part 5: the affiliate marketing hamster wheel

Selecting & Registering to a Traffic Source

Off to the traffic source platform a friend recommended to him called Mobidea Push.

He chose that traffic source based on the minimum deposit requirements to run traffic.

Not as good quality as the other recommended traffic source.

But with 4 times less deposit amount required.

That friend also told him that both these traffic sources have all the push traffic he would need.

He explained this was because those traffic source platforms are a DSP.

Which means that they can send you traffic not just their own but from other push traffic sources too.

The last thing that a friend told Kevin was…

“Remember if you go for the Mobidea Push traffic, they use a bit different terminology. The Sources called Supply IDs and Zones called Sources.”

“Got it. Thanks, man. You’re a lifesaver”


Off to the registration page…

All done.

But he stumbled a bit as during registration he saw 2 options he can use to register.

He could register as either a Publisher Or an Advertiser.

He remembers he‘s had the same thoughts when registering to the affiliate networks.

They also had these 2 choices.

He recalls a chat over Skype…

“Affiliates are called publishers as it relates to an affiliate network.

But when they are buying traffic, they are the advertiser on the traffic source platform”.

“All good.”

He deposited the minimum money required to use the selected traffic source.

It took some time for the money to be shown into his account as someone from the traffic source had to manually verified payment…

Time To Create The Ads

“Right, Money is in. Create campaign. Name campaign something useful ti distinguish for my next ones.”

He then copied the tracker link into the relevant section of the ad creation.

Under it, there was this option to tick to track conversions at the traffic source.

The way this works is Kevin’s tracker sits in the middle between the affiliate network and the traffic source.

The affiliate network sends conversions to Kevin’s tracker.

The same way Kevin’s tracker then sends these conversions to the traffic source tracker. This way the traffic source knows what segment of the traffic converted.

This whole process works in the background using Server-to-server postback URLs.

At first, he thought “I need to know what traffic segment converts for sure”

But then he remembered watching this video. The feeling he got was that he doesn’t want the traffic source to know his conversions.

Something to do with them knowing this would mean they could use the same data to run this offer themselves.

Some traffic sources run their own media buying teams as well…

“ I Got Lucky”

Thinking about this a bit more, he remembered that there was a similar reason he didn’t put the source sub id in the affiliate link he got from the network.

He remembered that he shouldn’t let the affiliate network know his exact traffic source.

He’s still not 100% what all this means but he thought…

“Anyhoo, back to creating that ad…”

He used the creatives found from the spying research (adapted for his offer).

He let the bid to the required minimum Cost Per Click (CPC) for chosen GEO (country).

The traffic source put this automatically.

And he set the minimum required daily budget for that traffic source e.g. 20 USD.

“looks good. Double checked everything. hit save.”

He remembers reading that there is no point hitting refresh every minute to check his stats.

This will only add to his anxiousness for results.

So he let his campaign do its thing.

The next morning…

Just before checking his campaign, he browses the forum threads and happens to read that the 1st campaign is good to be monitored regularly to ensure the tracker is set up properly and shows conversions etc.

He’s a bit concerned as he let his run almost 24 hours with no checking.

So he rushes to check things up…

He checks on the traffic source dashboard and he sees his 20 USD min budget spent… and then some.

Baffled a bit, he searches for the reason his budget overspent.

He learns that push traffic cannot be stopped cold once it’s sent.

So some late clicks will incur the cost of the CPC bid, even after stopping it or daily budget spent.

He then checks the tracker.

He sees everything in red.

He starts thinking for the worst (the tracker wasn’t set up properly).

He then checks on the affiliate network dashboard and he sees 5 conversions…at $1.50 each for total revenue of 7.50 USD.

First thought – “yeah baby. That’s what am talking about.”

Second thought – “Tracker seems to be working ok.”

Third thought – “So I spend $22.5 (the campaign overspent the daily budget by 2.5 USD) and ”made” $7.50.“

“So that’s 15 USD loss. That’s why the tracker dashboard was showing the campaign in red” he thought.

But that’s ok.

He knows it’s not a lot of money on either side.

Plus he reads that most people run campaigns with 0 conversions for some time when they first starting out.

“I got lucky”.


The fact that he’s already had some conversions on his first run puts him way ahead of most people. Well on his way to make this whole CPA affiliate marketing work.

“All I’ve to do now is run this campaign to gain some more data to optimize it so it becomes stable. And then scale it to make a killing with it.”

He’s not really sure what all this talk means but he likes the sound of “make a killing” part.

He understands it has something to do with the campaign going from negative returns to positive returns. In a consistent and stable manner.

Excited that he’s had his first conversions, Kevin is now more determined to make this CPA Affiliate Marketing work for him.

Plus he remembers reading that some people making $600 to $2000 per day with CPA affiliate Marketing.

They all said they started with small wins like him.

He’s even seen the screenshots from people showing the results they had gotten.

Like the clicks sent and revenues made.

He always wondered why no one talks or shows the actual costs of traffic

He now knows…