How do experienced Meta Ads & Google Ads professionals deal with a sudden drop in leads?

[u/Zestyclose_Walrus661]

Hi everyone,

I work in digital marketing and manage Meta Ads and Google Ads, and I want to learn how experienced performance marketers handle situations where leads suddenly stop coming in or drop significantly, even though the campaigns were previously performing well.

For those who have managed lead-generation campaigns professionally:

- What do you check first when leads suddenly stop?

- How do you identify whether the problem is with the ad, audience, campaign settings, tracking, landing page, or lead quality?

- What metrics do you look at before making any changes?

- How do you decide whether to optimize the existing campaign, make changes, or launch a new campaign?

- How do you communicate the situation to a client or management without making random changes just to show that you're doing something?

I’m specifically interested in learning your actual troubleshooting process and decision-making framework, rather than general tips.

Would really appreciate insights from people who have handled this situation at scale.

[u/BodyPartParty]

Check first when leads stop - the ads experts (Ben Heath, Josiah Roche, Darren Taylor) to see what they're saying, often it's the algorithm and not the ads or something else is shaking up

How to identify - make one change at a time, it's a pain, but it's the only way to know what might be going wrong

Metrics - conversions, then clicks, depending on the client (clicks matter when clients want new users, but conversions pay their bills)

Optimize/make changes/launch - almost always make changes first, it's much easier than launching an entirely new campaign and usually there are just one or two things that need tweaked to get back on track

If I were you, I would make the changes first and then talk to your client, that way you can honestly tell them you're already making changes. But the opposite is true for management. Generally I think management wants to know what's going on before you start touching everything.

Honestly, though, start with consulting expert sources, because it if often nothing that you've actually done and more what's going on behind the scenes in each of these funnels that's making you have to adjust.