How to turn Limited Budgets into Big Profits: Damien Belak's journey with HilltopAds&Affmy!

Last updated on Nov 20, 2024

Dating Vertical is an excellent platform for those looking to embark on their journey in affiliate marketing. In this case study, we will explore how to optimize your dating advertising campaigns to achieve maximum revenue. Our experienced partner, Damien, will continue to share his valuable insights and practical recommendations.

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Be sure to check out the first part of our case study, as well as the video on launching the Affmy Dating offer:

Today, we will delve deeper into this topic and present new strategies that will help you succeed in this rapidly evolving vertical. Let’s get started!

Key Points

Offer: Non-Mainstream Dating
GEO: US (United States)
Traffic: Non-Mainstream High and Medium Activity
Ad Format: Popunder mobile
OS: Android
Brand mobile device: Genericphone, Huawei, Xiaomi
Ad campaign period: 15 August - 17 August
Revenue: $144
ROI: 221%

Affmy is an international CPA network based in Cyprus, boasting a global team and over 300+ exclusive Dating offers for markets around the world. With a primary focus on the dating vertical, the company ensures extensive market reach. Affmy is renowned for its outstanding support for clients, providing customized offers and consistently developing new funnels that achieve high conversion rates. Unique solutions are designed specifically for each partner, addressing their individual traffic needs.

Plus, if you're feeling a bit lazy or lacking in creativity, you can always use the ready-made creatives provided by Affmy. After all, why reinvent the wheel when you can just roll with it?

Now, let’s introduce our partner, Damien Belak, who is a well-known blogger actively sharing his expertise in internet marketing and traffic arbitrage. He has gained popularity through his educational materials and courses that empower others to earn money online. Damien has been experimenting with traffic from HilltopAds and the Affmy offers. If you recall from the first part of our case study, we previously highlighted Damien's impressive track record. He continues to push the boundaries and explore new strategies, and we’re excited to see what insights he will uncover this time around!

More about the strategy

In this case, the advertising campaign was launched not only for mobile devices running on the Android OS, as in the first case, but also specifically targeted certain brands such as Genericphone, Huawei, and Xiaomi. This decision was made because these brands are particularly popular among users in the US, allowing for more effective audience targeting and better control over bid performance.

The campaign is aimed at users in the US and is conducted in English. While we cannot disclose the specific ad creatives that were used, we can share several important tips:

Use eye-catching images. The most effective visuals are those that depict love, joy, and closeness. Logos of websites or applications are less common and can distract from the main message.
Pay attention to the choice of appearance in the photos. It should align with the characteristics of the GEO to resonate better with the target audience.
Incorporate engaging headlines with a call to action. For example: "I sent you a photo, waiting for you in DMs right now" or "I want to chat, message me." It’s important that the headlines contain a clear call to action that encourages users to engage and respond to your message.

Let's move on to the campaign settings.

General settings for an advertising campaign on the HilltopAds platform

Before launching an advertising campaign on HilltopAds, you need to register as an advertiser. You can register using this link.

Next, to create an advertising campaign, you need to:

Go to the Manage Campaigns section
Click the Add Campaign button
In the campaign creation section, select the Popunder mobile ad format
In the Traffic Channels section, choose Non-Mainstream High and Medium Activity

Next, it's essential to set up the Postback to track the results of your ad campaign.

For a detailed description of working with Postback and the available placeholders, check out our guide.

In simple terms, for the final URL of the offer, we need to insert parameters to pass conversions and source IDs. The parameter for passing conversions is click_id, and the source ID is zone_id.

As a result, our Final Destination URL should look like this:

https://my_offer.net/?&click_id={{ctoken}}&s1={{zoneid}}

{{ctoken}} - HilltopAds parameter for passing conversions.
{{zoneid}} - HilltopAds parameter for passing source ID.

In general, you can add absolutely any parameter from the available options that is necessary for further campaign analysis. However, remember that it is essential to include the click_id parameter in the final link to pass conversions.

Next, we set the necessary targeting settings:

GEO - US (United States)
Device - mobile
OS - Android
OS version - Android: 10, 11, 12
Language - English
Browser - Chrome
Brand mobile device - Genericphone, Huawei, Xiaomi

You can also configure campaign filters and allow/disallow Proxy and WebView traffic from the campaign. In our case for the Non-Mainstream Dating offer, we disabled Proxy traffic to reduce the likelihood of receiving irrelevant user clicks:

Proxy - disallow
WebView - allow

WebView is software that opens a landing page with an offer within a mobile application. In other words, upon opening the application, users are directed to a single-page website with the offer.

Instead of setting daily budget limits, we optimized the campaign using a tracker from day one. This allowed us to closely monitor and manage the campaign’s performance and ensure more effective ad delivery. We’ll go into more detail on this strategy below.

If necessary, you can also set campaign schedules. Our campaign will run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If we observe a significant variation in conversions throughout the day after the initial tests, we will set targeting for specific days and times.

The final step before launching Dating campaigns is to set the cost per thousand impressions (CPM). Here, we pay attention to the Traffic Volumes graph in the top left corner, which calculates premium, minimum, and recommended CPM rates.

Advice from Damien:
If you have the budget and are confident in the offer and traffic, consider increasing your bids. While this may lead to higher expenses, you will also receive more traffic. In this case, I preferred a more conservative approach, starting with a bid of $0.90 and gradually increasing it based on the initial results. In the future, I will stop raising my bid when I am satisfied with the traffic speed, and I may increase it slightly more if good conversions start coming in.
For beginners or those with a limited budget, this strategy can be beneficial, especially for high-traffic sources. It allows you to extend the duration of your campaign without quickly exhausting your budget. Additionally, you can sort traffic into blacklists and whitelists, which is covered in the Tracking and Optimization section.

Advice from HilltopAds:
To test a new offer, start with the recommended CPM. This will show whether the offer is effective and whether the campaign needs optimization.

Optimization and Tracker

To integrate HilltopAds and Affmy, as well as to closely monitor the statistics of the advertising campaign, the Voluume tracker was utilized.

To start working with the tracker, you need to add the traffic source and the offers that you plan to promote.

Check out the guide on how to set up Voluum and HilltopAds:

The data collected will help you break down campaign performance, enabling you to turn off unproductive sources quickly. In this case, we manually disabled sources that received over 2,500 impressions without any conversions, as well as sources that generated conversions but had an effective cost per acquisition (eCPA) exceeding $4. These underperforming sources were added to the blacklist to optimize the campaign's overall performance.

Advice: If you're currently experiencing low traffic volume, it's advisable to eliminate any traffic sources with an ROI of less than -40%. An ROI this low suggests that these sources are unlikely to convert in the future, even when accounting for potential conversion overflow.

This optimization process helped ensure the campaign’s profitability. You can see the detailed statistics on the screenshot below:

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Use it when making your first deposit of $100 or more at HilltopAds, and you'll receive an additional 10% bonus!

Conclusion

As a result of a 3 day testing period for the advertising campaign using the Affmy offer, positive results were achieved:

ROI: 221%
Spent: $44.86
Earned: $144

We invite you to take a look at the detailed statistics from the advertiser's personal account at HilltopAds, which vividly illustrates the results of Damien's campaign:

Below is a screenshot displaying the comprehensive data from the CPA network, providing insights into the earnings generated through Damien's campaign:

These figures indicate the high effectiveness of the campaign and represent an excellent outcome for the testing phase. Starting with a minimal bid, Damien was able to assess the profitability of the offer and plans to gradually increase the CPM, which will allow him to control the budget and maximize return on investment in the future.

The second case with the Affmy offer once again highlights several key aspects necessary for success in affiliate marketing within the dating vertical:

Thorough campaign setup: Success depends on the correct configuration of parameters such as geolocation, device, and operating system. For example, focusing on mobile devices with Android OS and popular brands like Huawei and Xiaomi ensured precise targeting.
Use of effective creatives: Visual elements and headlines that evoke emotions and encourage action play a crucial role in capturing the target audience's attention.
Constant data analysis: Monitoring campaign performance with a tracker allows for the quick identification and disabling of ineffective traffic sources, which is critical for optimizing expenses.
Flexibility in bid management: By starting with minimal bids, Damien can adapt his strategy based on results, allowing for effective budget management and increased ROI.

Thus, this case serves as a valuable lesson for anyone striving for success in the dating vertical. Thorough setup, testing, and constant data analysis are key factors that contribute to achieving high results in affiliate marketing.

I hope that my strategy will be helpful for those who are just starting out and working with a limited budget. Remember, even the smallest step can lead to great results — as they say, 'even a turtle can win a race if it doesn’t rush!' Wishing everyone good luck on our marketing journey! I will definitely continue collaborating with HilltopAds, as the traffic here converts like hotcakes!
— Damien

Create a campaign!