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So, you’ve stumbled upon a fantastic offer and are eager to venture into media buying. However, before you take the plunge, it’s essential to grasp that media buying is a multifaceted and ever-evolving field that demands meticulous planning, strategic execution, and continuous optimization.
By leveraging Keitaro’s robust features and combining them with a solid knowledge foundation, you can confidently navigate the industry’s complexities. With Keitaro, you can configure traffic and obtain comprehensive analytics to conduct the necessary optimization for a successful campaign.
But it’s important to note that achieving success in internet marketing isn’t guaranteed, and everyone’s likely to experience losses at some point or another. To minimize such setbacks, in addition to the basic tips that have already been extensively covered all over the web, it is crucial to understand the nuances of the media buying process. There are several things that you should master:
1. Understand Financial Indicators
It’s essential to possess a profound comprehension of the terminology and fundamental principles behind financial indicators. While many are familiar with popular metrics like Return on Investment (ROI), Click-Through Rate (CTR), and Conversion Rate (CR), it’s crucial to explore more advanced concepts like Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), and Cost Per Mille (CPM).
CPA can vary depending on the situation and can also be represented as CPI/CPR/CPL/CPS. Similarly, CPM can be replaced by CPC/CPuC. It is important to note that these metrics have no strict hierarchy: one is not more important than the other. The key is understanding the abundance of options available and determining which metrics are relevant for your specific vertical or industry.
For example, if you work in iGaming, you might focus on metrics such as region-specific registrations and deposits. If you are promoting software, consider metrics like app installations and usage. The variability in metrics allows you to choose the ones that align with your goals and serve as benchmarks for your campaigns.
By understanding the diversity of metrics and selecting the most applicable to your vertical, you can effectively navigate the media buying landscape and optimize your strategies accordingly. Keitaro can automatically calculate these financial indicators and separately show their components (expenses/income). The tracker can highlight this information for each campaign, user, or offer, making your work more convenient and efficient.
2. Prepare for the Campaign
Conducting thorough calculations and assessments is crucial. Evaluate your available budget and determine how much you’ll allocate to operational costs. Consider how frequently you’ll need to replenish your advertising account and whether the payment structure of the offer allows you to break even or generate profits. Assess the reliability of the affiliate network or partner, including factors like minimum withdrawal amounts. This understanding ensures you can stay afloat and make informed decisions aligned with your vertical, whether Nutra offers software with app installations or any other.
Once the financial aspects are considered, it’s time to prepare for the campaign. Creative elements play a vital role, and you can rely on professionals to design winning ads or leverage AI-powered tools for a creative generation. You can also use the ready-made landing pages offered by partner networks.
Research the market to understand what works well for similar offers without resorting to spammy tactics. Crafting compelling ad copy is essential, as it can either boost or hinder your CTR and CR.
With Keitaro, you can also utilize the power of blacklists and whitelists, seamlessly integrating them with your advertising sources. Whitelists comprise resources, such as creative IDs and placement IDs, that generate a positive ROI and are deemed suitable for ongoing ad placements. Conversely, blacklists encompass resources that do not meet performance expectations and are not recommended for further advertising.
While Keitaro reports offering in-depth visibility into the performance of your advertising network resources, empowering you to curate and manage your blacklists and whitelists effectively manually.
3. Understand Campaign Mechanics
To run a successful campaign, you must comprehensively understand its mechanics and continuously optimize your strategies. Here are the key actions that you should perform:
A/B testing
Conduct A/B testing to compare variables such as ad creatives, messaging, landing page design, targeting options, and ad placements. This testing allows you to identify the most effective combinations and refine your campaign performance. Want to learn more about A/B testing? Read our article here.
Device differentiation
Differentiate between desktop and mobile campaigns as they have distinct layouts, codes, scripts, and methods of collecting leads. Optimize your landing pages for mobile responsiveness and ensure a seamless user experience across devices.
Campaign performance monitoring
Continuously monitor it using tracking tools like Keitaro and analytics platforms. Analyze metrics such as impression CTR, CR, and engagement metrics. This analysis helps you identify areas of improvement and implement data-driven optimizations.
Also, remember to review and adjust your targeting parameters, ad scheduling, and bidding strategies to maximize ROI.
Targeting Parameters
Regularly evaluate and refine your audience demographics. Analyze your target audience’s characteristics, interests, and behaviors to ensure your ads reach the most relevant individuals. This may involve narrowing down your targeting criteria or expanding it to explore new customer segments.
Ad Scheduling
Optimize the timing and frequency of your ads based on audience engagement patterns. Identify peak activity periods when your target audience is most likely receptive. Adjust your ad scheduling to display your ads during these optimal times. Additionally, consider the ideal frequency of ad impressions to maintain interest without overwhelming your audience.
Bidding Strategies
Continuously monitor the performance of your campaigns and experiment with different bidding strategies. Evaluate the cost efficiency of your bids and adjust them accordingly. Test different bid types, such as CPC or CPA, to determine the most effective approach for your campaign goals.
4. Bid Wisely
Selecting the right traffic and targeting based on geography, demographics, interests, and past campaign success is crucial for optimizing a successful campaign. However, determining the appropriate bid and knowing when to pivot can be challenging.
In media buying, you’re likely to encounter four scenarios based on three metrics (Volume, Bid, and CTR) that require understanding the interrelationship between them:
- Bid or CTR decrease, Volume remains unchanged: If the bid decreases, the CTR should increase, indicating that optimization has occurred. Meaning that a suitable space has been found within the publishing network. On the other hand, if the CTR decreases, the bid will need to be increased to make an attempt to capture the audience’s attention.
- Bid remains the same as Volume and CTR increase: It’s most likely that a competitor with a higher bid has dropped this offer, giving you the advantage. This is considered the ideal outcome for your campaign.
- Bid and Volume increase while CTR decreases: This suggests that your target audience is fiercely competitive and someone has outbid you. Success may be challenging in this situation, so revisiting your targeting strategy is wise.
- Bid, Volume, and CTR – all increase: By increasing your bid, you have attracted more traffic and volume, resulting in a logical scenario where the impression level rises. This usually indicates higher-quality traffic.
5. Know When to Exit
If it becomes evident that the campaign consistently underperforms and further optimization efforts are unlikely to yield significant improvements, it is wise to consider exiting the campaign. By doing so, you can reallocate your resources to more promising opportunities.
For example, if testing multiple lead costs reveals unsatisfactory results, consider adjusting the creative elements to improve performance. Similarly, if you identify a high percentage of fraudulent activity within a campaign, investigate the affiliate network. Verify if they have call recordings with crucial conversion points to confirm significant fraud. If necessary, explore alternative advertising platforms.
Investigate the landing page if your campaign exhibits a high CTR but fails to generate conversions. Look for errors in the description and ensure your ads convey accurate messaging to avoid misleading the audience.
By immersing yourself in the critical areas of media buying and acquiring the necessary knowledge, you can significantly increase your chances of success and avoid costly mistakes.
One valuable tool that can assist you in this journey is Keitaro, an ultimate ad tracker.
Keitaro empowers you to fine-tune your campaigns for optimal performance. By leveraging the platform’s automation and optimization tools, you can streamline your media buying processes and maximize your return on investment.
Do you want us to focus more on a specific media buying aspect in our following articles? Would you like to suggest a topic? Tell us in the comments below!
