Do make a budget
Whether you are a super affiliate testing with a $100k buy or a beginner using a $50 coupon code to try your first campaign on Facebook - you must take some thought into how you're going to spend your budget. The last thing you want to do is turn on a campaign…blow the entire budget in an hour…and end up with no where near enough data to optimize you campaign and then be stuck with a big loss on your investment.
Make sure to get at least a few full days of traffic, some offers do better in the morning or have significant fluctuations on conversion during the weekend. Also make sure you have enough spend to get significant data; if the offer you are running pays out $100 then a test of $150 isn't going to give you near enough traffic to make an educated decision on whether or not to continue.
Don't be lazy
This "don't" includes a couple of main points:
1. Don't give up too early.
Time and time again… I have seen affiliates test a campaign for less than a day and give up… Remember that we are marketers and it's our job to split test, optimize, and maximize ROI. This is especially true in situations where you know the offer is doing well on a traffic source. If you see some conversions on your initial test but have a -50% ROI, chances are if you have any real marketing skill you can change some things or narrow down your demographic to turn it profitable fairly quickly it just takes a little effort.
2. Don't rely on duplication!
After the days when you could make a killing by simply grabbing an Acai/Colon blog from the traffic source your going to test and changing her name from Becky to Helen a lot of affiliates seem to have forgotten about innovation. Just because you see the same ad all the time on your Myspace account doesn't mean it's the only thing that will ever work for that offer. Sure… these can be used to get an idea of how the offer will perform but PLEASE test some new variations and original ads/landers/concepts along with it.
Do talk to your affiliate managers
Shameless plug or not - This is extremely important to get the highest chance for success on the time and money you're putting into testing this new campaign. There are the obvious questions to ask like ‘What's the offers network epc?', but we can usually offer you a lot more to help and useful information than just basic stats. One question I wish I heard more from affiliates is ‘What can you tell me about the advertiser?'… What good is taking the time to set up a campaign and possibly get it profitable just to find out the advertiser hates your traffic and wants you kicked off because you were targeting too young/old/females/minorities or whatever else it might be? The more transparent you are with your (TRUSTED)AM, the better we can help you create a winner that lasts; when we ask where you're thinking of running a campaign, it's genuinely not because we want to steal your campaign! We are asking because we have info coming in daily that can help you stay away from the mistakes others have made or nudge you towards profitable demographics and/or ideas. We are a valuable tool… use us!
Don't Rush
Always remember to do diligent research before going live and take all the steps you can to be prepared for a profitable campaign. (For starters just make sure the links are live…sounds amateur but it happens all the time) Do you think Picasso rushed his paintings? Think of your campaigns as masterpieces; all you have to do is use all the tools, knowledge, and skill at your disposal to sculpt it into a long-term moneymaker!
"In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it."-Michelangelo
