How to Fail in CPA Marketing with ROI ~250%: A Step-by-Step Guide

Hi, guys.
I always try to be honest with you, so here’s a post about my experience of greedy stupidity and pain. 😅

I had successful campaigns in Mexico for the AmigosVias offer in CPAmatica. I like these kinds of offers – low payouts, unsaturated geos, and non-adult offer pages. The offer accepted both mobile and desktop traffic, with payouts based on registrations from users aged 18 and above (though payments often depended on age, and sometimes users aged 18–30 didn’t qualify for payouts).

I found this offer in the simplest way possible: I just asked my affiliate manager what offers were performing well for push traffic at that moment. She gave me four options. I tested them all: two weren’t profitable, one was near the break-even line, and the last one—AmigosVias—was a winner. I ran the campaigns on MegapuSh.

I’m always on the lookout for unsaturated countries or specific slices of traffic. So, I started with desktop campaigns, and four of them turned out to be profitable right from the beginning.

The angle I used was the same for all creatives – mimicking a native dialog with a pretty girl. Here’s an example of one of them:

Now, let’s talk numbers. For this offer, I used MegapuSh and PropellerAds.

• PropellerAds:
  Total Ad Spend: $60
  Revenue: $155
• MegapuSh:
  Total Ad Spend: $82.89
  Revenue: $100.40

So, where did I fail?

The offer was stopped on January 8th, and I got greedy with my usual strategy of 1 impression per 14 days (336 hours). When I received the warning that the offer would be discontinued, I quickly changed the settings to 1 impression per 24 hours to maximize exposure. Unfortunately, it was too late. 😅

My Takeaways:

1. Always scale profitable campaigns ASAP, especially when the overall ROI exceeds 200%.
2. Test successful offers across all push networks you’re actively using to find additional scaling opportunities.

Thank you for reading! I hope this post helps you avoid making the same mistake.