Simple Campaign Optimisation: 7 Weird Tricks That Will Make You More Money

Campaign Optimisation is the key to making campaigns profitable but no one is willing to share the secret sauce. Charles shared seven little-known secrets to help you make more money from your campaigns.

Speech by Charles Ngo | Affiliate Expert & CEO, AFFcelerator

Charles Ngo Speech Transcript

Alright. Good morning, Bangkok. So glad you guys could make it. I know a few of you are hangover. Thank you for coming.

Over the past few years, I’ve helped many people with their campaigns. Some of my students, some of my media buyers.

And one common trait I’ve seen is some people are sitting on gold and they don’t even realize it.

There are many campaigns I’ve seen, maybe they’re losing 50% ROI. And you know what they do? They quit.

When actuality, they are one or two split-tests away from becoming more profitable.

So, I designed this presentation for you guys so you could walk away today and implement some of these tests. And immediately become more profitable.

Raise your hand if you wanna become more profitable. Those guys that didn’t raise your hand, exit is that way.

Alright, so let’s begin.

Mindsets To Profitable Campaigns

Before we start, I wanna give you guys some mindset tips because one thing I’ve learned is all the strategy, all the tactics, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have the right mindset.

Profitable Campaign

The first one is you don’t find a profitable campaign.

Sometimes, I’ll see people, what they do is they’ll go to spy tools. They’ll talk to their affiliate managers, they’ll get all excited for a campaign.

And, they’ll spend some money. They’ll get ready to launch. And, they launch.

You know what happens? They lose money. Now, they go back to a drawing board.

So, their whole strategy is throwing stuff against the wall hoping something sticks.

They have a strategy based on hope. A strategy based on luck. You wanna develop a strategy based on skill, you wanna develop a system.

Profitable campaigns are built through split-test and optimization. Not by throwing sh*t against the wall.

Small Wins Add Up

Number two, small wins add up.

So, I noticed a lot of newbies, they think, “Man, if only I knew cloaking, if only I knew the special script, I’d become profitable.”

But my style of affiliate remarketing is small wins, is based on Kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement. Daily improvement.

Some of the split-test out there I do like headlines or whatever, they’re not sexy. But sometimes I do it, “Here is 5%.”

I’ll split-test my landing page, here is 5%. And, I’ll add in another little script, there’s 10%.

But it’s just the relentless testing me and my team do every single day, it adds up, the compound effect.

Don’t Be Emotional

Number three, don’t be emotional.

Some of you guys are like little girls when you lose money. And it’s natural, it’s loss aversion.

But you have to understand, when I launched a campaign, I’m a scientist. I’m performing marketing experiments. There’s a hypothesis and I split-test.

When I lose money on a campaign, I’m not thinking about the opportunity cost. I’m not thinking, “Man, that $500 are gonna buy PS4.”

I’m buying data, I am investing in my future.

Let’s get started.

Tip #1: Do Your Ads And Landing Pages Make Sense?

Tip number one, do your ads and landing pages make sense?

Look at this sign.

“Thangs you come to fisiting us.”

I definitely don’t wanna go wherever that is. So, this is ‘Engrish’.

And, let’s see this one.

“Nokia connocting poopie.”

The point of this is, you know, these Asian people, no offense to Asians, what they’re doing is, they have all the best intentions of having a great ad.

But they just don’t speak English. So, people like us, we speak English, it just doesn’t make sense.

My question for you is, some of you guys are running bid campaigns over international, and how do you know it makes sense?

How do know the translations make sense?

For me, I’ll run offers in Spanish or Dutch, I don’t speak Spanish, I don’t speak Dutch. How do I know it actually makes sense?

Here’s what you can do. Split-test translations. So, why would one translation be better than another one?

One, there’s different dialects.

Two, the slang and vernacular.

Three, how do you know that this translator is qualified? He might not be fluent, he might just be conversationally fluent but not fluent.

And number four, maybe it’s a scammer. Maybe what he did was just take your ad, put it into Google translation.

Split-test The Translations

Something I like to do is, if I have a campaign that’s doing over a thousand dollars a day in revenue, I’ll split-test the translations.

So, here is some place to get translations, One Hour Translation, Upwork, Fiverr, it doesn’t matter.

Just split-test different translations on different landing pages. See which one does better. This will actually make a difference.

And one more tip, don’t just get a translator. If you’re doing a lot of international, I believe in what I call hyper-localization.

This means, if I’m promoting an offer in Germany, I don’t know too much about Germany, how about I have someone who’s German that can help me understand the culture, understand the country so I can use it in angles?

Tip #2: How To Test Offers Without Losing Any Money

Number two, how to test offers without losing any money?

Here’s the problem with campaigns. Sometimes, I’ll have a campaign, it’s kicking arse, it’s doing amazing. I’m on a great offer.

I don’t wanna test other offers because I’m busy scaling. But you know how these affiliate networks are.

“Hey man, test my offer. This offer is better. Test my offer”

And what happens if I test this offer and it doesn’t perform? I take all the risk, I lose money.

Guaranteed EPC

So, there’s a little known way, it’s called GEPC, Guaranteed EPC.

It’s where the affiliate takes all the risk or the affiliate network takes all the risk.

Here’s an example.

Suppose I run an offer, $5 payout, $1,000 revenue, 900 clicks, $1.11 EPC.

So, it’s doing pretty well for me.

Another network or a direct advertiser wants me to run their offer. I’m gonna say this, “Okay, give me a GEPC of $1.11 and the budget is, we’ll test at $1,000 revenue.”

So, I’ll test their offer. If it underperforms, they have to pay me money to compensate.

Here’s what I mean.

So, if I run this offer, same payout, 5 bucks, 1,000 revenue.

But you see the difference? The performance is much worse, 71 cents EPC.

Because I have to spend 1400 clicks to make the same amount. Guess what, I lost money.

But because I had the GEPC, I get compensated $554.

This is a way for me to test campaigns without losing any money. So, if you have a great relationship with your affiliate manager, you have a history of driving, you know, doing volume.

Then, try asking for a GEPC. This way, they’re taking the risk, not you.

Tip #3: A Slow Landing Page Is Costing You Money

Number three, a slow landing page is costing you money.

I think some of you guys have heard this before but you don’t know how important this is, especially in mobile.

So, think about it, if we’re promoting an offering in, say Thailand or Indonesia, the Internet can be a little slow sometimes.

You’ve already paid the click, I have my cell phone out. And it takes 5 seconds to load your landing page. They’re gonna hit back.

Well, guess what, you already paid for the click.

So, here’s a little test I did 2 weeks ago just to illustrate my point.

I ripped a landing page from a spy tool. And, what I did was I improved it with just the optimization tricks. I copied their server. They were using Liquid Web.

The difference was 99% difference in the profitability just from improving the landing page. It was a 50-50 split-test.

So, you probably wanna know what did I implement?

Testing Your Website Speed

Well, first of all, you got to be able to test. So here are some places I like. GTmetrix, Pingdom, PageSpeed. It doesn’t matter, just test.

Use A CDN

So, number one, you’re definitely gonna use a CDN.

A CDN is this, most people use a VPS or dedicated server, in say Dallas.

Well, if you have traffic in Japan or Brazil, they have to travel from Japan over to Dallas.

What a CDN does is it uploads your website to all the servers all around the world. So, when someone visits your website, it checks the IP.

If they’re from Japan, what’s the closest server? Japan.

So, what’s gonna be faster? Them, flying to Japan or flying to Dallas for that click? Japan.

For CDNs, I recommend either Amazon or Rackspace. I don’t have any affiliate links, so just go ahead and sign up.

Here are some other tips.

Compress image sizes.

Here’s what I really like. Normally, people have the HTML and a CSS as different files where you can combine them into one file.

And something else I’d do is reprogram landing pages.

Sometimes, if I rip a page from someone else, it could be like a Frankenstein. It’s been passed around like 10 different times, it has like OCPD lapse coded it on new scripts.

So, we’ll actually just reprogram it and make it more efficient. Think of it as defragmenting the landing page.

And something else, do you guys do mobile?

Google Host Your jQuery

If jQuery takes up a lot of sizes, you can have Google host it for you.

And the main benefit of this is some people have already had the Google version cached. So, since it’s already stored, they don’t have to re-download it.

It can save you an extra half a second. So, there’s plenty of resources online, much more technical. I just wanna bring the awareness to you.

Tip #4: Are You Using The Right Language

Number four, so this is a really good trick. Are you using the right landing page?

So, I travel a lot. And, I like to, I remember the first time I went to Malaysia. I like to visit my friend Benjamin Yong a lot.

And in Malaysia, I’m so surprised. They got Chinese, Indian, they have Malay, they have English speakers. It’s such a melting pot.

And back in the day, whenever I promote it in Malaysia, I would just, “Well, they’re in Malaysia. They speak Malaysian.”

But you have all these people that don’t speak Malaysian. They speak Chinese, They speak Tamil.

Let’s look at another country. Switzerland.

I don’t know too much about Switzerland but a quick Wikipedia search shows that they speak German. But 21% of the population speaks French.

So, what happens if 100% traffic goes towards German landing page? You’ll isolate 20% of the traffic.

So, would it make sense to show that 20% speak French, a French landing page?

Here are some other countries. South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, Belgium.

There are many multi-cultural countries that speak many languages. So, how do we actually implement this?

Back in the day, I just put a pop-up, like do you speak Tamil? Do you speak Malaysian? And then, they can click. But that’s very inefficient.

Here’s a better way.

How To Implement Via Voluum

Just go to Voluum. You can search by any language and just redirect the traffic to different landing pages instead of different rules.

So this, I’ve implemented this in many of my campaigns, 30% extra ROI.

Easy test, takes 5 minutes.

Tip #5: Simple Profits Formula

Number five, simple profits formula. So, I wish I had more time to explain optimization.

What I decided to do was come up with a framework for you guys. A very simple, newbie-friendly framework on how you do optimization.

Lower Your Click Loss

Number one, lower your click loss.

So, the first thing you have to do, improve the ad’s CTR because the higher the ad CTR, the higher the eCPM.  They will lower your click cost.

Next, lower your bids. I recommend 5% of testing and see what happens next.

One word of warning. Just because you lower your bids doesn’t mean you’re gonna make more money.

Because sometimes, when you lower your bids, you’ll lose access to the top profitable placements. So be careful.

Next, test that on different bidding models and negotiate with the traffic source or go direct with them.

Effective Targeting

There’s also effective targeting. Effective targeting means sometimes you’ll launch a campaign. RON.

There are all these different websites you’re spending money on that does not make any money. So, cut them out.

Don’t forget to test out the best countries. I’ve had many offers, campaigns that 200% ROI in Germany, I bring it over to Italy, lost all my money.

Countries matter a lot.

And with all these traffic sources, that’s why I really emphasize mastering traffic sources cause you can see the targeting is completely different.

Mobile, Facebook, PPV.

So, take your time and master traffic source.

Improve Landing Page Conversion Rates

Improve your landing page. So, I like the angles. There’s a lot of conversions boosting scripts out there. Like a warning, “This offer is gonna expire in 5 minutes.”

So, there’s a lot of scripts out there, check those out. Improve your landing page speed.

Increase Offer Payouts

And for the offer, you guys know the first two.

The last one is very important. Split-test the offer across different affiliate networks. Even as the same offer.

Everyone is obsessed with payout. “Ooh, this one has like extra 50 cents.”

Well, you know what? Yes, they’re paying you extra 50 cents but they’re scrubbing a dollar from you.

Or their server is slow. So, always keep the networks honest by split-testing.

Some advance ways to make a little bit more money, you can collect the data through emails, hosting post.

You can retarget the campaigns. And you can put on more than one offer.

Tip #6: Systemize Your Optimization

Number six, systemize your optimization. So, optimization takes some time.

And when you scale, you still have to optimize the campaigns. So, you have to develop this framework that you can give to other people, employees, media buyers to do optimization.

There are two high-level ways that I optimize. Time-based optimization and formula-based.

Time-based Systemization

 

Time-based optimization means this, you develop kinda like daily habits. Like every 2 days, just go ahead and upload new banners.

So, if you have a media buyer, he’s brand-new, you give him all these formulas, he’s just gonna get confused.

But you tell him, “Hey, every 5 days, just upload a new banner.”

Or every day, just test your landing page headline. Simple, it’s not perfect.

But let’s just say 80% is good enough. And it’s just the constant act of doing it will improve.

Formula-based Systemization

Next is formula-based. So, this is where you come out with different formulas. These are made up formulas.

Don’t like, start optimizing based on these.

But the idea is, once you master traffic source, you master a vertical. A lot of these formulas and these patterns become predictable.

So, figure out your formulas and give them to employees. That way, you can sit back, travel the world and make money.

Because not only do you have the team, but you have the formulas and systems that they follow.

That’s how you scale big, That’s how you grow.

Tip #7: Get Free Money From Your Comment Section

Final tip. So, this is something I think a lot of you guys will like.

Get free money from a comment section.

So, here’s the comment section of what a lot of you guys, your landing pages look like.

It’s decent, it’s not bad, it’s social proof. Like, “Hey, here’s an iPhone 6. I want an iPhone 6. Whoop-dee-do. Awesome. I can’t believe I won an iPhone 6.”

It’s not bad. Let’s improve it.

Let’s Improve It

So, let’s look at the dude with the selfie, Tim West. Actually, that’s me.

This dude with a selfie, what we did here was we just added in proof of an iPhone.

So, I got this from Instagram or whatever. You could see it adds social proof.

The first comment is what’s interesting.

Here, the original offer is an iPhone 6. I offer a Samsung Galaxy S6 and this is free money. Why does this work?

Because it says here, “Hey, I came to this website last week, they ran out of iPhones. So, I got this Samsung Galaxy instead.”

So, it adds in the social proof as in proof urgency that, “Hey, if you have a chance of getting this iPhone, sign up now. Don’t miss it like I did.”

Number two reason why it works is, maybe someone just doesn’t want an iPhone. Maybe someone like Caurmen hates iPhones.

Some people just hate iPhones and don’t want them.

Or number three, you could put in a testimonial or something that says, “Hey, I signed up for iPhone and I signed up for this Samsung Galaxy S6. I got both of them.”

And show a screenshot with two phones.

You don’t have to use Samsung. Use whatever you wanna use. Use an app install, use a voucher, use a PlayStation 4, use a Macbook.

It doesn’t matter.

Heat Map Software

I’m just telling you guys, people look at this section.

I know because I installed heat map software. Heat map software, you know, showed people looking at it, click it.

So, yeah, I’ve installed this. Extra like 5% to 10% from each campaign.

But if it’s like extra 200 bucks a day over the next few years, how much does that make?

How much difference does that make?

Once again, Kaizen. So, there’s some options.

Add in some social proof, add another offer. And here’s a third one that’s pretty interesting.

“Hey, I got this iPhone from somewhere else. Don’t buy it from here because the other one comes with free shipping or faster shipping. “

And just send them the same offer. They’re not gonna check.

Alright, so my presentation is about to end, unfortunately. I do have some few tips that I could include in this presentation because I have 2 minutes left.

Want More?

So, you guys want number eight, number nine and number ten?

Go to AWA, there’s no hyphen. So, AWAslides.com. It is available to download, it is set. So check it out.

Okay, what’s next? Also, here’s where you can find me online.

Okay, before I leave, I just wanna say a few things. First of all, I know it’s expensive to come to Bangkok.

You have to pay for the hotel, you have to pay for this conference. And, you had to pay for the flight.

As far as the time, you got to take some time off from work. You got to take some time off from your family.

So, I wanna thank you guys for making this encouragement or making this investment in yourselves. Give yourselves a round of applause for coming here.

Eight Years Ago

One thing I remember is 8 years ago, I remember sitting at home. I wasn’t a successful affiliate marketer yet.

And I remember, I was sitting back, watching YouTube and seeing all these speakers from Affiliate Summit.

I thought to myself, you know how I felt? I felt discouraged because I was like, “I’m competing against that guy, isn’t it too late for me to make money? How can I keep competing against this guy?”

It was very hard for me emotionally because I lost a lot of money trying to make this work. And it sucks to lose money on the campaign after campaign after campaign.

And over time, you know, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of sacrifices. I lost some friends just trying to make this work.

And the whole time I was thinking to myself, “Is this industry real, is this a scam, is it worth it?”

After Eight Years

After eight years in this industry, I’m staying in front of you all.

I can tell you that it is worth it. And that affiliate marketing is a skill. I wasn’t born knowing how to do this, I didn’t go to school to learn how to split-test or optimize campaigns.

This kill was developed through practice.

So, right now, you’re all motivated. You have a lot of momentum.

I don’t wanna see you at the next AWA in exact same f*cking position. Take some action. Don’t just read blogs, even though my blog’s pretty good.

Don’t just read ‘Stack That Money’. Take the information and do something.

I’m not talking about next week or two weeks from now. I’m talking about right now or tonight.

Take some action. That’s the only way you’re gonna learn this.

And before I get off, I noticed quite a few of you keep bugging me for selfies.

So, if it’s okay, I’m gonna take a selfie with you guys.

Alright, thank you all.