Push notification advertising is a quick way to earn high profits. Trust us, it’s not an empty statement, and to prove that, we’re bringing in Erik Gyepes – one of the STM Forum’s Moderators and a super affiliate. Erik’s case shows that even if you’re new to push traffic, triple-digit profits can be a matter of days.

Even though Erik is an experienced internet marketer, his areas of expertise used to be redirect traffic and adult display ads. How was he able to find his way around Push Ads so quickly? Let’s find out!

The Plan

Before you jump into launching a campaign, you should do your homework first. Research the hottest verticals for a given traffic source and ad format, compare different offers and networks, study the landing pages and choose the tracker that best suits your goals. Let’s learn Erik’s strategy.

Selecting Offers

Erik first approached his Account Managers at different affiliate networks to see the hottest offers for given verticals. Since push traffic converts well with plenty of verticals, such as sweeps, dating and casino, Erik decided to try a few of them.

Keep in mind that traffic source platforms differ in terms of audience, hence one vertical may work better in Zeropark than with another platform. Currently, the trending verticals for Zeropark Push Ads include sweeps, downloads and gaming.

Erik’s final selections were:

• Two single-opt-in sweepstakes offers in tier 1 countries.
• Two CPL casino offers, one from a tier 1 country, and the other one from a tier 2 country.
• One CPL finance offer from a tier 2 country.

Deciding on a Tracker

If you decide to go with Zeropark, there’s no better tracker you can use than Voluum (like Erik did), as the two are fully integrated. The key benefits of this integration include full control over a campaign directly from Voluum (you can adjust bids, pause placements and so on) as well as free event tracking (events from your Zeropark campaigns don’t add up to the total sum of events tracked in Voluum).

Learn more about Zeropark-Voluum integration.

Building Your Landing Pages

You probably heard of Adplexity before, a tool helping you study the landing pages used by other affiliates. If you don’t want to spend your time building a killer landing page from scratch, get inspired by proven ones. That’s what Erik decided to do.

The Setup

Another stage is putting everything in place, meaning setting up your campaign in Zeropark and Voluum.

Getting an SSL-certified Domain

To run offers in Zeropark, your destination URL has to be secure. You can obtain a custom HTTPS domain via Voluum, so this is where we start.

Tracker Setup

Your next step is to add your offers to your tracker. Erik created flows in Voluum for each GEO and vertical to get a seamless tracking experience. He combined it with Voluum’s Traffic Distribution AI algorithms that automatically send most traffic to the best-performing lander-offer combination. It’s a great way to save both time and money.

Here’s how the setup of one of the flows looked in Voluum.

Notice that he used one rule for GEO filtering and two paths: one for direct link, and one for landing pages, as Erik wanted to see if direct linking could stand a chance against a pre-lander campaign with push traffic (SPOILER ALERT: It didn’t stand a chance and Erik canceled direct linking after the first day. Landers are necessary if you’re going for maximum profitability). The Traffic Distribution AI feature will automatically send the majority of traffic to the best-performing path.

Also, check this smart tip from Erik himself:

I like to use emojis like this one 🎰 in the flow names, so it makes it easier to spot them in the tracker.

Zeropark Setup

In Zeropark you can use up to 10 creative variants of your Push Ads simultaneously, to see which one performs best and optimize your campaign.

Erik used half of the available slots. See some of the casino ones below.

Learn how to craft push ads creatives that convert.

Erik’s initial daily campaign budget was set at $20 per day.

Now let’s move to the targeting options. Erik started off by selecting mobile traffic and set his frequency filter to 24 hours, meaning same ad wouldn’t be displayed to the same person more than once per day.

To determine the bids, Erik used the recommended Zeropark Volume Traffic Tool which is great to estimate the right CPC for your push campaigns.

DAY 1: First Profitable Campaign!

Let’s see how the offers fared in the first few hours and what Erik had to say about their performance.

#SWEEPSTAKES-IPHONE-T1

COST: $12.54

REVENUE: $2

PROFIT: -$10.54

ROI: -84.5%

“The spend is lower than $20 because the time when the campaign was launched. I have ZP setup in my Thailand’s GMT+7 timezone. Not good results, but we are just starting and the Traffic Distribution AI also needs more data so it can start optimize the weights.”

#SWEEPSTAKES-VOUCHER-T1

COST: $47.47

REVENUE: $33.60

PROFIT: -$13.97

ROI: -29.36%

“Here I was getting good amount of traffic and conversions, so I went ahead and bumped the budget immediately. Probably not the best idea, but as you can see the results look much more promising than with the first campaign.”

#CASINO-T1

COST: $2.48

REVENUE: $0

PROFIT: $0

ROI: -100%

“Low spend, again due to timezone. Will have more data tomorrow.”

#CASINO-T2

COST: $20.95

REVENUE: $11.20

PROFIT: -$9.75

ROI: -46.54%

“Nothing much to say so far, -46% is not too shabby for start.”

#FINANCE-T2

COST: $32.91

REVENUE: $44.07

PROFIT: +11.16

ROI: +33.92%

“Didn’t expect at all to get something green right off the bat! Again I was too excited and raised the budget. The offer has cap for quality check though, so cannot go too wild yet.”

As you can see, Erik managed to have one profitable campaign in just a few hours of runtime. The offer is still very often the biggest factor in campaign’s profitability (or lack thereof). Yet, you shouldn’t jump the gun first thing when you see negative results. Wait until the sample size gets big enough before you decide to kill an offer.

Day 2: Another Campaign Turning Profitable

Let’s go straight to the performance.

#SWEEPSTAKES-IPHONE-T1

COST: $31.37

REVENUE: $13

PROFIT: -$18.37

ROI: -58.56%

“So I finally got spend on this campaign on the second day! ROI looks also better than yesterday. Everything is so far without optimisation.”

One thing, however, that should be mentioned here, is the traffic volume. Since Zeropark has large volumes of traffic at disposal, Erik’s campaign ate the $30 budget in just a couple of hours.

If you wish to save your budget for certain hours without increasing it, take advantage of our day parting feature, which lets you fully control the time window of campaign spend.

#SWEEPSTAKES-VOUCHER-T1

COST: $56.70

REVENUE: $39.20

PROFIT: -$17.50

ROI: -30.86%

“Pretty much the same ROI as yesterday, also no optimisation was done yet. I’m getting conversions and got -30% ROI from the start, which is not that bad. Hopefully I can improve it.”

#CASINO-T1

COST: $23.90

REVENUE: $30

PROFIT: $6.10

ROI: +25.54%

“Finally we got spend here as well and what is better today we are PROFITABLE with no optimisation yet! 🤑 Let’s see how it goes tomorrow!”

#CASINO-T2

COST: $19.90

REVENUE: $12.80

PROFIT: -$7.10

ROI: -35.67%

“Slightly better results than yesterday when it comes to ROI. I should say that with this offer I’m split testing my own landing pages with a prelander that is included with the offer (there is version with prelander and without). I must say their default prelander seems to be working better even it’s very simple one (classic slot machine with 3 free spins).”

#FINANCE-T2

COST: $23.28

REVENUE: $35.90

PROFIT: +$12.62

ROI: +54.20%

“ROI improved since yesterday, but I still kept running on the same budget. I’m going to raise the budget to get more data as this campaign seems to be working pretty well!”

Day 2 of Erik’s campaign showed that push traffic can be profitable across multiple verticals even for newcomers and no optimization whatsoever. Of course, you can’t keep going without any optimization if you wish to maximize the profits and achieve a decent longevity of your campaigns.

Day 3: First Optimization Steps

Let’s see if more campaigns turned profitable on the third day.

#SWEEPSTAKES-IPHONE-T1

COST: $30.26

REVENUE: $9

PROFIT: -$21.26

ROI: -70.26%

“ROI is worse again on this one, actually it’s the worse from all campaigns. Payout is too low compared to the CPC’s I’m paying. I think I know why though. I know this geo has some CC Trial offers and those jack up the bids in this geo. I cannot see much potential with this campaign even if I would do some targets blacklisting, the profitable zones are all having just 1 conversion.”

As you can see this offer hasn’t showed any potential since day one, leaving Erik with a choice: try to optimize it or just shut it down completely.

Since the targets and sources tabs in Zeropark didn’t reveal placements that were the difference makers, Erik decided to stop this campaign at this point.

#SWEEPSTAKES-VOUCHER-T1

COST: $52.68

REVENUE: $33.98

PROFIT: -$18.70

ROI: -35.50%

“Campaign is standing around the same numbers. I think it’s time to do some small optimisation here. Going to pause 2 push creatives that have very high eCPA and less conversions. Also going to take a look at targets. One problem with this geo is that bids are raising everyday. The bid according to Zeropark Traffic Volume tool is now 30% higher since I started this campaign. I’m keeping it below this bid though.”

So this campaign, despite being unprofitable, has been getting some conversions, thus it made more sense to try to optimize it. We’ll have to wait until the next day if the optimization helped.

#CASINO-T1

COST: $22.51

REVENUE: $10

PROFIT: –$12.51

ROI: -55.58%

“Okay, so this one flipped back to red. Problem is mainly that I’m spending low amount compared to the payout which is 1/4 of the daily budget. Bids are also the highest in this geo compared to other campaigns (well it’s tier 1, baby!). I’m going to raise the budget, so I can collect data faster.”

#CASINO-T2

COST: $21.64

REVENUE: $32

PROFIT: +$10.36

ROI: +47.85%

“Today was very nice for this casino campaign. ROI went from -35% to +47% and we made profit!”

New profitable campaign for Erik, showing you that success requires patience.

#FINANCE-T2

COST: $71.31

REVENUE: $130.88

PROFIT: +$59.57

ROI: +83.54%

“I think I nailed the push ad creatives here from start + the offer itself is also very good performer.”

No doubt this is the most successful campaign here. It’s been profitable from the get go and keeps up its good performance. You know what this means. It’s time to scale up!

Day 4: Triple-Digit Profit

After pausing the first sweepstakes campaign, we’re down to four active ones, from which, one showed great potential. On day four, we’ll see if it’s scalable.

#SWEEPSTAKES-VOUCHER-T1

COST: $25.75

REVENUE: $24.16

PROFIT: -$1.59

ROI: -6.17%

“Almost break-even now, keeping it running slowly though as my focus is on another campaign ”

#CASINO-T1

COST: $42.88

REVENUE: $40

PROFIT: -$2.88

ROI: -6.72%

This campaign showed a bit of potential in the beginning, and even though it was close to breaking even, the last few days brought losses to Erik, so he decided to pause it right there, and focus more on the profitable Finance-T2 campaign.

#CASINO-T2

COST: $12.83

REVENUE: $17.60

PROFIT: +$4.77

ROI: +37.23%

“We are green again with this casino campaign. Looking fast forward, the performance of this campaign goes up and down, but it can make some tiny profits. I think it will need better creatives to get some more interesting results.”

#FINANCE-T2

COST: $282.13

REVENUE: $497.20

PROFIT: +$215.07

ROI: +76.23%

“I think everyone was waiting how this turns out once I start scaling it 🆙, so here it is! As you know my goal was to hit $100/day. However, it turned out to be a $200+/day campaign! 🎉 It was converting so good this day that I was constantly raising up the budget during the day. I also got some delayed conversion for the previous day, so the profit for day 3 is now $63.15.”

Spending nearly $300, the campaign turned out scalable, and brought $215 of profit on the fourth day. That’s how Erik achieved his goal of proving that Push Ads in Zeropark can bring significant profits, even for newcomers to this traffic type.

Below you can see the daily breakdown of this Finance campaign.

Day 5: Scale Up

We’re down to three campaigns, each from a different vertical. At this point, Erik’s focus was solely on the star of this follow-along – the Finance-T2 offer.

#SWEEPSTAKES-VOUCHER-T1

COST: $26.20

REVENUE: $17.92

PROFIT: -$8.28

ROI: -31.62%

“Back to -30%, but I’m honestly not giving it enough attention because my main focus and budget allocation is going towards the finance campaign as you can see below.”

#CASINO-T2

COST: $50.76

REVENUE: $46.40

PROFIT: -$4.36

ROI: -8.60%

“This one is jumping between green and red. It needs more placements killing, but it will be harder to scale up as I’m still capped.”

#FINANCE-T2

COST: $396.63

REVENUE: $550.31

PROFIT: +$153.68

ROI: +38.75%

“Here is everyones favourite campaign again! As I scaled up the budget the ROI went naturally down. I’m still maintaining the $xxx range though, so everything is still good.”

Erik increased the spend to nearly $400, and the campaign still reached triple-digit profit. Seeing this, Erik decided to move forward with this Finance offer only.

Days 6-14: One Campaign. Lots of Profit.

The Finance-T2 offer performed so well, that it was worth dropping the other campaigns, and focus exclusively on this one. Erik ran this campaign for two weeks. Below you can see the daily breakdown and total results.

#FINANCE-T2

COST: $2669.33

REVENUE: $3348.17

PROFIT: +$678.84

ROI: +25.43%

As Erik explained, he experimented with desktop traffic towards the end of the campaign. The new placements that were brought into the campaign slowed down the campaign’s performance, proving that it was much better off with mobile traffic only.

Summary

In just four days, Erik put his finance campaign on track to bring a triple-digit daily profit. In total, the campaign brought nearly $700 of profit and proved that even for newcomers to push traffic and with just a bit of optimization, Push Ads are one of the best ad formats you can currently run.

Here’s what Erik Gyepes had to say about his experience running Push in Zeropark.

I’ve really enjoyed and had fun while doing this follow-along! Zeropark makes it really easy to run push ads and also to split test creatives. As a Voluum user I also enjoyed the fact that Zeropark is closely integrated with Voluum, so I could easily optimise (pause targets/sources) directly from tracker without need of exporting placements and switching between tracker and traffic source. The best thing of course is that push traffic converts very well and I was able to bring my campaigns into profit in extremely short time! At the time being I was pretty new to push ads, but since then it became my favorite and most profitable ad format of this year!

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Erik, an experienced affiliate, but new to push traffic, tested out 5 offers from different verticals, from which, one turned out significantly more profitable than the others.
• The offer from the Finance vertical was profitable right from the get go and proved scalable, ultimately bringing Erik nearly $700 profit.
• Erik proved that making a triple-digit daily profit with Zeropark Push Ads can be achieved very quickly with the right offer.

Looking to get quick profit with Push Ads?

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The original thread with Erik’s Push Ads follow-along as well as other informative campaign diaries like this can be found on the STM Forum.

Don’t forget to check out Erik’s blog for more affiliate marketing tips!

Read our previous Push Ads Case Study featuring Servando Silva and his 7-day road to profit.