How To Avoid Mistakes During Ad Optimization: Case Report

Optimization is a crucial part of running ad campaigns in affiliate marketing. No matter what the offer is and which ad type you choose: push notifications, native, pops, or any other. You’re at great risk of losing money if you don’t change anything during the whole period of your campaign.

As you know, there are already a lot of features for auto-optimization on the top ad networks. At the same time, there are some common mistakes advertisers make.

Spoiler: sometimes optimization makes things worse.

Optimization Pitfalls and Hacks

When you optimize ad campaigns after some tests, both automatically and manually, you can face several typical mistakes.

Let’s check the most current of them and find out how to avoid them (on the example of the RichAds platform).

1. Choosing the wrong sources for your ads

Generally, if you are not sure which sub-lists work and which don’t, it’s recommended to run the campaign on all sources first. However, affiliates usually spend too much time and money on tests with this approach.

Solution: to avoid it, RichAds has implemented different groups of sources: Premium (best to start), Standard (best to scale), Remnant (best to buy cheap), and New (fresh audience).

The Premium shows a 7x higher average conversion rate than the Remnant for all niches and it doesn’t impose increased costs.

Plus, you can activate the feature to turn on New lists automatically.

2. Running ads on old or irrelevant devices

Due to limited targeting opportunities, your ads are often seen by users with old devices (e.g. with low screen resolution) or devices which don’t fit your offer.

Solution: Device Manufacturer and Device Model targeting fix the problem with the low functionality of outdated mobiles.

Or, for example, if you use a phone giveaway in your creative materials, it makes sense to target cheap devices.

Example of phone giveaway push ads

3. Running ads for the premium segment on cheap devices

On the contrary, first-class offers will just not work on low-cost gadgets.

Solution: The premium device targeting open doors to promoting luxury goods, expensive electronics, accessories, jewelry offers. The possibilities for performing ads are endless.

4. Wrong targeting options

Sometimes when affiliates run multiple campaigns, they can set some parameters accidentally and lose performing traffic, or not get it at all. In other cases, some targeting options are just not so trendy for certain GEOs or regions.

For example, iOS is unpopular in some countries (e.g. Syria, North Korea, Sudan, Cuba, etc.).

Solution: check the percentage of advanced targeting popularity for your GEO – you will see their value right in your account.

The popularity of iOS in Cuba

5. Slow effects of Automated Rules for Sources.

When you set auto-rules for separate Publishers or Sites, sometimes it may not cause the outcome so fast. As a result, you still spend the budget on non-converting, expensive traffic.

Solution: A new opportunity at RichAds has arisen: Automated Rules for the whole Subscriber lists. Thus, you cut off failing Publishers much faster and save money.

Besides, check the presets according to the best practices. The example is below.

So, check yourself not to make the mistakes listed above. In the meantime, remember to harness the power of other automated optimization technologies available on your ad platform.

Advanced Optimization Techniques

You definitely can make your ads bring higher performance without extra spending. And if you’ve been running ads quite a time already, you know how it works. But here are some tactics, on the example of RichAds, you may not have heard about or didn’t use.

1. Use Micro bidding to set separate bids for ad parameters within one campaign.

For example, you don’t need to create a new campaign for Android 10 with less bid because it’s too expensive. You can do it with 1 short line in the same campaign. Micro Bidding works for various parameters, but the most powerful are sources, OS, and creatives.

2. Take a good look at the Automated Rules

Automated Rules are quite a common and great way to optimize. The most popular rule auto-creates black or whitelists of sources. But this feature’s possibilities may vary. In our example, you can also automate pausing or changing bids for low-performing creatives, devices, OS, browsers, or the whole campaigns.

3. Trust Machine Learning CPA

After 10 tracked conversions, Target CPA prioritizes the sources that convert the highest over ineffective ones. This algorithm can make the cost per conversion fall. As a result, the campaign brings more conversions for your target budget.

4. Set Advanced Targeting

Apart from well-known targeting options, some unique ones work for almost all offers: Browser language, Device model & Manufacturer, or OS. Keep them in mind when you optimize ads for better results. Besides, some settings play a key role in such specific offers as Carrier or Connection type to reach the target audience.

Use the hacks to scale your campaigns for the biggest profits 🚀. If you have any doubts, don’t hesitate to ask RichAds experts for insights into your campaign optimization.

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