Guide
Running paid media across several platforms without losing control
Why budgets overspend
Most overspend isn't a strategy problem — it's an operational one. A daily budget typed as a lifetime budget, a campaign duplicated without its end date, or an automated bid strategy that spends faster than planned over a weekend. Each platform shows spend in its own dashboard and in its own time zone, so the problem is often noticed days after it started.
The fix is to compare actual spend against the plan every day, in one place, and to decide in advance what should happen when the two drift apart.
Pacing: the number to check first
Pacing compares how much of the budget you've spent with how much of the flight has passed. Spending 60% of the budget at the halfway point means the money will run out early; spending 30% means you'll under-deliver. Our budget pacing calculator works this out for any campaign, with no account needed.
Name things the same way everywhere
A consistent naming convention — for example client_objective_format_audience_date — lets you filter and report across platforms without a spreadsheet of lookups. Agree it once, write it down, and apply it to campaigns, ad sets and creatives alike.
Tag every link
UTM parameters are how your analytics tool knows which ad sent each visitor. Without them, paid social traffic often shows up as “referral” or “direct” and the campaign gets no credit. Use lowercase values, keep the same source and medium names across campaigns, and save every link you build so it can be found again. The free UTM builder keeps that history for you.
Start with a written brief
A good brief fixes the objective, audience, budget, flight dates, key message and how success will be measured before any creative is made. It saves rounds of revisions and gives you something to report against. If you don't have a template, the brief generator produces a printable one in a few minutes.
Report on a fixed rhythm
Weekly reports catch problems; monthly reports show trends. Whichever you choose, keep the same metrics in the same order every time so clients learn where to look — spend against budget, results against target, and what you're changing next.