Insights
Notes from the work.
Practical takes on marketing strategy, search, and paid media — written from real engagements, not theory.
Case Study: Maxing Out a $10K/Month Google Ad Grant After Nearly Losing It
A national health-focused nonprofit was one bad month from losing its Google Ad Grant. Eight months later it was spending every dollar…
Case Study: How Paid Social Fueled an 85% Surge in Google LSA Calls
Local Services Ads meet homeowners at the moment they search. Leveraging top-funnel paid social prospecting to create more of those moments nearly…
Case Study: How a Private School Network Cut Cost Per Lead From $47 to $14
Cost per lead was climbing right along with spend every enrollment season. Fixing the funnel and the auction at the same time…
Case Study: 23% Less Ad Spend, 205 Qualified Leads, 10 Closed-Won Deals in 90 Days
The previous program spent the budget and reported the clicks. Ninety days later the account was spending 23% less and reporting qualified…
How to Target Competitor Audiences on LinkedIn the Right Way
Half the competitor-targeting advice for LinkedIn relies on exporting other people’s engagement data, which the User Agreement prohibits. Here are seven native…
Performance Max Just Gave You Channel Controls. Here Is How Not to Wreck Your Campaign With Them.
Google is alpha-testing per-channel priority sliders in Performance Max. It is the control everyone asked for, and the report you will use…
What’s a Good CTR for TikTok Ads? Wrong Question. Here’s the Right One.
The 2026 data puts the median TikTok CTR at 0.61%. Why the benchmarks you see online contradict each other, and why CTR…
Case Study: Restructure First, Then Scale — 30% More Revenue on Almost the Same Budget
A retailer with a large catalog needed meaningful revenue growth without meaningful new spend. A Shopping restructure, full-catalog coverage and new-customer bidding…
How I Handle Google Ads Keyword Research in 2026
Close variants, broad match and AI Max mean your keyword list no longer decides who sees your ad. The seven-step keyword research…
Case Study: New Agency, No Dip — 33% More Paid Search Revenue on 2% Less Spend
An ecommerce brand switched agencies heading into peak season. A phased transition, one clean conversion signal and tested bid strategies delivered 33%…
Advantage+ Runs the Campaign Now. Here Are the 8 Meta Ads Practices You Still Control.
Most Meta Ads best-practice lists are fourteen items of 2019 hygiene. In 2026, Advantage+ runs the campaign by default — so the…
TikTok Ads: The Creative Advice Is Right. The Setup Advice Is Where Campaigns Die.
Every TikTok Ads guide nails the creative advice and skips the plumbing. Structure, tracking, bidding, budget math and Smart+, in the weeds,…
Reddit Ads in 2026: Write the Ad You Would Defend in the Comments
Reddit punishes advertisers for acting like advertisers, and its threads are now what the AI answers quote. Nine best practices, reframed for…
Google Flips You to AI Max on September 1 — Take It on Your Terms First
On September 1, Google auto-upgrades campaigns using automatically created assets and campaign-level broad match to AI Max — switching on its preferred…
Your Google Ads Optimization Score Isn’t a Grade — It’s Google’s To-Do List
The optimization score feels like a report card you should push to 100%. It isn't — it measures how closely you follow…
TikTok Ads for Ecommerce in 2026: Is TikTok Your Storefront or Your Billboard?
GMV Max made TikTok a storefront. Smart+ makes it a billboard. The 2026 ecommerce question is which one you want, and why…
On Meta, Your Creative Now Determines Your Target Audience
Meta’s Andromeda engine turned targeting into a creative problem: you pick the asset, the AI picks the audience. What that means for…
Google Ad Grants: How Nonprofits Get $10,000 a Month in Free Search Ads, and How They Keep It
Google Ad Grants gives qualifying nonprofits up to $10,000 a month in Search ads. Eligibility, the activation steps, and the compliance rules…
You Rank on Google Maps. So Why Isn’t the Phone Ringing?
Ranking in the Google Maps 3-pack feels like the finish line. It isn't. A map ranking is a vanity metric until it…
ChatGPT Ads Just Became a Channel You Can Actually Manage
ChatGPT Ads just added conversion bidding, advanced matching, geo exclusions, and a bulk API. The features are boring — and that’s exactly…
Your Budget Cap Was the Real Bid Strategy: Google’s Aug 17 Change for Ecommerce
That budget-capped Shopping campaign beating its ROAS target? The cap was doing the work — and Google's August 17 bidding change hands…
One Profile, Three Front Doors: The GBP Playbook for Home-Service Contractors
For home-service contractors, your Google Business Profile now feeds the map pack, your Local Services Ads, and AI answers at once. Neglect…
The New Google Business Profile Playbook for AI Local Search
Google turned your Business Profile from a static listing into a live engagement surface — and its signals now feed AI answers…
AI Overviews Now Answer Most Local Searches — Here’s How to Get Cited
AI Overviews appear on 68% of local searches vs. 39% for the map pack. Ranking is no longer the game — getting…
Is Your Target ROAS Actually Profitable? A 4-Step Health Check
Target CPA and ROAS don't find profit — they optimize toward the number you give them. Here's the 4-step health check to…
CPC Inflation Starts Before the Auction — So Stop Fixing It There
Rising cost-per-click isn't a bidding problem — it's a brand, reach, and conversion problem decided before the auction runs. Here's where the…
Google’s PMax Reporting Change: That Impression Spike Isn’t a Win
As of June 15, Performance Max product reports pull data from all networks — not just Search and Shopping. Expect a one-time…
Google’s Smart Bidding Update: Your Target CPA Is About to Become a Contract
Google's August 17 Smart Bidding change will pull budget-limited tCPA and tROAS campaigns toward the targets you set — not the performance…
What Does a Fractional Marketing Partner Actually Do?
Not a consultant, not an agency, not a full-time hire. Where fractional fits, what it costs, and how to know if you're…