The Ad Spend

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Notes on running an account that remembers

Field notes and research on paid media, memory, and the difference between a number and a decision.

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A man seated on the floor sorting through scattered printed reports
Guides & ResearchJune 26, 2026

First-Party Intent vs. the Guessed Pixel

The cookieless deadline never arrived, but targeting fragmented anyway. Why 2026's winners build consented first-party intent instead of waiting for a fix.

2 min read
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ProductJune 25, 2026

LinkedIn Ads Alerts in Slack: Budget & Spend Monitoring

Get LinkedIn Ads alerts in Slack: budget pacing, spend spikes, and anomaly detection for B2B teams where a single click can cost $8–14. 2026 guide.

4 min read
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Guides & ResearchJune 25, 2026

Is Meta Ads MCP Safe? Ban Risk and Precautions (2026)

Meta's official Ads MCP won't get you banned — third-party servers and autonomous agents can. A verified risk taxonomy and the precautions that matter.

6 min read
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Guides & ResearchJune 24, 2026

Account Structure and the Learning Phase: The Hidden Cost of Constant Change

Every campaign reset restarts the learning phase. Understanding when to change — and when not to — is one of the most underrated decisions in paid media.

2 min read
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Guides & ResearchJune 24, 2026

Your CAC Is Lying to You: Blended vs. True Acquisition Cost in 2026

Blended CAC and MER flatter your paid engine by mixing in free demand. Here's how to read acquisition cost honestly when every channel is more expensive.

2 min read
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ProductJune 24, 2026

Meta Ads Slack Integration: Real Performance Monitoring

How to set up a Meta Ads Slack integration for performance monitoring — spend spikes, anomalies, and change alerts, not lead notifications. Updated 2026.

4 min read
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Guides & ResearchJune 23, 2026

What Good Weekly Ad Reporting Actually Looks Like

Most weekly reports describe what happened. The useful ones explain why — and what to do about it. Here's the difference, and how to build reports that drive decisions.

1 min read
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ProductJune 23, 2026

Google Ads Slack Integration: Alerts, Bots & Setup (2026)

Compare every Google Ads Slack integration in 2026 — Zapier, Google Ads Scripts, dashboards, and dedicated monitoring — and set up alerts in minutes.

5 min read
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Guides & ResearchJune 22, 2026

Meta Ads Anomaly Detection: What to Catch and How (2026)

Meta ads anomaly detection in 2026: catching spend spikes, ROAS crashes, learning-phase resets, and tracking breakage in Slack before they burn budget.

5 min read
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Guides & ResearchJune 22, 2026

The AI Bidding Transparency Gap: What Smart Bidding Doesn't Tell You

Target CPA and Target ROAS are bidding strategies, not explanations. What the algorithm does inside the black box — and why the settings around it still matter.

2 min read
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Guides & ResearchJune 22, 2026

The Incrementality Era: Why Last-Click Is Finally Dying

Only one in five marketers still trust last-click. In 2026, incrementality testing became the most-trusted method in marketing — here's what that changes.

1 min read
A man seated on the floor sorting through scattered printed reports
Guides & ResearchJune 21, 2026

The LinkedIn Ads Change History Problem (And How to Work Around It)

LinkedIn's change log is the thinnest of any major platform. If you run B2B campaigns and something goes wrong, here's how to build the record LinkedIn won't.

2 min read

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