TOP 10 most frequent mistakes made by novice traffic buyers

You might have decided to work with traffic, but you prefer to learn from other people’s mistakes? 

We value your time, money and nerves. Therefore, we have collected for you in one place the most common mistakes that novices make at the outset of their career. We hope that with the advice of our experts you will be able to avoid them. 

So, let’s take a closer look.

1. Selecting an offer with a low level of competition

We absolutely understand your desire to be the only webmaster to channel traffic to a promising offer. All novices are afraid of competitors and want to find that very unique offer they can “skim the cream” off.

This is irrational. First of all, offers like this are extremely rare, and beginners lack the experience to assess their uniqueness and potential. Secondly, it is worth looking at popular partner programs offered by large companies from a different angle:

• yes, there is a high level of competition, but this means that it is worth working with the offer;
• a single partner won’t be able to cover the need for traffic of a large advertiser, there’s enough space for everyone;
• the offer is already popular, the market is warmed up, there’s no need to work on recognition.

Use spyservices to find out what competitors are using now. They help you learn what trends are changing quickly and save money on tests. If you find a successful case  – don’t just copy it, go one better. The bundle works, but has already been squeezed to some extent. Make your  creatives unique, improve, and change approaches.

Tip: when choosing a promising offer, let yourself be guided by the tips of a personal manager. If you can’t be bothered to choose a specific offer — choose a smartlink🙂

2. Ignoring Tests

Testing is a mandatory stage of any campaign. If you don’t test, you won’t know what creatives and bundles show the best profit. A/B tests help you to identify non-converting sources, landing pages, pictures and texts at the start of the campaign and you can carry on working only with those that showed good results. 

Almost all beginners look subjectively at their promotional materials. It’s not always the bundle that the webmaster most expects to win, actually “wins”.

After testing creatives, it’s important to define which of the elements has become most decisive:

• image
• title;
• description;
• call-to-action button. 

Make creatives with the same image but different text accompaniments. Or vice versa – use one title or description for different images. And test it again.

It’s important from the outset to include the testing costs in the budget of the advertising campaign. A normal amount is approximately 20% of the total cost.

Tip: To get accurate results, change no more than one item in a single test.

3. The desire to earn quickly

Of course, people want to work with traffic for the sake of earning money. But it’s important to prioritize correctly.

It’s good to analyze market needs, monitor trends, and parse competitors using spy tools. It’s bad to think only about the amount of income, while ignoring the needs of the user. 

Traffic buying really does bring income, but haste and an obsession with profit can only hinder. Calls to action like “Buy an Elephant” have long ceased to work, and the market is overflowing with ads. Clear arguments are often needed to bring the user to the final stage of the funnel.

Tip: identify more accurately the target audience, study their features and “pains”, in order to find effective approaches.

4. Wrong choice of GEO

The desire to work with regions with high payments is clear. However, for a novice traffic buyer from the start, trying to earn in Tier-1 is not always sensible. This offers the most expensive traffic with a high level of competition: you can quickly end up exhausting your entire budget. Beginners are encouraged to practice on countries from Tier-3, then move on to Tier-2. When you are confident in yourself, you can move on to a more financially solvent Western audience.

5. Not using your budget sensibly

Remember, even an experienced traffic buyer cannot afford an unlimited budget. This is something they do only after a profound analysis of the audience and testing. 

Tip: Before launching, determine the amount that you are ready to invest in this advertising campaign. Set limits – start with less, move to more, and be careful not to channel it all in one day.

6. Ignoring UTM tags

This often happens because the novice traffic buyer does not know what UTM tags are and why they are needed. These are parameters that help the webmaster track the source of traffic. UTM tags are used for analytics. They enable you to disable non-converting sites and not spend your entire budget on them.

7. Lone Working

You can be the best marketer and webmaster, but still don’t neglect the tips of your personal manager of the partner network. This person is interested in your income, meaning that they will give you good advice (perhaps even help you save money on your budget). This is especially important at the beginning of a traffic buyer’s career. Don’t be afraid of asking questions about the choice of offer, GEO, advertising format, etc. 

8. Incorrect choice of partner network

It doesn’t have to be spontaneous. Your profit also depends on the choice of a site with offers. Follow the feedback of other players in the market, study the conditions for withdrawing funds, find out which verticals the platform works best under, evaluate the work of the support and usability. 

Tip: Make a checklist and compare the most popular CPA  networks to choose the best one.

9. Working with multiple offers

Beginners want to find a quick “gold mine” and test everything without a particular campaign in mind. Until you are sure that you have enough time for your first project, don’t start on a second. Otherwise, you risk losing any profit which in the future you could get from both campaigns. Start on the second and third offer only when you given enough time to the first.

Tip: Always remember that most of the time traffic buying is devoted to testing and optimization.

10. Lack of development

There is always room for the traffic buyer to grow! When you start out on this path (whatever you may have been in the past), be prepared to learn a lot, I mean a lot. It’s important not just to know about “the subject”, but also to follow trends that change very quickly. You will have to master the tools of a traffic buyer specialist and find new ones to optimize your work. The more actively you delve into the subject, the sooner you’ll become a serious specialist.

Tip: so as not to stand still and reach a day when your earnings from traffic buying are several thousand dollars, subscribe to publications by professionals, register for thematic forums, communicate with like-minded people, participate in discussions and online conferences, watch video lessons.

P.S. Today we’ve listed the most frequent mistakes novice traffic buyers make. In conclusion, we would like to add that even experienced traffic buyers make mistakes. That’s quite normal. Mistakes should be treated as a useful experience. We hope you learn how to channel to a profit and work at the level you aspire to. I wish everyone good profits 😉