Five reports from one episode
| Who | CPMs | Click through rate | After the click |
|---|---|---|---|
| An operator, year over year | Down 30% | Up 20% | Lower quality audiences, in their words |
| An operator, June, Meta | Up about 20% | Double last June | Conversion rate down 50% |
| Brian's Northbeam read, relayed by a host | Rising over 12 months | Rising faster | Cost per click and conversion rate falling |
| An operator, June, Google and YouTube | Google up about 100%, YouTube the only one down | Not given | Not given |
| An operator, EU and UK traffic | Down | Up | Return on ad spend down |
Source: Marketing Operators, Inside DTC Marketing: Why Meta Ads Are Underperforming Right Now, July 21, 2026
“we're seeing CPMs up across the board. Like in June our Google CPMs were up like 100%. YouTube was the only one that was down.”
Marketing Operators, July 2026
What the traffic looks like
- Northbeam's new visit rate. One operator says it used to sit in the 40s and 50s and is now easily in the 70s and 80s.
- A host says brands relay that bounce rates skyrocketed, and that one suspects an algorithm bug or an algorithm change on its top spending channel.
- An operator in an April 2026 episode says Meta used to be cheap enough to get 25 cent clicks on a purchase campaign, and that is no longer the case.
“Now, several several months back, we are we're able to get new reach, we're able to improve new visit rate, and the traffic quality is just so much poorer than it was.”
Marketing Operators, July 2026
“You like the the cost to play in meta ads was cheap enough where you could be like all right I got a good brand a good product I built some ads and now I can run paid and I'm getting you know 25 cent cost per click and it's on a purchase conversion campaign and it's really high quality traffic and that's just not the case anymore”
Marketing Operators, The Meta Ad Account Setup to Scale, April 2026
The check Ridge runs first
“In my opinion it's exactly how we do sort of analyses internally at ridge is like if from a high level perspective if performance is getting worse let's look at what has shifted in that same time period.”
Marketing Operators, July 2026
- Open Audience Network spend. The speaker says a lot of money there makes no sense if you never ran it before.
- Check dollars shifted into Reels and Facebook stories, which the speaker says to be suspicious of.
- Check who you bid on. Ridge often finds a demographic shift, bidding on men more than women or more Reels than feed.
- Put new visit rate next to return on ad spend. One operator found reach and new visit rate improving while traffic quality fell.
In that June read, Google CPMs rose and YouTube was the one channel that fell. Before you act on any of it, work out your break even floor.
This audit comes from Influencer Advisory, our influencer marketing agency.