> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Zero-Conversion Spend, StackAdapt > Zero-Conversion Spend for StackAdapt stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Key Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ad Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Sum of spend on StackAdapt **campaigns** that recorded zero conversions across the entire window. Campaign-level twin of [Wasted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/stackadapt/wasted-spend) (which is placement-level). A whole campaign with zero conversions is a bigger problem than a bad placement; it usually means goal, audience, pixel, or creative are fundamentally misaligned. **Excludes campaigns younger than 7 days** to avoid penalising still-learning BidCore runs. | | | | -------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | Spend (account currency) summed across campaigns where `conversions = 0` AND `clicks > 0 OR impressions > 1000` AND `campaign_age >= 7 days`. | | **Cost basis** | Whatever the campaign was bidding on (CPM, CPC, BidCore CPA target). | | **Currency** | Account currency. | | **Conversion attribution** | Click-through + view-through. A campaign that drove activity which converted via another channel is zero-conv here unless StackAdapt's pixel claimed it. | | **Attribution window** | 30/1 default. | | **Bot / invalid traffic** | IVT-filtered. | | **Time window** | `30D`. Campaigns younger than 7 days are excluded. | | **Alert trigger** | `>$0 on any campaign >7D old`. Practical: any campaign with >\$1,000 spent and zero conversions across 7+ days should be paused or fundamentally restructured. | | **Roles** | owner, marketing, finance | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your StackAdapt 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 US homeware brand. Window 02 Apr 26 to 01 May 26. | Campaign | Channel | Age (days) | Spend (\$) | Conversions | Status | | ------------------------------- | --------------- | ---------- | ----------- | ----------------- | ----------------------- | | Display Prospecting | Display | 84 | 12,400 | 142 | OK | | CTV Awareness "Spring Living" | CTV | 28 | 18,200 | 22 (view-through) | OK | | Native Article Distribution | Native | 102 | 5,400 | 84 | OK | | Audio Spotify Sponsorship | Audio | 21 | 3,200 | 14 | OK (mixed) | | Retargeting | Display + Video | 56 | 4,800 | 318 | OK | | **CTV "Outdoor Living" (test)** | **CTV** | **18** | **1,400** | **0** | **ZERO-CONV ALERT** | | **Programmatic Audio test** | **Audio** | **14** | **620** | **0** | **ZERO-CONV ALERT** | | New Display Test (creative C) | Display | 4 | 280 | 0 | Excluded (\<7d) | | **Total zero-conv (this card)** | | | **\$2,020** | **0** | **4.6% of total spend** | What's interesting: 1. **CTV "Outdoor Living" test (\$1,400) is the bigger problem.** 18 days, no conversions on a CTV view-through campaign suggests one of: (a) view-through window set to 1-day instead of 7 (a classic config error on test campaigns); (b) the conversion pixel isn't tracking the right event; (c) the audience targeting is genuinely wrong. **Action**: check view-through window first (5-minute fix), then pixel config, then audience. Pause as last resort. 2. **Programmatic Audio test (\$620) at 14 days zero-conv is borderline**. Audio is structurally hard to attribute (no clicks; the user heard the ad while driving and bought a week later via Branded Search). The campaign may be working but credit is going to other channels. **Action**: check if Branded Search volumes ramped during the audio campaign window; if yes, the campaign is incremental despite zero StackAdapt-attributed conversions; classify as awareness and continue. If no, pause. 3. **The new Display Test (4 days old) is excluded by design.** BidCore needs 7+ days to exit learning phase; flagging earlier creates noise. 4. **4.6% zero-conv spend is on the borderline of healthy.** Healthy DSP runs 2, 5%; 4.6% is at the upper end. Fixing the CTV view-through config alone would drop it to 1.4%, well within healthy. 5. **Don't confuse this card with [Wasted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/stackadapt/wasted-spend).** That one is placement-level; this one is campaign-level. The two should be read together: a healthy campaign can have wasted placements; a zero-conv campaign has structural issues. Quick sanity tests: * One campaign zero-conv with high impressions = pixel/goal misconfig OR audience mismatch. * Multiple campaigns zero-conv simultaneously = global tracking outage; check pixel sitewide. * CTV campaign zero-conv = check view-through window first (1d vs 7d) before anything else. * Audio campaign zero-conv with rising Branded Search = working but incremental, not direct. * Zero-conv campaign older than 30 days = past learning, no signal; pause and restructure. ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together | Card | Why pair it with Zero-Conversion Spend | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [StackAdapt Wasted Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/stackadapt/wasted-spend) | Placement-level twin. Read both for full picture. | | [StackAdapt Clicks vs Conversions](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/stackadapt/clicks-vs-conversions) | The pixel-health canary. Healthy clicks + zero conversions = tracking issue. | | [StackAdapt Total Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/stackadapt/total-spend) | Context. $2,020 zero-conv on a $44k account is yellow; same on \$10k account is critical. | | [StackAdapt Conversions Trend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/stackadapt/conversions-trend) | If account-wide conversions are also dropping, suspect a global tracking outage. | | [StackAdapt Conversion Actions](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/stackadapt/conversion-actions-breakdown) | What conversion events does the campaign expect? Sometimes the campaign tracks an event the site doesn't fire. | | [The Trade Desk Zero-Conversion Spend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/the-trade-desk/zero-conversion-spend) | If both DSPs show zero-conv, suspect site-side issue (pixel, checkout, goal config). | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in StackAdapt:** [StackAdapt → Reports → Campaigns](https://app.stackadapt.com/), sort by Conversions ascending. Campaigns with zero conversions and >7 days of activity are the action set. StackAdapt does not surface "zero-conversion spend" as a single number; this card derives it. **Why our number may legitimately differ from a manual cut:** | Reason | Direction | Why | | ------------------------------- | ------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Time zone** | Boundary days off | Account TZ vs UTC. | | **Long-tail conversion** | Card slightly high | A campaign labelled zero-conv today may pick up 1, 2 conversions in days 7, 14. The 7-day age threshold mitigates but doesn't eliminate. | | **View-through window changes** | Direction depends | If view-through is set too short for CTV, more campaigns appear zero-conv than would otherwise. | | **Campaign age threshold** | None | Both this card and a reasonable manual analyst cut would exclude \<7-day campaigns. | | **Pixel + server-side dedup** | None | StackAdapt dedupes pixel and server-side events. | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | [`the_trade_desk.the_zero_conversion_spend`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/the-trade-desk/zero-conversion-spend) | Independent. If both fire simultaneously, suspect site-side issue. | Different campaigns. | | [`google_analytics.ga_revenue_by_channel`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/google-analytics/revenue-by-channel) | Zero-conv campaigns should still show GA4 sessions if pixel fire is the issue. | If GA4 sessions present but no DSP attribution, the DSP pixel is broken. | | [`shopify.total_revenue`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/total-revenue) | Zero-conv on DSP doesn't mean zero Shopify revenue; conversions may be credited to other channels. | Multi-touch attribution complicates the read. | ## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **Should I just pause every zero-conversion campaign?** No. **Diagnose first.** Order of checks: (1) Is it CTV? Check view-through window; should be 7d for CTV-heavy. (2) Check the pixel: is the conversion event firing on the order-confirmation page? (3) Check the audience: are clicks/impressions reasonable? Low click volume = audience too narrow or bid too low. (4) Check the creative: is it serving correctly? Sometimes creative is disapproved silently. Pause only after these checks fail. **A campaign has been zero-conv for 30 days, what now?** Pause. After 30 days with 7+ days of activity and zero conversions, the campaign has had every chance. Pause, restructure (new audience, new creative, new landing page, possibly new conversion goal), and relaunch as a fresh campaign rather than reactivating (BidCore retains learning state and won't re-explore). **Why does this card exclude campaigns under 7 days?** BidCore's learning phase needs 50, 100 conversions to stabilise; for a fresh campaign, 7 days is the minimum window where zero-conversions becomes diagnostic. **My CTV campaign shows zero conversions but I see Branded Search ramping during the campaign window, what's happening?** The classic CTV incrementality signal. CTV viewers don't click TVs; they later go to Google and search your brand name (now Branded Search), then buy. **Your CTV is working but credit is going to Search.** This is not a problem with the campaign; it's a measurement limitation. Use incrementality testing (CTV holdout in one geo) to prove the lift, then accept that StackAdapt-attributed conversions will under-state CTV's value. **My audio campaign shows zero conversions, is it broken?** Probably not, but it's hard to tell. Audio attribution is the hardest in DSP; clicks are rare and view-through doesn't really exist for audio. Look for: (a) Branded Search lift during/after audio flight; (b) Direct traffic increase; (c) increase in Email subscribers if the audio CTA is "subscribe to our newsletter". If none of these, pause; the campaign isn't working. **The same campaign has high clicks and zero conversions, what's most likely?** In order: (1) **Pixel not configured for purchases.** Campaign goal in StackAdapt is "Awareness" or "Engagement", so the conversion pixel never fires. (2) **Pixel fires the wrong event.** It's tracking page-views or add-to-cart instead of purchase. (3) **Landing page broken.** Users click, land, bounce immediately; check load time and form completion. (4) **Audience genuinely doesn't convert.** Less common; if the previous three are clean, the audience-product fit is wrong. **Can I trust the figure for "today" or "this week"?** Use 30-day for action. 7-day is too noisy on DSP because of view-through lag (especially CTV). The 30-day figure is the actionable read. **Why doesn't StackAdapt auto-pause zero-conversion campaigns?** Because zero-conv on a 14-day window is sometimes false (long-tail conversions not yet surfaced, especially CTV). Auto-pausing would kill campaigns that would have converted on day 18, 22. The platform errs toward letting BidCore explore; the human judgement (this card surfaces candidates) is the corrective. \*\*My retargeting campaign shows zero-conv but the spend is only $200, should I worry?** Less. Small-spend campaigns produce small samples; zero-conv on $200 spend is statistical noise (20, 40 clicks isn't enough to expect conversions). Worry about zero-conv at \$1,000+ spend. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Zero-Conversion Spend* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across StackAdapt 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](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.