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if you're running paid media through Q3, the decisions you make this week set up September.

here is what to review:

budget pacing

are you on track to hit your monthly budget targets? not just in aggregate, but by campaign. accounts often look fine at the top level while one campaign burns 80% of the budget and three others are underspending.

/budget-pacing in the pack runs this mid-month check and tells you whether to push or pull before you overspend or under-deliver: https://paidmedialab.com/pack

conversion integrity after the summer

Q2 platform updates, consent mode changes, and GA4 migrations have been running through summer. run a conversion audit before you plan Q4 spending. if your data has a break in it from June or July, your Q3 performance numbers are unreliable as a planning baseline.

search term drift

summer search behavior is different from fall search behavior. terms that were irrelevant in June may be relevant in September and vice versa. pull the last 30 days of search terms before Q4 planning starts. the negative list needs refreshing.

the accounts that struggle in Q4: almost always something that went unaddressed in August. the algorithm has been learning from bad data for three months. Q4 volume amplifies whatever is already wrong.

one hour of audit work in August is worth more than a week of troubleshooting in November.

https://paidmedialab.com/pack

saku