CR halved the day I tripled spend — is that shaving or is it me?

Been running the same offer for five weeks at about 300 clicks a day, sitting at 4.1% CR the whole time, profitable, boring, great.

Monday I went to 900 a day because why wouldn't you. Tuesday CR is 1.9%. Wednesday 2.0%. Same creative, same lander, same geo, same everything!!

The timing is what gets me. Not a slow drift, it happened on the exact day the volume went up. That's got to be them throttling my conversions right? Everyone says the networks do this once you look like you're going to actually cost them something.

4.1% of 300 is twelve conversions a day. That's your baseline — twelve a day, over five weeks.

Two days at 900 is 1,800 clicks and about 36 conversions. You are comparing a five-week average against 48 hours, and 48 hours is well inside the range where the number moves on its own.

Before anyone says shaving: where did the extra 600 clicks a day come from? If the answer is "the same source, I just raised the cap", that's the likeliest explanation right there and it has nothing to do with the network.

you scaled the same creative into a wider audience and the wider audience converts worse. that's the whole post

You can settle this in two days instead of arguing about it, and the test costs you nothing you weren't spending anyway.

1. Find the same offer on a second network — most of the volume offers are on three or four. 2) Split the identical traffic 50/50 for 48 hours, same source, same creative, alternating rather than by segment so you don't accidentally split by device. 3) Compare CR on both sides. If network A is 2.0% and network B is 3.8% on the same traffic in the same window, now you have something worth writing an email about. If they're both 2.0%, it's your traffic and you've learned it cheaply.

Separately, and do this regardless: compare your own click count against theirs for the same day. Not conversions — clicks. If their click number is materially lower than yours, the leak is in the redirect and nothing downstream of it means anything.

Alternating not by segment, that's a good catch, I would 100% have split it by device and then argued with myself about it for a week. Setting it up now.

One thing to add that isn't the network and isn't you: the advertiser.

On a lot of lead offers the advertiser has their own filters and they get stricter when the volume from one publisher jumps. Same leads, same quality, more of them rejected at their end. The network reports what the advertiser accepts, so it looks identical to shaving from where you're standing.

Worth asking the AM what your approval rate looks like on their side. It's a question they'll usually answer honestly because it isn't about them.

Ran the split. Network A 2.1%, network B 2.2%. So it's me!

Went back and looked at the source breakdown like Metrics said and the extra 600 is almost all coming from placements that were never in the original 300. Cheaper clicks, worse clicks. Feels obvious written down.

Click counts matched within about 1% on both networks too so at least I know the redirect is clean. Cheers all, sorry for the accusation.