When to pause an ad

Stopping an ad too early throws away a good one, and stopping it too late burns money. Klirry decides with a break-even number and a guard against small samples. Its word for stopping an ad is Pause; the engine's internal name for that state is KILL, which is why this article keeps its title.

The five states

Klirry puts each ad set in one state, checked in this order:

• Learning: the ad set is younger than 14 days, or had a significant budget change in the last 14 days. No decision yet.
• Too early: the sample is too small. It takes 30 orders, or ad spend of 4 times your average order value, to count as enough.
• Pause: the ROAS matched to real store orders is below the break-even ROAS.
• Wait: the ROAS is at or above break-even but within 0.15 of it.
• Keep: the ROAS is more than 0.15 above break-even.

The numbers are the defaults in the engine, the same ones the methodology page describes. They are measured over a 14 day window.

An example

This is an illustrative example, not a real customer's numbers. The break-even ROAS is 3.11, as in why high ROAS can still lose money. Three ad sets have all passed the learning period and have enough orders:

The 3.20 ad set is above break-even by only 0.09, inside the 0.15 band, so it waits, not celebrated. A fourth ad set with the same 2.80 but only 12 orders, and less than 4 times your average order value in spend, would be Too early, not Pause.

What to do

Know your break-even before you open the ad manager: the calculator gives it for one order. Klirry applies the rules to every ad set for you, and pricing shows the price.