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As we mentioned in our Finance vertical review, trading offers work perfectly with all PropellerAds formats. For example, in that article, we suggested the following combination: Push and In-Page Push + scaling with Onclick. 

Since then, we’ve released a brand-new format called Survey Exit — and this allowed our partners to create even greater bundles. So meet the new dimension of testing trading offers! It’s revealed right here,  in this real case study from our partner.

In a nutshell, this case study is about a trading app, three PropellerAds formats, and the subtle art of testing long-term offers.

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About the Offer and Campaigns

Our partner ran a trading offer for mobiles and desktops from a popular brand. The platform has an Android app and a web version.

The campaign has remained active for a year — and here, we will show you a single month from its lifetime.

In this case, our partner decided to target Indonesian iOS users to promote their webpage and Brazilian Android users who download Olymp Trade from Google Play.

So, the short case study overview looks like this:

• GEOs: ID, BR
• Traffic Source: PropellerAds Onclick, Interstitial ads, Survey Exit
• Conversion type: Cost Per Install, Cost Per Registration (for web version)
• Campaign goal: stable conversions from the offer in the long-term run

Obviously, every GEO involved several campaigns and different strategies — so let’s take a detailed look.

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Indonesia

Onclick and Survey Exit Campaigns

OS: iOS Bidding Model: CPA Goal Desired CPA: $5 Ad Formats: Onclick, Direct Click, Survey Exit Dates: 30/11/2022-31/12/2022

To test the IN GEO, our partner began launching CPA Goal campaigns with different formats:

• First, he created an Onclick campaign — a traditional way to reach as many users as possible.

• Then, he added Direct Click traffic. Available for Onclick campaigns, this format brings traffic from top-converting ad placements with the best performance.

• Finally, the campaign was scaled with Survey Exit — a format allowing you to target high-intent users who see an offer after filling out a themed survey. To make this targeting even more precise, our partner picked the Finance Survey type when setting up a campaign. As a result, his offer was shown exclusively to people who filled out a Finance survey and were ready to convert on Finance offers.

Note: our partner tested two flows — with and without a prelander. As a prelander, he used a page with inspirational storytelling. For example, one of the pages had the heading like ‘How a delivery guy began earning $200,000 per month’.

Here is what he got:

Campaign	Impressions	Conversions	Real CPA
ID_Popunder_ios	176 466	28	3,07
ID_Direct_ios	2 711	9	0,99
ID_Survey_fin_ios	2 613	20	2,12

The main takeaways of this strategy and stats:

• Popunder ads proved to be the best format for wide reach and brought the most conversions. Besides, it kept the conversion price almost half as much as the desired CPA: $3,07 instead of $5.

• Direct Click brought the top-quality traffic with the lowest CPA of $0,99. With fewer conversions than Onclick, it still performed better in terms of ROI. As it gives lower traffic volumes, it makes sense to use Direct Click for additional campaigns.

• Survey Exit gave access to the most engaged users ready to convert — and still brought only 8 conversions less than Onclick, but with a much lower CPA ($2,12 instead of Onclick’s $3,07).

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Interstitials Campaigns

OS: iOS Bidding Model: CPA Goal Desired CPA: $5 Ad Formats: Interstitial Dates: 30/11/2022-31/12/2022

Later, our partner began testing Interstitials. Unlike Onclick and Survey Exit, Interstitials require creatives — and this is a pretty creative-sensitive format overall, so your CR might depend much on a particular creative version.

Look at the campaigns our media buyer launched for every creative version — they all convert differently:

Campaign	Impressions	Conversions	Real CPA
ID_Interstitials_v1	10 822 429	201	4,84
ID_Interstitials_v2	9 306 714	53	5,46
ID_Interstitials_v3	5 153 892	39	11,14
ID_Interstitials_v4	165 148	1	9,41

Note: our partner asked us not to show his creatives in this case study, and we respect this! So, we will just show you an overall good example of a Finance Interstitial creative made with our Animated Message template:

The main takeaways of this strategy and stats:

• Even though the Interstitial campaigns didn’t show the same perfect CPA Goal results as the Onclick and Survey Exit ones, testing gave an idea of the best creatives — the ones that kept CPA under the desired $5 or a bit higher. Yes, a small overspending, like $5,46, is more than okay.

• As you see, PropellerAds algorithms decrease traffic volumes for campaigns that fail to fit the CPA Goal. For example, the v3 and v4 campaigns got fewer impressions than v1 and v2, as the CPA was too high.

• At the same time, our system boosts traffic for campaigns that manage to keep the desired CPA Goal. See — the campaign with the lowest CPA of $4,84 (we remind you, the desired one was $5) has gained the biggest traffic volumes.

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Brazil

As you see, things were going just fine in Indonesia — and what about Brazil? Here is a brief overview of the client’s goals for this GEO:

OS: Android Bidding Model: CPA Goal + SmartCPM Desired CPA: $3 Ad Formats: Onclick and Survey Exit Dates: 01/10/2022-01/11/2022

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Onclick Campaigns

Nothing seems too difficult, right? However, there’s a pitfall: Onclick traffic has a very high competition in Brazil. With this small nuance in mind, our partner created the following strategy:

• He launched Onclick CPA Goal campaigns

• After testing, he checked the top-performing ad zones and added them to the Whitelist. In other words, he separated the most converting traffic sources and ad placements.

• Then, he launched Onclick SmartCPM Whitelist campaigns, which means he began targeting only the best converting zones.

Here is what he got in the end (the numbers show the full statistics, including CPA Goal and SmartCPM Whitelist campaigns):

Campaign	Impressions	Conversions	Real CPA
Onclick_BR	1 556 415	5 810	2,48

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Survey Exit Campaigns

Alongside, there was a Survey Exit campaign that resulted in an even lower CPA with almost the same number of conversions: 

Campaign	Impressions	Conversions	Real CPA
SurveyExit_BR	310 448	5 703	2,21

The main takeaway from the Brazilian campaigns:

Onclick and Survey Exit made a perfect combo for the trading app campaign and allowed our partner to stay within the desired CPA Goal of $3 per conversion.

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To Sum Up

As you see, trading apps are very rewarding: they don’t face a distinct seasonality, have a long lifespan, and can bring much profit with the correctly picked tools and formats.

Want to mirror this case with a similar app? Here’s your checklist:

• Dive into thorough testing
• Play around with various formats, and don’t forget our gems like Direct Click and Survey Exit
• Use the extra features like Whitelists and track your zones and subzones