The most expensive thing in paid media isn’t a high CPM.

It’s that confusing, sinking feeling when the numbers on your screen stop making sense.

Last month, we spent a few hours chasing a ghost.

Meta was reporting thousands of link clicks, just like normal. But our pixel was only registering a tiny fraction of landing page views.

We were seeing an 85% drop-off in page views.

My first instinct was: "what’s wrong with the campaigns?"

I went into detective mode.

• Broken links? No, they were working.
• Platform volatility? No, CPMs were stable.
• Site speed? No, load times were fast.

The ads were doing exactly what they were supposed to do. Prospects were interested. They were clicking. But somewhere between the click and the website, they were vanishing.

The "good intentions" paradox

Naturally, we checked the usual suspect: The cookie banner.We asked our contacts on the Growth team, "Did anything change with the privacy settings?"They checked and told us, "No, everything looks the same."

From their view, nothing had changed. So, we moved on. We kept investigating, scratching our heads, trying to figure out where the traffic went.

But after checking every other box, we circled back. We asked them to dig a little deeper with their technical teams. It turns out, changes were made, just not by them.

Another team, likely focused on legal or compliance, had updated the banner to better protect user privacy. Their intention was pure: Protect the user. We love that. We want to be compliant.

But in the process, the settings were toggled to "Off by Default" for everyone in the US.Suddenly, standard traffic from Meta and Google was being blocked at the door.

The complexity of modern growth

The Meta algorithm is smart, but it can’t optimize for what it can’t see. If it misses 85% of the conversions, it flies blind, has no idea which ads are actually working, not even who your target audience is, because most Meta advertisers use broad targeting.

Great creative can't save a campaign if data is not coming in.Smart bidding and optimisation don't work if the tags aren't firing.

The takeaway

This experience was a gentle reminder that our job isn't just about media buying. We're partners, and we need to work closely together when issues like this arise.

Sometimes, the issue isn't technical. It's organizational. Sometimes the best way to fix a crisis is just getting people in the same room to talk.

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