Good morning. I saw Nolan's Odyssey last night. Odysseus blinds a cyclops, doesn't clock that it's Poseidon's son, and spends the next ten years getting thrown around the sea for it. Lesson for media buyers: don't pick a fight with the god that decides whether you make it home.
For us, that god is the algo. Pause a campaign too fast and it'll make you earn your way back. Turns out cutting ads too early is the theme today, starting with the one you probably shouldn't have. Let's get into it.
đ˘ That ad you cut last week for a bad CPA day might've been your best one
Bobbie's head of growth, Alina Fitsai, called out something most media buyers do without thinking twice: an ad's CPA gets worse for a week and the whole message gets turned off, even if it was actually working. Her point is that a lot of what a good ad does never shows up in CPA at all. It builds awareness, someone remembers the brand later, and searches for it directly instead of clicking your ad. She also shared that nearly 70% of searches now happen without anyone clicking through, so that entire effect is invisible to whatever's judging your CPA.
She also shared that she thinks partnership ads, run from a creator's account instead of the brand's, should make up 60% of total ad spend. That sounds aggressive, but Pilothouse recently saw the case for it with a $50M supplement brand: partnership ads drove 46% more purchases on 15% more spend, while cost per purchase dropped 21%
Go read the post before you cut the next ad that "isn't performing."
đ§ Google Ads now shows you how much revenue you "missed" by not taking their advice
Google added Missed Opportunity Reporting to the Recommendations tab. It shows estimated missed clicks, conversions, and conversion value by campaign, with suggested actions like "raise your budget" or "lower your ROAS target."
Worth opening as a diagnostic. Missed clicks from low bids across multiple campaigns tells you something real about bid constraints. A wall of budget recommendations is a different signal entirely.
I asked Pilothouse's Head of Google what he made of it. His answer: "Take those recommendations with a grain of salt because they typically overestimate and Google wants advertisers to spend more money. Useful as a general signal though."
đ¤ If you're using Claude, check this out
Claude just added a "Record a skill" feature in Cowork. You can screen record yourself doing a task, talk through what you're doing as you go, and Claude turns it into a repeatable skill it can run on its own next time.
If you've been using Claude for repetitive workflows (campaign reporting, brief writing, whatever's in your stack) this is worth a test.
Iâm going to be testing this one. If youâve already automated something useful with it, reply and tell me what you built. I might pull together an inspo list.
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đˇď¸ How to make an IP collab do more in paid ads
A collaboration with an established intellectual property gives you something most ads have to work pretty hard for: instant recognition.
People already know the character, franchise, or brand. They already have feelings about it. Your creative gets to tap into all of that before theyâve even figured out what product youâre selling.
Aves from the Pilothouse team pulled two ways brands can use that familiarity in paid ads, depending on how heavily you want to lean into the collab.
Letâs get into it.
Product Photography with IP Badges
The Baggu x Disney ad is really simple. You have the bag, a few Minnie details, and both logos at the top.
The product photography does most of the work here. The movement, floral pattern, and little Disney details make it feel fun without cramming the frame with copy. Thereâs also enough empty space to add messaging later if you want to turn it into something more BOF-focused.
How to make this work:
IP-First Statics
The Liquid I.V. ad reads as Spider-Man immediately. The mask, red comic-book background, font, and tagline all pull you into that world before your brain gets to the hydration part.
That makes a lot of sense for a broad product like Liquid I.V. Hydration has a huge potential audience, which can make it harder to find a specific hook. Spider-Man gives the ad a clear audience and a built-in reason to stop scrolling.
How to make this work:
đ§ "The Best Ads Say Nothing" - Ari Murray, Chief Digital Officer at Salt & Stone
I had Ari on the podcast, she's Chief Digital Officer at Salt & Stone, and I've been obsessed with that brand since I had Dejan, who used to be in her seat, on the podcast a couple years back. Watching someone go from agency life working across a dozen brands to running digital for the one brand they were already a customer of tells you something before she even says a word.
One big thesis she shared is that AI is collapsing the middle of the funnel. People ask ChatGPT or Alexa which deodorant to buy, the bot answers off whatever's indexed from places like Reddit, and the shopper just buys what they're told instead of doing their own research. Reddit used to be where people went to find the truth about a product. Now it's what's feeding the AI's answer, which means you can't fake your way into that anymore. Good reviews and an actual good product are the whole strategy now, there's nothing left to hack.
What she's chasing on Meta is what she calls "socially native" creative, ads stripped down enough that they blend into the platform and don't read as ads at all. No big CTA or brand font or polished brand language. Her favorite recent example wasn't even her own brand's - it was a protein powder ad that was just a photo of a smoothie recipe on someone's counter in a cute Instagram font with product listed as the seventh ingredient. People don't skip it because they see it as a recipe not an ad.
She's also got a rule about incrementality that I liked: it's not incrementality if you didn't actually hold something out and test it. Said her biggest pet peeve is when "growthy" people call something incremental just because they wanted it to be true.
Go listen to the whole thing, especially if you're still figuring out what your brand looks like inside a chatbot's answer instead of a search results page. If youâd prefer to watch on YouTube, you can check it out here.
âđ If your acquisition budget is bleeding, you don't need more spend, you need better data. Clustie breaks down how to fix your CPA in their free playbook. Get your copy here. *
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