Ringtones: 8 days and $1,544 in Revenue

Posted on March 12, 2008 by Tim Schroeder

(Update: This post is over a year old. I’m not running ringtone offers anymore but lets just say that my revenue is MUCH higher now)

Well, it’s been about 8 days since I’ve starting marketing ringtones.

Yes, I know I’m about three years late getting into this niche but I wanted to see for myself if I could make money in this market. In my previous post there were several comments like “I thought ringtones were dead,” and that “the ringtones niche is too competitive to enter“. Nevertheless, I thought I would see how I could do in this niche.

My Conclusions After Just 8 Days:

The ringtones niche certainly is a saturated market and it is probably a fact that the glory days of ringtones are over for most affiliates. It is a highly competitive market and probably not one for beginners. I knew this going into this project. However the ringtone niche certainly is NOT dead and I believe there is still plenty of profits to be made in the niche. I’m just not making those profits in ringtones yet.

The Revenue:

This first screenshot is of my AzoogleAds stats after 8 days. I’m running the Blinko offer there and it is my best converting offer so far with an EPC of $1.03. Blinko is paying $14 a lead through Azoogle. Total revenue here was $574 after 8 days.

This second screenshot is of my PepperJamAds stats after 8 days. I’m running the Flycell offer there. It pays $17 dollars a lead and is the highest default Flycell payout I’ve found anywhere. I currently have a EPC of $0.76 with this offer despite it paying $3 more per lead than the Blinko offer. Total revenue here was $578 after 8 days.

This third screenshot is of my Hydra Media stats after 5 days. I was testing an exclusive offer of theirs called RingtonePublic. It started off converting really well but has dwindled a bit. It’s EPC matched that of the Flycell offer at $0.76. Total revenue here was $379.50 after 5 days of testing.

I also just started doing a little bit of testing with SendMeMobile on NeverBlueAds. It has some nice looking landing pages and pays out $12.75 a lead for some of the main cell phone carriers. It’s to early to say if this offer is going to do well. I’ve had one lead here so far. The next offer I may give a try is GlamTones in Copeac.

Total ringtones revenue after 8 days = $1,544.25

The Bad News:

My total ringtones related Adwords costs after 8 days = $1,636.60

Now I wish I could have told you that after 8 days that I’m making hundreds of dollars a day in profits. At this point I’m basically breaking about even. Despite spending really long hours (about 20 hours on some days) over the past week setting up campaigns I have not made any profit with ringtones.

The Good News:

I’ve learned more new things related to PPC in this past week than I’ve learned all year. You learn the most by doing. It’s also interesting to see and learn what some others are doing in the niche that’s beyond the norm.

I started my campaigns initially with really high maximum CPCs and as I lower these it leaves more profit potential. There were also a couple of really bad days that zapped any profits I would have had.

I’ve also really only just started to scale my campaigns so it’s too early for me to conclude I can’t make decent money in this niche or that it is not worth the effort. I’ve also yet to try some new ideas I have planned. More “outside-the-box” kind of stuff beyond the normal everyone else is doing.

What Would I Have Done Different?

So far not a whole lot because I have a lot more scaling and bid tweaking to do but here are a couple things:

1. Not try and work with both the Search Network and Content Network within the same campaigns. I’m starting an entirely new ringtones campaign for the content network next week while I continue to work on my existing search campaigns. It’s better to keep them separate for several reasons.

2. Keep a closer eye on things when playing in the content network. Using the content network can be really profitable but you have to be careful. Yesterday I had a single adgroup get almost 9 million impressions on the content network. It had 879 clicks at an average of 0.16 a click costing $138. Conversions were nada, zero, nothing. That doesn’t help profits.

More updates to come. At the same time as this ringtones project I’ve been working on another new PPC project which looks promising. Wish me luck!

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37 Responses to “Ringtones: 8 days and $1,544 in Revenue”

Webmogul

- 12th Mar, 08 06:03pm

Thanks for sharing. I’m figuring out the ins and outs of PPC myself with some mixed results. I look forward to seeing how you scale this up and start making a decent profit.
Business Opportunities Guru

- 12th Mar, 08 10:03pm

You got me there for a second. I was reading the first portion thinking to myself, ok what happened and then I saw how much you spent. Its actually not bad though, while you did lose money, you didn’t lose much so you are ahead of the game. But ringtones are a tough business. Keep at it, I would guess you are pretty close to turning profits after a little more tweaking.
Win A Wii

- 13th Mar, 08 10:03am

Everything begins with testing. While you had some negative net there, it most certainly doesn’t mean there isn’t money to be made. You just gotta track results.
Sagem Phones

- 13th Mar, 08 03:03pm

Which sites are you marketing?
Tim Schroeder

- 13th Mar, 08 04:03pm

I mentioned the offers I started with in my post.
I’m not going to give out my landing pages though.
HiFi Guy

- 14th Mar, 08 11:03am

Very impressive results, congratz
Land Projects UK

- 17th Mar, 08 03:03am

That’s a great achievement already! Hope that you will get more profit from it.
Niche Store Builder

- 17th Mar, 08 09:03pm

Tim -

Glad I found your post… I have actually been considering delving into PPC and will follow along a bit to see how this goes.

Mark
Weird News

- 18th Mar, 08 06:03am

I thought ringtones would have been dead a long time ago. After 8 days, that’s pretty good. Your just in the first stages of tweaking your campaigns.
CashJuke

- 18th Mar, 08 01:03pm

ringtones get so many searches per day. So there’s still alot of people looking for ringtones. But like you said, so very saturated. When reading this I thought “wow” at the earnings for 8 days. But then I saw the money spent to get it
CashJuke

- 18th Mar, 08 01:03pm

sorry for such a fast comment, but i forgot my uri
chief3rd

- 18th Mar, 08 02:03pm

really have to tip my hat off to you, i really want to see how this turns out..good luck!
Make Money Online

- 18th Mar, 08 05:03pm

Thanks for sharing all of this information. I for one have had a tough time making any money with PPC. I either break even or lose.

David
Jenna

- 19th Mar, 08 04:03pm

I enjoyed reading your post. Seeing what you would have done differently is helpful. I’m looking forward to more updates!
HiFi Guy

- 19th Mar, 08 10:03pm

Maybe I was drunk when i wrote it was an impressive results, I did not see the adword cost.

So, as I said on your other blog post I still think the ringtone niche is dead and oversaturated unless you own an old established site.
Micky Ward

- 20th Mar, 08 02:03am

Tim, do you think you’l be able to show a decent profit after your tests and how long will you run with negative margins before you call it quits?
Art of webhosting - Jeremy

- 21st Mar, 08 10:03am

It seems like it’s really hard to make money in the ringtone niche. :S Personally I wouldn’t try it, because I know I would fail.
Tim Schroeder

- 22nd Mar, 08 04:03pm

Micky, it’s hard to tell. I made $50 dollars profit from ringtones yesterday which is a start. I still really have a LOT more scaling to do. I’ll probably work on things for at least another month.
Dracut

- 22nd Mar, 08 05:03pm

I always though it was easier to roll out the same ads but bid on keywords with current values.
Britney SPears and Linkin Park are overused. What about Daughtery and anyone who debuts on the bilboard charts this week.
CashJuke

- 30th Mar, 08 12:03pm

Thanks Tim for sharing these stats
Fred

- 31st Mar, 08 02:03am

I’ve always wanted to try ringtones as it seems like there is a lot of money there. some of the companies with azoogle are less than reputable though, i think they paid a huge settlement fee at one point. I may consider this again if they’ve upgraded their ringtone opportunities.
SEO fella

- 1st Apr, 08 02:04pm

These things need a lot of trial and errors which will cost you money. However when you get things right you can really earn some decent money. Good luck!
new zealand tourism

- 3rd Apr, 08 11:04am

Ringtones has to be a good business to be in. My sister who is a true penny pincher spends a lot on ringtones every month. I don’t know why she has the different attitude toward them but I also know she is not the only one.
Design your own tattoo

- 6th Apr, 08 09:04am

Ya…the ringtones thing is saturated.
So back off everyone!!
Daniel

- 8th Apr, 08 03:04am

the stats were interestling considering the fact that ringtone niche is highly competitve. though i wouldn’t have a crack at it coz i need a much more thorough understanding of it all.
Edward

- 8th Apr, 08 10:04am

nice stats. and good backing up ur article with the necessary facts.
JayC

- 10th Apr, 08 05:04pm

We have been using a ringtone landing page creator that has worked really well. It shows you epc and various link options in the interface. Lets you choose which carriers to have on your landing page as well as performance. Also lets you load in pixels automatically across the board. Pretty cool – We got in on a beta but it is probably launching soon
Make Friends, Earn Money

- 20th May, 08 06:05pm

Thanks for the helpful hints it’s really appreciated that you post them here and are so honest about how the campaign has been going, it’s an area i was contemplating myself but I think that you observations about the market being saturated have put me off.
yahoo web hosting

- 19th Jun, 08 04:06pm

Nice…not that you lost some money, but that you didn’t lose the whole thing!! that’s freakin’ awesome. i hope you keep telling us how you do it..because it’s pretty tough to get started into it. thanks for the article…maybe i’ll get back into ppc.
Colin Klinkert

- 28th Jun, 08 02:06am

I enjoyed reading your great post! Am still learning how ppc works and looking forward for more updates. Thanks for this informative post! Keep it up!
John

- 4th Aug, 08 04:08pm

The secret is to find the right keywords, use the adwords tools.
Murthy Rao

- 17th Oct, 08 05:10pm

I was reading the first portion thinking to myself, ok what happened and then I saw how much you spent. Its actually not bad though, while you did lose money, you didn’t lose much so you are ahead of the game.