Traffic blacklisting will either save you money or ruin the campaign’s prospects. This time, we won’t leave sad pitfalls a chance to devalue your marketing efforts. It’s a comprehensive guide that expands on the foundational mistakes. Our head of the CPM Department and traffic acquisition expert is here again to sort out the cumbersome blocklisting topic. Just in case: take a glance at the first part of the guide where Mikhail explains the basics of forming blacklists and whitelists in affiliate marketing.
Understanding traffic blacklisting
Blocklists (aka blacklists) remain a powerful weapon for removing sources that fail to meet your marketing objectives. Which ones? Those that:
- Send tons of impressions with very few clicks
- Keep showing low conversion rates after 1-2 weeks after the launch
- Eat money without impressive performance (clicks, CTRs, CRs, I2C, etc.)
Armed with blocklists (blacklists), affiliate marketers and media buyers optimize costs, streaming their budgets to beneficial placements and winning the best traffic slices. However, when applied incorrectly or at the wrong time, blacklisting can lead to severe traffic and conversion rate slumps. Which ones? Let’s find out!
In case you want to try all cost-optimization tools, sign up as an advertiser and tweak all settings in your account.
Traffic blacklisting mistakes in marketing
#1: Account-wide blacklisting
What is? Setting blocklists for an entire account when running several campaigns with different offers.
Why this kills performance: One particular ad placement may deliver exceptional conversions for a Dating offer while producing zero conversions for a VPN campaign. User behavior and traffic performance vary drastically based on GEO, device type, ad offer, and numerous other factors.
Best practices:
- Campaign-specific blacklisting: Create individual blacklists for each offer type
- Offer category segmentation: Group similar offers (e.g., all dating offers) for shared blacklist insights
- Testing: Before applying wide blocks, test underperforming sources on different offer types
Result: Category-specific blocks for offer types, and campaign-specific blocks for individual promotions provide more transparency and protect you from traffic slumps.
#2: Over-generalization in traffic blacklisting
The error: When you decline a source sending traffic from multiple GEOs, you may lose potential conversions and profit.
Problem analysis: A single placement may send premium traffic from Tier 1 countries while delivering poor-quality traffic from Tier 3 regions. Bulk blacklisting eliminates profitable opportunities. But you still need to cut off the unwanted traffic, so what should you do?
Advanced solutions:
- Implement Adsterra Custom Bid: Increase or decrease bids for specific placements within a specific country.
2. Apply location targeting: Target specific cities or regions within countries for granular control. You can remove regions, states, or cities from a campaign, leaving only top-performers.
Pro tip: We recommend adding one geo per campaign when possible, as it allows for collecting clear stats and enhanced optimization.
#3: Overusing blacklisting in new/test campaigns
The error: Applying ready-made blocklists when starting new test campaigns or importing lists from another ad network.
The hidden problem: Blind over-optimization traps even professional affiliates, especially when they try new advertising platforms. Massive traffic restriction without testing traffic literally blocks “hidden diamond sources.”
Advanced solutions for saving budgets:
- Test budget allocation: Dedicate at least $100–200 for initial testing. The amount will strongly depend on the vertical and your next competitors’ bids. For iGaming ad campaigns, $200 is the minimum entry.
- Stay patient: Wait at least 2–3 days (for VPN, Utility offers) and 5–7 days (for iGaming offers) before blacklisting sources.
- Slice-by-slice testing: Evaluate traffic segments individually rather than excluding everything. Here’s why it’s worth starting out with one geo per campaign and one traffic type (desktop/mobile).
Pro tip: Keep an eye on traffic volumes. Some sources start sending millions of impressions with zero clicks, and you can exclude such placements without extra analytics.
Go to the Statistics page and select one of your active campaigns. Check for placements with high spending, big volumes, and zero user actions. Change the state to OFF.
#4: Blacklist-only strategy
The error: Using exclusively blacklists for campaign optimization without considering alternatives.
Why it’s a low-key strategy: you just remove all traffic without trying to harvest some clicks or conversions.
The smarter approach is to implement greylisting. Greylisting serves as the “first alarm”. First, you monitor sources that drain funds without exceptional results, then, reduce bids while maintaining some traffic flow.You can collect a list of placements you want to give a second chance and then, choose between two ways:
- Reduce bids for these placements specifically (Custom bids)
- Download this list and start a campaign with reduced payouts after removing them from the main campaign.
Best practice is operating three-tier traffic segmentation:
- Blacklists: Complete exclusion for consistently poor performers
- Greylists: Reduced bid sources requiring your attention
- Whitelists: Premium sources with increased bids or separate campaigns with fixed high payouts.
#5: No blacklist management at all
The Error: Not refreshing blacklists (and whitelists) regularly, treating them as a “do and forget” job.
Consequences for business: Traffic is a live substance where sources remain constant, but user behavior shifts based on multiple factors. Even perfect blacklists can become profit-killers if not refreshed regularly.
Actionable algorithm:
- Monthly blacklist audits: Review the largest traffic sources in blacklists (you can turn them on with a decreased bid, remember?)
- Controlled re-testing: Add previously blacklisted sources to test campaigns with lower bids.
- Budget protection: Remember to include daily or hourly budget limits while testing ad placements to avoid overspending.
#6: Disorganized optimization frequency
The Problem: Making too many optimizations too quickly or waiting too long between changes.
Why does this harm your data?
- You don’t know exactly what happens with traffic.
- You don’t have enough time and data to make decisions.
- All further actions may be spoiled by the first wrong decisions.
Optimal workflow (but the ideal one will depend on your offer):
- Daily: Monitor key metrics, no critical changes unless overspending
- Weekly: Tactical optimization (creative, bid, or targeting adjustment)
- Bi-weekly: Comprehensive performance review
- Monthly: Strategic pivots and major campaign restructuring
Please note that optimization frequency heavily relies on your offer/vertical specifics paired with a pricing strategy. With CPA campaigns for VPNs and Apps, your first performance results will come within 24 hours. CPM campaigns for Sports, Finance, and iGaming offers usually take more time to gather representative stats.
#7: Blacklisting with no external context
The problem: Blacklisting traffic without considering current external factors affecting performance.
Factors to take into account:
- Seasonal variations: Holiday traffic soars/slumps, industry cycles
- Device-specific behavior: Mobile vs. desktop performance variations. This was the main reason to enable one-traffic-type campaigns only. You can either target desktop users or mobile audiences within one ad campaign.
- Time-of-day performance: Different sources can be super-effective in terms of traffic behavior at one time period and be a disaster at another.
Adsterra provides you with time-range targeting to make data-driven conclusions. Jump to the Additional Targeting section and set the ranges to include or exclude.
#8: Blacklisting instead of changing creatives
The problem: Starting out a campaign with 1–2 creatives and instead of refreshing them, form a blocklist of low-performing placements.
The impact: Relying on limited creatives leads to ad fatigue and decreased performance. Blocklisting is not a solution to low CTRs. It’s better to evaluate the whole campaign’s performance and check CTR dynamics. If you started getting poor clicks per campaign in general, there’s no reason to remove traffic sources–it’s time to refresh how your ads look.
An alternative algorithm:
Top affiliates put huge efforts into creating winning ad creatives and add as many of them as possible to a campaign.
- Decent viable variety: You can upload up to 15 creatives to a test campaign. Try adding those that vary by design and size. Social bar ads are packed with 20+ templates you can tweak to match your offer.
- Regular refresh cycle: Update creatives once you start getting fewer clicks. On average, a fundamental refreshment every 2-4 weeks—based on performance—is a good practice.
#9: Underestimating automation tools for traffic blacklisting
The productivity gap: You keep usinп the same old ways to manually build blacklists, overlooking smart automation and budget-saving tools.
Automation opportunities:
- CPA Goal implementation: Automated ad placement unlinking based on spend and conversion threshold you set. The smart rule optimizes CPM/CPC traffic for the desired number of target actions or acceptable conversion cost. In the meantime, you get a table of unlinked placements that don’t meet your KPIs. You can then export this table and use it for further tests.
So what’s next? Get to know your audience on Adserra, of course. Try out all our targeting and automation tools and achieve your next marketing milestone.
Implementation roadmap for traffic blocklisting
Now we’re going to outline a very basic roadmap for how to blocklist traffic within your ad campaigns. No strict rules for timing, as it heavily depends on the offer, volumes of impressions on this geo, and the conversion type. Simple conversions (signups or installs) require quick reactions in terms of traffic management. Complex conversions like sales and deposits demand more time for analysis.
Day 1
- Technical checkup: landing page, lead forms, page speed, etc.
- All necessary assets ready: images for creatives and texts.
- Budgets are saved for tests and further.
- All required tracking options are added: for CPA campaigns, S2S tracking is a must.
- Daily budget limits are set.
- You’ve established minimum data thresholds for decisions.
- Traffic volumes are enough for tests (clue: check Traffic Chart).
- You’ve set all required targeting settings and are ready to submit a campaign.
Week 1: Foundation
- Daily traffic checkup for peaks and slumps
- Blacklist only as a last resort
- Slightly change bids if needed
- Remove ad creatives with zero results.
Week 2–3: Strategic enhancement
- Deploy greylist strategies or decrease bids for low-performers.
- Try custom bidding for the best-performing sources (increase bids).
- Refresh ad creatives that underperform.
- Exclude only the most unprofitable sources (high spend/poor performance).
Week 4–5: Advanced optimization
- Form blacklists and either stop getting traffic from there, or try these placements in a new campaign.
- Form whitelists and create a campaign with higher bids.
- Add new traffic types (desktop, mobile, or non-mainstream) if not done before.
- Implement advanced targeting (OS types, browser versions).
- Set time range filters.
Continuous improvement methods will include:
- Monthly strategic reviews and list management
- Continuous testing and optimization protocols
- Regular creative assets’ refreshment.
Bottom line
Traffic blacklisting mastery comes with aggressive optimization and strategic patience. The key to success is not in perfect initial execution, but in systematic improvement and data-driven decision making.
And this marks the end of our blocklisting mistakes study 
Even small optimization details can save you thousands of dollars. Enjoy clean traffic staying safe from overspending!
