Marketers Know Paid Media ROI Boosters, Yet Underinvest
▼ Summary
– 90% of marketers report budget constraints squeezing paid media programs, yet they underinvest in post-click experiences like landing pages.
– 40% of marketers say optimizing destination pages is highly effective for ROI, but only 31% invested in landing pages in the past six months, prioritizing audience research, AI tools, and ad creative instead.
– Over half of marketers send paid traffic to general website pages rather than campaign-specific landing pages, undermining targeting efforts.
– Marketers who exceeded ROI targets invested more evenly across landing pages, attribution, testing, and post-conversion improvements, not just high-visibility areas.
– Operational constraints—such as team capacity and design resources—prevent greater use of landing pages, even though marketers recognize their importance for ROI.
A vast majority of marketers report that budget limitations are hampering their paid media efforts, yet many are failing to capitalize on one of the most significant levers for improving returns: what happens after a user clicks. According to fresh research from Unbounce and Ascend2, professionals are pouring more resources into targeting, creative, and artificial intelligence than into the landing pages and post-click experiences that ultimately decide if paid traffic converts.
The survey, which polled 304 U. S. paid media experts, reveals a stark disconnect between what marketers believe drives ROI and where they actually commit their funds. While 40% of respondents acknowledged that optimizing destination pages is among the most effective ways to maximize paid media spend, only 31% had invested in landing pages over the preceding six months. Instead, budgets flowed heavily toward audience research (40%), AI tools (39%), and ad creative (38%).
These findings suggest that financial pressure isn’t just forcing marketers to cut back. It is steering them toward quicker, simpler optimizations within ad platforms, leaving the more labor-intensive work of post-click refinement on the sidelines.
Budget constraints shift spending upstream
Budget limitations have become nearly universal. A striking 90% of marketers reported facing paid media budget or resource constraints, with testing and experimentation being the areas hit hardest. Audience targeting, ad creative, and reporting also suffered, while nearly half said landing page creation or message matching was compromised when resources became tight.
This trend continued in spending decisions. Audience research, AI tools, and ad creative attracted the largest share of new investment, while landing pages ranked far behind, despite their recognized importance. The report found that marketers who exceeded their ROI targets invested more evenly across audience research, AI, attribution, testing, and landing pages, rather than concentrating resources in just a few high-visibility areas.
AI followed a similar pattern. Eighty-six percent of marketers reported using AI in paid media, and nearly three-quarters said it improved ROI. Yet most used AI for reporting, audience targeting, platform tools, and ad copy. Only 19% used AI for landing page creation or optimization, even though marketers who outperformed their ROI goals were roughly twice as likely to use AI in those areas.
The click is not the problem
Many marketers are also undermining their own targeting efforts once they earn a click.
More than half of respondents send paid traffic to general website pages rather than campaign-specific landing pages. Twenty-eight percent primarily direct visitors to existing product or category pages, while another 25% send them to the homepage. Only 24% primarily use dedicated landing pages built for individual campaigns.
This mismatch becomes more pronounced when campaign objectives are considered. Forty percent of marketers focused on direct sales send traffic to general product or category pages rather than to destinations built specifically to convert. More than one-quarter of marketers running lead-generation campaigns still send prospects to their homepage.
That strategy appears to carry a cost. Nearly two-thirds of marketers who primarily send paid traffic to their homepage reported that they are not exceeding their ROI goals. Meanwhile, marketers outperforming their targets were less likely to rely on homepages and more likely to use reusable or campaign-specific landing pages.
Marketers know what works but do not prioritize it
The report found that marketers understand the value of post-click optimization. Audience targeting ranked first as the most effective way to optimize paid media spend, followed by destination page optimization, ahead of cutting underperforming channels, shifting platforms, or setting spending caps.
Their day-to-day priorities, however, tell a different story.
More than half said audience targeting receives most of their optimization effort, followed by ad creative and bidding strategy. Landing pages and post-conversion experience ranked at the bottom of the list, despite being widely viewed as important contributors to ROI.
The report points to operational constraints rather than strategic disagreement. Team capacity, design and development resources, expertise, maintenance, and software budgets were the biggest obstacles preventing greater use of landing pages. In other words, marketers generally know the post-click experience matters. They often lack the people, time, or resources to improve it.
The strongest-performing teams appear to solve that problem by treating paid media as an end-to-end system rather than a series of disconnected optimizations. Throughout the report, marketers exceeding their ROI targets consistently invested more in landing pages, attribution, testing, and post-conversion improvements, alongside audience targeting, creative, and AI. This suggests that the biggest gains come from strengthening the entire customer journey rather than simply generating more clicks.
(Source: MarTech)
