If this is not your first day in media buying or marketing, you must be aware of how important it is to catch up with the ever-changing conditions as well as to scale to new GEOs.

The more competition grows around the popular GEOs, the less chances you have to make significant money. What is more, different countries constantly accept new regulations regarding various verticals, like iGaming or Trading – some governments ban such products, while the others – soften limitations. 

Last but not least, the global Internet penetration grows year after year, because more and more developing countries connect, so it makes sense to include new ones to your targeting list. See the tendency: 

In this article, we are not going to beat around the bush, but provide practical tips and guidance on how to scale efficiently.   

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Testing GEOs: how to start?

First and foremost, when you want to scale to new markets, you should never limit yourself to only one GEO. Here is a brief and precise recommendations list from Valeriy Puzankov, Account Strategist Group Team lead at PropellerAds:

• Amount: test no less than 3-5 GEOs at a time.
• Variety: try different Tiers to make sure that you cover as many possible scenarios as you can. Say, for example, try testing 2 Asian emerging GEOs + 2 GEOs from Tier-1.  

Have no idea which GEOs to test first? Ask your account manager and get advice.

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How to approach creatives?   

When you start working with a brand new market, you really want to reduce risks, don’t you? However, some marketers and media buyers might already be stuffing their pockets with money out there. And there is nothing wrong in getting inspiration from what they do and how.

Yes, you got it, we are talking about spy tools, but we prefer calling them “tools for competitor analysis”, you know. 

Just remember to be especially attentive to the GEO specifics. It’s true that sometimes particular creatives can skyrocket in one GEO and bring you 0 conversions in the other. To be sure, you need to check it first. 

The best strategy: 

• Test your already-existing well-performing creatives in a new GEO. If you have a really blockbuster banner for the Indonesian audience, you can try using the same for India or even Canada, for example. No guarantees that the results will be equally great, but it makes sense to check it. 
• Use spy tools to distinguish which creatives already perform well around certain GEOs you want to scale to and try to create something similar for your campaign.
• Please mind that for Push notifications, it is very important to experiment and test different creatives, which requires more money (depending on how many creatives you want to test).

Remember that localization is important, too. Do a small research and check language statistics around the region you are targeting to make sure that your audience will grasp the message. 

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How to choose the right ad format? 

The story with ad formats is similar to creatives: first, you test those formats that already work efficiently around the campaigns and GEOs you have already launched before. Then – test the rest. 

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Prices and testing budget: how much money do you need? 

To see what’s going on with the traffic and prices around the GEO you want to test, make sure to check our Traffic Chart right in your account. This one:

As for the testing budget, Valeriy Puzankov, the Account Strategist Group Team lead at PropellerAds, is here to give you some insightful tips: 

“Your budget depends on the flow complexity and conversion price. Logically, complicated and expensive offers require more money for testing. 

Also, the more GEOs, platforms, and OS versions (or other targeting settings) you want to test, the more money you will need, which also sounds pretty logical. How to count that sum? 

From my experience, one GEO + one OS + one format = $50 – $150 for testing (if the conversion price is somewhere between $0.1 – $0.5). 

To get really comprehensive results, you should test about 100 traffic sources (ad placements) spending x2 – x4 of the conversion price for each (this is true if the conversion price is low). 

For example, if the conversion price is $0.3, then you should spend about $0.6 – $1.2 per slice (source + OS + GEO). Now multiply by 100 and voila – here is your total price for testing.  

However, for higher conversion prices, this x2 – x4 index can be lower. If the conversion price is $0.5 – $1, about $100-$300 is enough to test one new GEO + one OS + one ad format.

Please mind that this is just one of the ways to count your budget! The sums I’ve mentioned above are minimum to help you gather enough data for further scaling and testing optimization. Of course, if your budget is flexible and you want to invest more into testing – the more data you’ll have to build your future strategy on – the more effective your campaigns will be!”

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Which PropellerAds tools to use?

• CPA Goal, the AI-based pricing model, works great for testing. Just to remind you what CPA Goal can do: it excludes inefficient ad placements and raises rates for profitable ones, while staying within the budget limits you set. 
• Smart optimization for Onclick, Push ads, Interstitial and CPM, CPC, and Smart CPM pricing models to control your budget. Here is how it looks in your PropellerAds account:

• Rule-based Optimization for Push and CPC pricing model to change bids and exclude inefficient ad placements depending on your preferred spend size, conversion number, and other KPIs values:

If you have been hesitating whether it is the best time to scale to new markets, then this is a sign! Scale for growth and scale for profit with PropellerAds. Whenever you need help and advice, use our recommendations, rely on our advanced AI-based tools, and ask your personal account manager to guide you.

Happy scaling! 

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