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Methodology we actually use running paid media accounts, written up as full pieces rather than a rule of thumb.
How to review a bid or budget change before you make it
A platform's own bid simulator, read wrong, will justify a change that delivers a fraction of the volume you expected. Here's the checklist that catches it first.
How we run a deep campaign review
A repeatable method for finding the real story behind a campaign's numbers, built around two derived metrics that do most of the diagnostic work: pool and ceiling.
Why your numbers never quite match what actually happened
Two separate mechanisms make ad reporting drift from reality: platforms quietly redefine how they count conversions, and platform numbers were never meant to equal your actual customer count.
Why "yesterday's numbers" are always wrong, and keep climbing for weeks
Search ad platforms count conversions on the day of the click, not the day of the sale, so every recent day looks worse than it will end up being.
Why ad platforms can report more "conversions" than you actually had customers
Meta and Google both claim credit for the same sale more often than you'd expect, and the fix starts with your own order numbers, not theirs.
Comparing CPA across two campaigns can be comparing apples to oranges
Two campaigns can report wildly different cost-per-acquisition numbers for a reason that has nothing to do with which one is actually working: they aren't counting the same thing.
Why one ROAS number doesn't work for a multi-product or multi-offer business
When your site sells more than one thing, a single blended ROAS figure can hide contamination between campaigns and mask which product lines are actually profitable.
Why your Meta CPA data might be lying to you
Meta has to estimate a real share of your conversions instead of directly observing them, which means the CPA number on your dashboard is a guess with a margin of error you were never shown.
Why a 30-day lookback window produces false "wasted spend" flags
The default reporting window in Google Ads and Meta Ads is a fixed 30 days, and using it to decide what counts as wasted spend can both hide real waste and flag things that were about to work.
The negative-keyword match-type mistake that silently blocks profitable traffic
Negative keywords have match types too, and picking the wrong one can quietly wall off real, convertible searches without leaving any trace in your reports.
Google's "Ad Strength" label doesn't predict which ads actually perform
Ad Strength grades how complete and varied your ad's assets are, not whether the ad actually converts, and chasing the label can quietly make your ads worse.
We looked at the popular advice on writing Responsive Search Ad copy. Here's what actually holds up.
Pinning, headline length, sentence case, keyword repetition: we separate the RSA copy advice that has a plausible mechanism behind it from the folk wisdom that doesn't.
Your "daily budget" isn't what you actually spent yesterday
Google and Meta can both spend above your stated daily budget on a given day, by design, as long as the longer-term average holds. Here's the mechanism.
Budget-capped or rank-capped? The diagnostic that changes everything
A stalled campaign looks the same whether you're out of budget or losing auctions on quality and bid, but the two problems have opposite fixes.
Target CPA vs Target ROAS: which one actually fits how your business makes money
Most explanations define both bidding strategies and stop. This one tells you which to actually run, based on how your conversions create value.
The Bid Change That Looked Like a Mistake for Two Weeks, Then Worked
A hypothetical founder raised a bid target to chase more volume, panicked when the numbers dipped, and reverted right as the campaign was about to turn a corner.
Why the same bid increase can do nothing in one campaign and double traffic in another
A 20% bid increase can be a rounding error in one campaign and a traffic-doubling event in another, and the difference has nothing to do with luck.
Rising impression share isn't always a win
A climbing impression share looks like unambiguous progress on a dashboard, but the metric is a percentage, and percentages can rise for the wrong reason.
How to Tell a Real Demand Ceiling From a Delivery Problem
When spend stops converting or a campaign plateaus, two very different causes produce the identical symptom, and treating one like the other wastes budget and time.
The Verdict-First Framework for Answering "How Are the Ads Doing?"
Most ad reports bury the answer under a pile of charts. Here's why the verdict has to come first, and what that actually requires of the analyst writing it.
Nine ways a confident-sounding ad account recommendation turns out to be wrong
A checklist for catching the mistakes that hide inside plausible-sounding ad account analysis, before you act on them or approve someone else's plan.
The Audience Segment That Looked Like a Winner for One Month
A single strong month from a small audience segment can look like a repeatable pattern when it's really a handful of lucky conversions, and scaling budget into it too fast is how good months turn into wasted spend.
The Week Three Things Changed at Once, and Nobody Could Say Which One Worked
A hypothetical walkthrough of what gets lost when a budget increase, a creative swap, and a negative-keyword cleanup all land in the same week.
Why your ad platform rep's suggestions aren't neutral advice
Google and Meta make more money when you spend more, and their recommendations are structured accordingly. Here's how to evaluate any suggestion on its own merits.
When the platform's AI advisor blames a competitor, check the math
Google and Meta now auto-generate plain-language explanations for metric changes. Here's how to verify one instead of trusting the sentence.
Reading auction insights: "the market got more competitive" vs "you're losing"
A worsening Auction Insights report gets blamed on the market by default. Often the real cause is sitting in your own account settings, waiting to be checked.
Signs Your Ad Tracking Has Gaps, Spottable From Outside Your Own Funnel
Five comparisons anyone can run without platform access or technical skill to sense whether ad tracking numbers can be trusted.
Why yesterday's "best hour to advertise" becomes next quarter's worst
Dayparting rules built on a few weeks of data get treated as permanent facts, but the pattern behind them keeps moving even when nothing you did changed.