Soku AIBlog
Insights, tutorials, and updates from the Soku AI team.
What Is Media Buying? A 2026 Guide for In-House and Agency Teams
Media buying is the work of purchasing ad placements and running them against a budget and a goal. This 2026 guide covers media buying vs media planning, the four ways to buy (programmatic guaranteed, deals and auctions, direct IOs, remnant), how Google and Meta auctions actually price ads, CPM vs CPC vs CPA vs CPV, in-house vs agency, the KPIs, a worked budget example, and a Monday-to-Friday media-buying week marked task by task.
19 min read · October 13, 2026
ChatGPT Ads Conversion Value: Per-Unit Item Amounts, Event Totals and ROAS
OpenAI redefined contents[].amount in the ChatGPT Ads Pixel and Conversions API: it is now the price of one unit, and the event amount is the value of the whole event. What changed word for word, who sent the wrong number, how purchase value and ROAS depend on it, and a step-by-step audit with JPY and multi-item examples. Last verified 2026-10-12.
16 min read · October 12, 2026
TikTok Ads Cost in 2026: Minimum Budgets, CPM and Bidding by Campaign Type
What TikTok ads cost in 2026: a $4.08 median CPM and $17.07 median CPA across 5,900+ e-commerce brands (Triple Whale, third-party), and the minimum budgets TikTok documents per campaign type: $50 per campaign, $20 per ad group, and 10x to 50x your CPA to get through learning. Covers Smart+, GMV Max and Spark Ads, plus a budget planning template. Verified 2026-10-12.
17 min read · October 12, 2026
TikTok GMV Max: Setup Checklist, ROI Targets and How Many Videos It Needs
TikTok GMV Max explained from TikTok's own help center: Product vs LIVE GMV Max, how to set the ROI target, how it attributes organic and affiliate orders, ROI protection, Max delivery, and the creative-volume numbers TikTok publishes. Includes a setup checklist and a creative-supply planning table. Verified 2026-10-12.
19 min read · October 12, 2026
ChatGPT Ads Bulk Upload and Bulk API: How to Create and Edit Campaigns at Scale
How to create and edit ChatGPT Ads campaigns at scale: the Ads Manager bulk upload template and Export for edit workflow, the developer Bulk API (bulk_mutation_jobs, 1,000 operations per job), create vs update rules, field limits, where the two OpenAI documents disagree, and a pre-upload checklist. Last verified 2026-10-09.
20 min read · October 9, 2026
Creative Automation for Paid Social: Platforms, Workflows and What to Automate First
Creative automation is seven jobs, not one tool. Which platforms automate templating, DCO, feeds, generative AI, QA and trafficking, with pricing checked today.
18 min read · October 9, 2026
ChatGPT Ads Review: Why Ads, Products and Accounts Get Rejected or Paused
How review works in ChatGPT Ads: business verification, industry and domain approval, ad creative review, brand review, and what edits restart review or pause serving. OpenAI's exact wording on rejections, appeals, the Account, Brand and Legal Name rules, where the Help Center and developer docs disagree, what is still email-only, and a fix checklist. Last verified 2026-10-08.
17 min read · October 8, 2026
Facebook Ads Agent: Meta's Own AI vs Third-Party Agents (2026)
Every kind of Facebook ads agent compared: Meta's AI business assistant and Advantage+, the official Meta ads MCP server, and third-party agents like Bïrch, Madgicx, Pipeboard, AdManage.ai and Soku. What each can write to your account, who approves it, the audit trail, and prices fetched 2026-10-08.
17 min read · October 8, 2026
Meta Andromeda Explained: Why Creative Diversity Now Drives Delivery
Meta Andromeda is the retrieval engine that picks a few thousand candidate ads from tens of millions before ranking and the auction run. What Meta has actually said about it, which popular claims (like Entity IDs) Meta has never confirmed, and a creative-diversity audit worksheet plus account-structure rebuild you can use. Verified 2026-10-08.
15 min read · October 8, 2026
ChatGPT Ads Tracking Parameters: Precedence and the Nov 5 Migration
OpenAI now documents a full precedence order for ChatGPT Ads tracking parameters (Feed < Account < Campaign < Ad group < Ad), a Legacy product-feed ordering where feed URL values won, and a November 5, 2026 migration deadline. The exact old and new wording, worked final-URL tables, who is affected, a pre-deadline checklist, how to verify a live ad's URL, and where the Help Center and developer docs disagree. Last verified 2026-10-07.
17 min read · October 7, 2026
How Much Do Facebook Ads Cost in 2026? CPM, CPC and CPA by Objective
Facebook ads cost about $15 per 1,000 impressions, $0.60 per click on traffic campaigns, $27 per lead and $39 per e-commerce purchase in 2026 (published medians). Where each number comes from, how Meta's auction and billing actually set your price, and the CPM-to-CPA math to budget by objective. Verified 2026-10-07.
15 min read · October 7, 2026
How Much Does Google Ads Cost in 2026? CPC by Industry and Budget Math
How much Google Ads costs in 2026: the median search CPC is $5.42 and median cost per lead $66.69 (WordStream/LocaliQ, 13,474 US campaigns). How the auction sets your price, how daily budgets and billing limits work, and a CPC × conversion rate budget worksheet for 23 industries.
15 min read · October 7, 2026