Campaigns without a lifetime budget keep running
Leaving out a lifetime budget no longer stops a campaign after its first day. It spends until you pause it or the balance runs out.
September 3, 2026. A lifetime budget is optional. When you leave it out, a campaign should spend until you pause it or the prepaid balance is gone. Because of a bug, it stopped after one day instead.
- What went wrong. Every place that created a campaign on the exchange filled a missing lifetime budget with the daily budget. Day one used it up, the campaign never served again, and our dashboard still said running. It happened three times: the June 18, 2026 learning campaigns, the June 2026 relaunch, and a September 3, 2026 portfolio.
- What it does now. One rule decides the exchange's lifetime figure. An explicit lifetime budget is honoured exactly, so a $20 test stays $20. A missing one becomes a 30-day envelope (30 times the daily budget), so a $20 a day campaign is not turned into a $20 lifetime campaign.
If you left out a lifetime budget and your campaign died after one day, this was the cause. Story: a lifetime cap that silently became one day.