An audience signal is mistaken for an exclusive audience

A fictional retailer supplies a list of previous customers as an audience signal in a Performance Max asset group. The campaign report later includes new customers who are not on that list. A colleague calls this proof of a malfunction and proposes deleting all creative assets. Another checks whether the list was a suggestion for automated learning or an actual supported exclusion setting, and reviews the advertiser’s intended acquisition goal. No customer list is uploaded in this written exercise. The learner must explain the distinction between guidance and restriction, identify why the observation alone does not prove failure, and connect creative changes to relevant evidence rather than an unrelated assumption.