The Product Stop Loss feature helps exclude non-performing products from advertising to optimize budget usage. If products are not being excluded despite meeting inefficiency criteria, consider the following potential reasons:
1. Exclusion Limit Reached
The exclusion limit acts as a safeguard to ensure the catalog maintains a sufficient number of products for advertising. If the exclusion limit is reached, additional products will not be excluded.
To check the exclusion limit:
Go to the Save Budget tab.
Click on the clock button to access Stop Loss logs.
If the limit is reached, increase it to allow further exclusions by editing the rule.
2. Rule Set Only for Recommendation
If the stop loss rule is configured for recommendations only, it will suggest products for exclusion but will not automatically exclude them.
To modify this setting:
Ensure the Recommendations checkbox is unchecked.
This will allow automatic exclusion based on the defined rule.
3. Stop Loss Applied Only to One Platform
Verify that the stop loss rule is applied to the correct platform.
If a rule is applied only for Meta Ads, products will continue to spend on Google Ads, and vice versa.
To ensure exclusion across platforms, apply the rule to all relevant advertising platforms.
4. Multiple Catalogs in Use
The stop loss feature only applies to product catalogs that are generated and managed by BigAtom. If you are using additional catalogs outside of BigAtom, the stop loss rule will not be applied to those products.
This means that even if a product is excluded from advertising in the BigAtom catalog, it may still continue to receive ad spend through other catalogs that are linked to the ad account.
Additionally, the Product Analytics section in BigAtom displays total product spending at the ad account level, not just for the BigAtom catalog.
If a product appears to still be spending despite being excluded, check whether it is part of another catalog that is still active in your advertising campaigns.
5. Frequency of Product Stop Loss
Check whether the stop loss frequency is set at an appropriate interval that aligns with your brand's needs. If the stop loss frequency is configured as bi-weekly, products will only be removed twice a week.
For example, if a product incurs spend in a single day and is deemed inefficient, the system will exclude it only on the next scheduled removal date. Until then, the product will continue to spend.
To prevent this delay, consider adjusting the exclusion frequency to daily or every alternate day, depending on your requirements.
6. Compare the Product Data with the Same Rules Set in Product Stop Loss
Ensure that the same rule set in Product Stop Loss is also applied when analyzing product data. If the rules used in product analytics do not match the stop loss criteria, the analytics may display products that do not actually meet the stop loss conditions, leading to continued spending.
For example, if the stop loss rule evaluates product performance over a 30-day period, but product analytics is set to a different date range (e.g., 7 days or 60 days), the reported product performance might differ. Since the stop loss rule assesses efficiency strictly within the 30-day window, it will exclude products based only on that timeframe.
To avoid discrepancies, always ensure that the date range and performance metrics used in both the product stop loss and product analytics are the same when comparing data.