Long-form thinking,
written by operators.
We write because we have to think, and we publish because we think it might be useful. Essays as record of how we approach the work — not blog posts as content marketing. No 400-word listicles, no SEO filler. Things you might actually want to read.
Recent essays.
Are Bing ads worth it in 2026? A data-grounded answer.
Microsoft Ads in 2026 is a more serious platform than the one advertisers dismissed years ago — PMax with real transparency, native experiments, Copilot inventory. Whether it earns your budget depends on math, not sentiment.
Audience exclusions and retargeting in a consolidated Meta era.
In a consolidated, automation-first Meta account, targeting is largely the algorithm’s job — but exclusions are the control that decides whether you pay to acquire new customers or to re-reach ones you already had. How to structure exclusions and retargeting that is genuinely incremental.
Meta account structure in 2026: consolidation, Advantage+, and control.
For years, sophisticated Meta accounts meant elaborate segmentation — an ad set per audience, per placement, per stage. That playbook now actively hurts. The modern skill is consolidation: fewer campaigns, more signal, and a clear framework for when to trust automation.
Performance Max examples: what good actually looks like.
What does a well-run PMax setup actually look like? Three worked examples — high-SKU ecommerce, considered purchase, lead gen with offline import — with the reasoning made explicit.
Google AI Max for Search: should you turn it on?
Google AI Max for Search promises broader reach by letting AI find new queries and adapt your ads. Sometimes that is real incremental growth. Sometimes it is just a more expensive route to traffic you already had. Here is how we decide, and how we test it without risking the account.
Meta bidding: cost cap, bid cap, and when to use which.
Meta’s bid strategies are widely misunderstood and frequently misused. What highest volume, cost cap, and bid cap each do to the auction, the volume-versus-efficiency trade-off between them, and the disciplined way to decide which your account needs.
Advantage+ Shopping campaigns: an operator’s guide.
Advantage+ Shopping is Meta’s "hand us the whole machine" campaign. Used well it is genuinely strong; used naively it spends acquisition budget on people who were already coming back. The preconditions, the settings that matter, and how to measure it honestly.
How to scale Meta ads in 2026.
Meta scaling in 2026 has three levers left: consolidated Advantage+ structure done properly, a creative pipeline that refills faster than fatigue drains it, and conversion signal the ranking models can trust.
Smart Bidding in practice: tROAS vs tCPA and when each wins.
Target ROAS or target CPA is one of the most common questions in Google Ads, and most answers are dogmatic. The honest answer depends on your business model and, far more importantly, on whether your conversion data is clean enough for Smart Bidding to work at all.
Google Shopping feeds: the optimization layer most retailers ignore.
In Shopping and Performance Max there are no keywords. The product feed is the targeting. Which auctions you enter, what you pay, and what converts are all decided by data most retailers export once from their store and never look at again.
Performance Max in 2026: how to actually control it.
Performance Max is the default for most Google Ads accounts now, and most advertisers run it on faith because Google frames it as a black box. It is not. There are real levers, and the accounts that use them outperform the accounts that do not.
How to scale Google Ads without breaking it.
The scaling order that works: exhaust impression-share headroom, loosen targets deliberately, expand match types and inventory in sequence, and never destabilize the bidding model you depend on.
Google Shopping vs Performance Max: which, and when.
Standard Shopping gives you control and transparency; PMax gives you reach and automation. When each wins, when to run both, and the migration mistakes that cost real money.
Google Ads audience segments that do real work.
First-party lists, custom segments built from converting searches, and observation-mode data you actually read: the audience toolkit that changes outcomes, not just settings.
YouTube ads for performance, not branding.
The advertisers winning on YouTube treat it as direct response: conversion-focused formats, intent-built audiences, creative engineered for the skip button, and measurement that respects lag.
How Performance Max actually works under the hood.
PMax is a black box, but not a mystery. How asset combination, surface arbitration, and conversion-value bidding actually interact — and where your inputs steer the machine.
Microsoft Ads: the second search engine your competitors ignore.
Most advertisers treat Microsoft Ads as an afterthought, which is exactly why it works. The audience economics, who should bother, and how to run it in two hours a week.
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