Field notes on AI ads.
Original research, opinions, and tactics on AI in paid advertising — from the team building AdControlCenter.
Subreddit research that actually works (vs the lazy way)
Most Reddit advertisers pick subreddits by typing their category into the search bar and clicking the first five results — here's why that reliably burns budget, and what to do instead.
51 Reddit ads, labeled: what visual pattern actually wins
We hand-labeled 51 real Reddit ads good/fair/bad, then cross-checked against our image-generation pipeline — here's the exact visual pattern that separates the top 15 from everything else.
The 2-edit rule: why your AI ad gets worse the more you tweak it
Every additional edit you make to an AI-generated ad image compounds the model's errors — here's the exact mechanism, and what to do instead.
JSON prompts vs prose prompts: a 50-ad side-by-side test
We ran 50 ad image prompts through Ideogram v3 in both prose and JSON formats — the format that wins depends entirely on the category, and the loser surprised us.
llms.txt: what to put in yours (with a real example)
The two-minute file that tells ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude exactly what your product does — and why most sites are getting it wrong.
9 ways to multiply one product image into a full ad set
One product photo is enough raw material for a complete, platform-ready ad set — here are the exact nine templates we use to get there.
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.