Why your agency never found this

Three structural reasons, none of which involve anyone doing their job badly.

6 August 2026 · PAD team

One: they test the way everyone tests

Copy the link, paste it into a browser, confirm the store opens. That works every time, because Safari can follow Apple's redirect. The failure only exists inside an app's browser, and nobody tests by posting to a story and tapping from the feed.

Two: the reports do not contain it

An agency looks at spend, clicks, CTR, cost per click, installs and cost per install. Every one of those numbers is correct while the problem is happening. The only symptom is a ratio that looks mediocre, and mediocre ratios have a hundred plausible explanations.

Creative fatigue, audience saturation, seasonality, a weak product page. All of those get investigated first, because all of them are things an agency can act on.

Three: the fix is not in their toolbox

Agencies optimise campaigns. This is not a campaign problem, it is a link problem, and it lives in a layer most media teams never touch: the page between the ad and the store.

You cannot find a problem that none of your instruments measure and none of your tools would fix.

How to raise it without a fight

Bring the comparison rather than the accusation. Pull click to install for an app install campaign and for a traffic campaign on the same app. If the second is dramatically worse with the same creative, that gap is the conversation.

Then tap an ad from inside Instagram on a phone, together, and watch what happens. It takes a minute and it ends the debate.

If you are the agency

This is the cheapest win available on an inherited account. It takes an hour to audit, it finds something in a meaningful share of app clients, and it is recoverable spend rather than a mistake anyone made. The checklist is in the agency write-up.