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After months of hard work, we’ve now reached our goal of being #1 in Brazil! Check out the stats here:
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2012/02/pof-takes-top-spot-in-brazil.html
Now let’s see how far we can run with this 
What’s next? France? Spain? Mexico? Germany? How cool would that be to establish a world-wide-brand? How much cooler would it be for our advertisers to be on this trip with us? The more we expand, the more opportunity presents itself.
Now this is how every Monday should start 
Ben
Ads.pof.com got a minor facelift yesterday, and by facelift I mean a pic/contact info are now posted on the front page. In case you don’t know what Shannon or I look like, NOW YOU DO! I predict Shannon’s incoming email load will increase 5 fold as a result
Anyway, once you log in, you’ll notice a new field at the bottom right hand corner of the graph. Screenshot: http://screencast.com/t/DnNpeKp4drXE
So, for those who choose to use {creativeid:} in their URL’s, you can now find the campaign that your creative ID is located. And if you don’t know what {creativeid:} does, it basically plugs in your creative’s ID so you no longer have to think of unique sub ID’s for your ads. Works especially well with that bulk uploader we have. So you URL could be “www.benpof.com/?tid=CANM2040{creativeid:}” for all your ads.
I will be attending the Online Dating Summit conference in Barcelona at the beginning of March, so if any readers would like to meet up there, please let me know and we’ll arrange something.
Hope everyone has a LINteresting weekend, with exceptionally profitable LINks!
Ben
For those who hate reading: If I were you, I’d change my <50 log-in count campaigns to <100 log-in count this week to test. If you want to know why, continue reading.
Of POF’s 7 billion impressions/month, 4 are from the website, 3 are from mobile. Mobile is projected to be 60-70% of our traffic by the end of the year. Mobile is currently growing at 3% a week. So what does this have to do with log-in count? Let me explain.
When a user logs in through the POF app (which is currently ads-free), those log-ins are still counted towards their lifetime log-in count. Almost every mobile user ends up landing on the www.POF.com website eventually, but what’s important to note is that a big % of those users will have accrued over 50 log-ins already. Therefore, you’re going to get a good # of “never seen ads before” users in the 50+ log-ins. 40% of new sign-ups in the US are a result of our apps (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/love-on-the-run-plentyoffish-emerges-as-most-visited-mobile-dating-application-2012-02-09).
Best part? CPM cost is a lot cheaper outside the <50 log-in count realm. So if you’re a newer advertiser and you’re not wanting to compete against the established pros, 50-150 log-in count is a much better area to learn how to advertise on POF. Remember, something like 80% of advertisers have their hands in the <50 log-in count demographic. The more competition in a niche, the most people you split profits with. The less competition in a niche, the less people you split profits with. And if you’re the only guy in the niche, CHA-CHIIIIIIIIING (which is why I push for people to constantly use our gajillion targeting options to find new niches).
I have no doubt that going outside <50 log-in count will be highly beneficial to a lot of you. Now you know why.
Ben
http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2012/02/men-dont-read-online-dating-profiles.html
“Men spend 65% more time looking at photos than women. Women, on the other hand, spent 50% more time than men actually reading the profiles”
So according to this, when making new ads for men, spend your time looking for attractive images. When making ads for women focus in on attracting her through your words (which is NO EASY TASK!). Make it a game for yourself: Split test different headlines and use your best one at the bar that week.
Now that’s a case study I’d love to see
Ben
So, some good news and some bad news. Let’s start with the good:
Bidding on POF is much like dating. Most of the time, you don’t know where you stand (lol), but I think there are two ways to go about it: Bid high and scale down (skydive) or bid low and scale up (climber). In my experience, more advertisers seem to favor the latter strategy over the former, But I think the former is key to making bank and here’s why:
Bidding “enough” really means “bidding more than the majority of your competition, so you get first dibs on the demographic of interest”. First dibs, first clicks, first sales, right? So, if you were to use the skydive strategy, chances are you’ll start at the top with the highest chance of getting the click/sale. So something like $1 CPM for 110×80/310×110, $2 for 300×250/160×600, $3 for 728×90′s.
In order to be a climber, you have to be brave enough to continue climbing past the majority of bidders in your demographic. For example, if everyone else is bidding $0.82 and you start your climbing at $0.30, $0.40, $0.50…. you might give up on that campaign before you even have a chance of being competitive! In other words, if you started at $0.30, doubled your bids, saw limited success, what are the chances you’d double it again? Slim to none.
If you have $100 to test with, would you rather have a good chance at success, and go through funds quickly? Or have a low chance at success but go through funds slowly? At the end of the day, it’s still $100. It is especially important that you skydive if you’re advertising in a very targeted niche.
And now the bad news: There’s no more POFadvertising test account. Why? Because someone decided to start messaging our users through POFadvertising. THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS! Maybe I’ll open one up again in the future but for now, I’m a little turned off by an account that is available to everyone.
Ben
INCOMING EPIC BLOG POST!!!
Happy Tuesday everyone, let’s get to it.
1. Unique angles make $.
There’s a big one that everyone has kind of glossed over and that’s the eyes. More specifically eye color, it’s a legit criteria for some people. You could even try weird combinations too because those will come with attention grabbing pictures, “Want to date a green-eyed Asian girl?” and find some images of Asian girls w/ contacts on. The weirder the combo, the more attention grabbing the picture (and hopefully higher the CTR). You don’t even have to focus on the eye angle actually, just put in some pics of people with weird contacts in just to grab attention, worth testing!
Oh, you know what’s a really good source for angles? YOUR FRIENDS (or your parents friends…). Just ask them to list off some of the stuff they desire in a partner and build a campaign around it. Because if even ONE of those angles strikes gold, you’ll have enough to treat them to a steak dinner.
2. Start asking your affiliate manager the RIGHT question.
After looking into some networks, I see that most offers can be sorted by “network earnings”, which is great, you know the offer that makes the most $ for the network. But is that going to be the best offer for you, as an affiliate? To advertise the offers that everyone else has advertised and spent a significant $ on? Think about that.
In my opinion, a better question to ask is, “What’s your NEWEST (vertical) offer?” or “What offer do you think looks good but no one runs?”. These will be the offers that are off the radar and thus, unsaturated with less competition. I remember maybe about 6 months back, a new offer that targeted women looking for rich men came on the market. The first few guys to run this offer on POF absolutely KILLED it and then everyone else caught wind and things kind of stabilized. There are advertisers right now that bank on the strangest stuff on POF and I give them props b/c they’ve done the work to find a niche. And no, I’m not going to tell you anything about what they’re doing
Hey everyone! I’ve caught wind of 2 new info products that focus on POF that I think are leaps and bounds above stuff pushed on places like WarriorForum. I’ve personally read through them both and I think there’s much to benefit by getting them. They’re 2 different products but together, they should definitely help you achieve results. No affiliate links here people, just honest, sincere advice to help you master POF.
1) POF Primer: http://pofprimer.com
- Information product
- Shows what everything on our platform does & how to use them
- Includes case studies (external and ones done by Riley)
- Goes over campaign creation, optimizing and scaling in a general sense
2) POF 7-Day Mastery Guide: http://www.ipyxel.com/pof-7-day-mastery-guide/
- Methodology Product
- A proven system created by someone who spends $x0,000/month advertising with us.
- If you want a step-by-step framework to setting up long-term campaigns, this is it.
I think it’s about time I drop some knowledge bomb posts, it’s been a while. Next post, I promise!
Ben
Since I didn’t post one in December, you guys can redeem this one TWICE this month. Probably better this way given that 2012 has kicked off!
**GONE** hope you had a chance to grab it while it was up ASW2012, HERE WE COME!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I hope everyone is recovered, refreshed and recharged!
If you haven’t emailed us for a meeting in Vegas, now is definitely the time! Both Shannon and I are almost out of meeting times so get them while you can. Guaranteed it will be the best use of 20-30 mins at ASW 2012! Also, people are asking, “What parties are you guys going to?”. Well… all of them So come up and introduce yourself! Meeting people is the best part of these conferences!
Also, if you check how this week performs vs. last week, you’ll surely notice an increase in traffic. Looking at some of the #’s, some of you may experience TRIPLE the traffic in certain demographics so get to it! I’ll have the golden ticket up later this week so stay tuned!
Ben
Hope everyone had an awesome holiday this past week! New Years is coming up and ASW2012 the week after! Be prepared to share epic NYE stories
Both Shannon and I will be doing private 1:1 meetings with our advertisers to go over your accounts to see where you went wrong and what you can improve on. We both want to actually attend the conference so we won’t be doing this the entire day so spaces are limited! What better way to start 2012 than to get advice from the source!
Ben: ben@pof.com
Shannon: shannon@pof.com
We will try our best to accommodate!
Also, you may have noticed there was no December Golden Ticket. This just means that the upcoming January Golden Ticket can be used TWICE! You should start seeing a lift in all your campaigns now as December winds down and January picks up! I’ve already heard stories of increased CTR’s and ROI’s in the triple digits. So let’s really work hard this next few weeks and have something to celebrate come Affiliate Summit 2012 LAS VEGAS
Cheers,
Ben
