This is a case study from Team Compadres. So don't be surprised that further narration will be in the first person.
While we may not be the biggest players in the affiliate marketing field, our small team has successfully been driving traffic and earning profits. How do we achieve this?
This article delves into our recent gambling campaign case study. We'll discuss how we navigate bans and mistakes during campaigns and share the tools we use. The case study will be presented from the perspective of Team Compadres.
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Team Structure
Our team consists of 5 members: a team leader, a programmer, and three media buyers. The team leader is responsible for finding and developing connections, while the media buyers handle the actual campaign launches. The programmer takes care of all technical aspects.
Earning Focus
Primarily, we work with gambling offers, and advertising on Facebook/Instagram. In this case study, we'll analyze one of our new funnels with the Pin-up Partners offer. For this particular connection, we use schematic traffic for the Aviator game.
Why Facebook? We started affiliate marketing about a year ago, and we chose Facebook for its clear approaches to creatives, traffic, and overall audience understanding. Plus, there is a substantial amount of traffic available.
Step-by-Step Gambling Campaign Case Study
For ourselves, we have identified the key stages of the launch. During tests of new funnels, we always adhere to them in a strict order, which allows us to save time and money, and also quickly make an informed decision: to proceed or not.
Campaign Details:
Source: Facebook
Affiliate Network: Pin-UP Partners
Geotargeting: MX (Mexico)
Offer: Aviator
Offer Type: Public
Payment Model: CPA (Cost Per Action)
Payout per Action: $30
Campaign Period: December 15 – January 15
Spend: $2440
Revenue: $4590
ROI: 88%
Tracking Platform: Keitaro
Cloaking: R8
Facebook Accounts: TrustRDP
Step 1: Creating Creatives
We opted for the Aviator offer in MX and promptly initiated the creative development process. Within a few hours, we shot several gameplay scenes using an iPhone. The editing was done using the Videoleap app.
The creative directs traffic to a landing page with a call-to-action (CTA) and a button. Clicking the button takes users to a Telegram bot for active engagement in registration, deposits, and gameplay.
We avoid using trigger words in our creatives, as highlighted in Adam's blog post on the subject. In the end, we had two video creatives for the campaign tests, which proved to be sufficient.
Step 2: Linking the Tracker
We use Keitaro as our tracking platform. We won't dwell on this step since we assume everyone understands the stages and the importance of properly configuring a tracker.
One thing to note is that we avoid cloaking through Keitaro. It's crucial to understand that Keitaro is primarily a tracker, not a cloaker. While technically possible, we prefer not to take unnecessary risks.
We had an experience with cloaking through Keitaro, and campaigns were at risk of being banned, with most of them facing issues during the moderation process. On the other hand, Keitaro has proven itself as an excellent tracker.
Step 3: Cloaking the Advertising Link
Quality traffic filtration is crucial for us to avoid bans, often caused by inadequate filtration. For this task, a specialized service is more effective than a tracker. While there are many cloaking services on the market, obtaining a genuinely high-quality tool requires considerable effort, time for proper setup, and a budget for the subscription.
For our needs, we discovered the tool @r8_robot.
The bot's mechanism is simple: you send your advertising link, configure filtration parameters, and receive a cloaked link with an embedded whitelist and domain. It can be immediately used in campaigns.
Domain options are provided for your choice, varying in price for link generation. You can get a link with a .site domain for $5 or a .com domain for $25. We usually opt for the second option.
This solution is effective, budget-friendly, and doesn't require much time for setup. The service performs excellently for filtering traffic on Facebook, with no bans or systematic rejects observed.
Step 4: Setting Up the Pixel
We create a pixel on a separate Business Manager account, then share its access with advertising accounts. This way, if something happens to the advertising accounts, we won't lose the pixel. We've had such an incident in our experience.
We optimize the pixel for the Subscribe/Lead event, which, in our case, is the player's first casino deposit. During our work, we’ve tried different options (registration, bot activation, etc.). We settled on deposits.
Step 5: Launching the Advertising Campaign
We rent Facebook advertising accounts from TrustRDP. Their trusted accounts allow us to spend consistently without investing time and effort into creating and farming our accounts. We pay a 15% fee on top-ups.
For small teams, this is an ideal solution. Initially, we tried farming accounts ourselves, but it consumed an immense amount of time. Moreover, there are numerous nuances leading to frequent blocks and bans.
We create a campaign using the 1-6-1 scheme, dividing a couple of creatives equally among ad sets (3 ad sets for each creative). Other ad set settings are similar.
Over the week, the ad sets spend around $15-20 each. At the week's end, we keep the best-performing creative and immediately duplicate it into 3 more ad sets.
During the first run, we target a broad audience, including both men and women, with the maximum age range. We add as many working placements as possible. Practice has shown that narrowing down the audience at the start can potentially lead to an increase in lead costs.
Step 6: Scaling the Campaign
After a week of running the campaign, we analyze the traffic and draw conclusions: does the approximate cost per lead satisfy us or not? If we see a reasonable ROI, we proceed to run the campaign for the full month on a modest budget (around $100 daily spend).
Next, throughout the month, we monitor the campaign. If the monthly metrics are successful, we move on to the refinement and scaling phase. We prepare to duplicate campaigns and gradually increase the spend on the ad sets themselves.
At this stage, we test different approaches. We create new landing pages, strive to improve the overall campaign, play with traffic settings on Facebook, and brainstorm and shoot new ideas for creatives.
Mini Launch Checklist:
- Creatives: We do not plagiarize others' content; we create everything ourselves. Even if we like someone else's idea, we still produce our unique materials. Experience has shown that this is crucial. We do not use trigger words in creatives.
- Tracker: We configure and immediately expand all funnel stages in the tracker for detailed statistics from the start of the campaign. We do not cloak through the tracker! For traffic filtration, we only use cloaking services.
- Cloaking: A crucial stage in the launch. It's necessary to ensure that targeted traffic reaches your offer while moderators see the white. Work only with trusted services and ensure correct setup.
- Pixel: We pre-create a pixel on a separate Business Manager account and share its access with advertising accounts. If an advertising account is banned, the pixel won't be lost. We optimize for Subscribe/Lead.
- Advertising Campaigns: At the start, we create a campaign using the 1-6-1 scheme. We keep the best creative and duplicate ad sets with it. We target a broad audience and run on a modest budget for about a month.
- Scaling: Upon successful monthly campaign metrics, we prepare for scaling. We improve the campaign, test new landing pages, optimize advertising campaigns, and create new creatives.
Conclusion
In this case study, we've dissected a successful gambling campaign. The team shared their experience, tools, and a brief checklist for launching campaigns.
If this case has inspired you, and you're interested in collaborating with the team, feel free to contact them on Telegram for any inquiries regarding cooperation and work.
