PPC loss tolerance?

lacrosse_20

lacrosse_20

SoCal Affiliate Mafia Don
Nov 26, 2008
83
5
0
Just curious how much people are willing to let a campaign lose before pulling the plug. I've heard various rules of thumb... 100 clicks, $100, etc. Let's assume this is across all ads for the campaign.

How do you decide you have a loser on your hands when you're first testing an offer? For simplicity's sake, let's say we're talking just direct linked campaigns.

I tend to allot $100/offer for testing.
 


As per usual, it all depends.

For me I do a lot of research first, so by the time I set up the campaign I'm pretty confident it'll work out. It all depends on how much testing you're willing to do.

Personally I wouldn't test with just 1 offer, and give up on the campaign if it bombs.
Likewise I wouldn't test just direct link.

So test our 3 similar offers from the start - quite often I'll get one with get zero conversions but similar ones will be profitable.
Likewise 1 direct link and 2 landing page variations (which take very different approaches, not minor changes).

So:
- 2-5 times offer payout per keyword
- Start with 2 - 5 keywords
- 33% to each of - LP1, LP2, Direct Link
- Rotate ads evenly across a bunch of ads

Since you're doing different offers, this makes more work as you need separate campaigns for each (don't fuck it up by having company xyz in the ad text and the dest url go to company abc - then bitch and moan when you don't get paid)

If you're talking about Adwords - With a perfect QS you can decrease CPC in half hence the 2-5 times payout on the offer.

Plus after split testing your conversions can go up another few hundred %.

Thats just how I do things - if I get zero conversions on a low paying offer I often pull the plug a lot earlier.
But if you're getting back even 25% of your spend off the bat - it still has hope. Obviously I also spend more on testing on something that can potentially do huge volume. So it varies drastically.

Also - Rather than $100/per offer for testing - I'd adjust that based on the offer payout. If it's a free trial, thats not enough to test with, if its a low paying game - that's more than enough.
 
yeah there's no hard set rule, sometimes I've spent $500 or so on a losing campaign just to get a good amount of data, then spent $500 more after I optimized that data only to break even, and breaking even is never a bad thing on this. breaking even means less of a battle to finally profit, and good data for "free"
 
I give it $50-100 loss at the beginning, that's the cost of testing. As Cupid stunt said above it depends on a payout but I can't afford extensive testing as Papajohn. However that's the way to go if you can stretch that much, I'm sure I've dropped some good ones because I'm just a beginner and don't want to risk too much. After through research and that investment I keep testing as long as I'm breaking even. Most campaigns can be tuned, it's just a matter or your persistence to tweak till you get there.
 
juntao65 said:
however much I think it'll make me a day once I start scaling it up
Click to expand...

i've definitely seen people go by this measure. sometimes people give up too quickly if they see a negative roi and don't have the same amount of drive to change up the ad and see if they can increase the profits.

it's easy to invest more and more into a campaign when you see it's increasing it's profits each and every time, but it's dedication when you keep working on it until it works.
 
$100 spent and you'll stop, or you'll keep track of your loss considering any conversions. Even with modest CPC's that seems like a really small amount of data to collect, especially when you consider testing different ad copy, landing pages, etc. I always tell clients that the first few months we're paying for data but they'll be able to see the CPA dropping steadily over time.
 
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