What should I expect in the first few days?

In the first 2-4 days you will likely see fluctuations in performance as the campaign progresses throughout the learning phase. During this time your CPA might be higher and your conversion volume will be lower. 

As the learning phase progresses, you will then see your CPA start to decrease and stabilize, and your conversion volume will increase.

How can I optimize my Maximize Conversions campaigns?

Adjusting your budget: One of the most effective ways to control costs with Maximize Conversions is via adjustments to your budget. The algorithm is designed to get the most conversions possible within your set budget - naturally some opportunities are more expensive than others, so you can adjust your budget up and down to find the right balance for you between scale and cost. Remember that the minimum daily budget you should set is 10X your CPA target.

We would recommend this as the primary way to control costs, however, it’s important not to make too drastic changes to the budget to avoid fluctuating performance. It’s not recommended to increase more than double the daily cap at a given time.   

Setting a Target CPA: In addition to/instead of controlling costs via your budget, you can also do so via setting a Target CPA. It’s important to set a realistic target to not limit the algorithm in achieving your goal. For example, setting a goal that is too low may result in missing out on quality opportunities that could lead to a conversion, resulting in very limited scale. The recommended way of using Target CPA is after running Maximize Conversions without a target until your CPA has stabilized. You should then use this average CPA to set your target. If you want to set your Target CPA based on other sources we would suggest using the following methodology:

• Analyze your results across different advertising channels to determine your optimal target looking mostly at channels most similar to native (avoiding very lower funnel activity such as paid search). 
• Calculate the maximum cost you’re able to afford per conversion. We recommend starting by setting your CPA goal around 20% higher than your ideal target to give the algo enough scope to learn. After the first few weeks of activity including the learning phase, you can lower the CPA target over time should you need to bring performance to be more in line with your goal

Site Optimization: You will not be able to boost/deboost sites with Maximize Conversions because our algorithm will do this automatically. However, you will still have the ability to control which publisher sites your ads appear on by applying a block list or speaking with your account manager to apply an approved list.

Creative Optimization: Getting your creative right is one of the most important things you can do to optimize your campaign. It’s important to follow Taboola’s best practices before launching a Maximize Conversions campaign and to optimize your creatives as you would do normally on any other Taboola campaign, including regularly refreshing your ads.

What should I do if my CPA is too high after the first few days?

If your campaign learning phase is taking longer than expected, it could be for one of the following reasons:

• Your conversion event is too rare and the algorithm needs more data - if you haven’t reached 30 conversions after the first 5 days, then you should consider changing which event you optimize towards, choosing the one closest to your primary conversion event
• Your daily budget is too low - we need between 10x and 15x your average CPA during the learning phase to train the algorithm. 

It’s also important to choose a realistic expected CPA from which to benchmark your daily budget - if this makes the daily budget higher than you would like, then you can choose a different conversion goal to optimize towa4ew (higher up the funnel) during the learning phase 

• Your creative is not effective - getting your creative right is one of the most important things you can do to optimize your campaign, and if you don’t have strong creative this will impact all campaign metrics, resulting in a longer learning phase
• You targeting is too restrictive - if you have a long site block list or you’re targeting a very niche audience, this may result in a longer learning phase, and a lengthier process to get to stabilized CPA performance

It’s also important to avoid making changes to your campaign settings during the learning phase - as the algorithm is learning continuously, it’s important not to make any changes as this will prolong the process.

How do I set up a Maximize Conversions campaign in Taboola Ads?

You may update your Bidding Strategy from multiple fields. The following instructions indicate how to apply Maximize Conversions as the bidding strategy to your campaign and/or add a CPA target:​

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1. Click on + CREATE to create a new campaign

2. Select your marketing objective, conversion goal and campaign targeting criteria. Remember: Maximize Conversions is for conversion-based objectives and won't be applicable for brand awareness campaigns

3. Navigate to the bidding and budget section and click on the drop down that says 'What do you want to focus on?

4. Click on Maximize Conversions (CPA)

5. After you've selected Maximize Conversions (CPA) you can navigate to the budget section. Remember to apply a daily budget that is at least 10X your expected CPA goal. For example, if my expected CPA is $25, I will put a daily cap of $250

6. You're all done! Click on CREATE & ADD ADS to complete the campaign set-up

7. After selecting Maximize Conversions (CPA), you can check the box that says 'Set a target cost per action (CPA)' Here you can add a target CPA and the algorithm will cap conversions at that target cost.

It's not recommended to use this strategy for new campaigns.

8. Type in your CPA goal. Remember to insert an achievable CPA goal based on previous performance or using results from similar native platforms.

9. Insert your budget. Remember to apply a daily budget that is at least 10X your expected CPA goal. For example, if my target CPA is $25, I will put a minimum daily cap of $250

10. Click on CREATE & ADD ADS to go to the next stage of the campaign set-up