When performance drops, many marketers point the finger at creative. Their next steps are usually to refresh the ad, swap the headline, try a new visual. Sometimes that works, and other times it does not.

Here are four common reasons campaigns underperform, and how ThoughtMetric can help you spot them faster:

If you’re relying on last-click attribution or platform-reported data, you’re likely missing the full story. Sales get misattributed, direct traffic gets inflated, and it’s almost impossible to know what’s really working. ThoughtMetric fixes this by giving you accurate, unbiased attribution across all your channels, so you can make smarter decisions without guessing.

Consumer behavior changes fast. What worked last quarter might not work today. Maybe TikTok is heating up, or ChatGPT is quietly becoming a traffic driver. With ThoughtMetric, you can spot emerging channels early and reallocate budget before performance tanks.

Even the best ad can’t save a slow or confusing landing page. If the message doesn’t match or the CTA isn’t clear, users bounce. ThoughtMetric has landing page performance metrics that show you exactly which pages are converting and which ones are dragging your results down.

Sometimes it’s not the ad or the targeting. The offer just isn’t resonating anymore. With ThoughtMetric’s creative insights, you can see which campaigns are pulling their weight and which ones need a refresh, before you waste budget.

Before you declare creative fatigue, zoom out. The issue might not be the ad itself, but what’s around it.

How do I know if it’s actually creative fatigue?
Look at your frequency and performance trends. If click-through rates are dropping while impressions stay high and nothing else has changed, it might be fatigue. But check attribution, audience overlap, and landing page metrics first.

What’s the difference between creative fatigue and audience fatigue?
Creative fatigue means the ad itself is no longer resonating. Audience fatigue means you’re showing the same creative to the same people too many times. The second one can often be fixed with better targeting, not new creative.

Can bad attribution really make an ad look like it’s underperforming?
Absolutely. If multiple platforms are claiming the same conversion or your data isn’t de-duped properly, performance will look worse than it is. Clean attribution can save a lot of guesswork (and good ads from being scrapped too soon).