A startup I work for spends a lot of $ a month bidding on a common typo which is also the name of a different and unrelated product. We are bidding against their branded ad.
Most teams simply didn't have conversion tracking at all for many many years from waht I recall..everyone would look at spend and clicks as success KPIs, making the client relationships jobs lucrative.
I've seen teams that spend most of their (7 figure per Q) ad budgets on branded keywords (vs unbranded) despite having top organic rankings, because no one knew any better.
The agency makes commissions on ad budget spent, so there was no incentive for efficiency.
The inefficiently was incredibly painful and no one gave a damn on either side..those that knew what they were doing didn't last or were pushed out.
(this is not a unique issue, from a PwC study last week 50% of ad spend is taken by middlemen rather than the publisher... the entire ecosystem thrives on inefficiency)
It doesn’t convert.