Technical Questions

"You are a real estate agent, advertising real estate in the NorthEast US. You are setting up a campaign in Taboola to promote your business. How would you measure and how would you maximize your campaign's success?"

How I'd measure success

Running a real estate campaign through Taboola, I'd track:

Metric	Formula	Why it matters
CTR	Clicks / Views	Are people clicking? If not, the creative's not working.
CPC	Cost / Clicks	What am I paying per click?
Conversion Rate	Leads / Clicks	Are clicks turning into actual inquiries?
Cost Per Lead	Spend / Leads	The number that actually matters for budgeting.
ROAS	Revenue / Spend	Am I making money?

How I'd maximise performance

1. Geo-target hard. NorthEast US only. Boston, NYC, Philly. No point paying for clicks from Texas.
2. Segment the audience. First-time buyers, investors, people relocating. Different messages for each.
3. Test creatives. Run multiple headlines and images. Local landmarks beat stock photos.
4. Watch device performance. If mobile converts at half the rate of desktop, shift budget.
5. Cut bad publishers. Some sites just don't convert. Review placement reports weekly.
6. Retarget. Someone looked at a listing but didn't inquire? Follow up.
7. Adjust for time. Real estate searches spike in evenings and weekends.

"What are the top 10 dates, based on total page views?"

SELECT
    date,
    SUM(desktop_views + tablet_views + mobile_views) AS total_views
FROM
    daily_views
GROUP BY
    date
ORDER BY
    total_views DESC
LIMIT 10;

Adds up all device types, groups by date, sorts descending, takes top 10. Pretty straightforward.

"Which 3 sites have the highest percentage of mobile traffic, out of their total traffic?"

SELECT
    s.id,
    s.name,
    SUM(dv.mobile_views) AS mobile,
    SUM(dv.desktop_views + dv.tablet_views + dv.mobile_views) AS total,
    ROUND(
        SUM(dv.mobile_views) * 100.0 /
        NULLIF(SUM(dv.desktop_views + dv.tablet_views + dv.mobile_views), 0),
        2
    ) AS mobile_pct
FROM
    sites s
INNER JOIN
    daily_views dv ON s.id = dv.site_id
GROUP BY
    s.id, s.name
ORDER BY
    mobile_pct DESC
LIMIT 3;

Joins the two tables, calculates mobile as a percentage of total views. NULLIF prevents division by zero.

CTR = Clicks / Views × 100

3,000 clicks on 50,000 views = 6%

RPM = Revenue / Views × 1000

$200 revenue on 50,000 views = $4 RPM

CPC = Revenue / Clicks

$200 / 3,000 clicks = $0.067 per click