A step-by-step way to tier your GEOs by true payout, not headline CPA

A step-by-step way to tier your GEOs by true payout, not headline CPA

The highest CPA GEO is rarely the most profitable. Rank by margin, not sticker.

▸ Step 1 — List each GEO's CPA and your true cost-per-FTD (ad spend ÷ FTDs delivered).
— Step 2 — Compute gross margin per FTD: CPA minus your CPA-cost. A $250 GEO costing you $200 to fill (margin $50) loses to a $120 GEO costing $60 (margin $60).
— Step 3 — Layer in approval/validation rate. Operators reject 'invalid' FTDs; a GEO with 15% rejection silently cuts your effective payout.
— Step 4 — Add hold time. Tier-1 pays in 7 days; some Tier-3 deals hold 45. Cash-flow drag is a real cost when you're reinvesting.
— Step 5 — Rank by margin-per-FTD adjusted for rejection and hold. Reallocate top quartile, cut bottom quartile.

Benchmark of the day: across ~35 GEO/deal pairs, headline CPA and adjusted margin agreed on the ranking only ~40% of the time — the other 60% the high-CPA GEO ranked lower.