Running ads is easy. Knowing what your account is actually telling you is the job. These pieces cover the mechanics that determine whether a budget compounds or leaks: why testing twenty ads usually means testing two ideas twenty ways, how a CPA target becomes a ceiling you built yourself, what your ad platform reports versus what it withholds, and the formats agencies avoid because they're harder to bill. Written for business owners who want to read their own accounts rather than take a monthly report on faith.