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Metrics type: Key MetricsCategory: Ad Platform

At a glance

Spend on MediaMath campaigns that recorded zero conversions across the entire window. Campaign-level twin of Wasted Spend. MediaMath caveat (May 26): post-restructure pixel instability can artificially classify whole campaigns as zero-conv when the issue is platform-side. Always check pixel health before pausing or restructuring on this connector.

Calculation

Calculated automatically from your MediaMath data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.

Worked example

The same enterprise homeware brand. Window 02 Apr 26 to 01 May 26. What’s interesting:
  1. CTV “Outdoor Furniture” test ($1,800) is the bigger problem. 22 days CTV with no view-through conversions. Action sequence on MediaMath specifically: (1) Check pixel health for the CTV view-through tag during the period; if outage detected, revisit at next pixel-stable window. (2) Check view-through window setting; should be 7 days for CTV test campaigns. (3) Only after both confirmed healthy, treat as audience or creative issue and pause.
  2. Display creative C test ($620) at 14 days zero-conv but 14 days is the borderline threshold. Wait another 7 days, then act if still zero. The 14-day mark is when DSP zero-conv genuinely becomes diagnostic; before then, BidCore/Brain learning phase noise dominates.
  3. The new Audio test (4 days old) is excluded by design.
  4. 3.4% zero-conv is healthy band. Issue is concentrated in two test campaigns; not structural.
  5. MediaMath-specific: cross-reference T1 platform status notifications. If MediaMath had a pixel issue during the test campaigns’ windows, the zero-conv read may be a false positive. Check before acting.
Quick sanity tests:
  • Single campaign zero-conv with high impressions = pixel/goal misconfig OR audience mismatch. On MediaMath, pixel first.
  • Multiple campaigns zero-conv simultaneously = global pixel issue (likely on this connector).
  • Account-wide conversions also dropped on same date = global outage; very likely platform-side.
  • CTV campaign zero-conv = view-through window check first.
  • Resolved post-pixel-fix = pixel issue, not campaign issue.

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in MediaMath T1: T1 → Reports → Campaigns, sort by Conversions ascending. Campaigns with zero conversions and >7 days activity are the action set. MediaMath-specific caveat: If T1 UI shows the same zero-conv campaigns as this card AND the conversions did fire on the merchant’s order-confirmation page, the gap is a pixel-ingest issue, not a campaign issue. Verify via Google Tag Assistant or the merchant’s own analytics during the period. Why our number may legitimately differ: Cross-connector reconciliation:

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Should I just pause every zero-conversion campaign? No, especially on MediaMath. Pixel health check first, then standard DSP diagnosis (campaign config, audience, creative, landing page). The post-restructure pixel instability means MediaMath has a higher false-positive rate than peer DSPs; pausing campaigns that were actually converting (but pixel didn’t fire) destroys real value. A campaign has been zero-conv for 30 days, what now? Same rule as on every DSP: pause and restructure. But on MediaMath, first verify pixel health was OK across the 30-day window. If pixel was unstable and the campaign was running, the zero-conv read may be a 30-day false positive; the campaign may actually have been performing. Why does this card exclude campaigns under 7 days? Brain’s learning phase needs 50, 100 conversions; for fresh campaigns, 7 days is the minimum where zero-conv becomes diagnostic. My CTV PMP shows zero conversions but I expect long view-through, what’s wrong? Check view-through window. CTV with 1-day view-through typically shows zero-conv on PMP campaigns; CTV converts on 3, 7 day delay. Set view-through to 7 days. My audio campaign shows zero conversions, is it broken? Same issue as on any DSP: audio is hard to attribute. Look for Branded Search lift, Direct traffic increase, or Email signup increase during the audio flight. If these absent, pause; if present, working but incremental rather than direct. The same campaign has high impressions and zero conversions, what’s most likely on MediaMath? Order: (1) MediaMath pixel issue; (2) Pixel goal misconfig in T1; (3) Audience mismatch; (4) Landing page broken; (5) Creative issue. Same diagnostic tree as other DSPs but reorder priorities given platform context. Can I trust the figure for “today” or “this week”? Use 30-day for action. 7-day is too noisy on DSP generally and especially on MediaMath given longer ingest lag. Why doesn’t MediaMath auto-pause zero-conv campaigns? Same reason peer DSPs don’t: long-tail conversion lag means today’s “zero-conv” can be tomorrow’s “1, 2 conversions”. Auto-pause would kill genuine campaigns. **My retargeting campaign shows zero-conv but the spend is only 300,shouldIworry?Less.Smallsamplesproducestatisticalnoise.Worryaboutzeroconvat300, should I worry?** Less. Small samples produce statistical noise. Worry about zero-conv at 1,000+ spend. Should I migrate the campaigns flagged here to TTD before restructuring on MediaMath? That’s a strategic call. If MediaMath ROAS is broadly OK but specific campaigns are persistently zero-conv on a stable pixel, the campaigns themselves are the issue (audience/creative/goal); migrating them to TTD without fixing the underlying issue replicates the failure. Fix on MediaMath first, migrate later if migration is in plan.

Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Zero-Conversion Spend is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across MediaMath and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.