Field notes on AI ads.
Original research, opinions, and tactics on AI in paid advertising — from the team building AdControlCenter.
The 2026 Guide to AI in Paid Advertising
A pragmatic field guide to where AI is actually working in paid ads — and where it's still hype dressed up in a press release.
The Real Cost of Google Ads — and How to Stop Bleeding Money
Most accounts waste 20–40% of their Google Ads spend on traffic that was never going to convert. Here's where the leaks are and how to plug them in 30 minutes.
The Complete Guide to Reddit Ads in 2026
Reddit is the most underused paid channel for niche B2B and creator-economy businesses. Here's how to run it without lighting your budget on fire.
Welcome to the AdControlCenter blog
We're starting a blog. Here's why, and what to expect.
How AI Image Generation Is Changing Ad Creative
Three years ago a single ad image cost $200 and a week. Today it costs ten cents and ten seconds. The economics of testing changed completely — but most operators are still running creative like it's 2023.
Running Paid Ads Across Google, Meta, Reddit, and TikTok as a Solo Founder
A 90-minute weekly routine for running multi-channel paid ads alone, without an agency, without burning out, and without lighting your budget on fire.
We tested 4 image models on the same ad — here's what won
Flux Pro, Imagen 3, Grok, and Nano Banana Pro on the same brief. The winner wasn't the one we expected, and the loser was a surprise too.
Reddit ad image guidelines from 42 real high-performing ads
We pulled 42 Reddit ads with the highest CTRs from our corpus and reverse-engineered what they have in common. The pattern is clear, contrarian, and most advertisers ignore it.
The 17 negative keywords that fix 80% of Google Ads waste
Most accounts have the same 17 negative keywords missing. Add them all in 5 minutes and recover 20–40% of wasted spend on average.
LLM-written ad copy: a 6-month performance comparison
We ran human-written ads against AI-written ads on the same campaigns for 6 months. The results weren't what either side of the debate predicted.