tCPA Best Practices

Welcome to our tCPA Best Practices Guide! We’ve already covered the basics of tCPA and how to create a campaign here, so now we'll explore advanced strategies, including tCPA recommendations, targeting tactics, ad creatives, and more, to help you maximize your ad performance and profitability. Many advertisers regard tCPA as the 'magic' for driving conversions on our platform. For peak performance, it's essential to monitor it closely. This article is your key to unlocking that potential.

How to set up your tCPA campaign for success

1. Bid true to your business
   • Set your bid at the highest amount you’re willing to pay for a conversion.
2. Daily budget
   • Set your daily budget to be at least 10x your tCPA goal (Target Cost Per Acquisition). For example, if your tCPA goal is $20, allocating a $200 daily budget would be our recommendation. This range allows for optimal performance and gives the algorithm sufficient room to optimize your bids effectively.
3. Ad Set Creation
   • Create 2-3 ad sets and once the cold start is complete, keep the higher performing set and switch off the others.
4. Broad targeting
   • We recommend starting with broad targeting and avoiding layering options at the start of your campaign. Once we have gathered sufficient data from the Cold Start Period, you have two options: to edit your original ad set or launch a new ad set with more specific targeting.
5.  Creatives
   • Experiment with different types of assets, such as videos and images.
   • Consider separating video and image assets into different ad sets.
   • We also suggest separating 9x16 and 16x videos into different ad sets.

Understanding the ‘Cold Start Period’

 The Cold Start Period typically is completed within the first 2-5 days of your campaign. During this phase, our system gathers crucial learnings about user behavior, helping identify the most likely converting audience segments for your campaign. You should expect daily fluctuation and when it collects enough data, you will see more stabilized performance. 

💡Pro tip: Please be patient during the Cold Start Period and don’t edit your ad set. During this time, you may see fluctuations in data. We encourage you to refer to weekly data for optimization!

Can I add targeting options to existing campaigns?

Yes, but it's not recommended to add new targeting options to existing campaigns. Making drastic adjustments to your ad set can taint previous learnings.

How to optimize + start scaling campaigns

1. Avoid drastic changes
   • When it comes to ad sets, it’s best to refrain from making sudden and significant changes to prevent shocking the system. To achieve consistent and optimal results with your Target CPA strategy, it is highly recommended to limit changes to your ad set targeting and goal CPA to a maximum of once a day. Frequent adjustments can disrupt the algorithm's learning process and may lead to suboptimal performance.
   • In the event that you do make changes in your ad set, please let the system run for a couple of days before making any other changes. 
2. Leverage our diagnosis tool
   • Access the diagnosis tool under the “Status” column in your ad sets and hover over the icon to read the tips and tricks designed to support you during the Cold Start Period. When the sign says “Learning Phase Complete” that is a good indicator your ad set is ready to scale!
3. Increase budget
   • Gradually increase your budget so as not to shock the system. Our recommendation is increasing your daily budget 20-30% every 2-3 days.
4. Weekly performance 
   • When analyzing your campaign performance, please look at the weekly overview, not daily. This will provide a better understanding of your campaign so you can identify trends, patterns, and areas for improvement.
5. Use our bid estimation tool
   • Make sure to use our bid estimation tool! You can find this when you edit tCPA ad sets that are labeled as "Learning Phase Complete."
   • The purpose of this tool is to identify ad sets with high growth potential and project the conversion, cost, and impression metrics based on how much you increase your bid rate.

For technical support with your tCPA campaign, please email adsupport@newsbreak.com