So you’ve set up your campaign successfully, viewed all our helpful videos and guides, but your campaign is still not spending its budget in full each day. What’s going on?
Let’s figure it out together to turn your starter campaign into a success. Check out the tips below to ensure you’ve set up your campaign to reach its maximum potential. When monitoring data, please note that there is a 2-4 hour delay for metrics to display in the dashboard.
Add a healthy amount of headlines and images and keep content relevant
Outbrain powers billions of recommendations each day, and to make sure yours is placed in front of the right audience, you’ll want to add in at least 6-8 headlines per URL, and one URL per campaign. Your headline and image pairing will be the main reason why a customer clicks on your content, so it’s important to use keywords that match your targeted audiences’ interests. We also recommend keeping headlines between 40-50 characters because the widget sizes can vary between publisher and longer headlines can get cut off.
It’s best to use an image that accurately represents the content. You can find more of our best practices for creatives here. To add more content, click on the “Add Content” button and use our “Variations” tool to swap out headlines and images to your liking prior to submitting. You can also check out our step-by-step guide to properly set it up.
Set a strong CPC
Starting with a CPC between $0.65 and $0.85 has been proven to boost campaign performance within the first 3 days of going live, so be sure to set your CPC within this range. After a few days of spending well, you can lower that number by a few cents over time to maximize your budget.
Expand your audience reach
Targeting a small location, excluding locations, and/or targeting underpopulated custom audience segments can limit your audience reach, causing the campaign to underperform. If your ideal customers are located in a small region, it is recommended to increase CPCs in order to compensate for this limited audience and remain competitive within the network. Be sure to also view the Reach Estimator to gauge your potential reach and ensure it’s in a healthy zone. Please note that location exclusions are not accounted for in the Reach Estimator at this time.
Run the campaign for at least one week
Our system needs time to get acquainted with your content. Make sure you run your campaign for at least 7 days in order to accurately measure your campaign’s performance before disabling it.
Adjust your CPC by section
You might be tempted to X out all of the underperforming sections in your campaign, but try to resist this urge. Instead, there’s a better way to improve your publisher mix: by adjusting the CPC up or down by section, you’ll have more control over which publishers feature your content. Adjusting your spend instead of excluding in full will keep the campaign spending, while also focusing efforts on the best publishers.
There may be something wrong with your account
Hey, it happens. You’ve checked off all the above points and the campaign is still not spending. That’s what we’re here for! Contact our Support team and we’ll diagnose your new campaign and provide a resolution.