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Hey Reader - I've scaled multiple products to $100k/day in ad spend. You know what's funny? All that stuff everyone argues about on Twitter? All those LinkedIn bro 'hacks'? Cost caps vs bid caps. CBO settings. The latest targeting hack. Nobody at $100k/day is having those conversations. They're playing a completely different game. Here's what that game actually looks like. 1. They're always testing the next channel before they need it. Meta and Google are great until they're not. Algorithm changes. CPMs spike. Account gets flagged for some mysterious reason. And if that's all you've got, you're screwed. $100k/day accounts are running tests on TikTok, Apple Search, Snap, DSPs, Taboola, CTV, podcasts, offline. $5k-$10k test budgets. Enough to get signal. Not enough to hurt if it flops. On a 7-figure account, our biggest channel was a DSP. On a couple of others, we ran 10+ channels at all times. So when the main channel hiccups: and it will: you've already got somewhere to go. 2. They know what's actually working. Not what the dashboard says is working. Dirty secret: every channel wants credit for every conversion. Your dashboard looks beautiful. Everyone's a winner. Meanwhile your bank account is telling a very different story. So we run incrementality tests. Media mix models. Geo holdouts. Boring stuff that tells you the truth. One account found their "best" channel wasn't incremental at all(oh hi 'not evil' company). Cut spend 50%. Blended CPAs didn't budge. That's real money back. To spend on stuff that actually works. 3. They're testing hundreds of creatives a month. With a system. Not random. Not chaotic. Not just "make more ads." A real feedback loop. Every week: new concepts into testing. Winners identified. Insights fed back into the next round. UGC. AIGC. Static. Skits. Whatever. The format matters less than the rhythm. Because at $100k/day, creative fatigue is coming for you. Every single week. You can't outrun it with a dozen ads and good vibes. You need a pipeline. And you need it running all the time. ** Multi-channel. Measured. Creative system. Not sexy. Not a hack. Just what actually works at scale. Most teams do one of these. Maybe two on a good week. $100k/day accounts do all three. Relentlessly(and they build org structures to do all 3). This is why this sort of relentless experimental cadence is the bedrock of our process - even for smaller accounts. If you're spending $50k+/month and want to see what the path to $100k/day looks like for you, hit reply and say "100k" - and we'll talk. Later, Shamanth PS: From the socials: My Valentine's ads arent converting! Another day. Another breakup 💔 BetterSleep does this so well. It's called 'Ear Scrubbing' |
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Hi Reader, I was reading the AppsFlyer 2026 State of Subscriptions report last week(it’s free, there’s no email gate, you can click and read directly). For fun. On a Sunday. I’m a lot of fun at parties. One set of numbers has been living in my head rent-free ever since. In Photo & Video, the top 5 apps’ share of UA spend dropped from 64% to 45% in a single year. Every other category got more consolidated. This one went the other way. New entrants took spend share away from incumbents, which...
Hi Reader - I was doomscrolling the other day on LinkedIn. Everyone was going on about RIP media buyers, RIP designers. …and how to write better prompts. how to get better outputs. Utterly fascinating stuff. All that stuff LinkedIn thought leaders love to post about between their humble brags about revenue milestones. And I noticed something that made me laugh. All of the AI prompting advice was also just… management advice. The exact same stuff people have been saying for 100+ years. So I...
Hi Reader - Del Close taught basically everyone who's been funny in the last 40 years. Tina Fey. Bill Murray. Amy Poehler. Mike Myers. The godfather of modern improv. He wrote a book called Truth in Comedy. The title is the lesson. His whole thing: nothing is funnier than the truth. The audience laughs when they recognize something real. The moment you abandon truth for something clever, you lose them. I keep coming back to this because ads work exactly the same way. We've all been in that...