5 Signs Your Paid Media Accounts Need a Fresh Set of Eyes

Paid media campaigns are complex systems. They work fine for a while. Then something shifts. Maybe platform algorithms change. Maybe your business evolves. Maybe the person who set things up six months ago left, and no one's touched the settings since.

Whatever the cause, inefficiencies accumulate. Not because anyone's doing a bad job. Just because that's what happens when systems run without regular independent review.

Here are five symptoms that suggest it's time for a fresh set of eyes on your paid media accounts.

1. Performance plateaued or declined, but you can't identify why

Your cost per lead went up 30% over the last quarter. Or your conversion rate dropped without an obvious explanation. You've checked the usual suspects (landing pages, creative, seasonality), but nothing stands out.

This is common. Paid media platforms change constantly. A setting that worked six months ago may now be working against you. Audience targeting that was efficient last year may now be overlapping with cheaper segments. Campaign structures that made sense when you had three products now create waste when you have twelve.

What to do: Get someone who wasn't involved in the original setup to audit the account structure, bidding strategy, and audience configuration. Fresh eyes catch what familiarity makes invisible.

2. Reporting looks good, but business results don't match

The dashboard says conversions are up. But your sales team says lead quality dropped. Or your finance team says customer acquisition cost is higher than ever, even though the ads platform reports lower CPA.

This disconnect happens when conversion tracking isn't aligned with actual business outcomes. Maybe you're tracking form fills, but half of them are spam. Maybe you're optimizing for clicks, but the traffic isn't converting downstream. Maybe attribution windows are crediting conversions that would have happened anyway.

What to do: Audit your conversion tracking setup. Make sure what you're optimizing for actually correlates with revenue. If the numbers look good but the business isn't growing, something's being measured wrong.

3. You're spending more but getting the same results

You increased your budget by 40%, but lead volume only went up 10%. Or worse, it stayed flat. The platform keeps recommending you increase spend, but the returns aren't scaling.

This is a sign of diminishing returns. You've saturated your best audiences or keywords, and now you're paying more to reach less qualified prospects. It's not necessarily anyone's fault. It's just what happens when you push spend without adjusting targeting or creative strategy.

What to do: Analyze where the incremental spend is going. Are you bidding on broader keywords that don't convert? Are you expanding into audiences that aren't ready to buy? Sometimes the answer isn't more spend. It's better allocation of existing budget.

4. No one can explain what certain campaigns are for

You look at your account and see campaigns labeled "Test Q2 2023" or "Backup Campaign DO NOT TOUCH" or "New Strategy v3." No one remembers what they were testing. No one knows if the test succeeded. But the campaigns are still running, still spending budget.

This happens more frequently than you'd think. Someone launches a test. They get busy. The test keeps running. Six months later, it's still active, and no one wants to turn it off in case it's doing something important.

What to do: Audit your campaign structure. Identify campaigns that haven't been reviewed in 90+ days. Either document their purpose or pause them. Every dollar spent should have a clear strategic reason behind it.

5. You're not sure if you're overpaying for management

You're paying 15% of ad spend for management. That was $1,500/month when you were spending $10k. Now you're spending $50k, and the fee is $7,500/month. But the work hasn't changed much. You're not sure if you're getting $7,500 worth of value.

This isn't a criticism of percentage-based pricing. It's just math. As spend scales, the fee scales. But the work doesn't always scale proportionally. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. The only way to know is to get an independent evaluation of what's actually being done and whether the pricing model still makes sense for your business.

What to do: Get a second opinion. Not to replace your current setup necessarily. Just to verify you're getting fair value. Think of it like getting your car inspected by someone who isn't also trying to sell you the repairs.

When to get an independent audit

If you're experiencing one or more of these symptoms, it's probably time for an independent evaluation. Not because anyone's doing a bad job. Just because fresh eyes catch things that familiarity makes invisible.

An independent audit should:

• Quantify waste in dollars, not vague promises
• Identify specific optimization opportunities ranked by impact
• Provide actionable recommendations you can implement yourself or hand to your current team
• Come with no strings attached (you're not required to hire the auditor for ongoing work)

The goal isn't to find fault. It's to find opportunities. Even the best-managed accounts have room for improvement. The question is whether you're willing to look.