Case Study: In-Page Push Notifications VoD offer 35.15% ROI

Campaign period: 10/10/2021 – 31/12/2021 (71 days)
Offer type: VoD
Ad Network: ExoClick
Ad format: In-Page Push Notifications
GEO: United States
Devices: Mobile, iOS

Introduction
I wanted to promote a Video-on-Demand offer. It was based on the end user taking out a monthly/yearly subscription. The Payout was $45 for a sign up to a subscription. Although video ads are a great way to convert a video offer, I wanted to try with ExoClick’s In-Page Push Notification format, because I noticed from research that no other advertisers were using this format for this particular offer. So I wanted to see how effectively the format would perform.

Landing Pages & Creatives
In-Page Push Notifications allow for 1 image and text: a title and a description. I just used 1 variation. Because the offer was from a well known brand I used the logo as the image. For the text I made the title a question to spark consumer interest and the description was also a teaser:
Title: Do you (heart emoji) to be entertained?
Description: Prepare to be amazed by our videos!

I used 4 different Landing Pages: All featured the same texts which were a short product overview and product benefits in bullet points. Pricing was also included on the pages with the two types of subscriptions: Monthly and Annually. The differences between the pages were the static images and video clips selected that related to a selection of different content available to view with the offer. The CTA I used was the same for each page: JOIN NOW

Bidding and Targeting
Bidding: I used SmartCPM with initial bidding at $0.10 SmartCPM, because I wanted to secure the first position. Because I was targeting iOS on mobile and volumes were low, it made no sense to use the Bidder. I just wanted to win most of the traffic.

Targeting: Because I wanted to get access to all traffic I selected All Categories.  I wanted to target affluent users in the United States on mobile devices, that is why I chose iOS, English language, Wifi only. Because I was running the offer with 4 different Landing Pages I used the Automatic Landing Page Optimisation Algorithm, that way the best performing LP would get the most traffic. Then I just let the campaign run.

Campaign Optimization
I kept checking the stats every so often. Because I was the only one running the offer on that segment I was winning a lot of traffic, giving me high visibility to my target audience. In-Page Push Notifications feature a close ad button, meaning that the end user knows the format is an ad. That way any clicks were from users genuinely interested in the offer. The payout was high and I had put aside an investment of $1,000 to see what happened (in the end I spent $899).

The results were awesome in the first two months. In month 1 I was getting a 1.16% CTR, an eCPA of $25.60 and 3 conversions, so I was already making a profit. Because I wanted to keep winning the traffic I left my SmartCPM at $0.10 to see if it would continue to grow. In month 2 my eCPA dropped down to $24.78 and I increased to 13 conversions, with a slight drop in CTR at 0.96%. Again I was making a profit. Could Month 3 bring me even more? Well my CTR dropped down to 0.69% and the eCPA shot up to $45.46 and after gaining 11 more conversions, I decided to pause the campaign as I seemed to have exhausted the traffic.

Here you can see the results:

Campaign results
Conversions: 27 sales
Investment: $899.02
Total income: $1,215.00
Net profit: $315.98
ROI: 35.15%

Conclusion
In conclusion, there are a few reasons why I think the campaign was successful. The Landing Page Algorithm I set was one of them, here is the result of seeing which LP performed the best:
Landing page 1 received 5% of the traffic
Landing Page 2 received 80% of the traffic
Landing Page 3 received 7% of the traffic
Landing Page 4 received 8% of the traffic
So the content on LP 2 was much more compelling for end users.

The second reason is that there was no saturation of the offer in that segment (ad format + devices + country) and my bid was high enough to win me the traffic and get first place positioning, because Publishers can have up to two In-Page Push Notification per page I wanted to have the impact of the first ad zone showing my offer.

One final thing which is a great tip for targeting iOS with this format is that in ExoClick’s admin panel, by default, iOS is disabled because iOS doesn’t allow Push Notifications, however In-Page Push Notifications are allowed because it is really a display ad. However because both these formats are grouped under Push, that is why the default is set. The way I got around this was by blocking all available devices and OS which ensured that I got the rest of the iOS traffic. Below you can see how I carried out this process:

I think I will try this approach again with In-Page Push Notifications for a different vertical. I noticed that this format is really popular with Dating offers, so I may try with eCommerce, Casino or Gaming offers next, as I don’t see much competition for those verticals. Stay tuned!