Here recently I finally took part in my first media buy and I ended up losing my $250 because of the mistakes I made.  I was all dreamy-eyed because it was my first media buy and it ended up costing me my entire investment because of it.  You live and you learn.  Thankfully, it wasn’t an expensive buy and I will chalk it up as a $250 lesson learned in media buying.

I was wanting to promote a niche dating site and I thought I had found the perfect site to contact for a direct buy. After a few back and forths with the domain owner and we agreed on a flat fee of $250 for a 30-day long run of the site. I was going to share the banner inventory with another banner, so I would see half the site’s traffic. When I asked how much traffic his site received, he told me, “[Sitename].com gets around 3000 unique visitors per day.” and “The site gets around 300000-350000 impressions on average monthly.” After my 30 days was up, I ended up getting a total of 17,398 impressions, resulting in 86 clicks and 0 conversions. I have run this offer for well over a year now and the average conversion rate I see is 12-18%.

So here’s my $250 worth of media buying advice to anybody who is about to do their first buy.

1. Check the demographics of the site you’re interested in buying banner inventory on. Use Quantcast, Compete or your favorite demographic website. Even these results will not be perfect. Your best bet is to ask for a media kit, if one is available.  Make sure the demographics match what works best for your offer.
2. Whenever you ask for the amount of traffic a site has, ALWAYS ask for proof of this.  Check the website’s source code, see if they’re using any type of analytics tool, such as Google Analytics.  Ask for a report of the last 30 days worth of traffic, at least.
3. When scouring the details of this traffic report you just asked for, see if you can determine where his traffic comes from. Is it type-in traffic or is it from organic search results?  If it’s a bunch of type-in traffic, you can probably bet that your target audience will develop banner blindness quicker.
4. While you’re still analyzing that report, check which countries this traffic is coming from.  You better make sure the traffic comes from a country that your offer allows!
5. Finally, do some math to find out how many conversions you will need to be profitable.  If it was a flat-fee per month, it’s easy to figureo out what it will take to be profitable.  If it’s a CPM buy, calculate how many conversions you will need per thousand impressions to be profitable.  Using data from other traffic sources, about how many clicks does that translate too?  Using that information, what CTR should you be expecting?  How do these figures relate to other traffic sources you’ve tested?  Does it seem realistic that you might be profitable?  I hope so!

P.S. Yes I’m a fucking idiot for not doing proper research. Thanks for noticing. =)

Day 1

As soon as I landed in San Francisco and checked into The W, I met up with Shawn Smith from Optimal Web Works, my buddy Tony Tsai and his wife, Jasmine.  We went and checked out Fisherman’s Wharf and was treated to dinner by NDemand Affiliates.

XY7 and NDemand also sponsored the evening by renting a yacht to take us around San Francisco Bay for three hours.  It was a great idea, but it was hella cold if you got on the deck of the yacht.  I did go out there a little bit and snapped a few pictures.  I was kinda bored at first, but as the party went on and everybody got some alcohol in them I started having a lot better time.  I must say that Jon Fondy, host of InboxedRadio is awesome.  He can liven up any party!

We were done with the yacht around 11:00pm and itzbert’s girl said she knew a club/bar that was a good place to go.  Caught a cab ride over there and it was time to par-tay!  I was kinda disappointed I had to request some west coast music.  I requested some songs by local Bay Area artists, Ya Boy and Clyde Carson and they had no clue who I was talking about.  So they eventually played California Love and the place got crunk.  They should’ve let me DJ, just sayin… l had a blast with XY7, NDemand, kaveman, itzbert and his girl.  I even ran into Amber Paul from AKMG up there.  Just as I was leaving Bryn, Trevor and Stanley were getting out of a cab and you know damn well I had to stay and kick it with the homies.  I was straight smashed by the time we ended up catching a cab to somewhere and he ended up stopping right down the road from The W.  I was smashed and tired so I wished the guys well and chunked the deuce.

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Day 2

As I expected, I woke up late and hungover.  Just as I was heading over to the floor at noon, I ran into Dylan and Matt from Revenue Ads and Shawn Smith and we all decided to grab some lunch.

After lunch it was time for the AffBuzz Birthday Party with Shawn, Tony and Mike.  Got up there and it was a who’s who in affiliate marketing.  Just to name a few affiliates, Dr. Ngo, Morgan Thomas, Nick Mattern, Bryn Youngblut, Jonathan Volk and Ian Fernando were all in attendance.  A few networks were there including A4D, AKMG and ECM.  We even had a traffic source, Plenty of Fish show up so you know I had to chat it up with Ben for a couple minutes.

Around 2:30pm I finally left the AffBuzz ordeal and made my way to the conference.  I only had 2.5 hours until I had a meeting wtih Amber Paul and Eleah Portillo of AKMG, so I had to make quick work of these booths.  Again, I have to give a shout to Jason Akatiff from Ads4Dough for the epic tradeshow floor tips.  God knows I used them on many booths. Shawn Smith and I went around from booth to booth finding out who did what and took a business card if we felt like we could benefit from the services they offered.  I didn’t get to finish checking out all the booths by the time I had to meet with the AKMG girls.  There wer e a number of new traffic sources I talked to and can’t wait to start buying traffic from.  I also let the Facebook Affiliate team have it.  I should’ve recorded it for all to see.  Shawn Smith will atest to this.

After that I went to the Meetup202 event and the place was packed.  Too many suits for my taste.  Meetup202 just isn’t what it used to be.   Then I had dinner with Shawn Smith, Tony and his wife, Mike, Alan Rutledge, Stanley and a few other guys whose names I do not recall.  We ate at some decent Chinese place and we all talked about the show, the meetup and what everybody’s plans for the night was.  It was almost unanimous that the EWA/PPC.bz party was where everybody was going.

We left dinner and started heading to the Mezzanine where the EWA/PPC.bz party was going down.  We were there before most people arrived and the wait wasn’t too long.  It was an open bar from 9pm to 11pm and everybody was taking advantage.  All the usual suspects showed up.  Dirt Nasty and Andre Legacy are freaking awesome.  I must admit, I never listened to their material beforehand, but their subject material was on point!  Their videos are at the bottom of this page.  I was talkin to the infamous Rob Hustle and was telling him to get on stage, but unfortunately nobody would battle him and Mic Davice couldn’t make it. I was also pretty disappionted that YTCracker never got on the mic.  Right before the open bar ended, I double-upped on drinks and already had a full one at the table.  After the open bar was over the place pretty much emptied out by 11:30, but I wasn’t going to leave until I finished my drinks.  The place was damn near empty when I left at midnight and decided to head home, but not before I stopped in at a Denny’s and absolutely murdered everything they put on my plate.  I later found out that Too Short was backstage and I wish I would’ve known so I could’ve met him.

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Day 3

Woke up earlier than I expected and surprisingly wasn’t hungover.  I had to fly out at 2:30pm and I decided I had to to hit the floor and make quick work of the last few booths I didn’t get to make it to yesterday. As I was making my rounds I ran into Steve Howe and Mike Kerry from C2M and chatted it up for a few.  I wish I could’ve talked longer, but we were both short on time.  Finished up the booths and decided I had to get some In ‘N Out before I headed home.

The award for best marketing gimmick at ad:tech 2010 San Francisco goes to Meta Network.  Picture below.  I think I found just the condom for Dirt Nasty and Andre Legacy.

The guys from Revenue Ads scored some playoff tickets and invited me down to watch the game.  The Oklahoma City Thunder are playing the Los Angeles Lakers in the First Round of the NBA’s Western Conference Playoffs.  This is a big deal for us Oklahomies.  This is our first professional sports team and the first professional playoff game ever played in Oklahoma.

Now I have a dilemma because my favorite team is the Los Angeles Lakers and always has been since I was young.  But, I ALWAYS root for the home team.  I decided I was going to root for the Oklahoma City Thunder because it was our state’s first playoff game ever, and I’m pretty confident that my Lakers will win the series.

The Lakers came out strong with a 10-0 lead and it looked like we would never score.  We would keep getting within 1 or 2 possessions, but every time we would gain some momentum Kobe would shoot one of his daggers and kill it for us.  There were a handful of great dunks, notably one by Russell Westbrook, of which I’ve included a video below.  The Lakers were up 5 to end the 1st quarter, 7 at half time and 1 heading into the 4th quater.  We didn’t sit for a large portion of the game and not at all in the 4th quarter.  We were finally able to take the lead with around 8 minutes remaining thanks to our defense and Kevin Durant finally getting into a rhythm after slumping all game long.

It turned out to be a freaking awesome game and I couldn’t have asked for a better game to attend.  The environment was absolutely insane.  The noise level was off the charts.  After the game Kobe Bryant was quoted as saying, “It was one of the loudest crowds I’ve ever played before in the postseason.“  And every seat had a blue Rise Together shirt on the back of it, turning the entire arena into a sea of blue.

I’m thankful for Clay Bennett and his desire to bring the team to Oklahoma City.  This Thunder team really has a lot going for them.  They had a 50-win season, made the playoffs and are the youngest team in the NBA if I’m not mistaken.  Their really young nucleus will allow for us to build an even better team in the coming years.  Even their coach, Scott Brooks, was awarded the NBA Coach of the Year award in the pregame ceremonies.

Thanks again Revenue Ads!

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12►

I, for one, do not care for Bloosky nor do I care for the direction I believe they’re headed in. With that being said, I will not be upgrading my Prosper202 installation.

The main reason for my post is to say that you can’t trust your Prosper202 stats. Pixels fire inadvertently sometimes, so check your stats at the network to make sure they match what you’re earning in Prosper. I know I was checking mine a few weeks back and realized my earnings were off about $200. I don’t know why I hadn’t always checked this, but I should have considering I’m anal about everything I do.

Also, don’t forget that some networks are on EDT (AKMG, C2M), others are CDT (PKM) while others are PDT (Neverblue). So take that into effect when you’re comparing stats.

If you can’t get your conversions in your Prosper install to matchup with the network, you might want to raise it as an issue with your AM to make sure you’re being credited all the leads you’re supposed to be getting since their pixel is firing more than their stats show. You do have all kinds of information to relay back to them since Prosper tracks it all.

If you’re going to ad:tech and we haven’t met before, don’t shy away from coming and saying hey to me. I’ll be making my rounds at the conference and would love to meet some of you guys that read the blog.

Before I go, let me once again stress to you how epic Smaxor’s Affiliate Tradeshow Floor Tips are. I’ve copied his entire post below or you can, preferrably, visit his blog by clicking the previous link and reading the original post.

Affiliate Tradeshow Floor Tips

Involved in affiliate marketing? Then you probably know that Affiliate Summit West is just a few days away.

So how can you get the most out of the show?

I’m sure you’ve read all the posts saying that all the real business at tradeshows happens at the parties. I agree a lot of business and information is shared in the settings outside the tradeshow floor. What niches are working well and where is a lot of the juicy stuff you’ll get off the tradeshow floor. Stuff that’s not usually shared publicly anywhere.

BUT….

There is a ton of good business to be done on the Affiliate Summit tradeshow floor as well, but you have to go with a plan. As affiliates what are the things we care about?

1. Traffic Sources
2. Things to promote
3. Creative and site design ( for some )

All of these things are bountiful at the actual show. Some shows are better then others for one or the other. I think Adtech is better for Traffic Sources and Affiliate Summit is better to meet networks and advertisers.

So what’s the plan? When I hit the tradeshow floor I want to meet as many people as I can. Network like a mad man meeting people that I “don’t” know. Seeing people you do know is fine but it’s the people you don’t know which is going to open new avenues, ideas and in turn create opportunities.

Here’s my plan:

Walk onto the floor and start at booth 1 then walk from booth to booth. Talk with every single person you can and find out which of your list items they have to offer you. Mostly I’m looking for traffic when I hit the tradeshow floor. More traffic sources is always what’s the most interesting to me. I know where to find offers at this point. So I walk from booth to booth collecting business cards asking “Do you sell traffic?” or “Who do you know that sells traffic?” If they answer yes I talk to them about how they sell it ie. ppc, cpm, cpv, cpa. How much inventory do they have. What does it take to get started, what offers are doing well with in their platform, what creative compliance stuff they have. Then I take all that and write as much of it as I can on the back of their business card so when I get home I can remember what they have to offer.

Now if they say they don’t sell traffic they’re going to tell me what they do. When they tell me I try and figure out how I can get to some traffic contact they know. For example if it’s an affiliate network I might ask “what offers are doing well on your network?”, “How are affs promoting them?”, “where are they buying traffic?” Keep in mind they may not answer some of these questions but guess what if you don’t ask they will be guaranatee’d not to answer. Don’t be a panzy ask, dig, pry and get every last bit of info out of everyone you talk to. Don’t be afraid you’re going to hurt someones feeling or overstep your bounds. Now I’m not saying be a jackass but I am saying dig like a archeologist looking for bones., keep diggin.

If you, like me, plan on staying in this business long term your business will grow and you’ll need more and more people in the tradeshow. So give everyone respect and file what they do away somewhere. Because you’re going to get down the road, and this business is like a puzzle. You’re going to have some project going and there’s going to be a few pieces missing. Those cards you collected years ago at some show will fill your puzzle and complete your project.

Have fun and meet as many new people as you can. You already know the people you know come home with new connections and grow your business.

Success,
Smaxor