u/Affectionate_Cup444

Hey everyone,

I’m running Microsoft Advertising campaigns for a SaaS company on branded keywords (USA) and facing a weird issue.

Initial setup:

• Budget: $20/day
• Bid strategy: Maximize Conversions
• Network: Bing/Yahoo (no audience ads)
• Avg CPC: $2–$4
• Clicks: ~9–12/day
• Leads: ~4 form fills/week

Everything was stable.

What I changed:
I increased the budget to $58/day thinking it would scale performance.

What happened:

• Clicks stayed almost the same
• CPC shot up to $20–$25 (!!)
• No meaningful conversions

I let it run for a week, but CPC stayed high.

Then I reduced budget back to $20/day:

• CPC dropped back to ~$2
• BUT now traffic has tanked
• Getting barely 1–2 clicks in 4–5 days

Did I mess up the learning phase by changing budgets too frequently? I don't know how to get back on track!