ClickAdu Review: Excellent Ad Network for Advertisers and Publishers

Premium Ad Network

Clickadu is a legit multi-format ad network aimed at offering maximum ad coverage across 240+ GEOs and 7 formats: banner, popunder, push notifications,  in-page push, video, text message ads and SKIM. The platform performs both fully managed and self-service solutions for advertisers. As SSP, Clickadu connects advertisers with publishers who have the purpose to sell their traffic.

The ad platform calls itself a premium ad network that delivers high-quality traffic. In our review, we find out what premium options Clickadu provides in 2024 and why its traffic is worth testing. 

Clickadu History 

Clickadu was founded in 2014 and came to success rapidly. In just one year, the number of monthly conversions increased a hundredfold while traffic on the platform steadily generated more than a billion impressions monthly. Soon the ad network became one of the leading players in the industry due to the implementation of new ad formats and high-quality traffic. It was a promising start to Clickadu’s path to the affiliate marketing world.

Initially, the ad network mainly dealt with pop traffic. In 2018, the platform announced the release of both push notifications and instant text message ad formats and then launched SKIM and video pre-roll campaigns. The relatively fresh formats on the ad platform are in-page push and banner ads. 

Clickadu Overview

Today, Clickadu is a full-fledged ad platform that reaches all possible audiences, including Google users, YouTube viewers and iOS fans. Thanks to expanding its ad coverage, the pop ad network turn into a multi-format platform that serves more than 5,8 billion impressions per day worldwide. The top GEOs are US, India, Germany and Vietnam.

Now, more than 40 million ad campaigns have already been launched on the platform.

At Clickadu, advertisers would value a wide range of targeting options and a great number of traffic sources, and publishers have the chance to discover new ways to monetize their websites and engage a new audience. 

Clickadu Traffic by Ad Formats and Platforms

We’ll give a general glimpse of Clickadu traffic and then outline its peculiarities in terms of ad formats. 

General Traffic Details

All traffic on the platform comes from 3500+ direct publishers. The company collaborates with only publishers who have more than 1k unique visitors daily. Besides, the platform applies a system of penalties for publishers. So, the requirements for publishers, as their traffic, are enough strict, but it convinces us that Clickadu is safe.

By devices, mobile traffic prevails over desktop one in Clickadu (81,4% vs.18,56%). 

Traffic volumes by ad formats

The number of impressions according to the ad format:

• Push notifications – 3,3 billion;
• Banner Ads – 800 million;
• Popunder – 230 million;
• In-page push – 200 million;
• Video – 18 million;
• Instant Text Message – 4 million;
• SKIM – 3 million. 

Let’s look at traffic types by ad formats more closely. 

Popunder 

Popunder is the oldest ad format of the ad network. As long as there is a demand for it, popunder advertising will survive. The traffic driven from popunders is cheap, easy to start and still produces a high CTR and a lot of impressions. At Clickadu, the alternative name of the format is OnClick. 

Push and in-page push

Push notifications is the ad format that brings the most traffic. Push traffic can be divided into the following categories by user activity: high, medium, low and remnant. Clickadu sources are classified into these categories depending on subscription freshness. According to the ad network, a new audience is traffic that shows the highest performance because fresh users, as a rule, click more often than those who subscribed to push ads a month ago. 

In-page push traffic can be attracted within a classic push or separate campaigns. Its volume is pretty solid, though not comparable to the amount of ordinary push traffic on the ad platform. 

Banners

Banners Ads is in second place after push notifications on impressions. The format quickly gained popularity among advertisers, although it appeared in Clickadu relatively recently. The company has the option to combine banners with push ads in one campaign so that advertisers will get additional traffic.

Video Pre-Roll

As Clickadu aims to take over all possible ad space, it couldn’t ignore video pre-roll ads covering Youtube fans. The platform supports all popular video formats such as FLV, MOV, AVI, WMV and MP4. 

SKIM and Instant Text Messages 

SKIM and text instant text messages are formats that marketers might not have known about. They are rarely found in other ad networks, so not so many advertisers are aware of them and, thus, utilize them. Let’s explain their nature. 

SKIM is an offer link inserted on a site element: a word or image, for example. 

An Instant Text Message is native and Google-friendly advertising displayed within imitating mobile dialog. Obviously, it looks like a personal message. 

Both formats bring the least traffic to advertisers on the ad platform. However, despite this, they could be curious for testing. 

How to Get Started with Clickadu Site

Advertisers need to create an account for joining Clickadu. This process is fairly simple, however, a registration form requires a lot of information to fill out. We’ll go through all steps of creating an ad campaign on the platform from signing up to optimizing. 

Step 1. Register as Advertiser

Newcomers should describe the details of a planned ad campaign and specify contact information, right down to the address and phone. Apparently, the Clickadu team wants to be convinced of the seriousness of advertisers regarding campaign running.

After clicking on the Sign Up button, advertisers should input a password and activate the account via email. Once it’s done, users will be redirected to the profile page. 

Step 2. Get in Touch with the Manager 

Before creating a campaign, Clickadu recommends asking the manager for consultation. The contacts of the manager can be found in the platform header. Here, advertisers will also be able to top up the balance, check platform notifications, and start setting up a campaign.

The key reasons why it’s important to get in touch with the manager are to save the budget and increase campaign performance. Managers help to set up bids, targeting options and other settings. They will tell advertisers what parameters are worth setting to fulfill the campaign goals while staying within the budget. 

Whether you are going to set campaign parameters in your own way or not, you can contact the manager for advice once you save the campaign as a draft. Just show the draft to the manager and then follow the recommendations.  

Step 3. Top Up the Balance 

It’s possible to create a campaign first, but advertisers won’t manage to run the offer as long as they add funds. Advertisers can do it on the Add Funds tab. 

Marketers can top up their accounts in various ways: 

• Сredit or debit cards (CommerceGate or CardPay processing systems as options);
• PayPal;
• WebMoney;
• Paxum;
• Wire Transfer.

At Clickadu, the minimal deposit is $100. 

Some payment methods include fees that are reflected after the amount is input in real-time. 

On the Finance tab, users can keep track of their payments and expenses by given period: day, week and month. They also find the button for making a deposit here. Thus, it’s possible to replenish the balance in various ways. So, nobody would be confused.

Step 4. Set up Conversion Tracking (optionally)

Conversion tracking is a must for advertisers who are going to optimize their campaigns. So, many affiliates set up a tracker for this purpose. 

Trackers the company is integrated with:

• Binom;
• Ketairo;
• Voluum;
• RedTrack;
• PeerClick;
• BeMob;
• AdsBridge;
• LandingTrack.

On the platform, every tracker comes with a manual on how to set up it. 

Trackers will be irreplaceable when running campaigns based on SmartCPA and SmartCPM pricing models. Even though advertisers can do without them in all other cases, it’s still better to use trackers. The data received from the tracker can be useful for choosing profitable ad zones and improving ad performance as a whole. 

Step 5. Create a Campaign 

We come to the main point: creating a campaign. Click “Create Campaign” and let’s start. 

After clicking the button users find themselves on the Campaigns tab. The process of creating an ad campaign consists of 4 basic stages: “General”, “Pricings”, “Targetings”, “Zones&Additional”.

Let’s explain all steps to run the push campaign according to the creation form. 

“General” 

Define the traffic options and make creatives.

1. Traffic options

First, advertisers need to describe what traffic they want to drive by the next parameters: ad format, vertical, feed (adult/mainstream categories) and user activity. It’s also important to specify the target URL for conversion tracking.

Choosing the right feed helps target the audience likely to be interested in the offer. User activity option impact on campaign performance. Advertisers can choose traffic categories depending on their goals and budget. 

The high and medium user activity group stands for the relevant CTR and CR while the rest categories would be helpful for campaign scaling. 

2. Creatives

At the same stage, the ad network offers to take up making creatives.

Advertisers can add only 1 creative across all ad formats, beyond banners. The limit for banner campaigns is up to 5 creatives. 

“Pricing” 

Set the cost model, GEOs, bids, cappings and budget.

1. Pricing models

All advertisers can buy traffic using CPC, CPM, Smart CPA and Smart CPM models. 

Purchasing traffic on CPM or CPC basis is a common practice for affiliates, unlike smart models. The special feature of smart campaigns in Clickadu is that they have a self-optimization function and require a tracker to be set up. 

Smart CPM – advertisers pay the cost of the second bidder at auction, staying competitive and not overspending at the same time;

Smart CPA – advertisers pay only for conversions. It differs from the basic CPA model because advertisers have to make a test to discover ad zones that yield better results. Low-performance zones are automatically excluded from both test and future campaigns. 

2. GEOs and bids

Once you determine the price model, select the GEOs (one or any number of countries). Use “Traffic Inventory” to pick up the optimal bid based on the format and device parameters. 

This tool indicates the traffic volume for each country along with the average and the maximum CPC rates in Clickadu.

3. Frequency capping and advertising budget

The ad network offers extensive capping settings, allowing affiliates to limit the number of clicks and impressions per user, device and IP. 

The stage is finalized by setting the campaign budget. Affiliates can plan daily and total budgets. Although it’s optional, the team suggests setting at least the total budget.

“Targetings” 

Clickadu called its targeting options advanced settings – most of them are device characteristics: 

• Connection Type;
• Device options (type, vendor, model);
• OS (including version);
• Mobile ISP;
• Browser and its options.

Additionally, advertisers can get traffic from masked Apple devices. 

Other targeting options comprise States and Cities, and Proxy Type.

“Zones&Additional” 

Define traffic zones, set a schedule and choose additional options. 

1. Traffic zones

If you know what ad spots perform best for your offer, you can limit ID and IP zones. 

2. Schedule

Set time frames according to EST time zone and choose ad delivery method. There are two ad display models in Clickadu: Standart and Distributed. The team explains the difference between them within UI in simple words. 

3. Additional options

Add extra sources if it’s needed.

Notably, advertisers can get access to direct websites where advertising is disabled – Anti-AdBlock zones. The last option is included in campaign settings by default. Publishers can benefit from Anti-AdBlock option as well if they add ad-block code to their websites. 

Optimization Features

By using smart pricing models advertisers will be able to implement one of the optimization strategies and use earning tricks Clickadu offers. As we found out, SmartCPM is based on a second-price auction, while SmartCPA allows the creation of a blacklist during the test campaign. 

In the first case, affiliates can pay less and not miss the traffic at the same time. Conversion-focused SmartCPA model can be successful for promising offers, but it’s more difficult to realize, unlike SmartCPM. That’s why CPA campaigns are launched after the test, which may turn out to be successful or failed. The main purpose of the test is to buy traffic according to eCPM (Effective cost per mille) – this metric indicates what ad revenue affiliates can earn for every 1k impressions. 

Regardless of the chosen pricing model in Clickadu, marketers can optimize their campaigns manually through the statistics page – Dashboard. 

On the Dashboard, advertisers can look through campaign statistics and exclude non-profitable sources. Based on the statistics overview, it’s possible to change almost any campaign parameters on the Campaign page. 

Converting ClickAdu Ad Verticals

Here is the list of verticals that work best in the ad network:

• Social&Entertainment;
• Gambling&Betting;
• Tools&Utilities;
• VPN;
• VAST and mob carrier billing offers;
• eCommerce.

Surprisingly, the Social&Entertainment vertical includes dating offers.

Support

From our observations, the support specialists respond within minutes during business hours. The support team doesn’t work on the weekends, however, there is an exhaustive FAQ section on the platform that helps advertisers find most of the answers to the questions on their own. The company went all out to collect an impressive knowledge base. For example, they have numbered all elements of UI and given detailed information about them.

ClickAdu Advantages and Disadvantages

Here are some of Clickadu’s pros and cons:

Why is ClickAdu Worth It?

As a way to ensure excellent campaign performance, ClickAdu strives to provide advertisers with a sufficient amount of quality traffic. 

The ad network improves its traffic quality in the following ways:

• Uses fraud and bot filers to verify the traffic;
• Collaborates with publishers according to their website traffic volume;
• Offers advanced settings that include proxy type, device manufacturers and models;
• Segments traffic by performance (high, medium, low and remnant groups). 

As for expanding the amount of traffic, ClickAdu makes getting additional traffic possible by providing various ad formats, Anti-AdBlock option and Apple Relay. 

Due to its unique approach to working with traffic, ClickAdu became the winner of the 2020 YNOT Awards as the most innovative ad network.