Paid Ads

Google Ads, Meta, TikTok and programmatic breakdowns for practitioners. What is breaking, what is working, what CMOs are spending on now.

Pop art illustration of two robot hands shaking across a digital auction screen with fading DSP and SSP logos

Agent-to-Agent Ad Buying Just Went Live. Your DSP Contract Just Got Interesting.

The programmatic supply chain has operated on roughly the same logic for over a decade. An advertiser's money flows through a DSP, crosses an exchange, lands on an SSP, and eventually reaches a publisher. Each layer takes a cut. Combined, those cuts typically absorb about 20% of every

Pop art illustration of Apple Maps pin with ad label overlaying colorful local business storefronts and iPhone search results

Apple Is Putting Ads in Maps. Your Google Local Budget Playbook Won't Transfer.

Apple confirmed last week that ads are coming to Maps. If you run local campaigns, you probably saw the headline and immediately started thinking about budget allocation. The question making the rounds on r/PPC right now is whether to shift money from Google Maps. The answer is more complicated

Pop art illustration of CTV screen connected to retail cash register showing Walmart VIZIO closed-loop measurement

Walmart Now Owns the TV Screen and the Cash Register. The Measurement Promise Is the Part Worth Watching.

Walmart didn't spend $2.3 billion on a TV company because it needed more screens to sell ads on. That's been obvious since the VIZIO acquisition closed in late 2024, but the strategy just became tangible. Walmart Connect's Ad Center now shows VIZIO as

Pop art illustration of Google Ads experiment dashboard with split test arrows and auto-pilot toggle controls switching on

Google Ads Experiments Now Auto-Apply Based on Vibes, Not Statistical Significance

By Notice Me Senpai Editorial Jones Road Beauty just discovered that the channel eating most of their budget was mostly finding people who would have bought anyway. That's the kind of finding that makes a CMO go quiet in a meeting. And it came from a tool that

Pop art illustration of retail store shelves with digital ad screens and budget pie chart splitting into smaller pieces

Retail Media Growth Was Partly an Accounting Exercise. Now It Has to Compete for Real Budgets.

Retail media is a $69 billion market in the US this year. That number shows up in every pitch deck, every conference keynote, every budget conversation where someone needs to justify their retail media line item. And the number is real. eMarketer's latest forecast puts US retail media

Pop art style Google Ads dashboard showing micro-conversion signals flooding a performance chart with noise meter at max

You Fed Google Ads More Conversion Signals. It Optimized for the Easiest One.

Google's own documentation encourages you to feed Smart Bidding more conversion signals. More data points, better optimization, smarter algorithm. And for a while, the CPA in your dashboard seems to prove the point. It drops. Sometimes dramatically. A 40% CPA reduction looks great in a Monday morning report.

Pop art illustration of oil barrel with rising price chart and frozen ad budget blocks in ice

Ad Budgets Are Freezing. The Ones That Stay Liquid Will Buy the Discount.

Oil is above $106. The White House is modeling scenarios where it hits $200. And somewhere in a conference room right now, a CMO is staring at a Q2 media plan that was approved when crude was at $70 and pretending the numbers still work. They don't. The