How do you prove wasted spend to a client who thinks the account is fine?

Question

Inherited an account where roughly a fifth of last quarter's spend went to keywords and
search terms with no conversions at all (and a chunk of that to queries that were never
going to convert, jobs and DIY and so on).

The client's position is that the account is profitable overall, so it must be fine. Which is
not wrong exactly - it is profitable - but it's profitable while setting fire to a fifth of
the budget, and those are separate facts.

What I'm looking for is a way to present this that does not read as the new agency
criticising the old one. Anyone have a framing that lands? Every version I write sounds
either accusatory or like I am asking for permission to do less.

Priya Deshmukh · Answer

Do not present it as waste. Present it as available budget.

Same table, different sentence: "there is X per month currently going to queries that have
never converted, and here is what happens if we move it to the ones that do". Nobody feels
criticised by being shown money they get to spend better, and the previous agency does not
come up at all.

One more thing that helps: bring a small number, not the whole fifth. Propose reallocating
a quarter of it in month one with the rest to follow if the first move works. A big number
invites an argument about the number; a small number invites a decision.

Greg Pallister · Answer

And be ready for the honest counter-argument, because a good client will make it: some of
that spend is buying awareness you can't measure, and some of those non-converting queries
are the top of a journey that closed somewhere else...

It is usually a smaller share than the client thinks. But if you dismiss it entirely you
look naive, and if you concede it entirely you have argued yourself out of the point. Say
which part of the fifth you're confident about and leave the rest alone for now.

How do you prove wasted spend to a client who thinks the account is fine?

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