Scoop

The Plenty of Fish ad platform has been a topic of much discussion the last couple of years. As one of the largest dating sites in the world, there is a lot of traffic to be had there. Where there is traffic there are affiliates crushing it.

Enter the killer resources.

There are a ton of case studies, guides, and resources available to the would be POF affiliate these days. You may not be aware of some of them so it seemed like a good idea to share.

Training

To get started you’re going to want to educate yourself on the system and what it has to offer. Get started with these resources first.

The Motherload of Blog Posts – You’ll find a ton of fantastic info on the POF ads blog. They publish some of the most detailed and useful advertising advice you’ll find online. But this post is one that you must not miss. It outlines THE strategy one of the most successful POF advertisers uses.

Dude Where’s My Volume Part 1 (The Basics) – Straight from the POF blog. This will tell you exactly how to get the volume of traffic you need to test.

POF Ads – The Definitive Resource – Here’s one from Scoop (shameless linking). Get links to great info on everything from setup to scaling.

Case Studies

POF Case Study – The Impact of Images In Online Ads – Another post from the Offervault Scoop inventory! This provides an interesting breakdown of images used in a POF campaign.

Legit Case Study: CPM & Volume Relationship on POF – This case study is direct from the POF blog. It offers some insights from a broad level of marketing rather than niche.

Plenty of Fish Case Study: Who Clicks? Who Converts? - If that title doesn’t grab your interest you’re in trouble. This case study examines the POF targeting feature that lets you advertise to people that have clicked on a certain number of ads. For example you can advertise only to people who have clicked between 5 – 19 ads on POF.

How I Made 4 Figures With ECig On POF – This is a very detailed case study. You’ll get to see a breakdown of the entire campaign.

Tools

Interests by Demographic – This one is free. It’s brought to you by POF directly. It’s a fantastic little tool to help you breakdown the demographics of “interests.” Interests is kind of like another word for NICHE.

Plenty of Fish Ad Uploader – Paid Tool – This tool is for serious POF advertisers only. It’ll help you create 1000’s of ads in minutes.

Confession time… I’ve not done any POF advertising yet. I know, I know it’s an affiliate sin. But that’s the shocking truth of the matter.

Pretty interesting to start a blog post called the “definitive resource”, right?

After doing some research on the topic I decided to share the best tips I’ve seen on the topic to date. So, while I may not be the most experienced guy on the topic you’ll get tips from several who are… hence… definitive!

First up – Advertising Tips from POF themselves

On Setup

Have you ever spent time creating uniuqe sub id urls for every ad in your campaign? It make sense that you’d want to track each ad to the best of your ability. There’s no need to do that on POF – they’ve made it much easier.

POF realizes that most of you use sub ID’s for tracking purposes. And the most annoying part when you have multiple ads is putting in a unique sub ID for each ad right?

Well, POF introduces the {creativeid:} tag that will automatically put in your creative ID into the tag! So you can use 1 URL for ALL your ads and the sub ID will populate automatically!!
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On Testing

Ever wondered how to test a big number of creatives on POF? Here’s a solid testing strategy to help you get the job done.

Here’s a typical scenario: you’re feeling inspired and decide to upload 100 ads (25 images, 4 headlines) for your campaign that is set to a $50/day budget. They say that ~20,000 impressions is a good indicator for future performance. Only problem is, at a $0.50 CPM, properly testing 100 ads in parallel would cost you $1000 & 20 days worth of testing. Can you afford to risk $1000 and 20 days to test 100 ads in ONE campaign?

A better way is to submit all ads, get them approved but test them in a serial fashion. Out of your 100 ads, test 5 at a time & pause the rest. 5 ads at 20,000 impressions each at $0.50 CPM = $50 (which is coincidentally, our daily budget). You get the results from your 5 and then move onto the next batch and so on and so forth. So this way, if you do find a winner, you’ll end up making a bit of money while testing
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On Scaling

This sneaky little pro tip will piss off your competitors and bring you more traffic. Yes, it’s ethical. It’s just a bit hardball. But hell… that’s life.

…advertisers have been duplicating the same campaign over and over (literally, 10,000+ campaigns in an account). And many people will wonder why people do this. The short answer is: more traffic.

But it’s not like you duplicate your ads and magically, POF gets more impressions to deliver to you. Instead, you’re basically taking the spot away from a competitor. Let me explain. The 110×80′s have 3 spots from which they can show. Only having 1 campaign ensures a chance to capture 1 spot. Having 2 campaigns gives you a chance to getting 2/3 spots etc. So with 10,000+ campaigns, you have a much better chance of getting your ads shown and pushing out someone else who may be aiming at the same demo you are.
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On Optimizing

One of the greatest aspects of advertising on POF is the demographics control. You have the power to choose exactly who you want to speak to. That’s money in the bank. But how are you testing those demographics? 100’s of ads targeting different demographics? No need to do that with POF.

Ever run a campaign and think, “Hmm, I wonder what my conversions would have been like if I excluded _________ demographic since the beginning?”.

Instead of creating a new campaign to split test your current campaign without ________ demographic, you can now exclude the demographic WITH THE CLICK OF A BUTTON.

…So forget about creating 100′s of campaigns to split test a variable at time.
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Killer POF advertising tips from the horse’s mouth. If you’re interested in running ads on POF make sure you read all of the tips on this page first.

Don’t stop there though – here are a few more POF must read tips.

Which images work best on POF?

You might be surprised to see what’s working for men and women on POF. This is a fantastic interview with examples. I love examples. The big takeaway in my opinion is AMATEUR looking photos. People don’t want to see pictures of models – that’s unrealistic. They want to see pictures of people they could / would actually be with.

Read the whole interview for a virtual cornucopia of POF image tips here

Fundamental Principles to Advertising on POF

Fundamentals are not always the sexiest tips, but they are always necessary. This is a well written blog post on how to think about and approach POF advertising.

Read the post here

re you advertising on POF? Have any tips, questions, or concerns you want to share? Hit the comments below