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Notes on reading signal from noise.

Field notes on Meta Ads, attribution, and what it takes to turn a wall of metrics into a decision worth making.

All Attribution Scaling Creative fatigue Playbook Product

Attribution·8 min read·April 2026

The 7-day window is lying to you before noon

Meta's attribution window quietly rewrites yesterday's numbers for a week. Here's how to read a metric that isn't done yet — and why pausing a campaign on day-one data is the most expensive reflex in performance marketing.

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Bar chart of a ROAS figure rising across seven days as Meta's attribution window matures, labeled 'draft · revising'.

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A CPA line flat at $5 actual then rising toward a $10 target, labeled Aug 17 target-based bidding.

Attribution·9 min

Your Google Ads CPA is about to rise

Live from 17 August: budget-limited campaigns spend up to your target. If you've been beating it, your CPA rises — and that is not a campaign breaking.

Four columns — creative, bid automation, analysis, DSP — laid out as a buyer's framework for AI ad tools.

Playbook·7 min

How to choose an AI media buying tool

"AI ad tool" means four different products. A neutral map of the categories — and how to pick by your bottleneck.

A card reading AI audits three accounts as one, overnight, read-only — and flags what it can't yet trust.

Can AI audit your ad accounts?

Yes — and better than a human on the tedious checks. What it catches, and the ceiling where judgment takes over.

A budget bar only 38% filled and marked capped.

Playbook·8 min

Why PMax isn't spending your budget

Most "PMax won't spend" cases aren't a budget problem — far more often a bid target or Quality Score is choking delivery. A ranked diagnostic.

Playbook·9 min

Google Ads account structure in 2026

STAGs, the Brand/Non-brand split, the 30-conversion signal threshold - and how to audit whether yours is right.

A falling ROAS curve ending in a red drop marker.

Attribution·8 min

Why is my Meta ROAS dropping?

A ranked diagnostic — signal first, then scaling, saturation, fatigue. Most drops aren’t the campaign.

Budget bars with a chunk marking wasted spend.

Playbook·8 min

How much of your budget is wasted?

WordStream’s study of 15,666 accounts puts the median near a third. A find-the-leak playbook, ranked by what it recovers.

A dark Performance Max box with a question mark.

Playbook·9 min

How to audit a Performance Max campaign

The checks that pierce the black box — brand spend, tracking, placements — ranked by impact.

Three comparison columns with the third highlighted.

CBO vs ABO vs Advantage+ in 2026

Advantage+ changed the question. A three-way comparison and a decision guide.

A card: AI drafts the fix, you approve, read-only.

Can AI run your ad account?

The honest take — what AI genuinely automates, and why the last click should stay human.

A Meta audit checklist with checks and red flags.

Playbook·9 min

The Meta Ads audit: a 20-point checklist

The Meta twin of the Google Ads audit — red flags with thresholds, ranked by recoverable spend.

Playbook·6 min

Is PMax cannibalizing your branded search?

How Performance Max takes credit for demand you’d win for free — and how to stop it.

A rising cost-per-acquisition curve ending in a spike.

Attribution·7 min

Why did my CPA suddenly jump?

The ranked checklist for a CPA spike — tracking, learning reset, auction pressure, fatigue.

A grid of client-account tiles with one buyer across all.

An AI media buyer for agencies

One senior buyer on each client account — junior teams at senior output, safe on client money.

Meta 4.2× and Google 3.1× cards joined by a not-equals sign.

Attribution·8 min

Meta vs Google Ads: which platform first?

Demand capture vs demand generation — which to start with, and why the ROAS figures don’t compare.

Three columns — dashboard, Performance Max and AI media buyer — with the AI media buyer column checked all the way down.

AI media buyer vs Performance Max vs dashboard

They get compared constantly, but they're three layers of the same job. Which one you actually need — and why most run all three.

Playbook·9 min

How to audit a Google Ads account, properly

A 12-point audit ranked by recoverable spend — the checks that move money first, not by how thorough the report looks.

A dashboard that hands you data next to an AI media buyer that hands you a decision — the verdict first.

What is an AI media buyer?

The term is new, the job isn't. How an AI media buyer differs from a dashboard, platform AI, and a rules engine.

How to scale a winner without breaking it

The 20% rule, learning-phase resets, and why the budget you add matters less than how fast you add it.

A coral CPM curve rising early against a muted, dashed frequency curve that rises late.

Creative fatigue·5 min

Frequency is a lagging indicator. Watch CPM.

By the time frequency tells you an audience is tired, the cost already moved. The earlier signal is hiding in your CPM curve.

A verdict card reading 'Exclude Audience Net — the answer first' above muted lines labeled 'evidence · underneath'.

Why Adgent leads with the verdict

A look at the design principle behind every brief: conclusion first, evidence underneath, nothing you didn't need.

Attribution·7 min

Placement drift: the leak hiding in your average

A blended ROAS of 3.8× can hide a placement bleeding budget at 1.1×. How to find the leak inside a healthy-looking number.

A decision fork from a 'spend?' node splitting into a CBO card and an ABO card.

CBO vs ABO in 2026: when each still wins

Campaign budget optimization isn't always the answer. A practical decision tree for which structure to reach for.

Meta 4.2× and Google 3.1× cards joined by a not-equals sign, with a note 'different windows · not comparable'.

Attribution·7 min

Meta says 4.2×, Google says 3.1×. Both are right.

Two platforms report ROAS. Neither is wrong, and they still can't be compared. What to fix before you move budget between them.

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