Practice for paid media

Practise the paid media decisions you have to defend.

Practical paid media training for people who run campaigns and now have to explain them to a client, a manager or a finance lead. Each case is a situation with its numbers. You commit to your call, then read the reasoning against it, and keep the reply, the line or the check you would use at work.

Try a free case Get the free guide

The case takes about four minutes of reading, with no signup. The Platform & Placement Guide is free with email signup.

Used by individual practitioners at Google, Amazon, Publicis, WPP and Havas, each in an individual capacity; no company endorses it.

The Louli, a dusty mauve handmade character in a mustard bow tie, hands clasped, waiting patiently.

You decide first. The reasoning comes after.

  • Written in advance, the same for everyone. Every situation, option and piece of reasoning exists before you open the case, and every learner reads the same. Nothing is generated while you use it.
  • Where the situations come from. Of the 38 cases, seven start from specific incidents in paid media work, twenty-one are situations that recur across accounts and teams, and ten are composites. Companies, names and figures are changed, and no client or employer is named.
  • One author answers for it. Drafted with AI assistance and edited under the author’s direction. Tarek answers for every case at hello@thecompoundsystem.com, an error found is fixed for everyone, and no agency, platform or client stands behind it. How the cases are made.

See the experience

What would you do?

Friday, 16:10. The client wants everything paused for the weekend. Weekends bring 38% of the orders, at the lowest cost. You have four options and one decision.

Make your call. Then see the reasoning.

Try a case Follow this one to the end

Run · demonstration case

The client wants everything paused for the weekend.

Your call

It’s 16:15. What do you tell Sami?

You commit once. You cannot take it back.

  1. APause everything tonight, as asked, and restart Monday 08:00 when the warehouse opens.
  2. BKeep running. The site already says weekend orders ship Monday.
  3. CPause, and ask Sami whether the client’s commercial lead knows.
  4. DSend Sami the weekend numbers, say orders ship Monday, and offer the pause if he wants it.

Drawn on a demonstration case that is not in the edition. Nothing inside the frame is clickable.

Meet the Loulis.

Each brings a different question to the work. After you decide, the one whose question the case turns on adds its line to the reasoning.

  • Strategy LouliBrief “What are we trying to do?”
  • Planning LouliPlan “What can this budget actually do?”
  • Creative LouliBuild “Will this work where it runs?”
  • Performance LouliRun “What is this number telling us?”
  • Operations LouliProve “What still needs sorting?”

More about each Louli

What stays with you

Something useful for the next time it happens.

Every case ends with one rule and one thing to keep: the message to send, the line for the room, the check to run.

A pause is a decision about revenue, not a favour to operations. Put the number next to the request before anything is switched off.

The rule from the case above

Your calls and notes, saved together.

The Callbook holds each call you made beside the strongest one, with the rule and your own note.

Your working

My Callbook

15 of 38 calls made. Several of these answers are defensible, so read the spread rather than the total.

Run

The client wants everything paused for the weekend.

It’s 16:15. What do you tell Sami?

Your call · defensibleKeep running. The site already says weekend orders ship Monday.

Strongest supported callSend Sami the weekend numbers, say orders ship Monday, and offer the pause if he wants it.

A pause is a decision about revenue, not a favour to operations. Put the number next to the request before anything is switched off.

Your noteSame thing happened with the Eid closure. Send the number first.

Media, 2027 Edition

For the decisions behind the campaigns.

38 paid media situations across Brief, Plan, Build, Run and Prove. You practise, among other things:

  • Explaining why cheaper leads produced fewer qualified ones.
  • Telling a client about an error before they find it themselves.
  • Reporting an honest week when the conversion definition changed.

You commit before the reasoning opens, and keep one thing from each: the message to send, the line for the room, the check to run. All of it saved to a Callbook and a Playbook that maps your calls, and that you can also take with you as a file.

Finish all 38 and a certificate issues in your name, with an ID anyone can check. See the certificate.

One payment, yours to keep, with a 14 day refund.

Explore the Media edition

Free to read

The decisions, worked through.

Each page answers a question practitioners search for, shows the arithmetic or the reply, and ends with a case you can try.

Worked exampleA media plan example$75,000, UAE, lead generation, from the brief to the reconciled invoice. MethodBudget reallocation, without breaking the planMove money by what each line needs to work, then the reply to send. MethodClient reporting the morning after results dropThe five checks before you send, and a full example reply. ExerciseA marketing simulation, in about four minutesWhat the free decision exercise is, and what it is not.

All free resources, including the Platform & Placement Guide.

The Louli, a dusty mauve handmade character in a mustard bow tie, hands clasped, waiting patiently.

Start with a situation you might recognise.

Try a case Free. No signup needed. About four minutes of reading.