One penny, such an insignificant sum. No one suspects the penny. What could a pathetic penny ever do?
I’m sure most of you have spent some dimes on these traffic sources: Facebook Ads, Plenty of Fish, Myspace Ads, Media Buys and PPV.
But how many of you start your bidding on increments of 5? E.g $0.20, $0.45, $1.50.
I’m guessing the majority of you. That means the minority of you are sneaking past the herd of affiliate marketing sheep with your creative bidding strategies.
Let’s say for example, on Plenty of Fish Ads it is recommended you start bidding at 0.35 CPM for UK traffic. This is my estimation on how bidders would breakdown for UK traffic:
There would be a small percent of people getting minimum volume scraping the barrel. Then the masses (of sheep) would be bidding at 0.35 CPM. There would be a few loose cowboys (gratuitously high bidders), and the rare few with kick ass campaigns bidding at $0.40 CPM or higher. Then a smart group of people bidding in between at $0.36 CPM – $0.39 CPM.
By bidding an extra penny or two you are getting priority over 75% of people bidding $0.35 CPM without losing too much on your ROI. Small things like this help immensely in the big picture.
It is also important to note that after you are done testing a campaign, you should optimize your bid price. Don’t get lazy. Keep dropping your bid price down a penny at a time until you see a loss in volume. Think it’s a waste of time?
Lets say you were testing a MyAds campaign with a 0.20 CPC. If you managed to drop your bid to 0.17 CPC and get similar volume you would save:
- $15 if you spent $100.
- $150 if you spent $1000.
- $1500 if you spent $10,000.
This is very applicable for PPV (a.k.a bidding war heaven). After you have defeated a foe and conquered a fruitful target or two, be sure to pull your troops back (lower your bids back down as much as possible while holding your top bid spot).
A penny saved is a penny made.
Now be honest are you one of the sheep, cowboy, or part of the smart crew?
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Dam Lorenzo you make killing with this post, I always found how your posts are value, useful and more interesting.
both most of your posts, I achieve them by the way I’m growing with my business!
You Inspire to me to achieve more and be successful super affiliate
Keep It!
Dennis
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I was a cowboy turned smart crew (read the tip from some place I forgot where..) and amazingly FORGOT all about the tip and morphed back into a cowboy.
Thanks for the reminder, I’m off to change my bids now
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if you start dropping your bid in FB, I noticed the consistency of traffic to drop. even if the bid is still higher than avg. I dont think FB liks people dropping their bid price. IMO
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Lorenzo Green Reply:
April 5th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Yeah i hear ya volume just depletes. But instead of lowering bids in same campaign. Just create a new campaign with a lower cpc.
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Cash37 Reply:
July 12th, 2010 at 12:02 am
I’m going to have to test this as I’ve noticed impressions start randomly dropping for a few hours once I optimize.
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I believe fluctuation in bid price can turn a losing/break-even campaign profitable. Thanks for re-enforcing that information!
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Thanks for the info Lorenzo, very informative. Keep it up!
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Actually ROI increases as you bid higher because you show up higher in a users session. But this is mostly commmon sense and all top affiliates constantly change their bids.
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Lorenzo Green Reply:
April 5th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
I do understand your point that the higher you bid the better placements you will get served. However there is a tipping point though right? If you get ahead of the main pack you will go higher up in a users session. But there will be a point where if you go any higher it won’t help. For example surely there is no difference between bidding $2 CPM and $3 CPM other than spending $1 extra for the same candy.
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Haha true that Green. I have had the fortunate experience with FB that when I set a CPM at like .10 I got 0 views, at .15 they then gave me traffic and gradually lowered my CPM to .10 then as low as .09. So I guess I can’t complain if they are lowering my bids for me
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Good to see the posts coming.
Bid management is key whether you’re doing ppc/ppv or day trading.
It’s almost like an ebay snipe and beats being ‘penny wise, pound foolish’ any day of the week.
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Great advice, tweak bid strategy to optimize & cut cost to shreds then continue milking dry…more than enough info here to plug holes, stick with winners that’s what this game is all about!
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I’m part of the smart crew
Thanks for the good post Lorenzo
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This is a fantastic article. I caught this off of a recommendation from UberAffiliate and I’m definitely coming back for more. Great stuff!
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Solid advice. I don’t think it works on FB though. You just lose volume. I “think”.
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This always seemed like a natural thing to do, at least for me and the affiliates I kick ideas with.
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Fantastic! Generally I never read whole articles but the way you wrote this information is simply great and this kept my interest in reading and I enjoyed it. You have got great writing skills.
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