Many Australian SMEs find themselves running marketing campaigns that simply aren’t delivering. It’s a frustrating situation – money spent, effort invested, but little to no return. The good news is, unprofitable campaigns aren’t necessarily failures. They’re opportunities to learn and, crucially, to optimise. We see this time and time again with our clients.

The first step is honest assessment. Too often, businesses look at vanity metrics – likes, shares, website visits – instead of focusing on what truly matters: conversion rates and customer acquisition cost (CAC). A high volume of traffic is useless if nobody is becoming a customer. We recommend a deep dive into your campaign data, looking specifically at which channels are contributing to sales, and at what cost.

Here are a few key areas we focus on when turning around underperforming campaigns:

• Refine Your Targeting: Are you reaching the right people? Australian audiences are diverse. Broad targeting wastes budget. We utilise detailed demographic and interest-based targeting, and increasingly, lookalike audiences based on your best customers.
• Optimise Your Landing Pages: Your landing page is where the conversion happens. Is it clear, concise, and compelling? Does it directly address the needs of the audience arriving from your ad? A/B testing different headlines, images, and calls to action can dramatically improve performance.
• Review Your Offer: Sometimes the campaign isn’t the problem, it’s the offer itself. Is it genuinely valuable to your target audience? Consider limited-time promotions, bundles, or free trials to incentivise action.
• Channel Allocation: Not all channels perform equally. We often find SMEs are heavily invested in one platform (like Facebook) while neglecting others (like Google Search) where their ideal customers are actively searching for solutions.

Don’t be afraid to pause or even kill campaigns that consistently underperform after optimisation. Continuing to throw good money after bad is a common mistake. Instead, reinvest those funds into channels and strategies that are demonstrably driving revenue. Looking ahead, understanding the evolving privacy landscape and preparing for changes to data tracking will be vital in 2026 and beyond.

The outcome? A shift from viewing marketing spend as a cost centre to seeing it as a powerful engine for growth. If you’re unsure where to start, a comprehensive marketing audit is a great first step. We can help you identify the areas for improvement and develop a data-driven strategy to maximise your return on investment.