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6 tips for running a successful SmartCPA campaign

6 SmartCPA Tips

The performance bidding model SmartCPA gives advertisers an opportunity to automatically test CPA offers on our traffic, and pay only for conversions after the campaign is optimized by our system. However, it works only if the technology is used properly.

In this article we’ve collected a range of super effective tips on how to cut the optimization costs of your SmartCPA campaigns, or even get the cost to zero, and get a fully optimized campaign that brings conversions.

What is SmartCPA?

SmartCPA is an auto-optimized performance (Pay-Per-Conversion) marketing solution that focuses on driving actions along with the complete control, transparency, and flexibility of a self-service advertising platform. Learn more about how does it work here.

1. Earn more with higher conversion price!

SmartCPA campaign tips #1
When you decide to start a SmartCPA campaign, you choose between 2 strategies:
1) Getting less conversions, but with a bigger profit from each one.
Example: your CPA network’s payout is $1, and you set the “conversion price” to $0.50.
2) Getting more conversions with several campaigns on big traffic volumes, but with lower profits from each conversion.
Example: your CPA network’s payout is $1, you set the “conversion price” to $0.80.
Which works better?
We recommend using the 2nd strategy, setting the “conversion price” as high as possible (70-80% of your CPA network’s payout). This way your campaign will be more competitive, and our algorithms will be able to drive more traffic to your offer from high-quality zones (ad placements).
As a result, you will acquire more conversions within a shorter period of time, which will significantly improve the result of your campaign’s test.

2. One “traffic slice” per one campaign

What is a traffic slice?

A traffic slice is a segment of traffic with a specific geo+platform targeting combination (iOS + USA; Android + Germany).

Usually a CPA offer works better with either a mobile audience, or with desktop users. It’s rare when you get similar conversion rate on both types of traffic.
Therefore, it’s a good idea to create separate campaigns targeting mobile and desktop users. In this case, your offer will be tested on a more relevant audience, and test period expenses will be lower. We recommend doing the the same with 3G & Wi-Fi targeting options.
This also helps to avoid a situation in which the biggest part of your budget is used up by desktop traffic, leaving mobile devices’ users ignored.

3. Mind your conversion type!

SmartCPA campaign tips #2
It’s essential to see the difference between an “e-mail submit” conversion and a “deposit” conversion. The first happens quickly and doesn’t require much effort from your users. The second can take time and is likely to happen only with a highly relevant audience.
If your campaign goal is, for example, making a deposit, finding those ‘golden’ users gets harder and the test period of your campaign may need a larger amount of traffic.
In this case we strongly recommend increasing the “Slice Limits“.

4. What should you know about testing on Tier I and Tier II traffic?

What is Tier I, Tier II, etc?

“Tier” defines traffic geo, traffic quality, and price. Usually, Tier I stands for high-quality traffic from English speaking countries: USA, UK, Canada. Tier II is traffic from western Europe. Tier III traffic includes visitors from most other countries.

When you target Tier I or Tier II geos, it’s a good idea to increase your Test Budget Limit. It’s all about the price of the selected traffic.
If you want to target US, GB, DE or other geos (where the average CPM can reach $4), get ready to spend $200-300 on testing and proper optimization.
Our algorithms need some time to collect conversion statistics and to find the relevant zones for your campaign.

5. No Smart Links, please!

What is Smart Links?

It’s an offer rotating advertising solution provided by some CPA networks.

Althought it is a great feature for manual testing, Smart Links can mess things up when combined with the SmartCPA bidding model.
The problem is quite obvious: the offers are constantly rotated, and as a result, one ‘bad apple’ in the rotation can have a negative effect on the rest of the offers and the test.
What’s more, our system gets insufficient data due to that rotation. This causes an irrelevant optimization of your campaign, which ends up with a failed testing period.
Please create a separate campaign for each CPA offer.

6. “Test Budget Limit” and all you need to know about it

SmartCPA campaign tips #3
“Test budget limit” is the amount of money you are ready to spend entirely on testing. The bigger the budge limit, the more zones will be tested and the more traffic you’ll get. So your chances are higher to get enough conversions to make your test successful.
SmartCPA system will test as many zones as possible. In the end, not all of them will be effective, though. The cost of traffic from zones that are not effective is called “optimization costs”. You will have to pay for it by avg CPM rates.
Normally, optimization costs should not take more than 40% of your test budget limit. After the test is complete and your campaign is optimized, you start only paying for conversions. If your campaign is effective from the very beginning, your test can even be free.

Use these tips for your future and current SmartCPA campaigns and you can already start only paying for conversions!

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