Paid Campaigns Failing to Convert? Here’s Why.

Paid media should be your most measurable channel, but too often, brands pour budget into ads that don’t deliver. Whether you’re promoting a new menu, driving room bookings, or pushing online sales, the same avoidable mistakes keep showing up.

Inefficient Conversion Tracking

If your tracking isn’t set up properly, you’re optimising blind. Missing pixels, duplicated events, or unlinked platforms can lead to misleading results and wasted spend.

TIP: Audit your conversion tracking across all platforms. Ensure every key action from add-to-cart to purchase is being correctly captured and attributed.

Short Term Performance Focus

Many brands fixate on immediate ROAS and miss the bigger picture. Over optimising for quick wins can restrict reach and hurt long term growth.

TIP: Balance your goals. Pair conversion driven activity with upper funnel campaigns that build awareness and feed your retargeting pools over time.

Overly Granular Campaigns

Breaking campaigns into endless micro-segments may seem strategic, but it often limits machine learning and dilutes performance.

TIP: Consolidate where possible. Fewer, broader campaigns give platforms more data to optimise efficiently and improve delivery.

Ignoring Incremental Conversions

Looking only at last click conversions undervalues how different channels work together. You might be cutting spend on touch points that drive real incremental growth.

TIP: Analyse cross channel impact. Use incrementally testing and attribution modelling to understand which campaigns truly drive new customers.

Lack of Creative Variety

Even the best targeting can’t save tired ads. Running the same visuals or specs across every platform limits engagement and performance.

TIP: Refresh creatives regularly. Build variations for each placement and specs whilst using data to guide what imagery, tone, or motion drives the strongest response. 

Paid media works best when creativity meets constant optimisation. Every click is a data point  use it to refine, reallocate, and reimagine what’s next.

At Propeller, our team blends creative strategy with data led precision to help brands capture attention that actually converts.

Want to see what’s holding your campaigns back?