The Journal
Field notes on
getting found.
Real takeaways on PR, brand, social, paid, and growth from the work we do every day. No fluff. No "5 tips" listicles. Just things that move the needle.
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Does LinkedIn Penalize AI Content? What It Says About AI Slop
LinkedIn limits the reach of what it calls AI slop, not AI assisted writing. Here's what it officially said and shipped in 2026, and which claims are rumors.
How to See Your Competitors' Facebook Ad Targeting
Meta shows a competitor's age, gender and location targeting only for ads that ran in the EU or UK. What 204 ads showed us, and how to spot the ones that sell.
Weight Loss Clinic Marketing and the GLP-1 Ad Rules for 2026
What Meta, Google, FDA and the FTC actually allow in GLP-1 ads, the words that get weight loss clinics in trouble, and the content rules we use with a clinic.
Facebook Ads to Amazon: Attribution and the Brand Referral Bonus
How to run Facebook ads to an Amazon listing: why Meta can't see the sale, how Amazon Attribution tracks it, and what the Brand Referral Bonus credits back.
Complete Registration Event on Meta: Which Signup Step to Track
A software client's site fired Meta's Complete Registration event only after an emailed code. What that did to a signup campaign, and which event to choose.
How to Track ChatGPT Traffic in GA4 and Tell When It Sent a Lead
A ChatGPT visitor asked us for an audit, and a day later GA4 still had the visit in the wrong channel. How to track AI traffic in GA4 and prove a lead's source.
The Brand With No Social Accounts Already Had Three
A new client's intake form said no social accounts yet. Their exact handle was already registered on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, all close to empty, owner unknown. Here's the handle check we run before launch now, and what each platform actually says about taken names.
Members Were Paying for Courses They Couldn't Open
We audited a paid Skool community as an ordinary member and found four of its ten courses locked behind point levels nobody had ever reached. Here's how Skool's levels actually work, why gating backfires in a young community, and the four settings that fix it.
Bakersfield's Two Top-Rated Roofers Have 467 Reviews. AI Named Neither.
When a customer asks ChatGPT or Perplexity for a local recommendation they get one to six names, not ten blue links. We ran the test across three Bakersfield industries and found that ranking at the top of Google does not mean AI knows you exist.
Your Instagram Caption Link Goes Nowhere
Links pasted into most Instagram captions aren't clickable, and the comment a keyword, follow first, get the link flow runs on a paid tier. Here's where links actually work and how to start an email list without guessing.
The Ads Filled the Cart. Nobody Paid.
A jewelry brand's Meta ads delivered 972 landed visits, 7 add to carts and 8 checkout starts in twelve days, and nobody bought. Here's how two checkpoints we wrote in advance pointed us past the ads to the offer and the checkout, and what we found there.
