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Just a reminder that nDemand is going to fly POF’s biggest spender to Maui, Hawaii to hang out with them (and me)! There’s still time left before the end of August to win this incredible prize 
The connections you’ll make would be worth it alone.. not to mention Mike’s putting us up in the Ritz Carlton! So make these last 2 months worth it and push hard, summer traffic IS ROI traffic!
Ben
What is POFpro?
POFpro is a self-hosted, one-stop platform to manage, automate, and optimize your marketing campaigns for https://ads.pof.com
Who is it for?
Anyone who wants to efficiently and methodically dominate the POF traffic source. Affiliate marketers, digital agencies, and small businesses. Operations of all sizes. Complete with training guides for newbies and advanced tools for the seasoned veteran.
Why use it?
This is a comprehensive platform that takes ALL the leg work out of scaling your marketing operation and optimizing your campaigns to perfection in 1/10th the time.
So basically this will take the data from your ads.pof.com account and blend it with data from your network so it’s all on 1 page so you can instantly see which areas are strong and which ones are weak. You can then do a ton of stuff to manipulate your data to really maximize on what you’ve run. They have a video on their page that shows it’s capabilities and I suggest you check it out. It’s super cool stuff!
I’ve worked out a deal with Tom and 50% of what you pay to use POFpro on your first month will get credited back to your ads.pof.com account. Sweet right?
The tool costs basically $3/day ($89/month minimum) with a maximum of $450/month (based on a 2% of your spend). But for that, you get a ton of training materials, cool tools, exclusive elite tools that Tom has built himself, no more wasted time on set up and no more excel sheets and messing with unique click through URLs to see ROI on individual creatives (HUGE TIME SAVER). So you get training, tracking, automation, basically everything but the actual marketing itself so you can focus on just that.
It’s free to try for 30 days, no credit card required so I urge you to give it a test drive. The iPyxel team is really good for helping people when they have issues as well: excellent customer support.
Hey Readers!
It’s been a while since I’ve posted because I don’t like posting just for posting’s sake. There’s gotta be value right! So I’d like to focus on on professions targeting because I’ve just been endowed with some information as to what jobs fall into what profession targeting. Here’s the professions targeting list:
- business owner
- blue collar
- sales
- medical field
- student
- education
- unemployed
- legal
- IT
- Finance
- Marketing
- Engineer
- Assistant
- Hospitality
- Executive
- Lifestyle
- Government
- Real Estate
- Managerial
- Retired
- Professional
I’m not going to list it all out each individual job but it’s literally like 10 pages long BUT if you wanted to target a certain type of job, we can now let you know with certainty, which professions category to choose! For example, “government” encompasses the “SEXY” jobs for men like: soldier, fire fighter, police & POF Senior Account Manager.
If we paired this profession targeting up with the profile targeted 300×250′s (
http://blog.ads.pof.com/2013/02/07/big-news-pof-now-introduces-a-new-way-to-target-your-ads/
), you can hit up the women who are looking for these types of guys.
And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to date a POF Senior Acc… OK I’ll stop.
Ben
Hey Readers! We have Wendy Kam Marcy from WRW here today to give you all 6 proven $ making tips. Wendy Kam Marcy has been working in the online marketing and advertising industry for 7 years. Plugged in, she is a Lifestyle Blogger and the Marketing Manager for WhatRunsWhere.com (a competitive intelligence platform for display and mobile advertising). Unplugged, she’s a foodie, globetrotter, amateur photographer, and cupcake eater. Twitter: @wendykammarcy
Disclaimer: not all the ad examples she gives are POF compliant.
Online dating is one of the most popular niches for advertisers and also one of the most competitive. The good news is that dating campaigns are non-exhaustive — people love to date and there are no shortage of singles out there!
This handy infographic answers the question “does online dating really work” and provides clear evidence that the digital dating trend is still on the rise. For users, 40 million people have visited or used an online dating site in 2012, and the businesses that help people find love generate a healthy profit of $5-105m annually.
http://ansonalex.com/lifestyle/online-dating-statistics-2012-infographic/
So how can you create compelling ads that stand out when there are plenty of fish already out there running the same offer as you? Try these six proven money making tips…
There is nothing fancy about these ads, font and otherwise. The girls are cute but they are not over the top glamorous. From experience, amateur photos perform much better so go easy on Photoshop. Both men and women can relate to the next-door types because they are real and “attainable”. Collages and Pinterest layouts also work well because they are attention grabbers.
Localize Your Ads
These types of ads engage users directly and appeal to instant gratification. There is no excuse to wonder if you will meet someone within 5 miles of where you live or within a preferred age group. These ads are also great for skeptics or people who feel like they don’t have time to browse through dozens of profiles because it reinforces that they will only see local singles in a select postal/zip code and who are of a targeted age.
The advertiser accomplished making these ads clean, sleek and packed with interesting information. Since these banners are super specific, they may not get tons of clicks over more generic ads but you can expect a higher conversion rate.
Play on the emotions of love, fear and greed.
Ads that are taunting like this one get attention and delivers a powerful message. No one wants to be left out!
Headers such as “Let’s Go On A Date” or “Looking For Love?” gets tiring fast plus it’s obvious why they are on a dating site. Instead ask a question “How About A Night Out On The Town?” or state a benefit “Let Me Take You Out For Dinner”. The more specific, the better. I’ve got above average CTR’s with ads where I actually mention the names of expensive restaurants. These types of ads especially appeal to women who enjoy the finer things in life and are seeking to be wined and dined.
Use Clean Copy
Not all dating ads have to look like dating ads and that’s why I love these dynamic banners. The messaging is simple, humorous and we can all relate.
Also don’t just stick to ads showing couples falling in love or muscular hunky guys. State the facts and let potential users know what’s in it for them if they sign-up.
Have A Strong Call-To-Action
You got their attention, now tell them what to do next… Browse Singles Now, Get Them Here, See Pics Now and Click To Browse are all examples of enticing a user to click. I recommend staying away from using the word “free” just because it diminishes the quality of leads.
Check out more sample ads using the WhatRunsWhere display and mobile tools. See what your competitors are doing and get creative inspiration to improve your own ads.
Hey Readers,
Happy April Fools! While the rest of the world tries to trick you, we’re going against the grain here and delivering another info-packed case study! My friends over at iPyxel tested landing page resolutions to see if it had an impact on their ads. So basically just making the page larger or smaller! The results are going to surprise you!
They tested 3 resolutions:
1024×768 – “Low-Resolution”
1366×768 – “Mid-Resolution”
1920×1080 – “High-Resolution”
CTR:
Click here to see which one has the highest CTR! Read on…
CONVERSION RATE
Click here to see which one has the highest CVR! Read on…
PROFIT/LOSS
Drumroll please! Which one ended up making the most profit!
Isn’t that crazy? What struck me was that the low res landing page had over 3x the conversion rate of the high res landing page. Why do you think that is? We certainly don’t know LOL.
For the details (which landing page they used, targeting etc…) Check out the iPyxel blog!
Ben
Here’s a nice PDF with a bunch of information re: POF.com, hopefully it gives you some ideas on what to tackle on next!
Ben
I was forwarded a link that basically showed the most commonly searched terms on porn sites within the last 6 months, broken down by country. Like, anyone else, I laughed when I browsed various countries and saw what their favourites genres of adult entertainment were but it quickly dawned on me that this was a VERY valuable source of information! Let me explain.
Let’s take the UK for example:
What can we learn from this list?
1. Obviously a demand for British women (no surprise here) but #2 is Indian? So there’s 4 angles that you can potentially test here!
- British seeking British
- British seeking Indian
- Indian seeking British
- Indian seeking Indian
2. Mature women are in demand in the UK, more so than younger women (“Milf” outranks “teen”.. and “mature” is also mentioned on this list). So maybe try some mature dating OR cougar dating!
3. Who the heck is Lisa Ann? Well she’s #8 in the UK! After some brief “research” she looks like a rev’d up version of Sarah Palin. Meaning, more on the mature side, brunette, tanned.. etc. But remember to stay within our guidelines (Hint: Sarah Palin dresses more in line w/ our advertising guidelines than Lisa Ann!)
The good thing about this site is that it breaks down the USA into each individual state. Imagine the ROI when you get that granular and you show them what they want? Some of the top search results in the US will definitely surprise you!!
Anyway, you’re probably itching for me to deliver the goods right?
WELL CLICK HERE FOR THE Global Internet Porn Habits Infographic!
Enjoy!
Ben
PS. This would be for male campaigns because we’re the driving force behind the adult industry. Would be super interesting to see this but from a female perspective LOL.
PPS. DO NOT USE RISKY IMAGES OR CELEBS! POF.COM IS NOT AN ADULT SITE! Oh I know what you’re thinking, don’t even TRY to deny it
So you know that the person is viewing a certain ethnic group, I think that would be the perfect time to hit them with a “learn their language and impress them!” ad! I’ve been checking around and these language offers have some pretty beefy payouts! I think this would be especially effective targeting older guys that MAY be more likely to be looking for the mail order bride type sites.
Ben
I read an AWESOME case study on STM that compared a landing page’s load time with the performance of that lander, here is the study:
First, they recorded the load speed of the same landing page.
FAST
Normal
SLOOOOWWWWW
Then measured to see how many people would click through to the landing page! The results were amazing!!!
Landing Page: Slowest, received an average CTR of 3.6%
Landing Page: Average, received an average CTR of 5.5%
Landing Page: Fastest, received an average CTR of 7.8% – more than TWICE the CTR of the Slowest LP. In other words, more than 2x as many people made it to the offer page when compared to the slowest lander.
Many of you use landers but did you think to account for how fast the thing loaded? Well.. you should Thanks again Stackthatmoney.com for allowing me to share the results of your AWESOME case study!
Ben
Hey POFvertisers!
It’s Cyndi here to share some basic essentials with y’all. For many of you, this will be stating the obvious (POF veterans, do gloss over), but for newbies, study this list to make sure you’re not committing any of these CTR-killers. Believe me, if you’re new to POF and you’re doing any of these, you’re leaving money on the table.
The Newbies’ 7 Deadly Sins Of POF Advertising:
1. Testing only one creative per campaign
2. Testing only pixelated/undersized/boring or pro-looking images
3. Using hella-broad targeting (such as multiple countries, both genders, a large age group, etc…)
4. Testing only one ad text (being generic, not taking advantage of great angle opportunities)
5. Not split-testing (creating only one campaign per offer)
6. Promoting a slew of products at the same time…before making a profit
7. Not studying/learning from other advertisers
Are you committing any of these? Well not to worry, now that I’ve told you what NOT to do, let me go in-depth to explain what TO do to have a kickass campaign on POF:
The 7 Steps to Success on POF:
First off: You will want to split-test more images. Only testing one (or a few) is like putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. We recommend testing 5-10 unique images per campaign so you can see what works and what doesn’t work. If after 15,000 impressions an ad has a CTR – click through rate – below 0.100%, you’ll want to consider deactivating it and uploading a new image into your campaign. It’s free to add more images in a campaign and provides invaluable data about what your audience responds to, so it’s important to test that out. Remember, the first stages of a campaign are about gathering data about what does and does not work – so make sure you are gathering GREAT data for your investment.
Second: Find images that are eye-catching. We find that royalty-free amateur-looking ads tend to do well on POF (perhaps people are able to mentally block out ads that look like ads?) so don’t be shy about choosing non-pro-looking images for your campaigns. If the image you have isn’t the right size, try cropping it so that it is the exact size required. There are free programs available online and sometimes they already exist on your computer (such as Microsoft Paint) so you can try your hand at designing ads. Also make sure that you are taking full advantage of your creative space — sometimes advertisers shrink down images to the point that they appear pixelated, illegible and undersized. This results in an image (the showpiece of your ad) not selling your offer well. If you are paying for ad space, carpe-diem the sh*t out of it : )
Third: Reign in your targeting. Although targeting every person from the ages of 19-99 in six countries may seem like a good idea it’s actually a huge no-no. It happens all the time, and I can see why people do it, but please don’t. What broad targeting does is burn through your budget with lightning speed while not not allowing you to know which countries were most responsive to your ads. As you can imagine, this data is extremely important in order to create a lucrative campaign. So always, at the very least target one country, one 5-10 year age group and one gender, plus a few other targets that are relevant to your offer. When setting up your targeting consider who would be most interested in your offer, as well as who would not be interested. For those who would not be likely to convert on your offer, you can ‘exclude them’ by selecting the “≠ (is not equal to)” in the targeting section.
Fourth: Test out a few different ad texts. Find some unique angles. If for example, you were promoting weight loss, you could think of some benefits to share with your audience, for example, “Look great for your date!” or “Wear a bikini this summer!” could be unique propositions attractive to members. You may also want to consider targeting a specific audience and calling out to them in your text. That tends to work wonders : )
Fifth: Split test your campaigns. What I mean by this is to create a group of campaigns all promoting the same offer, but each targeting a different demographic. This way you can quickly see which groups are interested in your offer and which ones are not. For example you could create six campaigns all promoting the same offer:
US Men 30-39
US Men 40-49
US Men 50-59
US Women 30-39
US Women 40-49
US Women 50-59
Or if you’re keen, test out some campaigns targeted to Canadians as well (for example):
CA Men 30-39
CA Men 40-49
CA Men 50-59
CA Women 30-39
CA Women 40-49
CA Women 50-59
Make sense? Of course targeting for each of those campaigns would include the extra targets that are specifically relevant to your offer. Some good targets to test out down the road are Login Count, Ads Clicked and Session Depth (we have great posts about these in the blog, so do read on). These are competitive targets that will require you to raise your bid, but you will likely find that the results are worth it.
Sixth: Only focus on promoting one product/offer at a time until you’re making profits. It can be overwhelming (and expensive) to promote multiple offers and you want to do one well before introducing more to your account. Focus on one offer and give it your best shot before investing in another one.
Seventh: Study the advertising blog. I couldn’t stress that enough. There’s so much free information in this blog (and on other blogs on the net) that will help you to optimize your campaigns. Even if you only have time to read a few posts a day do invest the time, Young Jedi : ) We have guest blog posts written by advertisers who are making bank on POF — and they share their secrets to success. Game changing? Yup, most definitely. You won’t want to miss out.
So those are the 7 Sins and 7 success tips. The question is: are you committing any of these sins? Are you rocking any of these success tips? Feel free to repent or brag in the comments below : )
Cyndi
