{"id":8929,"date":"2026-10-17T23:35:54","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T20:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ivitskiy.com\/blog\/?p=8929"},"modified":"2026-10-17T23:40:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T20:40:32","slug":"ppc-london-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ivitskiy.com\/blog\/en\/ppc-london-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Best Campaign Is Probably Losing You Money: Igor Ivitskiy at PPC.London 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
In short:<\/strong> At PPC.London 2026, Igor Ivitskiy argued that the campaign with the healthiest return is often the one quietly losing money. A correct figure in Google Ads can still describe luck, a sale that would have happened anyway, or revenue the shop will never keep. He grouped nine mistakes from his own work into three questions: will it happen again, would the sale happen anyway, and is this number money? The best campaign on the report, he told the room, is the one that has been tested the least.<\/div>\n\n\n\n

On 25 September 2026, PPC.London<\/a> brought about 250 paid-search specialists from agencies and companies to the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms in London, and the day opened with a single-track talk from 9:00 to 9:30. The speaker was Igor Ivitskiy<\/a>, a PhD in mathematical modeling who uses that training to read a Google Ads account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>\"Igor
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Your best campaign isn't your best. It's your least tested campaign.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Conference<\/strong><\/td>PPC.London 2026<\/td><\/tr>
Date<\/strong><\/td>25 September 2026<\/td><\/tr>
City and venue<\/strong><\/td>London, De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms<\/td><\/tr>
Session<\/strong><\/td>First talk of the day, 9:00-9:30, one track<\/td><\/tr>
Talk<\/strong><\/td>«Your Best Campaign Is Probably Losing You Money»<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The talk was for people who already live inside an account and trust a clean return. Igor promised the room three things: a way to see whether a campaign earns a profit or simply adopts a sale that would have happened anyway, a map of where a healthy account loses money, and a way to separate signal from noise before anyone moves the budget. The published session described that habit directly. Read the account the way a scientist reads data: correlation against cause, the profit an average hides, signal against noise. That is the thinking behind Profit Forensics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-\u00a3700<\/div>
Hidden inside a promo-code campaign that reported \u00a310 back for every \u00a31 spent. The campaign spent \u00a31,000, recorded \u00a310,000 of sales, and 90 of the 100 orders would have happened anyway. Ten new orders left \u00a3300 of profit.<\/div><\/div>\n
Source: Igor Ivitskiy, PPC.London 2026. A worked example from the talk, based on a promo-code campaign Igor once wanted to scale.<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A correct figure can still spend the wrong money<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Google Ads is honest about the arithmetic it was given. It divides a value you sent by the cash you spent. It does not know, unless you tell it, which part of that value is tax, delivery, a size that will come back, or an order that was already standing at the till. A return of \u00a311 per pound can be the most expensive line in the company. A return of 2.2 can be the line that actually brought someone new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three questions work because they change the definition of a win. Will this happen again, or was it a thin sample, one whale of an order, a single bright week? Would the customer have bought with no ad, through the brand name, a return visit, or a discount code they went looking for? Is the figure money the company keeps, after returns, after the recipe that built the number, and after a view the model treated as a sale? An average hides the whale. A short window hides the quiet month. Credit and cause are different questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experienced rooms are the ones this catches. The people at PPC.London already know how to read a column. The blindness is confidence in a metric that has never been asked a second question. Igor told the room he wanted a system of nine mistakes you remember once and use for the rest of a career. The nine sit under the three questions. On stage he walked through each check in order. The questions are the part worth keeping on a Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1<\/span>Will it happen again?<\/strong>
A thin run of sales, one oversized order, one glowing week. Any of the three can crown a campaign that looks ordinary once the sample grows up.
Check: if the best week and the biggest order were gone, would you still raise the budget?<\/div><\/div>\n
2<\/span>Would the sale happen anyway?<\/strong>
Brand searches, ads to people already coming back, searches for a code at the till. The order is real. The cause may belong to the shop anyway.
Check: if you paused the campaign tomorrow, would the orders vanish, or only change channel?<\/div><\/div>\n
3<\/span>Is this number money?<\/strong>
Returned sizes, tax, delivery, and a view recorded as a sale. The column can be perfect while the cash is smaller.
Check: does this figure describe money the business keeps, or money the platform was able to record?<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Source: Igor Ivitskiy, PPC.London 2026. Three questions over nine mistakes from the talk.<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Your best campaign isn’t your best. It’s your least tested campaign.<\/p>Igor Ivitskiy, PPC.London 2026<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I try to break a winner before I pay for it<\/strong><\/p>

I do not fund a campaign because it leads the table. I try to knock the number over first. Take away the biggest order, the lucky week, the tax, the delivery, the view that never became a click. If the campaign is still ahead, it has earned the budget. If the lead changes, I was about to scale a story.<\/p><\/section>\n\n\n\n

Five days later, at SMX Advanced Europe<\/a> in Berlin, Igor went one level deeper into the statistics behind these checks. The habit behind them is what Igor teaches: read the account before the budget moves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Key insights<\/h2>\n\n\n\n