At a glance
Spend on whole AdRoll campaigns that produced zero attributed conversions over the 30-day window. Distinguished from adr_wasted_spend (line-item / segment / placement roll-up): this card surfaces account-wide campaign-level zeros, the cleanest “pause this entire campaign” recommendation. Critical reading on retargeting accounts because a campaign that has been at zero conversions for 14+ consecutive days is unlikely to recover without intervention.
| What it counts | SUM(spend) filtered to campaigns where attributed conversions = 0 over the 30-day window AND campaign age > 7 days, account-wide. Aggregates at the campaign level via the AdRoll Reporting API. |
| Cost basis | Mixed across CPM (most display + native), CPC (selected campaigns), and CPS (email orchestration). The card sums whatever AdRoll billed at campaign level regardless of bid model. |
| Currency | Advertisable currency, single per account. The >$0 alert threshold is local-currency aware. Multi-currency advertisers run separate advertisables; the card is per-advertisable. |
| Conversion attribution | AdRoll’s default attribution is 30-day post-click + 7-day post-view, configurable per advertisable. Switching to a more permissive model can move campaigns out of the zero bucket by crediting late-attributing impressions. |
| Attribution window | 30-day click + 7-day view default. The 30-day card window aligns with the attribution window; this is intentional so even slow-converting campaigns have full opportunity to attribute before being declared zero. |
| Bot / invalid traffic | AdRoll’s IAS-partnered bot filtering removes detected IVT before it hits this card. 1 to 4% IVT slippage on long-tail exchange inventory inflates zero-conversion spend slightly. |
| iOS 14.5+ ATT impact | Significant. ATT-opt-out users (60 to 75% of iOS traffic) cannot have their conversions attributed by AdRoll’s pixel. iOS-heavy campaigns will show artificially high zero-conversion spend even when conversions occurred. The Conversions API server-side path is the mitigation. |
| Campaign-age filter | Campaigns under 7 days old are excluded; learning-phase noise causes false zeros on day-1 launches. After 7 days, AdRoll’s optimiser has converged enough that a true zero indicates a real performance issue. |
| Time window | 30D. The 30-day window matches AdRoll’s attribution window, ensuring no campaign is unfairly flagged due to slow conversion velocity. |
| Alert trigger | >$0 on any zero-conversion campaign older than 7 days. Drives sentiment_key: zero_conversion_spend. Aggressive threshold is intentional, a whole campaign at zero conversions for 14 to 30 days is rarely benign. |
| Roles | owner, marketing, finance |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your AdRoll data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A US apparel DTC brand running AdRoll. Account total spend 1,540 (8.2% of total spend) on three campaigns that produced zero conversions.| Campaign | Age (days) | Spend ($) | Impressions | Clicks | Conversions | Why zero |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lookalike 1% prospecting (USA, iOS-only audience) | 28 | 720 | 1,800,000 | 2,300 | 0 | iOS audience pool collapsed post-ATT; the optimiser cannot match conversions back to clicks. |
| Display Remarketing, segment B (90-day visitors, Safari only) | 22 | 540 | 980,000 | 1,400 | 0 | Safari ITP blocks third-party cookies; AdRoll cannot identify return visitors at all. |
| Email-orchestration (cart abandoner, segment created 18 Apr 26) | 14 | 280 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Connector misconfiguration: segment was created but no email creative was approved. Zero sends, zero conversions. |
| Total zero-conversion spend | - | $1,540 | 2,780,000 | 3,700 | 0 | - |
- **The 720).
- **The 540).
- **The 280 of spend means the spend is platform-fee accrual, not media delivery. Audit the email module: no creative approved means no sends, but the campaign frame still accrues a daily orchestration fee. Either approve the creative or delete the campaign. Recoverable: 100% ($280).
- All three are fully recoverable, $1,540, in under 15 minutes of work. This is the highest-ROI 15 minutes you will spend this week. Redeploy to a healthy line item with proven ROAS.
- Compare against
adr_wasted_spendfor the line-item view. Some campaigns in the wasted-spend roll-up are line-item-level zeros within otherwise-converting campaigns; this card surfaces only campaign-wide zeros. Both are useful; this is the higher-priority pause list.
- Zero-conversion campaigns concentrated on iOS-only or Safari-only targeting: structural break, pause permanently.
- Zero-conversion campaign with zero impressions: setup error (creative not approved, audience empty, schedule paused). Audit before pausing.
- Zero-conversion campaign with high impressions and zero clicks: creative is invisible (mismatched audience, broken targeting, low-quality placement). Pause and re-launch with fresh creative.
- Zero-conversion campaign older than 30 days with healthy CTR: AdRoll’s pixel may be misfiring on the landing page. Audit the conversion event before pausing.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with Zero-Conversion Spend | What the combination tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Wasted Spend | Line-item-level twin. This card surfaces whole campaigns at zero; that one surfaces line items / segments / placements within otherwise-converting campaigns. | Both elevated = systemic optimisation issue; one elevated = isolated configuration issue. |
| Total Spend | The denominator. Zero-conversion spend in dollars is meaningless without total spend context. | Zero-conv as % of total: 5 to 10% is normal, >15% needs an audit. |
| ROAS | Account-level efficiency check. Zero-conversion campaigns drag account ROAS down; pausing them lifts the headline. | Paused zero-conv campaigns and ROAS rose = healthy reallocation. ROAS still flat = remaining campaigns also under-performing. |
| Spend by Campaign | The pause-or-fix workbench. Lists every campaign with its spend and conversion count; the zero-conversion ones jump out. | Where to focus the pause sweep this week. |
| Conversions API Health | The diagnostic for “are these zeros real or measurement-driven?”. | If CAPI is failing, zero-conversion campaigns may have real conversions AdRoll cannot see. Fix CAPI first. |
| iOS Match Rate | Post-ATT iOS attributability. Below 30% match rate makes iOS-targeted campaigns mathematically unable to attribute. | A zero-conversion iOS-only campaign is structural break, not performance. Pause permanently. |
| Frequency | Audience saturation detector. Frequency over 7 in 30 days = audience exhausted. | Zero-conv campaign with high frequency = exhausted audience; refresh creative or shrink window. |
| Google Ads Zero Conversion Spend | Cross-platform peer. Multi-platform marketers should sweep both. | Same operational pattern across platforms. |
| Facebook Ads Zero Conversion Campaigns | Meta peer. Same playbook, different audience pools. | Cross-platform underperformer detection. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in AdRoll’s own dashboard:AdRoll Dashboard, Reporting, Performance Report, grouped by Campaign. Filter to the same date range used in this card. Sort byFor per-campaign drill-down: click into each zero-conversion campaign to see line items, segments, and placements; the zero-conversion roll-up at line-item level is whatCostdescending and filterConversions = 0. The total at the foot of that view should match this card’s roll-up to within 1 to 2%.
adr_wasted_spend surfaces.
Why our number may legitimately differ from the AdRoll dashboard:
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Time zone | Boundary days off | AdRoll uses the advertisable’s configured timezone; the card uses UTC. For a 30-day window the gap averages out; for campaigns near a boundary day it can flip them in or out of zero. |
| Ingest lag | Ours lower for “today” | AdRoll Reporting API has a 2 to 4 hour ingest lag on conversions. A conversion from the last few hours may pull a campaign out of zero on the next refresh. Re-check the next morning before pausing. |
| Campaign-age filter | Ours stricter | We exclude campaigns under 7 days old to avoid learning-phase noise. AdRoll’s UI shows them all. Match by filtering AdRoll’s view to “Live for 7+ days” or by ignoring just-launched campaigns. |
| Attribution model changes mid-window | Either | If the merchant changed attribution mid-window, AdRoll’s UI shows the current model retroactively; the card pulls fresh data on each refresh and matches the current state, but cached values may briefly diverge. |
| CAPI vs Pixel-only | Ours can be lower | If Conversions API is enabled, server-side conversions count both in AdRoll’s UI and in this card. Both views see the same lower count if CAPI is misconfigured, this is a shared blind spot, not a divergence. |
| Identity Graph attribution | Ours can be lower | AdRoll’s Identity Graph credits some conversions the standard model misses. The card uses the standard model unless Identity Graph is enabled at the connector level. |
- Driven a conversion the AdRoll pixel missed, especially on iOS or Safari. Cross-check
shopify.total_revenueUTM-tagged for AdRoll campaigns. - Driven a multi-touch path where AdRoll was the first or middle touch and got no last-click credit. The closing channel got the conversion.
- Driven a conversion outside the attribution window. High-consideration products may convert at day 35 and miss the 30-day window.
- Driven a brand-search lift that AdRoll cannot attribute (display campaigns drive branded queries that convert via Google Branded Search). Cross-check brand-search trends after pausing.
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
google_analytics.ga_revenue_by_channel (Display, Retargeting) | If GA4 credits revenue from sources this card marks zero, the AdRoll pixel is under-reporting. | Pixel misfire on AdRoll-specific landing pages. |
shopify.total_revenue (UTM-filtered to AdRoll campaigns) | Sum of Shopify revenue tagged with AdRoll campaign UTM should approximate AdRoll’s reported attributed revenue. A campaign in the zero bucket but with Shopify UTM revenue is a pixel issue. | Multi-touch attribution differences. |
google_ads.gads_zero_conversion_spend | Independent paid platform; same operational concept. | Different audience pools, different bidding logic. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
A campaign launched 5 days ago is at zero conversions. Why isn’t it on this card? Intentional. Campaigns under 7 days old are excluded because AdRoll’s optimiser is still in learning phase and a 5-day zero is normal. The 7-day filter prevents false alarms on every new launch. If a campaign is at zero conversions at day 8+ with healthy spend, it joins the card. My zero-conversion campaign is targeting iOS only. Should I expect it to ever produce attributable conversions? No, not at the rate it would have pre-ATT. iOS users who declined the App Tracking Transparency prompt (60 to 75% in UK / US) cannot be matched between AdRoll’s pixel and the conversion event. The campaign may be producing real conversions; AdRoll just cannot attribute them. Two practical responses: (1) Switch the targeting to cross-platform so AdRoll has at least the non-iOS conversion signal to optimise against; (2) Enable Conversions API server-side tracking which recovers 40 to 60% of the lost iOS attribution. If neither is feasible, pause iOS-only campaigns; they are structurally broken on AdRoll today. A campaign with zero impressions and zero conversions is in this card. What is happening? Almost always a setup error. Either: (1) the audience is empty (definition produces zero matched users), (2) the creative was never approved (campaign frame accrues platform fees but never delivers), (3) the schedule is paused at the campaign level but daily orchestration fees still accrue, or (4) the line items inside the campaign are all paused. Audit the campaign in AdRoll’s dashboard before deciding to pause; the fix is usually trivial. My zero-conversion campaign has high CTR. Why pause it? High CTR with zero conversions over 30 days usually means one of three things. (1) Landing page broken: the click reaches a 404, a misconfigured product page, or an out-of-stock variant; check the landing page URL. (2) Pixel misfire: AdRoll’s conversion event is not firing on the thank-you page; check pixel diagnostics in AdRoll. (3) Audience-product mismatch: the audience is engaged enough to click but uninterested enough to bounce; refresh the offer or product mix. Don’t pause until you have ruled out 1 and 2; 3 is the only legitimate “pause” cause among the three. Should I pause every zero-conversion campaign immediately? No. Three filters before pausing. (1) Spend > $200 in the window (smaller campaigns are noise). (2) Live for at least 14 days (past learning phase plus reasonable conversion-cycle time). (3) Healthy CTR over the period (rules out broken creative; broken creative is a relaunch, not a pause). If all three hold, pause. Otherwise, fix the underlying issue first. Why is my Email-orchestration campaign in this card with zero impressions? Email orchestration campaigns accrue daily platform fees even when no creative is approved. A common pattern: someone sets up the campaign frame but the creative never gets approved (compliance review, missed handoff, agency lapse). The campaign sits at zero sends, zero impressions, zero conversions but accrues a small daily platform fee that adds up over weeks. Audit the email module weekly; catch these before they accumulate. My account has 8 zero-conversion campaigns. Is that bad? Depends on total campaign count. A 30-campaign account with 8 at zero (27%) is healthy if the team is aggressively testing. A 12-campaign account with 8 at zero (67%) is broken; the team launched campaigns without follow-through. The healthy reading is 10 to 25% of campaigns at zero in any given window; that range reflects a team running real experiments while pausing failed ones promptly. Does this card include Identity Graph-attributed conversions? By default, no. Turning on AdRoll Identity Graph at the connector level credits Identity Graph-attributed conversions to the underlying campaigns, which can pull campaigns out of the zero bucket. Identity Graph adoption typically reduces zero-conversion spend by 8 to 20% on iOS-heavy accounts. Enable in connector settings if you have not already. The zero-conversion bucket dropped sharply this week. Did I “fix” my account? Possibly, but check first. The most common cause of a sudden drop is a single high-spend campaign exiting learning phase and producing its first attributable conversion. That moves it out of zero but does not necessarily mean it is profitable; check ROAS on the same campaign before celebrating. Less common but plausible: someone enabled the Conversions API or Identity Graph (which retroactively attributes some prior conversions). Check connector audit log to see whether that happened. The campaign is at zero conversions but I see Shopify orders with the AdRoll UTM. Which view is right? Shopify is right. AdRoll’s pixel is misfiring. Almost always a thank-you-page tag issue (the conversion event is on a different page than AdRoll expects, the page URL pattern changed, or a JS error on the checkout flow blocks the pixel). Audit pixel diagnostics in AdRoll’s settings; usually a 5-minute fix. The Shopify UTM is the source of truth for “did the campaign drive revenue”; the AdRoll attribution is the source for “can we use this signal to optimise the bidder”. Why does the alert threshold start at>$0?
Aggressive by design. On AdRoll accounts a single zero-conversion campaign over 7 days old is rarely benign; it is typically a setup error, an iOS-only structural break, or an exhausted audience. Catching these quickly is high-leverage; the alert is a “look at this campaign in the next 24 hours” signal, not a panic alert. Override to >$200 per campaign in connector settings if you run many small experimental campaigns and want a higher signal-to-noise ratio.