Showerthought: I launched a campaign in Portland that got zero clicks for three days

I was running a small ad campaign for a local coffee shop here in Portland, with a budget of $200. Everything was set up, the creative looked good, and I hit launch. For three whole days, the dashboard showed zero clicks. I was panicking, thinking the platform was broken or I'd messed up the payment. Turns out, I had set the audience targeting way too narrow, basically only showing the ads to people who fit a super specific set of interests that maybe five people in the city had. I felt so dumb. I widened the audience to just people in the zip code interested in coffee, and it started working right away. Has anyone else had a campaign totally flop because of a tiny, easy-to-miss setting like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_kelly18d agoMost Upvoted

Is it just me or does that feeling of panic when you realize it was something tiny you did wrong hit so much harder than if the whole system was broken? @julia286 that's exactly the vibe, like you're staring at the dashboard wondering if you forgot how to breathe or something.

julia28618d ago

Isn't it funny how the smallest mistake can make you feel like you're totally failing at something you thought you understood? It's like when you can't find your keys and they were in your pocket the whole time.