Your CPA crept up. Which of these 41 things broke?
The diagnostic checklist a media-buyer runs on a Taboola or Outbrain campaign that's bleeding budget. Tracking, account settings, bidding, supply, creative, funnel. Free, one email, no follow-up sequence.
Three scenarios I see weekly in native ad accounts:
- A handful of sites have great CTR and zero conversions — and the algorithm keeps feeding them. Max Conversions optimizes on engagement, so made-for-advertising sites that manufacture clicks look like winners while your purchases flatline. One advertiser cut ~21 such networks and watched CPA fall ~50% at half the spend.
- Your CPA goal is $40 and your daily budget is $200 — the math can't work. On Max Conversions, daily budget sets the bid ceiling. Below ~10–15× your CPA goal the algorithm can't bid high enough to reach the inventory that converts. No creative or audience tweak fixes an underfunded campaign; only budget does.
- One publisher is absorbing 45% of daily spend. That site converts well, so the overall CPA looks fine. You're really running on one publisher. The day it stops, your campaign cliff-dives.
What's inside: 2 sample checks (of 41)
Only your main KPI is in “Include in Total”
Non-KPI events in the total inflate reported conversions and mislead bidding — and the failure to watch for is the KPI event stopping after a funnel change, which drops conversions silently to zero.
In Realize, confirm only your primary KPI (purchase / lead / install) is set to “Include in Total,” and re-verify it fires after any funnel or LP edit.
Run at least 9 ads — 3 unique titles × 3 unique thumbnails
Fewer than 9 and the algorithm has too few title×thumbnail combinations to explore, so it leans on one variant and fatigues early.
Count active ads; ensure at least 3 distinct titles and 3 distinct thumbnails. Scale ad count up as budget grows.
Two of 41. The other 39 cover account settings, bidding caps, budget pacing, supply quality, creative, and landing-page checks. Get the full list:
Quick questions
Is this checklist for me?
If you've run a Taboola or Outbrain campaign past test budget, yes. Each check assumes you know terms like tblci and conversion rules, but verifications take 30 seconds on your dashboard. If you're brand new to native ads, a “getting started” guide will help you faster.
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What's your angle?
I'm building an AI co-pilot for native ad operators. This checklist is the kind of thing the product automates. Free + honest marketing — useful tools attract the right kind of curiosity. No paywall, no course, no consulting pitch.
About this checklist
This is the human-readable version of what an AI co-pilot I'm building checks automatically. Sharing it free because it's useful even without the product, and because honest tools attract the right kind of curiosity. Reply if you want to talk shop — I read every email that comes back.