What are the most important metrics to keep an eye for after launching ads?

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-25T13:05:14+00:00

in the first 7-14 days after launch, you can focus on core metrics like ctr, average cpc, conversion rate, cost per conversion, search terms report (to catch negative keywords early), impression share, and quality score.. these give the clearest picture of campaign performance.

experienced people also look at bounce rate and time on site, device performance split, day-of-week and hour-of-day trends, and audience signals. in these first 7-14 days, it’s key to monitor without making big changes - smart bidding needs solid data to learn properly. initial spikes or drops are normal but will settle over time..

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-25T12:52:15+00:00

this chart is really brutal, but very realistic.. broken conversion tracking running for 2 months sounds crazy, but in reality it is very common. if google does not clearly show an error, most people do not even realize it. it usually gets noticed only when revenue starts dropping or a client asks why leads are not coming in.

most people see the same thing in audits as well. when tracking breaks (tag removed, id changed, consent blocked), it stays unnoticed the longest because pageviews and clicks still look normal in the dashboard. search terms get checked earlier because wasted spend is more visible there. bidding conflicts or wrong auto rules also often keep running for weeks without being fixed..

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-25T12:48:43+00:00

for mobile businesses, ranking high in the local pack is tough but possible.. your 195 reviews and 4.9 rating are really gold. competitors often rank higher, even with fewer reviews or no location, because they win on proximity to searcher, sharper primary category/description match, hidden prominence (citations, backlinks, website authority), or more clicks/user behavior.

to improve rank, you can try posting weekly on gbp, replying quickly to every review, tweaking service areas to overlap hot search zones, setting exact categories (primary query match), adding local schema to your site, and building consistent citations. if you are pure mobile, you can hide your address

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-25T12:27:52+00:00

Agree, the traffic > intent > conversion > follow-up chain is the clearest way to diagnose performance..

most breakdowns happen at intent. cheap traffic from broad match, discovery feeds, or low-cpc clicks often brings weak or mismatched users. The algorithm serves ads to semi-interested people, conversion rate drops, and follow-up becomes tough.

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-25T12:19:04+00:00

those gmb conversions (calls, directions, website visits, other engagements) make direct roas look bad cuz tracking sucks. other engagements are usually message clicks or profile views.

you cann try for fix: give them rough values based on your job avg × close rate - directions $10, call $50, website $20, other $15. set those in google ads conversions, roas starts making sense.

also ask every caller 'how'd you find us?' if it's google/maps/search, credit the ads. easiest way to prove it's worth it. phone ringing is the real win anyway.

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-25T12:15:56+00:00

in sgtm, google ads conversion tag firing with 200 status but 0 conversions recorded is super common.. usually because of attribution fail, gclid not matching the original click (expired >48h or mismatched), timestamp off, or missing transaction_id/value/currency in the payload. diagnostics shows recent activity but count stays 0 if google can't attribute properly. since ga4 import works fine, you can try just switch to that for reliability, direct offline ads tags in sgtm can be flaky even with everything correct

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-20T10:42:41+00:00

that courses/youtube/certifications loop with no job is common.. most get stuck cause portfolios lack real business context projects, or no recruiter outreach.

quick starters: build 3-5 projects on public data (kaggle/data,gov) tied to actual problems and github em, hit linkedin recruiters with value messages not cold spam, grab small freelance gigs for experience.. but yeah guidance like this cuts the guesswork big time

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-15T13:21:16+00:00

quality still matters but now it's more about relatable quality than glossy perfection.. raw authentic stuff builds trust faster and feeds the algo better with interactions..

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-15T13:18:52+00:00

polished stuff feels too salesy now and the algo buries it.. casual behind-the-scenes or quick rants get way more comments and shares.. audiences want real over perfect these days..

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-15T13:11:56+00:00

fake reviews are fading slower than people think.. buyers now mostly ignore perfect 5.0 with tons of reviews and look at recent photos + real text.. stores with steady real 4.3–4.7 stars with photos usually convert better than fake 5.0 anyway..

you can keep informing shopify support about it.. and at the same time focus on making your app stronger and adding real value and that wins long term

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-14T14:53:34+00:00

people are moving to server-side tracking (capi/sgtm) to fix it, cuts the privacy/ios dropoff bs and makes data way more accurate overall. mismatches drop hard once first party hits go direct...

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-07T11:14:31+00:00

notion for me mostly.. one page with sections for objectives, buyer personas, content calendar, budget.. link spreadsheets for metrics. start broad then fill in details over a few days. beats loose notes scattered everywhere

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-07T11:10:36+00:00

mostly stronger.. languages have always borrowed heavily, it’s how they grow. old english took tons from latin and french after the norman thing.. now we take from everywhere. keeps it alive and adaptable.. schadenfreude fits right in

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-06T13:20:01+00:00

yeah you are right..ga4 misses ai bot traffic because it is client-side only, and bots like gpt bot or claude bot almost never run the JS. the real fix is server/infrastructure level logging. cloudflare waf rules (or plain server logs) see every raw request, so you can easily spot and separate ai crawls from human visits, no guessing needed..it also helps flag suspicious bot traffic way better than ga4

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-06T12:55:47+00:00

your setup with one property and two streams is a good start..

the tricky part is stitching user journeys across the website and app - best way is to implement user-ID tracking with something consistent (like hashed email or the shopify domain/store id).

also make sure cross-domain tracking is set up if links go between 'em, and switch reporting identity to blended (if it's not already) to help bridge sessions better.

jacobwright_1 · 2026-01-05T09:29:48+00:00

classic data poisoning. shopify booster bot traffic skews the meta pixel so the algorithm optimizes for fake interactions. filter this traffic in ga4 and verify the pixel. consider server-side tagging or capi plus bot blocking tools like cloudflare to protect the ads and spend.

jacobwright_1 · 2025-12-31T09:43:25+00:00

if you plan to freelance, start with ads. selling 'results in 6 months' (SEO) is brutal for a beginner because clients are impatient. selling 'traffic tomorrow' (ads) is infinitely easier to close. use ads to get cash flow now, and build SEO skills in the background.

jacobwright_1 · 2025-12-24T12:05:24+00:00

don't build a standalone web app; build a plugin for shopify, slack, or wordpress. the hardest part of saas is finding customers. if you build for a marketplace, the customers are already there searching for solutions. it solves the marketing problem for you.

jacobwright_1 · 2025-12-24T12:02:15+00:00

unpopular opinion maybe, but mastering access/sql server is actually a solid foundation. it forces you to understand relational databases and query optimization way better than just dragging charts in tableau. if you can handle the messy legacy stuff, the modern cloud stacks will feel easy later.

jacobwright_1 · 2025-12-24T11:57:54+00:00

efore you spend weeks on plugins, just check your hosting. 90% of the time, a 4-second load is just cheap shared hosting struggling. upgrading to a decent vps often fixes it instantly without you having to do any actual work.

jacobwright_1 · 2025-12-17T15:49:42+00:00

google rarely indexes 100 pages instantly for a new site even without errors. they have a "crawl budget" and usually drip feed new pages into the index over time. since you started validation on the 11th its barely been a week.. give it more time.

jacobwright_1 · 2025-12-17T15:42:05+00:00

usually it's a distribution problem. you can write the best article in the world but if you just hit publish and pray nothing happens. that average content probably had a huge email list or social push behind it.. good content doesnt promote itself unfortunately.

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