This is a very classic question, asked by almost every affiliate who starts with paid traffic campaigns.
Usually it goes like this : “Hey Mr.Matuloo, I started this campaign for Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, using a kickass PIN Submit offer that my Affiliate Manager recommended to me … and I’m loosing heavily on it, why is that?”
Well, cause you’re a LAZY ASS, that’s why. There is only one reason for mixing several GEOs in one campaign – LAZYNESS – I know it’s faster to create such campaigns and it looks tempting to have one mega campaign that targets 500 Million people. But that’s not the way it works, unless you’re in the game to loose money.
BUT WHY WOULD I SPLIT THE GEOS, IT’S ALL LATIN AMERICA!!!
Oh my, there are so many reasons for this, so let me list & explain the most important ones :
1. Language – Properly translated creatives and landing pages pretty much ALWAYS work better. In some GEOs, you can do well with English language creatives (India for example), but local language wins most of the times.
Now, in our example : people in Brazil speak Portuguese, while Mexicans use Spanish… and even thou these two languages are very similar, you will get better results by using official languages in each particular country.
When setting up campaigns in Traffic Networks, you upload banners for the whole campaign. This means that all the banners will be served to all GEOs that you target, so even Spanish banners to surfers from Brazil (as per our example) … and this is something you don’t want.
2. Offers – some offers work well in one GEO, but they fail in the next one. This can be caused by the way an offer looks (localized content, country specific graphics), maybe it’s a product that is popular in one country more… it can be saturated in some GEOs… plenty of reasons come into question.
Even more so in case of offers with specific requirements – for example a specific mobile carrier from a specific country – you absolutely cannot mix GEOs in campaigns like these. There are many offers that can convert several GEOs, but don’t get lazy and make separate campaigns for every GEO that you target.
3. Bids / Competition – Every GEO is different in terms of competition, which results in various bid levels too. Clicks in India certainly come cheaper than those in USA from obvious reasons. The problem is, you can only set 1 bid for an entire campaign at pretty much all Traffic Sources.
As a result, when mixing more GEOs in the same campaign, you will definitely be overpaying in some GEOs and most likely also not bidding high enough in the others. There is nothing like an “universal bid” that would work across several GEOs. It’s not possible.
4. BOTs / Fake Traffic – not a single Traffic Source is BOT free, there is some crap traffic in all of them. But, some GEOs are targeted by cheaters more than others. So while there might be a ton of BOTs on a placement in the UK Geo, Spanish traffic from the same placement can be legit and converting well.
In such case, you simply cannot target both UK and Spain in one campaign, because you would have to buy the bots too and that’s not something you want.
5. Landing Pages / Funnels – This is connected with #1 – Languages. Properly translated landing pages will always perform better, but it’s not just about the language. Staying consistent from the banner, through the LP all the way to the offer (the whole funnel) can dramatically improve conversions too.
In other words, it’s a good idea to use GEO optimized funnels, and to do this effectively, you need to target every GEO separately once again.
I could go on with the reasons, but these should be enough to clearly demonstrate why it’s important to target GEOs separately.
BUT, HOW AM I GOING TO OPTIMIZE SO MANY CAMPAIGNS?
This is the funny part, it’s actually way easier to properly optimize a campaign that targets one GEO at a time, compared to a multi-GEO campaign. The more precisely you target, the less variables you have to analyze and the less possible combinations there is to look at.
Truth to be told, the more granular you go with your campaigns, the easier the particular campaigns will be to manage and optimize. Each extra variable that you need to consider, just makes the process more complicated.
Let’s take an example : Carrier billing offer (PIN submit) that accepts traffic from Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, 3 major mobile carrier in each of the GEOs. You can set the campaigns in three ways :
1. The “Lazy Ass” Way : 1 campaign, all the GEOs in it, All the supported carriers in it. This is the worst way of handling campaigns like this. It will be a mega mess, making it a bitch to analyze and you will overpay for some traffic for sure.
2. The “Semi-Proper” Way : 3 campaigns, 1 per GEO, 3 country specific carriers in each campaign. This can work sometimes, in case the offer converts all carriers well. There is still the risk of overpaying for traffic, since different carriers usually perform on a different level.
3. The “Proper” Way : 9 campaigns, 3 per GEO, always just 1 specific carrier in each campaign. This is how you should be handling campaigns. I can bid separately on each carrier, thus not overpaying for any. It’s also the easiest to analyze the data with a setup like this.
CONCLUSION
Being LAZY in AM is going to kill you, well your campaigns at least. Being granular with your targeting will make your optimization process easier down the road. Never try to mix things up, you need to properly target your funnels and that’s not something you can do across several GEOs.
Definitely target just 1 single GEO in any campaign you launch. There is literally no reason for not doing so. Other than being lazy. Don’t be such affiliate!
Thanks for reading!
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