Check if your first ad clicks are customers or just you

On launch day, the ad platform checks your page. You test the button. The dashboard throws a party, and you haven't met a customer yet. If you tell the ad system to "find more of these" before checking what "these" were, you might be asking for more visitors exactly like you.

1. Decide how you'll mark your own tests before launch. Put TEST in the name on every test form and jot down when you test. If your analytics tool lets you leave out your own visits, set that up.
2. Look at four things together. Where the visit came from, when, what it did, and whether anyone asked for anything: a call, a form, a booking. One of those alone won't tell you much.
3. Sort into piles. Our tests. Platform checks. Customers. Not sure. If you can't tell, it goes in "not sure." Don't force it.
4. Count only what you know. Your tests don't count. The not-sure pile doesn't count yet either. Keep it visible so nobody rounds it up into "customers."
5. Check what a result means before the ad system chases it. Open the actual results it's counting. If they're mostly your own test forms, that's what it'll go looking for.

And yes, on launch day, my ad's first big fan is me. Testing the button. Again. That's fine, as long as I don't count myself.

Run this on each visit or result before you call it a win:

BEFORE YOU CELEBRATE
Where did it come from? ______________
When? Does it line up with a test or the launch? ______________
What did it do? Pages, buttons, how long it stayed: ______________
Did anyone ask for anything?  Call / Form / Booking / Nothing

Pile:  [ ] Our test   [ ] Platform check   [ ] Customer   [ ] Not sure

Before "find more of these": what's actually in "these"?

Summit Gutter Co. launches its first ad at 9:00 a.m. By 10:30 the dashboard shows 14 visits and 3 results. The owner, Lena, checks before she celebrates.

Two results are her own test forms from 9:05 and 9:12. She typed TEST in the name, so they're easy to spot. One visit at 9:01 clicked every button once and left within a minute. Platform check? Her test from another device? A customer? One clue can't tell her, so it goes in the not-sure pile.

The third result is a form from someone asking about gutter guards for their house. That's a customer. So the real scoreboard: one customer, two tests, one not sure, and a bunch of visits that didn't ask for anything. She marks her tests so they stop counting and holds off on telling the ad system what to chase.

• Deciding every odd visit is a bot, or every visit is a customer. One clue can't tell you either way.
• Testing without marking your tests. Then your own clicks look like demand.
• Emptying the not-sure pile by guessing. "Not sure" is an answer. Leave it there until you know more.
• Telling the ad system what to chase before you look. Check what's in your results first, then ask for more of them.

Otherwise you might be asking for more visitors exactly like you.