A routine recommendation from Google and Meta ended up triggering one of the biggest marketing budget corrections at The Sleep Company, after the brand chose not to follow the platforms’ advice and saved ₹12 crore in the process.
Co-founder and CEO Priyanka Salot revealed that Google had advised the company to spend about ₹1 crore per month on “store visit” campaigns, algorithm-driven ads meant to drive walk-ins to physical stores. Similar automated formats were frequently recommended across both Google and Meta’s ad ecosystems.
Instead of scaling the spend, the company’s Chief Growth Officer decided to test the validity of the recommendation.
Zero Budget, Zero Impact
Two cities were selected for an internal experiment. The budget for store visit campaigns was brought down to zero.
The result surprised the team: There was no change in walk-ins.
Footfall at both stores remained steady even after the ads were switched off, indicating that the campaign, despite its high monthly cost, was not generating incremental offline visits.
On the back of this test, the company discontinued the entire ₹1-crore-a-month spend, saving ₹12 crore annually.
Brands Question Algorithm-Led Campaigns
Salot said the episode reflects a growing discomfort among brands with “black box” advertising products such as Google’s Performance Max (P-Max) and Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC).
She noted that platform teams aggressively push these formats, often backed by internal adoption targets, while offering limited transparency on how the algorithms allocate budget or optimise performance.
For brands, this lack of visibility means less control over:
- Audience selection
- Ad placements
- Bidding strategy
- Measurement of true impact
The Sleep Company’s experiment showed that what algorithms report as performance may not always translate into real-world business outcomes.
A Rare Budget Cut by The Sleep Company That Increased Efficiency
Instead of accepting a platform’s recommendation, Salot said the company took the opposite approach: “Switch it off and measure what really happens.”
The test revealed that a large chunk of spend contributed little to actual store traffic, prompting the company to scrub the campaign entirely.
“No one will protect your marketing budget except you,” Salot said, urging brands to run independent A/B tests rather than relying solely on platform suggestions.
A Wake-Up Call for Marketers
Salot’s account has sparked conversation in India’s digital marketing community, especially among brands that rely heavily on automated campaign types.
The key takeaway, marketers say, is simple:
Platform advice should be tested, not followed blindly.
For The Sleep Company, choosing not to adopt a recommended ad strategy led to a direct saving of ₹12 crore, a rare case in which inaction proved to be the most profitable move.
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