When to Stop a Losing PPV Campaign
Knowing when to keep pumping money into your test campaigns and when to call it quits is a skill that every affiliate should develop sooner than later. If you're new to the game and basing your test spend budget off of what a "super affiliate" claims his is, you may be in for some serious trouble. If you're making 10k / day, losing several thousand testing a new traffic source may not be a huge deal. However, if you're just getting started, you may have just set yourself back months and crippled your budget. Different traffic sources / offers require more startup funds than others, if you're unsure of where to start, talk to your AM or a more experienced friend before blindly throwing money away. Otherwise, the wrong campaign on the wrong traffic source with the wrong targeting will start hemorrhaging money.
With PPV in particular, the key is to test lots of campaigns very quickly so that you can weed out the losers and get on with making money. Some offers just won't convert that well with your targets. Accept this, cut them, and move on. There is no set in stone cut off point, no specific test budget or anything like that, but having a general baseline in mind can help keep you from digging yourself into a huge hole.
A good rule of thumb is to let the campaign run for 2-3x the payout value per target. If it hasn't squeezed out a conversion after this point, chances are it's not going to, or at least not in a way that is going to be profitable for you. If you do get a conversion, let it run out a little more while keeping an eye on it. (Disclaimer: if you're new, I don't recommend spending $390 testing a $130 biz opp, this is just meant to be a general baseline for lower payout offers - use your best judgment in all situations).
Example 1: Running a $5 payout offer (i.e., short form payday offer), allocate $15 test budget and let it go. On a fairly low payout offer like this, I might let it run past $15 if it is getting crazy click through rate (having run offers 24/7 for months straight, I've seen campaigns that are overall extremely profitable have their off days so be careful not to cut something with very promising CTR too soon). Also, if you're on a limited budget, don't go crazy with split tests. Try to make every dollar in testing worth its weight and track / record every change. Online advertising has the best tracking / data analysis of any advertising medium; make sure you're taking full advantage of this.
Example 2: Running $20 payout offer (i.e., long form lead offer or cc submit), same formula as before -- allocate $60 for the test, if no conversions, kill it and move on to the next one. If I do get a conversion during the initial results, I'll add this to my budget and use it for further testing and hopefully get a few more conversions. If not, I make myself cut it a certain point. Stick to your baseline with testing, I've had campaigns get 1 conversion right away for $20+ only to blow another $300 without a single conversion so keep an eye out for situations like these. Balancing sufficient testing with responsible use of your budget is a challenging task but be realistic with what you can risk spending at a time so that you don't set yourself back too far.
The key here is really that you need to be testing efficiently. I say it all the time, 70% of my funding goes back into my profitable campaigns, the other 30% is always allocated to testing new offers, traffic sources, etc. Be responsible with your 30%, whether it's $50 or $5000. Losing money is not the problem here, losing money and not gaining any knowledge is. Make every test count, maximize every dollar, and it will pay off. If you're feeling discouraged during initial testing when you are spending your own saved up money as opposed to working off funds from profitable campaigns, this is perfectly normal and you're not alone. Just remember that everyone at one point started out just like you, with some money saved up and testing / reading everything they can get their hands on.
As always, if you have questions about whether you might be overextending your testing budget, reach out to your AM as they would be happy to help. Use every tool at your disposal -- getting in touch with your AM before you even start testing can be a big money saver as they can recommend offers to you with proven conversion rates. And as always, this is not an all inclusive guide, certain offers might require much more than 2-3x the payout in testing, especially when you have thousands of targets so analyze everything on a case by case basis.
