Auto-Rules and Schedule: auto-stop and dayparting

Once a funnel is live and clicks accumulate, watching every flow by hand does not scale. In an ATracker campaign two tools cover different jobs: Auto-Rules react to metrics (CR, ROI, cost, zero conversions); Schedule defines show windows and hourly dayparting. They do not replace Reports — rules use aggregates over a time window, not sub_id drilldowns.

When to enable. Auto-Rules — after warm-up (often from ~100 clicks per rule; see Min clicks). Schedule / dayparting — when the offer, moderation, or ad platform requires “run only daytime” or specific hours. Do not enable both on day one: on tiny volume CR and ROI swing and rules cause false pauses.

Auto-Rules in campaign editor
Campaigns → edit → Auto-Rules tab: condition, threshold, window, and action.

Prerequisites

  • The campaign already accepts traffic: flow with an offer, cost set or Cost Import connected — otherwise ROI/cost rules are meaningless.
  • Fallback offer or Monitoring on the flow — if a rule pauses a path, visitors need somewhere to go.
  • For dayparting you know the target timezone (ad account, offer, moderation) — the UI sets timezone explicitly.

How to open

  1. Sidebar → Campaigns → open a campaign (Edit).
  2. Auto-Rules tab — metric rules.
  3. Schedule tab — time windows and dayparting grid.

Scenario 1 — Auto-Rules: stop bleed without ROI

Goal. A path spends actively while CR drops below 1% with enough volume — pause the flow and get an alert without watching Reports all night.

  1. On Auto-Rules, turn on Auto-rules enabled.
  2. Click Add rule. Set:
    • Entity — flow (one path), offer, or campaign (broader).
    • Condition — e.g. CR <, ROI <, Cost >, Clicks >, Conversions = 0.
    • Threshold — for CR/ROI/cost/clicks (not for zero conversions).
    • Window hours — metric lookback (often 24).
    • Min clicks — minimum clicks before firing (default 100; do not use 10 on tests).
    • Action — pause, alert, or alert_and_pause.
  3. Save. On a new funnel start with alert; after 1–2 stable days move to pause / alert_and_pause.

Scenario 2 — Schedule: dayparting for moderation or offer windows

Schedule and dayparting
Schedule tab: time windows (UTC) and dayparting grid with timezone.

The Schedule tab has two blocks — do not mix them up.

Schedule (time windows). Blocks traffic in real time outside configured windows. Server time is UTC. Add From/To and weekdays (Add window). Use when you need “no clicks at night” without toggling campaign status by hand.

Dayparting (hourly schedule). A worker pauses/resumes the campaign every minute from the hour grid. Pick timezone (e.g. America/New_York), enable Enabled, mark active hours (click cells; click day name for the full day). Status may become paused_dayparting — you cannot toggle Active/Paused until the allowed window returns.

After a rule fires — where to look

Monitoring after flow pause
Monitoring: offer/path may be down — verify fallback before re-enabling.
  1. Campaigns — path/campaign status; bulk Pause / Resume when needed.
  2. Monitoring (/monitoring) — is the offer down; if auto-switch ran, confirm fallback returns 200.
  3. Flows — if a path is paused, ensure other paths carry traffic or fallback is enabled.
  4. Reports — confirm the metric in the rule window was actually bad (not a one-off Cost Import spike).

Typical scenarios

  • Night stop for FB Tier-1. Dayparting in target timezone, active hours 08:00–23:00.
  • Zero conversions for 24 h with 200+ clicks. Rule Conversions = 0, min clicks 150, action alert → check postback, then pause.
  • ROI < −30% over 12 h. Entity flow, window 12, action alert_and_pause — only if campaign cost or Cost Import is current.

Common mistakes

  • Auto-Rules during warm-up at 20–30 clicks — false “dead funnel” pause.
  • Dayparting in UTC while ads run in America/New_York — traffic cut at the wrong hours.
  • Rule on campaign when one path is bad — unnecessary downtime for the whole funnel.
  • No flow fallback — after pause clicks may count but visitors have nowhere to go.