• by Anthony Chiaravallo , March 31, 2025

In the world of performance marketing, brands want results: more conversions, lower CPAs, and measurable ROI. But too often, they focus on cost over competence, choosing agencies based on price instead of performance. And when campaigns fail, brands are left wondering what went wrong.

We see it all the time. A brand hires a big-name agency, gets wined and dined by senior leadership, and then, once the ink is dry on the contract, they’re handed off to junior account managers with minimal real-world experience. Meanwhile, the agency charges based on media spend, not results, ensuring they profit whether the campaign succeeds or not.

So why do brands keep making the same mistake? Because that’s the model they’ve been sold for years.

The problem is, these agencies aren’t incentivized to optimize. In one case, a client annually spent $80 million on paid media, yet their results were stagnant. They couldn't understand why their return on ad spend wasn’t improving. When they finally took a closer look, they realized their agency wasn’t doing much beyond launching campaigns and letting them run. There were no optimizations, adjustments, or strategic refinements -- just steady spending without delivering real business growth.

This isn't an isolated issue. In another recent audit, we found fundamental mistakes actively sabotaging results. There was no UTM tracking, meaning thousands of visitors were lost in analytics. Without a proper bid strategy, the brand was paying 30% more per lead. Conversion tracking wasn’t even set up, resulting in zero measurable results from a $25,000 ad spend. Retargeting was nonexistent, branded campaigns were missing, and keyword segmentation was ignored. Yet the agency proudly reported 500 leads -- none of which were qualified -- as a success.

This lack of oversight and accountability also extends into high-stakes environments like political advertising, where campaign dollars are quickly spent with little attention to actual impact. During a recent election, an audit of a political candidate’s ad spend revealed staggering mismanagement -- no bid strategy or keyword segmentation, and $237,000 wasted on YouTube without measurable impact. When we presented these findings to the agency overseeing the campaign, astonishingly, they shrugged and said their only job was to spend the budget as fast as possible.

The lesson is clear: Cheaping out on a performance media agency doesn’t just mean you’re spending less on fees. It means you’re overpaying for inefficiency, waste, and mismanagement. The brands that consistently win in performance marketing are the ones that invest in expertise. 

Nike learned this the hard way. You can’t run lower-funnel ads in isolation; you need to invest in brand awareness that strengthens every dollar spent on performance. The brands seeing diminishing returns are the same ones trying to skip brand-building and expecting performance campaigns to succeed in a silo.

Too many companies view performance marketing as a numbers game, where the lowest cost per lead or highest number of clicks is the goal. But real success isn’t about volume -- it’s about value. An agency that promises to generate thousands of low-cost leads isn't beneficial if those leads don’t convert into revenue.

Cutting corners on media management may save money in the short term, but in the long run, it’s the most expensive mistake a brand can make.

 

 

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