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Isn't that a good argument for using $$ as the metric to optimize for? If you're going to get wiped out by variations in behavior because highly-retargeted legal clicks are worth 500x more than mobile clicks, isn't that an important variable?

The problem I frequently wonder about is that you have to assume independence about the stable variables to be comfortable testing them. In reality, the bounce rate of a people who make you lots of money is probably driven by different factors than the bounce rate of the overall population.

I guess what you should really do is optimize the bounce rate / pages per visit / etc. for just the population of people that could make you money, but you don't typically have access to that information.



$$ can be done in a bandit setting, but the key challenge is that your feedback is highly delayed (maybe weeks or months).

As the parent poster says, its best to focus on individual funnel steps that provide fast feedback, at least initially.

Once the whole funnel is optimized (does this ever happen?), you could start feeding in end-to-end $$ metrics.




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