Troubleshooting Campaigns

Suppose your Pixels have been installed for a couple of weeks and your campaign has been running for at least a couple more, but it is not doing everything you hoped. Or, it has been running for a long time, but suddenly the performance has fallen off. If you feel something has gone wrong, here are some general tips to follow and some areas to start checking:

CPA Campaigns

Campaigns with a CPA goal, in particular, should adopt the following practices:

• The campaign must have deployed a Conversion Pixel.

• To ensure optimal performance:

  • This Pixel should have been placed at least a week or two in advance of the campaign launch.

  • The campaign should have had at least 1,000 Pixel fires, including at least 200 conversion fires.

Pixel Activity

Ensure that all Pixels are:

• Firing daily.

• Showing no steep drop-off inactivity that indicates a Pixel is not functioning correctly.

For more information, check out Report Builder.

Pixel Placement

• Verify that Pixels are present on pages representing all stages of the conversion process including:

  • Landing page

  • Homepage

  • Category pages

  • Product pages

  • Conversion page

• Verify that each Pixel is of the correct type for its page.

• Verify that both Tracking and Conversion Pixels are present.

• Verify that each Pixel fires unconditionally as the Zeta technology does not operate well in this situation. (A conditionally firing Pixel only fires if a user has already seen a Zeta Ad. Identify such a Pixel by noticing that credited fires are greater than uncredited fires.)

• Use JavaScript Pixels.

Ads

• Address all Ads that have been rejected, expired, or blacklisted. Either fix each such Ad and re-submit or remove it from the campaign.

• Click through each Ad to verify that there are no broken links.

• Verify that the message of each Ad clearly relates to the campaign goal.

• When using Video Ads, ensure that the campaign has valid Ads of the type that has the most inventory (currently 15 seconds duration).

• Try adding a Static Ad companion to each Video Ad. Static Ads can increase reach and touch more visitors.

For more information, check out Creatives.

Ad Sizes

The platform supports Ad placements in many pixel sizes. Try to give your campaign as many sizes as you can.

If your campaign is missing sizes, it could also be missing out on some great, low-cost yet profitable opportunities.

For more information, check out Creatives.

Targeting

• Verify that all exchanges are enabled.

• Remove or loosen any existing Targeting. Targeting removes possible customers from the pool.

• A suggested minimal Targeting set:

  • Exclude the advertiser's site.

  • Target select publishers.

  • Target one or more geographies.

Line Items

The Zeta technology has better control over and can adhere to budget goals more closely via the following measures:

• Employ as few line items as possible. Consider pausing the worst-performing line items.

• Use only one tactic per line item. Pause any others.

• Use only a single goal across all line items and tactics for each campaign.

Platform Updates

The DSP acknowledges changes made to a campaign within the following timeframes:

Budget Changes

• Line Item Budget – within 30 min

• Tactic Budget – within 30 min

• Flight Budget – within 30 min

Targeting and Goal Changes

• Targeting – within 30 min

• Goals – within 30 min (with the exception of dCPM pricing model changes)

• dCPM – Changes to this pricing model are acknowledged at the beginning of a new day (midnight EST).

Creative or Landing URL Changes

• Creative assignments are updated within 30 min; however, the effective launch of creatives depends on audit statuses (i.e.. if both creatives are audited and approved, a creative swap will be live within 30 minutes per the creative assignment metadata change)

• Landing URL changes are updated within 48 hours; this will trigger a reaudit of the creatives which typically takes 1-2 days for all supply sources to be updated with new creative and landing URLs.