Media buying is a superpower. Learn it and you'll never worry about money again. Here are 21 tips that will make you a better Google Ads media buyer than any $1997 course out there. 🧵 THREAD 🧵

The biggest inefficiencies used to live inside ad platforms. Now they live between them. If you don’t understand channel dependencies, ROAS will lie to you.

Cutting Meta to “be more profitable” often feels smart… Until you realize you just cut the oxygen supply to your entire funnel. Efficiency without demand = slow death.

The biggest inefficiencies used to live inside ad platforms. Now they live between them. If you don’t understand channel dependencies, ROAS will lie to you.

If Meta spend drops 90%, Google doesn’t magically pick up the slack. It starves. Less discovery → less branded demand → weaker Shopping → fewer new customers. Simple system math.

“Google is in decline” is rarely a Google problem. More often, it’s an upstream problem that finally shows up downstream.

Most ad accounts don’t need a new campaign. They need a new perspective. If you only look inside Google Ads, you’ll miss why performance is actually declining.

MER going down doesn’t automatically mean performance is worse. It can mean: → More new customers → Lower COGS → Different product mix → Less promo dependency If profit is fine, the panic is misplaced.

If MER is your main KPI, you’re managing ads. If contribution margin, NCAC, and cashflow are your KPIs, you’re managing a business. Big difference.

You can have: → A beautiful MER → And a dying business And you can have: → An ugly MER → And a machine that prints money The difference is contribution margin + NCAC — not optics.

I’ve seen brands kill momentum because: → MER dipped → Dashboards looked “ugly” → Profit was actually stable or improving Optimizing ratios instead of the business is how you stall growth.

If your MER drops and you panic, you’re probably not running a real business. MER is a ratio. Profit is the outcome. If contribution margin is healthy, MER noise shouldn’t dictate strategy.

2026 won’t reward more tools. It won’t reward shinier dashboards. It won’t reward blind AI adoption. It will reward clarity. Because traffic doesn’t create growth. Traffic reveals how clearly you understand your business.

More clicks ≠ more customers More spend ≠ more growth Clarity > complexity Every time.

If all you’re doing is shifting budget and watching ROAS… You’re not optimizing. You’re feeding the same pool with a different spoon.

Real example: Client moved budget from Meta → AppLovin ROAS improved Dashboards looked great Meanwhile: → New customer count tanked → New visitor traffic collapsed It wasn’t growth. It was repetition.

Beginners look for formulas. Experts look for levers. Masters say: “It depends.”

The biggest inefficiencies aren’t inside platforms anymore. They’re between them. Between: → Meta & Google → Prospecting & closing → Incremental growth & recycled demand That’s where scale lives now.

There’s only one signal that reliably tells you if you’re growing: New visitors. New visitors = future revenue Returning customers = margin today If the first declines, the second eventually follows.

If you’re not growing new visitors… You’re not “optimizing.” You’re slowly liquidating your future while celebrating today’s ROAS.

If you’re still thinking: Google vs Meta You’re already behind. In 2026, you need to understand Meta to run Google. And understand Google to scale Meta. Because traffic doesn’t live in silos anymore.