Benchmarks
Real, sourced case files from paid-search and paid-social campaigns actually run: platform, spend range, timeframe, the metric that mattered (ROAS, CPA, or CTR), the verdict, and honest post-mortems on what failed, not only wins. This is the flagship section and the site's only defensible moat; nothing here is aggregated industry data or a platform's claimed lift figure, and every record carries a last-reviewed date because AI ad defaults change fast enough to make older figures misleading. Tactics in Bidding and failures documented in Creative link back to specific records here as their evidence base.
| Case file | Platform | Campaign type | Spend range | Metric | Claimed vs. actual | Verdict | Last reviewed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| How the Rini Skincare Backlash Rewrites Influencer Trust Rules | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Semrush vs. Ahrefs AI Features (2026): Feature Matrix and Use-Case Verdict | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| When AI Performance Marketing Fails: Failure Cases, Blind Spots, and How to Build Guardrails | Google Ads, Meta, programmatic | Performance Max, Advantage+ | — | — | — | — | |
| Why Alphabet's Negative Free Cash Flow Changes Google Ads | Google Ads | AI Max | Various | CTR: 6.34% | LOSS | 2026-07-24 | |
| How Google's AI Investment Boosts Stock but Hurts Advertisers | Google Ads | Search | Multiple budget levels | CTR: 20-40% decrease | LOSS | 2026-07-24 | |
| How Google's $205B AI Bet Is Reshaping Your Ad Budget | Google Ads | AI Max for Search | All levels | Conversions: 7% increase | MIXED | 2026-07-24 | |
| The Howard-McDonald's Sponsorship as a Local DMA Channel | OOH | Sponsorship | Local franchisee co-op | Visitation lift: Not yet measured | MIXED | 2026-07-24 | |
| Martha Stewart's Three-Layer AI Audit for Performance Marketers | Meta Ads | Advantage+ | $100k-$500k | CTR: 12 | MIXED | 2026-07-24 | |
| ServiceNow's Kill Switch: The AI Ad Agent Risk You Can't Ignore | Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads | AI Ad Agent Automation | $200,000 per month (example account) | Agent termination capability: 60% | MIXED | 2026-07-24 | |
| ServiceNow AI Demand Earnings Impact Enterprise Software Stocks | ServiceNow | Enterprise AI | Large | AI ACV: $1B | MIXED | 2026-07-24 | |
| ServiceNow's 40% sell-off may already price in Armis integration risk | ServiceNow | Stock Analysis | $7.75 billion | Revenue Growth: 24% | MIXED | 2026-07-24 | |
| The App-Install Funnel Behind Taco Bell's $1 Deal | Google Ads | Performance Max | Low | CPA: 4.98 | MIXED | 2026-07-23 | |
| What Taco Bell's $1 deal reveals about crisis advertising | Meta Ads | Flash Promotion | Under $100k | CPA: 76% | MIXED | 2026-07-23 | |
| How Taco Bell's Digital Silence Cost in Paid Ad Performance | Google Ads | Search | High | Store visits: 19% | LOSS | 2026-07-23 |