Blog — Field notes

What's actually happening inside paid media right now.

Not a content farm. Not a "10 tips to boost your ROAS" listicle factory. These are the things I'm genuinely wrestling with in client accounts — platform changes, measurement headaches, creative experiments that worked or didn't, and the industry shifts that matter more than the LinkedIn thought-leader class lets on.

APR 18, 2026

The honest operator's take on Performance Max after three years of running it

Performance Max is not a black box, despite what Google reps keep calling it. Here's what I've learned running it across 20+ accounts since 2023, what it's genuinely good for, what it quietly destroys, and the account structure rules I now treat as non-negotiable.

Paid Search · 14 min read
APR 04, 2026

How to survive Meta's AI creative wave without becoming another template

Advantage+ Creative will now auto-generate variants of your ads whether you want it to or not. Most brands are going to end up looking exactly like their competitors. Here's the three-layer creative strategy I'm using with clients to stay distinctive while still exploiting the efficiency gains.

Paid Social · 12 min read
MAR 06, 2026

Measurement in 2026: what actually works now that pixels are cooked

Third-party cookies are gone, iOS tracking has been broken for four years, and now Chrome's Privacy Sandbox is reshaping what paid media measurement even means. The practical stack I'm using with clients — and the stuff I've given up trying to measure.

Measurement · 15 min read
FEB 21, 2026

After the TikTok dust settled: where $2B in US ad budget actually went

The TikTok saga of 2024-25 had every agency predicting the money would flow cleanly to Reels and Shorts. It didn't. I spent the last year watching budgets reallocate in real time across my client book — here's where it actually went, and what it means for your 2026 media plan.

Paid Social · 11 min read

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