People ask me all the time how to get started with Plenty of Fish Ads. In fact, they usually send a message like “You’re totally like the Jeremy Lin of Online Marketing, how do I get started making slam dunks with POF.” Of course, the references are really accurate, and POF is definitely Lin-Tastic. Instead of having to reply to thousands and thousands of fan mails that I get weekly, it seemed to me that I should simply lay it out so everyone knows how to get started to making money with affiliate offers on POF.
1. Pick a niche demographic and stay with it until you get a positive ROI. It’s no secret that with every new traffic source, there are going to be some growing pains as you learn the ins and outs. Minimize the cost (and the risk) by choosing a smaller demographic. Choose ad copy and images that relate to your demographic to increase believably and, hopefully, performance.
2. Split test ads. I recommend between 5-10 different ads to start. 5 images and 2 ad copies is ideal so you can see which ad copy performs better with each image. Newer advertisers tend to put all their eggs in one basket by only uploading one ad. DO NOT DO THIS!! Even the most seasoned POF advertiser is consistently trying to outperform themselves.
3. Split test demographics. Just because your offer accepts traffic from the US, Canada and UK, does NOT mean all those countries should go into 1 campaign. Why? Because if you spent $100 on traffic, you’ll have no idea which country took up the traffic and thus, will be unable to associate performance with any country in particular. Same goes with gender and age (5-10 year increments is ideal). It’s best to split things up so you can identify what is making you money and what is losing you money.
4. Split test bids. POF delivers your ad according to how much CPM you bid: the highest CPM ads get shown to the user first, followed by the second highest and so forth. So while you may want to bid low to minimize initial costs, you may be shooting yourself in the foot by having your ad delivered after the user has seen 25 similar ads already. I’ve had many times where advertisers would increase their bids and all of a sudden their campaigns became profitable because of the priority in delivery.
5. Landing Pages. In my opinion, always start with the direct link for a week. This establishes a baseline of performance for you to compare your landing pages too. I would say almost all of POF’s top guys are using landers so it’s a skill worth learning and mastering.
5.5. NEVER GIVE UP!
For more FREE information, check out the POF advertising blog at https://blog.ads.pof.com where I post the best tips, tricks, tools and case studies to help you make the most out of your advertising venture at POF.
