experienced advertisers. If you have experience with tradional web display many of the same skills are involved with media buying networks including: negotiating Insertion Orders, optimizing and scaling. Minimum IOs typically start around $5,000 budget.

This program will outline some of the basics, however, if you go this route I recommend checking out other reputable media-buying guides.

Most media buying is done through CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) pricing.

Millenial Media – One of the top 5 most trafficked mobile sources out there. In order to keep quality high they are quite strict with creative and offer guidelines, however, if you can find a winning combo the quality and scale can be tremendous.

GreyStripe – Recently purchased by ValueClick. Much of the traffic here is “interstitial” traffic, meaning ads that appear full screen between certain actions in apps. The CTRs tend to be very high on these types of ads so don’t get discouraged by high CPM rates.

MobileTheory – A network specializing in performance. To do well here you will need to have a very strong eCPM campaign that can beat out other DR campaigns on their system.

AdsMobi – Most of the traffic here comes from exchange traffic, however, if you have an Account Representative with experience and set up tracking properly they can quickly weed out traffic that doesn’t perform.

Hunt Mobile – Very strong in LATM and Hispanic markets. Wide distribution but will need a knowledgeable Account Representative to figure out pricing in order to get the premium placements and traffic.

Other Networks

There are many other forms of traffic sources out there even in the display space. We will cover a few here.

 

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Incentivized Networks – These are networks that get users to sign up for offers by offering some kind of incentive. For example it can be a game where a user earns new levels or coins for signing up for a specific offer. This type of marketing often produces lower quality users, so tread with caution.

Agencies – These are usually full service shops that build offers, campaigns, and media plans on behalf of the advertiser. They rarely have direct access to traffic and buy from other vendors or Demand Side Platforms. This is a great option of advertisers with huge budgets and with branding objectives instead of performance.

Exchanges/ RTB/ DSP/ SSP – This is a quite complicated part of mobile display that most advertisers don’t need to focus on when starting. Many advertisers won’t have access to this traffic without sophisticated technology and tracking in place. In basic terms publishers that cannot sell their inventory drop that inventory into the open marketplace where various vendors are able to buy it in real time.

Direct Site/App Buying

Typically we are big fans of buying directly from sites and app developers where you feel your offer would do well. However, for mobile this is often cost prohibitive and difficult. The main issue is there aren’t many inexpensive media buying ad servers for mobile available. In addition with mobile having so many technological issues like SDKs, javascript not rendering, and other issues, having an ad server with low latency can be a serious issue. After all you do not want to pay for impressions and traffic that doesn’t have time to reach your offer due to slow network speeds.

We recommend sticking to ad networks until you have all KPIs rock solid and know exactly which publishers are yielding you the best results. When evaluating traffic sources we highly recommend speaking with a knowledgeable representative. When you do uncover publishers you want to work with directly send them your creative assets and let their ad server do the work instead of creating an extra layer.

CPA Networks

Here at MobAff LLC we charge our advertiser partners on a CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition) model. Advertisers pay us for calls, installs, or registrations to their products and services. We then go out and acquire traffic with the goal of a lower CPA, the difference between what we pay and the revenues we generate for advertisers is how we make our profit.

If you are trying to promote your own product or service through a CPA network you will need to know your key metrics and lifetime value per new user along with sufficient budget for testing. When you buy traffic on a CPA you are competing with everyone else buying traffic and your offer will need to outperform the other advertisers.

 

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The best CPA campaigns follow a “freemium” model and track performance on the back end. For example if you’re a Dating Site looking for new sign ups, your best bet is to pay per lead or free registration and track how many users turn into paid users over the long run. The same applies to App Developers, very few if any CPA networks will take an app that pays % of sale when there are many App Developers willing to pay $1.00+ for a free game download.

Vendors to Consider:

MobAff Performance Network – Specialize in international inventory in addition to US distribution. Work with companies with large budgets and offers with wide appeal. Proprietary tracking platform allows for partners and internal media buyers to optimize campaigns on the fly for best performance.

Neverblue – Tracking is built in and allows advertisers and partners to see mobile data. Have been involved in the CPA space for many years. Neverblue’s recent acquisition by GlobalWide ensures that they are here to stay and continue to deliver results.

MobPartner – French network that has been focusing on app developers as their distribution channel. Their partnership with BuzzCity traffic source is great if you’re looking for emerging markets like Malaysia, South Africa, Russia, and more

CJ Pay-Per-Call – One of the biggest affiliate networks around. Not huge focus on mobile offers, but do well with Pay Per Call. If you’re a B2B company they can also do quite well for you.

Of course there are many more CPA networks out there. The best thing to do is call the ones you come across and interview the network to see if they are a good fit for your campaign objectives.

Before you start testing we will cover tracking in the next section. You wouldn’t fly blindfolded, and you shouldn’t buy traffic without tracking in place.

 

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Chapter 3: Mobile Tracking

Not tracking in mobile is much more costly than other channels. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see new entrants to mobile marketing make. Let me explain why tracking on mobile is even more important than any other type of traffic source.

Mobile marketing is 3-D Marketing. What I mean by this is that you have a whole new 3rd dimension to your marketing efforts.

Traditional marketing focuses on only (2) variables: Creative and Placement

For example for Search on Google you focus on Ad Copy/Landing Pages (creative) and Keywords/Bids (placements). On display you focus on Ad Copy/ Landing Pages (creative) and Demographics (placements)

With mobile you still have to focus on Creative and Placement but you also have to be mindful of mobile only variables like Carrier, Handset, Operating System, and more!

There are many variables in mobile, and many of them overlap each other. They can literally be the key to making or breaking your campaign.

 

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So which mobile parameters are most important to track?

Carriers – This is a critical component of any mobile campaign. For example often times by blocking WiFi traffic you can instantly improve quality of traffic. Also, carriers offer you insight into the demographics of your users. For example in the US, a Verizon user is going to be very different from a Metro PCS user. One being more affluent and the other tends to be more urban and youthful.

Handset – This is the actual device and manufacturer where your ads appear. Phones are a hot item and marketers are starting to target specific phones for specific demographics. For example, some phones are aimed to teenagers while others are aimed for business professionals.

Operating System – A RIM user is going to perform much differently compared to someone using iOS or Android. In addition you have to consider version of the different operating systems and how that affects your apps or landing pages.

Device Type – Is your ad being shown on a tablet, iPod, or phone? These are crucial to your success. Simple example is if you’re promoting a Pay Per Call offer with a click to call functionality. By blocking tablets and iPods you can instantly double your conversion rate.

Since we are performance based we need to not only track these parameters we also need to track it back to specific actions. After many months of toil and testing we’ve established that the most accurate technology is Server to Server Postback tracking.

What this entails is passing unique values via the URL during the click, and then posting back the values associated with a conversion back to any 3rd party software or networks.

Lets look at a simple example using JumpTap macros

If I were using Jumptap I would use their dynamic macros. Here is the full list of the macros.

JT_CAMPAIGN: the name of the campaign responsible for the user’s click JT_ADBUNDLE: the name of the ad bundle responsible for the user’s click JT_KEYWORD: the category or keyword matched from the advertiser’s campaign JT_REQID: the unique ID for the ad request JT_HANDSET : the handset/device associated with the ad request JT_PUBLISHER: the publisher ID associated with the ad request JT_SITE: the site ID (for a given publisher) associated with the ad request JT_QUERY: the search query passed by the publisher; if applicable JT_OPERATOR: the carrier associated with the ad request JT_TIMESTAMP: the time associated with the ad request

So lets say I assigned my subid variables as follows:

 

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C1 = JT_CAMPAIGN C2 = JT_HANDSET C3= JT_OPERATOR

My tracking link may look something like this:

http://www.myoffer.com/track.php?c1=JT_CAMPAIGN&c2=JT_HANDSET&c3=JT_OPERATOR

When a user clicks on the ad in JumpTap the system will automatically replace the values of that user in the placeholders.

So when a user clicks he is actually redirected as follows:

http://www.myoffer.com/track.php?c1=Test_Offer&c2=Android&c3=ATT

When I run my C1 report I may see data like this:

NOTE: THIS IS NOT REAL DATA JUST FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES

Clicks CR CR

C1 1872 177 9.46% Android 420 52 12.38%

iOS 651 41 6.30% Feature 801 84 10.49%

Clicks CR CR

Now looking at above it looks like Android did better so you may want to focus there moving forward.

However, you were at the same time tracking carrier so you might want to pull a report for your C3 variable and you find something like this.

Clicks CR CR

C3 1332 118 8.86% ATT 141 21 14.89%

Verizon 418 85 20.33% Sprint 773 12 1.55%

T-Mobile 540 59 10.93%

 

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You can now see which carrier, handset, and operators perform and can now make changes to your campaigns to increase your ROI. You can even run the above campaign with the data nested to see the exact combinations that yield results.

Here is an example:

Clicks CR CR

C1 2943 270 9.17% Android

420 52 12.38%

ATT 100 25 25.00%

Verizon 24 5 20.83%

Sprint 197 8 4.06%

T-Mobile 99 14 14.14%

iOS

651 41 6.30%

ATT 250 12 4.80%

Verizon 199 5 2.51%

Sprint 124 18 14.52%

T-Mobile 78 6 7.69%

Feature

801 84 10.49%

ATT 299 34 11.37%

Verizon 200 21 10.50%

Sprint 201 22 10.95%

T-Mobile 100 7 7.00%

Think of mobile as a matrix of variables. All you’re trying to do is find the pockets of combinations that yield profitable traffic for you. Some campaigns require very tight buckets like Android > Sprint > HTC phones its really up to you and your goals.

Typically the tighter you targeting the higher your ROI, but at the same time you will be sacrificing volume. The more tightly targeted your campaign is the more you will pay for every visitor and reduce the total amount of visitors to your offer. The key to a profitable mobile campaign is to find the balance between targeting and pricing.

Conversion Tracking

In order to track your click data directly to actions generated (sales, downloads, installs, sign ups) you will need to set up conversion tracking. Once again we recommend Server 2 Server technology as your best option for the most accurate data.

 

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Here is how the process works. Each ad network or tracking platform needs to append a unique click id in order to match the click to the converting event.

For example with JumpTap they use JT_REQUID. You can append this token to any placeholder you chose. Using the same example as above I appended another c4 variable.

http://www.myoffer.com/track.php?c1=JT_CAMPAIGN&c2=JT_HANDSET&c3=JT_OPERATOR&c4=JT_REQID

That JT_REQID is going to be replaced with an alphanumeric value hash that is so random that there will never be a chance of a duplicate generated.

You will then need to have your tracking platform postback the unique values that generated conversions back to the network via their postback link. For JumpTap you have to activate conversion tracking and you will get a URL such as this below where you would append the alphanumeric values at the end of the url.

http://a.jumptap.com/a/conversion?event=purchase&jt-reqid=1340uasdfo13u4u0adsadsf

We know that mobile tracking is not simple. Every network represents their Macros differently. In addition different platforms have limitations such as iOS not allowing for appending data to URLs sent to iTunes. We decided to build MobAff Tracker to solve many of these problems.

Introducing the Most Advanced Mobile Tracking Solution on The Planet

We build our tracking solution from the ground up for our internal media buyers and partners to help scale their mobile efforts. Some key functionality include:

• Automatic detection of Carrier, Handset, OS, Browser and More • Post click redirect rules to block or syphon incoming traffic • Universal Server 2 Server postback tracking • Easy integration with the leading ad networks • Cookieless tracking to ensure user privacy • Detailed nested reporting for deep analysis

Below are some screen captures to outline some of the features of MobAff Tracker:

 

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(Reports Tab Showing advanced graphs and ability to drill down by Veritcal or Network)

 

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(Nest mobile data to uncover high ROI targeting)

(Block or Add incoming clicks based on their device)

 

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There are many more features and advanced functionality available with constant rollouts of new upgrades. To learn more visit our official site.

>> Click Here to Visit Official MobAff Tracker Website

 

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Chapter 4: Evaluating Your Offers

This is probably one of the most common questions I get. It can be quite daunting to find offers with so many options out there. If you’re the advertiser, this also can be a challenge as its tough to know if mobile is the right channel for your offer.

How do you know which offer is a winner for Mobile Display traffic?

Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret… YOU CAN’T. The truth is you can’t guarantee an offer is a winner. The only way to find an offer that will work on mobile is to test.

Let me explain my philosophy in mobile marketing: Launch, Launch, Launch, Optimize, Then Launch Some More!

If you launch 2 – 3 campaigns a day, with tracking set up properly, I guarantee that within a few weeks you will find a winning combo of offer and traffic.

Look at it this way: 80/20 rule (which I live by)… 80% of your campaigns will FAIL! That means if you launch 10 only 2 will have any real potential. You will need to test 100s of campaigns and gather tons of data to find exactly what works and scale from there.

Don’t worry though, I have a system for maximizing your chances of finding a winner faster and with less testing budget.

We analyzed the campaigns we’ve had success with here at MobAff LLC and asked what do they all have in common?

The following tests are key in finding offers that will succeed on mobile display:

TEST 1: Does the offer have mass-market appeal? In other words if 100 random people saw the offer you would want the maximum amount of people to be interested in it. Take dating for example, if you had a random room of 100 people there will be someone single looking to mingle. I call this 1/100 test. With mobile marketing you have many options to optimize campaigns, but at the end of the day it’s going to be very difficult to get sign ups or downloads for niche products and services.

TEST 2: Does the offer work on phones properly? You’ll be shocked as to how many offers out there simply don’t look right, or have functionality that doesn’t work on mobile devices. There are many tools out there that let you preview your offer on mobile devices, but here is a simple method we use.

• Use the following firefox plugin which allows you to pose as an iPhone Default User Agent

 

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• Want to test other phones add this to the above plugin Default User Agent Extension

• Change the resolution of FF browser to that of a phone (iPhone4 960 x 640 px) You can use this plugin

This step is vital for offers with landing pages like lead generation advertisers.

TEST 3: Does the offer have a simple path? Remember people on phones aren’t going to fill out extensive complicated forms. Make sure the offer has a simple path from the first page to the conversion. For example does the form require complicated drop downs that will be difficult to select from a feature phone, if so it might not be ready for mobile traffic.

Here are some of the types of offers we’ve had success with in the past:

• Ringtones Subscriptions (Thumplay and Jamster) • Dating Short Form (Cupid, eHarmony, Zoosk) • Dating Apps (BeNaughty, Zoosk, MeetMoi) • Promotions (Win iPad E-Mail Submits) • Lead Generation (Pre Paid Cards, Auto Insurance, Credit Report) • Credit Card Free Trials (Health and Beauty)  

 

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BONUS SECTION: WhatRunsWhere Mobile

What Runs Where is a competitive intelligence tool. The application crawls the web and catalogues the banner creative by advertiser, location, ad network, placement, and more.

They now offer their great service for mobile. Although it isn’t a 100% complete picture of mobile traffic since they aren’t scanning apps or showing ads that are carrier targeted, this is still a fantastic way to get an idea of the kinds of campaigns being promoted on mobile inventory.

 

(Top  Ads  Filtered  by  Country,  Time,  and  Ad  Size)  

Here  are  some  tips  to  help  you  make  more  sense  of  the  data  you’re  looking  at:  

• Different  ad  sizes  indicate  different  platforms.  Bigger  ad  sizes  tend  to  be  ads  targeted  towards  newer  phones  and  tablets.    

• Filter  by  ad  network  to  get  an  idea  of  the  kinds  of  advertisers  that  are  having  success  with  that  network.    

• Click  on  the  advertiser  to  see  all  their  creative  to  get  an  idea  of  what  works.    

• If  you  see  similar  style  ads  appear  over  and  over  again  it’s  a  good  indication  that  those  ads  produce  high  Click-­‐Through-­‐Rates  

• The  data  here  only  shows  Mobile  WAP  pages  and  does  not  include  In  App  Advertising  

Using  what  runs  where  you  can  quickly  discover  what  kinds  of  campaigns  and  creative  are  having  success  and  use  that  information  for  inspiration  for  your  own  campaigns.    

 

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Chapter  5:  Launching  Your  Mobile  Campaigns  

I am assuming as an advertiser you have experience in writing ad copy and making high CTR (Click Through Rate) creative. If you do not, it is suggested you consult with someone who does or invest time and money into further educating yourself about what makes a creative perform.

The only important note about making ads for mobile is to remember context is key. Your ads are being shown over mobile devices, your calls to action should reflect this. For example instead of the traditional “click here” try “tap here” or “swipe” text. To find more tricks and tips make sure to read through our Mobile Marketing Blog.

By now you should have your links and ads ready to go. Now just pick the network you want to test with first. Depending on the country and offer you may chose one network over another, or even decide to test a few at a time.

This lesson is quite important as I’m going to reveal to you some tricks we’ve developed over the years that help eliminate wasted clicks and effort while launching brand new campaigns.

5 Tips to Test Offers More Efficiently

Block WiFi Traffic – This is the traffic that typically comes from home internet access and often times is ripe with kids who click on banners on accident. In addition, you’re not gathering crucial carrier data to help you optimize.

Block App Traffic – Even if you’re promoting an app download campaign it pays to block app traffic while testing. Traffic from mobile sites tends to be of higher quality and with less click fraud. Once you have some basic data you can open up to apps as well. Remember to break it out separately if you can.

Track Site IDs and Placements – Although most ad networks are blind, they still can pass integer IDs to help you analyze your data by source. For example JumpTap uses JT_SITE as a token to help break out your traffic by placement. Often times you will find a campaign where one site id will suck up 80% of your clicks and blocking it can take you from losing money to instantly profitable! You can also use referrer information available on tracking platforms like MobAff Tracker to help optimize.

Focus on High CTR Creatives – All ad networks are trying to maximize their eCPM (Effective Cost Per Mille) or how much money they earn for every 1000 times your ad is shown. Because of this nature when bidding CPC you are rewarded with more traffic if you have high CTR (Click Through Rate) ads. When launching a campaign pick your highest CTR ads and make them work, instead of taking high converting creative with low CTR and trying to make them work.

 

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Improve Redirect and Load Times – Mobile ISPs are still much slower than traditional Internet speed. In order to maximize your chances that the clicks go through to your offer you have to ensure that your landing pages load as quick as possible. Reduce your file sizes, clean up your code, and remove extraneous images or video. Your tracking will also need to be as fast as possible, we recommend shooting for speeds 100ms and under.

Click Issues and Mobile Traffic

There is a lot of discussion of click fraud and click discrepancy with mobile traffic. I think these are two separate issues and I will address both. These are based on our experience and we recommend auditing your traffic with an expert if you feel there are real issues going on with your vendor. Here at MobAff we treat these issues as part of doing business on mobile and adjust our pricing in our bidding strategy accordingly.

Click discrepancy occurs due to many factors the main being the latency that happens over Carrier signals. Basically a user may have clicked your ad but never fully loaded the redirect URL and so you wouldn’t see that click on your end, yet it will be counted as a click on the ad network side, not to mention you will be charged for this. We typically see click discrepancies between 5 and 30% from mobile traffic.

Accidental clicks can be caused by many factors. One example, are apps aimed at kids. These apps may feature your ads and get clicked on by kids who don’t realize its not part of the game Another example is app developers who get overly aggressive with ad placement and place app related buttons closely to ad content causing mistaken clicks. The best way to combat this is to track Site Ids of where your ads show and block the ones where there are many clicks with no conversions.

Click fraud occurs when a traffic source or publisher try to maximize their revenues by sending “fake” clicks to your offer. The only way to spot this to use a tracking tool like MobAff Tracker and run IP, Geography, and other advanced reports to find if there are irregularities in your data that can indicate this is going on. Typically this is very difficult to pinpoint, but if you have even basic evidence you can get refunds or reduced click costs from the ad networks.

Final Thoughts

There are many more factors that go into launching a campaign and with so many networks out there you will have to adjust your strategy accordingly. The main point I want you to take away is you must track as much as you can and test only a few variables at a time by cutting out things like WiFi or Apps and getting your performance metrics before expanding to additional targeting.

At a certain point you will need to use a little common sense in setting up your campaigns. For example if promoting Pay-Per-Call offers make sure to block Tablets and iPods since they can’t place calls.

 

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Chapter 6: Analyzing and Optimizing Your Data

Today we will go over how we like to analyze the data we get from our mobile campaigns. Over time you may develop your own strategy and methodology for optimizing.

First, here is a quick word on statistically significant data. Don’t jump the gun and make campaign decisions based on bad data. In other words if one variable had 1 or 2 conversions after 100 clicks and it looks like the CR (Conversion Rate) is through the roof, that doesn’t mean that the next 1000 clicks that CR will hold true. Make sure your variables have enough clicks and conversions to make long term decisions.

Don’t just look at your metrics, you have to ask is it statistically significant? Lets say you were testing iPhone vs Android and had the following results:

iPhone: 500 clicks and 20 Conversions or 4% CR Android: 250 clicks and 12 Conversions 4.8% CR

It appears that Android outperformed if you were just looking at CR, however, how certain are you that that this will hold true in the long run. The easy way to figure this out is to use SplitTester.com a free service.

This is a simple AB split testing script designed to test CTRs but can easily be adapted to test CRs. Just pick two ads A and B and enter their total number of conversions in the top row and their CR in percent in the bottom row. Hit calculate and you will see how confident your results are. In most cases I make decisions only when confidence is 90% or higher. If you want some advanced data then use SuperSplitTester.com

 

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How to Manage Data Overload

When you start to analyze your data you will soon discover it is very easy to get lost in the numbers. There are many ways to dissect your information for example you may want to look at Creative > Platform > Carrier report and discover combinations with high CR rates and EPCs.

However, this document is here to help you avoid falling into the data-mining pitfall. Let me explain what happens to people who over optimize their campaigns.

You kill your potential volume and increase your costs significantly. Most ad networks would prefer advertisers had no targeting and reward less targeted campaigns with cheaper clicks. As you add more layers of targeting say Operating System, Handset Model, Site Id you will soon strangle your own flow of traffic and be forced to pay a price where even with higher conversions will not back out for you.

The key is to optimize things that have a major effect on your campaign and ignore things that don’t really have much weight on the outcome of performance.

In the above example I broke out a report by device type using MobAff Tracker. It is clear that Feature phones outperform Windows, Android and RIM. However, I most likely would not tell the ad network to block those phones since they make up a small part of their traffic (less than 2%) and I know by blocking them I’m going to significantly increase my CPC prices.

 

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Day Parting/ Week Parting

This is a very powerful feature that many advertisers forget to examine. You may not have enough data after just a few days, but after a few weeks it’s an absolute must. MobAff tracker has parting reports built in.

How parting reports work is by stacking data into time intervals. So if you run past 7 days it will stack all 00:00 – 1:00 worth of data into one point. This will allow you to see trends over time. Similarly a week parting reporting will stack all the days of the week together to see if there are any major trends.

(Example of a Day Parting report with Conversion Rate Shown)

In the above example you can clearly see that the campaign we are analyzing from about 7:00 am to 1:00 pm the conversion rate is depressed and over time as my confidence in the data matures I may decide to pause the campaign during that time so I’m not wasting budget during a time when my ROI is low and possibly negative.

People use their phones differently depending on what time of day or day of the week it is, and this can have drastic results on your performance. You can easily take a break-even campaign and get it profitable by paying attention to this data. Some networks let you set day parting in the interface, others you may have to ask your rep, and some you may even have to do it manually and pause and restart your campaigns at various times.

The Importance of eCPM

A word about eCPM (Effective Earnings Per Thousand Impressions) – Remember that all ad networks try to optimize their eCPM. For example if there are 2 ads in their ad

 

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network competing for the same impression how does the ad network chose which one to show, it can’t simply be our CPC bid price, can it?

Lets look at an example:

Ad 1: CTR .05 and Bid .05 Ad 2: CTR .07 and Bid .04

Which ad will be shown? Give up?

.05 CTR x .05 Bid = .0025 * 1000 impressions = 2.5 eCPM

.07 CTR x .04 Bid = .0028 * 1000 impressions = 2.8 eCPM

So in theory the ad network will show the second ad despite a lower bid since it generates more revenue every 1000 times its shown.

Remember to get cheaper clicks and more impressions make sure to keep the ads that get high CTRs. This holds true even with CPM campaigns, since having a higher CTR will allow for more visitors to check out your offer with the same number of impressions.

Final Thoughts

You will soon discover that getting profitable traffic on mobile is quite easy once you have adequate tracking and know the exact targeting that yields you the ROI you’re looking for. However, you will also soon discover that it is difficult to get any significant volume. Even if you’re willing to spend $1.00 a click there are only so many users browsing AT&T from Android EVO from 5:00 to 8:00 pm and being served ads from that particular ad network. In the next section we will discuss how to scale your efforts once you have your KPIs and targeting down.

 

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Chapter 7: Scaling Your Mobile Campaigns

By now you should have enough statistically significant data to know your key metrics and targeting. In other words you should know what types of devices, carriers, creative yield specific results like CTR, CR, and EPC.

Other Ad Networks - Once you find the mix of variables that yield you the highest results in theory the same settings should work on other networks. It’s now time to take it to the other ad networks. Some networks will still require some optimizing like blocking poor performing Site IDs but now you should be in a much better starting point.

Pay Bump – This is the simplest way to increase your traffic. Once you establish what kind of traffic provides quality to you and is backing out then its time to be more aggressive with your CPA goals. This will open up new bidding and targeting that may have not been possible before. If you’re promoting someone else’s offer ask how the quality is, and if it is good ask for a higher CPA value.

Bid Adjustments – Typically I do not recommend changing bids on existing campaigns. Instead try to duplicate your working campaign with different bid strategies. For example by bidding lower you might find you get the same level of traffic but will pay much less. You can also bid higher and find that your ads now appear on more premium placements that yield better performance.

Segmenting Targets – Another method of gaining more traffic is to analyze your data again for what I call “high volume low CR targeting.” For example, you may find a particular Site ID that was eating up your clicks during testing with low CR rate so you decided to block it. One strategy is to make a separate campaign focusing on just that Site ID and adjusting your bids to a lower rate to reflect the low CRs. You’ll often find these kinds of placements can yield a lot of volume since many advertisers skip over them entirely.

When scaling your campaigns its important to consider your goals. I always ask myself how important is ROI vs total generated net profit.

Here is an example of how I think about this:

Campaign 1: ROI 40% with $600 in ad spend per day Campaign 2: ROI 60% with $300 ad spend per day

*note I calculate ROI as follows $100 ad spend and $100 revenue = 0 % ROI while $100 ad spend $200 revenue = 100 percent ROI

Which one would you chose?

STOP! TRY TO DO THE MATH FIRST BEFORE READING ON

 

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Campaign 1: $600 x .4 = $240 net per day Campaign 2: $300 x .6 = $180 net per day

So in this case I’m willing to operate at a lower ROI because it will put more money in my pocket overall. Just make sure to do the math and find what’s making you the most money with your desired goals.

Switch to CPM - I can write a whole course about media buying, but lets keep it simple for now. You know exactly what works, and most importantly you know your ads CTRs should be. Ask your rep what the CPM rate is for your targeting and do the math.

Assume your EPC is .10 and your ad CTR is 1.2%

Would $0.75 CPM a good idea?

STOP! TRY TO DO THE MATH FIRST BEFORE READING ON

Here is a simple formula we use.

1000 x CTR x EPC = eCPM

1000 x .012 x .10 = 1.20

So the answer is yes .75 CPM is a great idea and you should expect a healthy 50 to 60% ROI assuming that your CTR and CRs stay the same when switching to CPM.

We prefer CPM buys because you can typically negotiate guaranteed inventory and once your price is set will no longer have to constantly compete with other advertisers who are adjusting their bids.

NOTE: Don’t go crazy with your CPM buy, you still want to test it with a small budget first to make sure that its backing out like its supposed to.

Always Be Split Testing (ABST) – Do NOT get lazy, you could be leaving a lot of money by not making sure you’re getting the highest earnings possible. You should constantly be rotating creative, landing pages, offers, and messaging to keep your campaign fresh and to ensure you’re earning the most from every single click.

Crop rotation (ad rotation) is the idea that you can simply pause your ads for a week or two and once you un-pause them they will get a quick boost and slowly fade off again. There is a definite ad decay scenario that occurs on mobile where your CTRs and performance will fade over time. Thankfully if you wait a few weeks and pause those ads they will get invigorated once more. If you have 3 sets of ads in theory you can do this

 

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indefinitely by pausing (2) and only having (1) active until it is time to switch. The reason why this strategy works is there are constantly new users who haven’t seen your ads as people upgrade and change their mobile devices.

Final, Final Thoughts

Thank you for reading through our MobAff Mobile Training Guide. We know the information contained in here has helped many mobile advertisers get started in mobile. The key thing to remember is to have an open mind and approach mobile from a different perspective. Remember that mobile traffic is context dependent and you must track mobile data in order to target properly.

If you’re finished reading now comes the easy part, the doing. A lot of the information covered here will only make sense if you get your feet wet. It is time to pick an offer, pick a network, deposit funds, and launch your first campaign.

Good luck and hopefully you will soon fall in love with mobile like we did.

To your success!

Alexander Tsatkin

MobAff LLC