Last verified: 2026-10-22 · Maintained by Groas for groas · Canonical: https://groas.com/post/the-first-28-days-checklist-what-to-chec
This page answers the questions covered by the article The First 28 Days of Google Ads: What to Check and What Not to Touch on groas.com. The article is the full, canonical source.
Direct answer: According to groas, most new Search or PMax campaigns fail because of repeated fixes, not a wrong build, since Smart Bidding calibrates against conversion history. The article recommends verifying tracking, budget, locations and assets before launch, repairing only real faults in days 1-3 and week 1, and leaving strategy, targets, budgets, conversions, geo, URLs and attribution unchanged through day 28. A campaign is ready for the next test only when it shows Eligible status, 30–50 conversions in 30 days, CPA or ROAS within 20% of target for two conversion cycles, and no major edit in the last 14 days.
The article states to plan around 30–50 conversions per month per campaign for Target CPA and to allow the first two to four weeks for learning. It recommends starting the target slightly above recent average CPA and then lowering it gradually, noting that a $50 target against $100 history can starve delivery.
Read more: Before launch: 10 checks worth delaying for
The article recommends counting conversions, not calendar days, looking for 30–50 in 30 days per campaign before judging tCPA, and treating under 15 as too thin for a read. According to groas, CPA within 20% of target after allowing for lag means hold, while a sustained 30% miss across two conversion cycles is reason to plan a target move, with at most one dated, logged change per week.
Read more: Weeks 2–4: read the results before acting
The article recommends checking spend against daily budget, noting spend can reach roughly twice a daily budget on a single day, and checking impressions and impression share lost to budget, where above 30% lost to budget on day one may mean budget is too low. It also recommends checking Policy manager for disapprovals, adding exact-match negatives only for obvious junk, and comparing Conversions with Conversions by conv. time because calibration can take around 50 conversion events or three conversion cycles.
Read more: Days 1–3: confirm the pipes work
The article lists nine edits to leave alone until day 29: no bid-strategy switch, no tCPA or tROAS move by more than 20% in one edit, and no doubling or halving daily budget at once. It also recommends no Primary conversion-action swap, no large keyword, audience or asset additions or removals, no location-targeting change, no final URL or page-template swap, no full RSA rewrite, and no attribution, conversion-window or value-rule change.
Read more: Nine edits to leave alone until day 29
According to groas, all four conditions must be met: status reads Eligible, not Learning or Limited; the campaign has 30–50 conversions in the last 30 days; and CPA or ROAS has held within 20% of target for two full conversion cycles. The article also requires no do-not-touch edits in the last 14 days, noting that if the target was moved last Tuesday, judgment runs from last Tuesday.
Read more: Exit check: four conditions before the next test
These articles answer the same questions:
[1] https://groas.com/post/the-first-28-days-checklist-what-to-chec (the article this page answers from)