Sarah Stemen still remembers the homepage widget report from early in her career. The usability team wanted traffic numbers. Raw data showed just 2.5% of visitors clicked it. The final report said “a couple thousand visits per month.” Both statements were true. One hid the truth.
That experience shaped how Stemen approaches paid search. She founded Sarah Stemen, LLC after years at agencies and insurers. Today she trains others to report PPC data with honesty. Her recent piece in Search Engine Land lays out the traps professionals fall into. And they matter. Bad reports drive bad budget decisions. They protect underperforming campaigns. They erode trust.
Stemen pulls no punches. “Data doesn’t lie, but PPC practitioners sometimes do.” The opportunities to blur lines run deep in this field. Algorithms push click-through rates higher. Conversion definitions vary wildly. Attribution models claim credit for sales that would have happened anyway. Practitioners face pressure to make numbers look good. Client retention depends on it. Bonuses ride on it.
The real cost emerges when reports hide what actually drives revenue
Conversions top the list of distorted metrics. One campaign might count form fills, phone calls, chat starts and 50% video views under a single “conversions” headline. Tell a stakeholder the team delivered “an excellent number of conversions” without details. That crosses from reporting into spin. Stemen asks three questions before any presentation. What action counts? How close is it to revenue? Would the reader decide differently with full context?
If the answer to that last question is yes, include the breakdown. A marketing qualified lead differs from a closed sale. A video view sits even further away. Lumping them together misleads. It happens constantly.
Click-through rate benchmarks create another trap. Many still celebrate anything above 2%. That number dates back a decade. Modern bidding systems find users who resemble past converters. They lift CTR across accounts without strategic brilliance from the manager. Stemen says no universal benchmark survives in this environment. Algorithms got too good at easy clicks. Reports must explain what drives the number. Better creative? Smarter targeting? Or just the machine doing its job?
Raw counts versus percentages tell different stories too. Phone calls at 40% of conversions sounds one way. The actual totals — 142 calls and 213 leads — add necessary texture. Present only the flattering view. You shape perception instead of informing it. Stemen recommends showing both. Always.
And focus matters. One predecessor bragged about low cost per click. The client bought the narrative. Months later the new manager revealed higher CPC often delivers better quality traffic and lower cost per acquisition. The business had chased the wrong goal. Low CPC came from display network traffic. It didn’t match objectives. That mistake cost real money.
Attribution hides incrementality problems. A branded search campaign racks up conversions. Many would have come through organic or direct anyway. The report looks strong. Incremental impact? Close to zero. Stemen calls for geo experiments, holdout groups or conversion lift studies. Without them, volume numbers tell an incomplete tale.
Three tactics deserve direct calls out. Conversion stacking counts multiple actions from one user as separate wins. Cherry-picked date ranges compare strong months to weak ones. Vanity metric substitution leads with impressions or clicks when qualified leads or revenue tell another story. Most practitioners don’t intend deception. Habits form. They go unquestioned.
Recent data backs the warning. The IAB 2026 State of Data Report labels old measurement systems “fundamentally broken” from signal loss. Bidding models train on flawed data. Audience insights degrade. Decisions rest on fiction. A Neil Patel analysis from April 2026 shows dashboards heavy on impressions and clicks while ignoring revenue reality. Many experts now push conversion quality and cost per qualified conversion as primary metrics. See the February 2026 breakdown from StatNexa.
Tools have evolved to help. Automated platforms pull data across sources and flag inconsistencies. Yet they only work when humans set the right rules. Focus remains on business outcomes over platform vanity numbers. One 2026 guide from ATS Creative warns against agencies that obsess over impressions and clicks instead of conversions and revenue. Red flags include refusal to share account access or use of generic strategies.
X conversations echo the frustration. Practitioners share stories of branded sales inflating Amazon ad performance. Others call out vanity metrics in Dubai growth campaigns. The pattern holds across regions and platforms. Everyone knows the problem exists. Fewer fix it.
Stemen argues the industry lacks external oversight. No ethics board governs PPC. Certifications come from platforms with their own incentives. Standards must come from within. Contextual conversions. Current benchmarks. Full pictures instead of selected slices. Reports built for client success rather than self-protection.
She isn’t alone. Industry voices increasingly tie measurement quality directly to bidding performance. Poor data doesn’t just mislead reports. It trains algorithms badly. Results suffer. Budgets get wasted. The feedback loop breaks.
Fixing this starts with simple discipline. Define every conversion type in reports. Explain benchmark context or abandon them. Test for incrementality regularly. Present data multiple ways. Choose metrics that match actual business goals. These steps demand more work. They invite harder questions from stakeholders. They build something more valuable: credibility that lasts.
Because in the end, the numbers don’t lie. The stories told about them often do. Professionals who refuse to twist those stories gain an edge. Their clients make better decisions. Campaigns improve. Trust compounds. The alternative? Continued erosion of confidence in an industry built on data.
Stemen’s early lesson still applies. A couple thousand visits sounds fine. Until you realize how few visitors actually engaged. The difference separates good reporting from manipulation. And that difference has never mattered more.
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