One campaign, five steps
Take an example campaign on a Nutra offer paying $12 per confirmed order. We spent $180. Here's what happened at each step:
Where the money leaks
Check each step with one question: "if I improve only this, do I get into profit?"
- CTR 1.8% — fine. Even at 2.5% clicks get cheaper, but leads stay expensive.
- Landing CR 7.8% — this is the main hole. Each click costs $1 but earns only $0.60 (EPC). Lift CR to 12% and the same 180 clicks bring 22 leads.
- Approval 64% — average. Some rejections are duplicates and wrong numbers; that's fixed with traffic quality, not the creative.
Rule: fix the narrowest step
Read the funnel as a chain, not a list of numbers. The bottleneck is the step where you lag furthest behind the norm for this vertical and GEO. Fix it first: the creative if CTR is low, the landing page if CR is low, the source and audience if approval is low.
During onboarding your team lead writes down the norms for your offer and GEO in advance — so you see at once which step is sagging.
The formula that ties it together
Revenue = clicks × CR × approval × payout. In the example: 180 × 0.078 × 0.64 × $12 ≈ $108. Every multiplier can be improved, and each gain multiplies through the others — so even small improvements on two steps make a visible difference.