Fix the creative, or add budget?

First, pull 90 days of spend, CPM, hook rate, CTR, conversion rate and AOV by campaign, then put each ratio next to what the account has actually achieved before. The weakest link relative to its own history is the thing to work on, and it is usually obvious once the numbers sit in one table. That table takes an afternoon and it replaces most of the argument.

The reason the answer usually points at creative is structural. A lift in a ratio multiplies through everything downstream of it, so a better CTR gets paid twice, once in clicks and again in orders. More budget only scales the same ratios, so it moves revenue linearly and pushes CPM up while it does. Budget is still the right call when the ratios are already where the account has proven it can hold them, when the creative is tested rather than assumed, and when the auction has room left at the current frequency.

Where this model is wrong: CPM does not hold constant as spend rises, so column A flatters itself. Creative fatigues, so a lift is a rate of decay rather than a new floor. Attribution loses orders that the platform never sees, which understates both columns unevenly. And there is no lifetime value here at all, which matters most for the subscription and services models where the first order is the least valuable one.