When offers tank

[keliix06]

Just a bit of a warning, this is mostly a rant.

I've been running an offer for about 3-4 months now. It gets a network EPC of about 30 cents, but I was getting around $1.20. There would be stretches of 2-3 days where it would drop to .60-.80, but it would always pick back up. I was running low 3 figures a day revenue on the offer, between 30-40% profit.

Over the last couple weeks I've been working on scaling up the campaign quite a bit, increasing keywords by about 25%. I was also contacted by the AM who said the advertiser liked my traffic and wanted more. Seemed like a win-win.

The problem is for about 10 days now my daily conversions have dropped by about 50% and I'm losing a huge amount of money. I applied for a new system and have set my daily spending limit to $5 so as not get bled dry.

As if that wasn't bad enough, another niche I'm running and was doing well enough to get a pay bump last week has also dropped conversions about 75%.

I was using the profits on those 2 campaigns to finance a couple other campaigns I just started testing but losing money on, but with those dropping off I'm down $X,XXX in a week.

I have a dozen or so keywords in my main campaign that convert really well and cost next to nothing for clicks. For the month of April my best converting keyword got over 500 clicks at and average cpc of $.01. So far this month I'm running at about 4000% ROI on that keyword. So I know I can make money on a select few keywords, but the traffic is very limited.

I already work for myself for my "main" job, so I don't have the pull of working for myself from my home to make me want to continue. But it is nice having another challenge to make money. At this point I'm really considering throwing in the towel and not even running the keywords I know are profitable.

[mystickcal]

Usually when an offer tanks its because of something that has changed. Has the offer landing page recently been changed on the network? Is there someone new bidding on the same keywords you have been bidding on that has taken over your positions? Most offers don't just one day stop converting or convert horrible. It normally slows down over time just like we are seeing with Ringtones and Dating. You can still make money in both those niches but its becoming less and less and harder and harder.

I would see what has changed, thats the hard part, once you find it, it's normally very easy to fix. If you find out what has changed PM me and let me know and I'll tell you how to fix it.

[keliix06]

One other person found my best keyword, but we're still the only 2 people bidding on it and my CTR is down less than 2%, and is still at about 40%. Their landing page is the same, my landing page is the same. I'm stumped. I figured I'd just leave my best keyword running for a few days and come back to it in a few days.

[mystickcal]

One other person found my best keyword, but we're still the only 2 people bidding on it and my CTR is down less than 2%, and is still at about 40%. Their landing page is the same, my landing page is the same. I'm stumped. I figured I'd just leave my best keyword running for a few days and come back to it in a few days.

Who is higher ad position?

[keliix06]

I bumped my bid from .01 to .50. Now I'm getting position 1 for .30. But My CTR dropped to about 30% yesterday. That might be more due to the day of the week. Total number of searches was down 70% from Saturday, so we'll see how it goes tomorrow I guess.

On Friday I got almost 50% CTR in position 2 while I was bidding .01, so I'd be happy if that would keep up.

My ad is quite a bit better than his, but if he's tracking at the keyword level it's only a matter of time until he focuses on it.

[mystickcal]

Are you receiving more conversions in one spot or the other? My guess is more from the first position, but which are you actually getting better ROI on?

[keliix06]

They bumped my payout 15% but the tracking was broken today :D

I changed my bid back to .01 to test that and am still getting 40+% CTR. I'll test conversions once tracking is working again.

I know I'll get a better ROI from position 2. There's no way I could convert 30 times more often from position 1, but we'll see. If nothing else, maybe me being in position 1 will kill his CTR (since his ad sucks) then lower my cpc.

[mystickcal]

They bumped my payout 15% but the tracking was broken today :D

I changed my bid back to .01 to test that and am still getting 40+% CTR. I'll test conversions once tracking is working again.

I know I'll get a better ROI from position 2. There's no way I could convert 30 times more often from position 1, but we'll see. If nothing else, maybe me being in position 1 will kill his CTR (since his ad sucks) then lower my cpc.

Plus you would be surprised at how many people I seem come into a niche and I see them pop up for some of my best converting keywords that I'm banking major on and within a week or two they disappear, a lot and I mean a lot of affiliates don't track on the keyword level. So I'd wait it out and try not to do anything to make him notice you...cause then he may catch on that your really not wanting to lose that spot!

[keliix06]

I had everything paused a couple days ago, activated it all yesterday so things are still sorting themselves out. I might just be able to save this.

[mystickcal]

I had everything paused a couple days ago, activated it all yesterday so things are still sorting themselves out. I might just be able to save this.

Thats good to hear keliix, did the advertiser disappear by any chance? Just wondering.

[keliix06]

Yeah, he's still around. I'm stuck in position 2, but for penny clicks I'll live. Conversions have dropped off a little, but not enough to bid 30 cents.

We've launched 2 new things with my hosting company in the last 2 months, so I really haven't had enough time to actually get more conversions.