Hey everyone! 
I'm fairly new to media buying and just ran my first lead gen campaign. I want to document my learning phase here — partly to keep myself accountable, partly to get feedback from people who've been doing this longer. Honest critiques very welcome.
My setup:
1. I started on automated bidding (Max Conversions). Big mistake — I had no conversion tracking in place, so the algorithm had no conversion signal to optimize toward and just bought the cheapest clicks possible. Result: tons of bot/junk traffic at ~$0.05 CPC and zero conversions. Lesson: don't run automated bidding without conversion data.
2. Switched to manual Fixed CPC (~$0.30) to get control and clean data.
3. Built a block list — cut the classic junk placements (Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, Textfree, etc.) that were eating budget with accidental clicks.
4. After cleanup: ~137 ad clicks, ~50-60 reached the offer, still 0 conversions.
5. Then I found the real issue
I'm fairly new to media buying and just ran my first lead gen campaign. I want to document my learning phase here — partly to keep myself accountable, partly to get feedback from people who've been doing this longer. Honest critiques very welcome.
My setup:
- Traffic source: Taboola (native), US, mobile only
- Vertical: Windows replacement / home improvement
- Offer: US Windows SOI, $8 CPA (via my network)
- Funnel: my own advertorial (pressel) → offer form
1. I started on automated bidding (Max Conversions). Big mistake — I had no conversion tracking in place, so the algorithm had no conversion signal to optimize toward and just bought the cheapest clicks possible. Result: tons of bot/junk traffic at ~$0.05 CPC and zero conversions. Lesson: don't run automated bidding without conversion data.
2. Switched to manual Fixed CPC (~$0.30) to get control and clean data.
3. Built a block list — cut the classic junk placements (Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, Textfree, etc.) that were eating budget with accidental clicks.
4. After cleanup: ~137 ad clicks, ~50-60 reached the offer, still 0 conversions.
5. Then I found the real issue
