History repeats itself, and affiliates continue to repeat these mistakes year after year. But don’t worry—our team is here to help you break free from this cycle!
First of all, welcome to a new section of our blog. Here, we will discuss situations that arise when launching ad campaigns based on experience of our team. We’ll also ask managers for their recommendations on how to increase the effectiveness of your ad campaigns and share valuable statistics that you won’t find anywhere else. Does that sound good to you?
As you might have guessed from the title, today we won’t be covering general aspects of launching ad campaigns that everyone is familiar with. Instead, we asked our managers what they frequently encounter in our clients’ ad campaigns that lead to lower ROI and higher unnecessary spending, but nobody talks about. Here are the TOP 10 Affiliate Mistakes from the HilltopAds ad network.
Launching ad campaign without using campaign targetings
Running an ad campaign without targeting can be challenging, especially if your budget isn’t large enough to attract clients from a broad audience. Based on our industry experience, launching ad campaigns without direct targeting can be used by big companies (e.g., Coca-Cola) looking to tap into new audience segments.
Solution: Start using campaign targetings. At HilltopAds, you have various options available, including GEO, Browser, OS, Device type, Language, Interest, etc.
Neglecting trackers
Even the best ad strategies can lose effectiveness if advertiser doesn’t track his campaign analytics. Of course, in some cases (like running tests) setting up tracking is an unnecessary procedure. But keep in mind, that this kind of blind approach requires an ad budget of $500 or more.
Solution: Integrate trackers into your workflow. You can find detailed guides on how to connect HilltopAds’ ad campaigns with popular trackers on our blog.
Promoted offers are not supported in targeted GEOs
Newbies might not know, and experienced affiliates can forget, that promoted offers may not be supported in certain GEOs. For instance, the cryptocurrency exchange gate.io doesn’t operate in the Netherlands (NL). Therefore, promoting offers related to gate.io in that region would waste your ad budget.
Solution: Always check which countries your offers are supported in, and only then use them as campaign targetings.
Selecting Too Many GEOs in One Campaign
Let’s examine how GEO targeting affects your campaign. When you select a specific country, you’re buying traffic associated with that GEO, which comes with a specific bid. The total traffic available can vary greatly between different GEOs. If you launch an ad campaign with all GEOs selected, you may receive a lot of traffic from popular countries and very little from smaller ones. However, those smaller GEOs could be a goldmine, but you might never discover their potential.
Solution: To run effective traffic tests, follow this simple rule: 1 ad campaign = 1 GEO. This way, you can test all traffic in roughly equal amounts, and evaluate does it benefit your goals or not.
Too Narrow Targeting (even leads can’t get through)
This is kind of another side of the coin that we discussed in paragraph #1. Setting up too many targeting options at once can lead to a very small portion of traffic matching your criteria, resulting in a significantly higher bid than you’re used to.
Solution: Keep a balance between necessary targetings and settings that unnecessarily narrow your audience. It might be obvious, but a similar effect occurs if you choose “desktop” device targeting along with an OS that corresponds to mobile devices.
Combining Multiple Offers in One Campaign
Another golden rule: 1 offer = 1 ad campaign. You might wonder, “Why can’t I use one ad campaign to promote several offers if the setup is the same?”. First, if one of the offers violates our terms and conditions, the entire campaign will be declined, forcing you to sort out the issue or even separate offers into different campaigns. Additionally, our managers may think you’re trying to pass one offer off as another, which is also against our company’s policy and could lead to rejection.
Solution: Stick to the rule of 1 offer = 1 ad campaign, or ensure all offers in your campaign are compliant and won’t raise any concerns.
Running Non-Mainstream Offers on Mainstream Channels
This mistake can happen accidentally or from a desire to find a better performing combination of promoted offer and traffic. But imagine targeting an ad campaign at a completely uninterested audience — this is exactly what you’re doing when you run non-mainstream offers on mainstream channels. Non-mainstream content can scare away potential clients and waste your ad budget.
Solution: Drive traffic to your ad campaigns using suitable traffic type. At HilltopAds, you must select the non-mainstream category for offers with age restrictions.
Setting Low CPM Rates and Ignoring Estimation Tool Recommendations
This issue often affects newcomers who are unfamiliar with the appropriate rates for specific niches and traffic types. By choosing low rates, advertisers may receive minimal traffic.
Solution: Use the Estimation Tool and pay close attention to the recommended and premium rates.
Incorrect Postback Setup or Lack of Postback Configuration
While it’s important to identify the most profitable traffic sources, it’s equally crucial to know which ones are draining your ad budget.
Solution: Set up conversion tracking, which will allow you to establish auto-rules that immediately cut off low-performing zones. Keep in mind that the more complex the conversion, the more time optimization will require.
Keep in mind that the more complex the conversion, the more time optimization will require.
Tracking parameters in the URL will help you gather detailed data about users and traffic sources. Later, you can use this information to refine targeting and create white/black lists.
The key parameters are {{zoneid}}, {{ctoken}}.
Ignoring Network Rules
Lastly, always ensure that your ad campaigns comply with the network’s terms and policies (i.e., avoid unsuitable offers, ensure creatives don’t violate guidelines, etc.).
Solution: Regularly review the advertising guidelines to streamline the campaign launch process. You can find the full list of rules for working with HilltopAds through the link.
Final Thoughts
Hope we didn’t miss anything that brings your ad campaign down.
Soon, we will be back with more insights, so keep following our social media and blog. And of course, launch ads with HilltopAds (if you happened not to do so yet).
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