Advertising, explained and put to work
Guides and analysis for agencies and advertisers: advertising accounts, Meta, Google Ads and TikTok campaigns, conversion tracking and advertising operations.
An X campaign generates clicks, yet sales sees few useful enquiries. Is the traffic unsuitable, the mobile form broken, or registration reaching the CRM without a campaign link? Break the journey down so each possibility is tested where it occurs.
A client wants X in the plan because a competitor advertises there. Before building a campaign, ask: are the account and business eligible, what is the commercial hypothesis, and does the brand accept the placement conditions and available controls? Adding a channel to a proposal is not enough to justify spend.
Pinterest credits itself with more sales than your website analytics does. Start with “what does each report count?” rather than “which system is wrong?” Attribution windows, interaction types, account scope and values can differ.
Snapchat reports fewer purchases this week, but the store does not show the same decline. Should you stop the campaign or reinstall Pixel? First locate the difference: visits, orders, received events or attributed conversions?
An older campaign closes deals this week; a newer campaign's leads have not had enough follow-up time. Dividing this week's spend by every deal closed this week may produce a figure that does not represent the acquisition cost of those deals.
A report shows lower cost per lead for an in-platform form, so the team proposes moving budget there. Sales asks: “How many are suitable for our service?” That starts the meaningful comparison. A cheaper lead does not necessarily mean a cheaper sales opportunity.
Media buying is ready to increase spend, but this week's videos await rights approval, files do not identify the version used and the writer never received the last test's findings. Budget is moving ahead of operational readiness.
Your campaign lowers form-submission cost, but sales says most enquiries are unsuitable. Before looking for a new audience, ask whether measurement knows which enquiry became a serious opportunity. If not, a step is missing between the ad dashboard and the sale.
Cost per order looks acceptable, so the team asks to double spend. Yet stock is limited, some orders are cancelled and production has no assets ready for the next round. The question goes beyond ad performance: can the business receive and fulfil additional demand?
One store order, one event sent by the browser and another by the server. Two copies are not inherently an error. Trouble starts when the integration cannot recognise them as the same action. That is why acceptance testing must cover event identity, beyond a successful connection.
