Playbooks for the teams behind the ads
Benchmarks, frameworks and field notes from running paid media at agency scale, written while we build Adside.
What ads are YC companies running in 2026? Our complete, systematic study
We checked all 6,055 YC companies against the Google, Meta and LinkedIn ad libraries. Just under half run paid ads, and the biggest names run them for years.
Read the studyLet's cook — the video series
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Ep. 1 · 12:40
Get started with Claude Skills for marketing
What Claude Skills are, how to hook up your Meta account through an MCP, and how to run your first ad-ops skill.
Ep. 2 · 14:27
Create an AI Instagram ad from scratch using MCPs and Claude
A full Instagram ad built live: product shots, video and launch, with Claude wired to Shopify, Higgsfield, Meta and Canva.
Ep. 3 · 10:28
Use Claude + Apify + Reddit to generate tons of new ad ideas
Reddit, X, G2 and app reviews piped into Claude to pull out ad angles in seconds. No code, one MCP.
Should you be sales-led ("book a demo") or PLG ("try for free")?
What 18 famous YC B2B companies chose, and why a demo CTA quietly commits you to $4,000 or more a week on Meta.
How many ad creatives do you actually need on Meta in 2026?
Meta deleted its own 6-ads-per-ad-set advice. The volume and refresh math that replaced it, from 578,750 real creatives.
What ads are YC companies running in 2026? Our complete, systematic study
All 6,055 YC companies checked against the Google, Meta and LinkedIn ad libraries. Just under half advertise, and the winners run ads for years.
A creative testing framework that doesn't burn budget
How to size a test, when to kill a loser, and how to turn winners into a variation tree. With the actual math.
Scaling from 5 to 50 ad clients without 10× the headcount
The four places agency ops break as you grow, and what to systemize before you make the next hire.
Ad fatigue: how to catch it before it burns the budget
The five signals to watch, the thresholds that matter, and what to swap first when an ad starts dying.
The first three seconds: a working theory of ad hooks
What a good hook rate looks like, eight openings that keep working, and how to test hooks without fooling yourself.
How to split budget across Meta, Google and LinkedIn
Where the first dollar should go, starting splits by business type, and how to rebalance monthly without wrecking your learning phases.
LinkedIn vs Meta for B2B: where your budget actually converts
LinkedIn clicks cost 3 to 5 times more than Meta. Sometimes that's still the better deal. How to do the math for your deal size.
Client reporting that doesn't eat your Fridays
What clients actually read, which metrics deserve commentary, and how to get a report out in minutes instead of hours.
UGC, static or video: what to run, when, and why
What each format costs in money and time, where it works in the funnel, and a starting mix you can adjust from.
Naming conventions that survive 200 campaigns and 12 clients
A naming scheme that parses cleanly at 200 campaigns, plus how to get a whole team to actually follow it.
The ad localization playbook: 20 markets without 20 headaches
Why word-for-word translation kills ads, and the workflow we use to adapt campaigns for 20 markets.
Paid ads benchmarks 2026: CPM, CTR and CPA by platform
CPM, CTR and CPA numbers for Meta, Google, LinkedIn and TikTok, pulled from published datasets. Plus how to read them without fooling yourself.
Put the playbooks on autopilot
Everything we write about here (fatigue detection, testing, reporting, budgets) is what Adside runs for your accounts automatically.