Honest, specific answers to the most-searched questions about programmatic advertising, Google Ads, paid social, attribution, and paid media strategy — from a Toronto agency that runs campaigns every day across 13 DSPs.
Get a free 30-min paid media audit →For Canadian and US brands in 2026, programmatic media costs typically range from $5–$15 CPM on display, $20–$35 CPM on online video, $30–$50 CPM on CTV, and $8–$15 CPM on digital audio. Most reputable agencies layer a 15–20% management fee on top of media spend. Realistic minimum spend for measurable programmatic results in our experience is $5,000–$10,000/month total — below that, you don't have enough reach or data to optimize. Want our actual 2026 Toronto pricing across all 13 DSPs we run? See our programmatic page or book a free audit.
Programmatic advertising is the automated buying of digital ad inventory in real time across thousands of websites, apps, streaming TV platforms, and audio services — using software (called a demand-side platform, or DSP) instead of a human salesperson. When someone loads a webpage, a millisecond-long auction decides which ad gets shown to them based on who they are, what they're doing, and how much advertisers are willing to pay. Done well, programmatic is the most precise way to reach a specific audience at scale. Done badly, it's how budgets quietly vanish. More on how we run programmatic.
Google Ads is search-intent-based: someone types a query into Google, and you bid to show up. Programmatic is audience-based: you target a person across the open web, CTV, audio, and apps based on who they are or what they're doing, regardless of whether they searched for anything. Google Ads typically captures bottom-of-funnel demand (people ready to buy). Programmatic builds the top and middle of the funnel (awareness, consideration). For most B2C brands the right mix is roughly 30–40% search, 60–70% programmatic + paid social. See how we build the right mix.
Across our client book we actively use 13 DSPs and each has a sweet spot. The Trade Desk leads on premium open web + CTV. Google DV360 wins for YouTube and integrated Google inventory. StackAdapt is strong for Canadian-specific buys and self-serve simplicity. Yahoo DSP is underrated for native and audio. Amazon DSP is essential for retail-adjacent brands. Adobe Advertising Cloud is best when you're already in the Adobe stack. The right DSP depends on your audience, KPIs, and budget tier — there's no universal winner. Get a custom DSP recommendation.
In 2026, expect CTV CPMs of $25–$45 in Canada and $30–$55 in the US, with premium streaming inventory (Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, Crave) running $40–$70 CPM. Completion rates above 90% are achievable when creative and frequency capping are set correctly. The metric that actually matters for CTV isn't CPM though — it's incremental reach against your target audience. We've seen $35 CPMs deliver better ROI than $25 CPMs because the audience match was tighter. See our programmatic and CTV approach.
For most local service businesses, $1,500–$5,000/month is enough to start gathering meaningful conversion data. For e-commerce or lead-gen brands competing in moderately competitive verticals, $8,000–$25,000/month is realistic to see scalable returns. Anything under $1,000/month per campaign usually doesn't generate enough clicks for Google's algorithm to optimize. The right number is whichever lets you collect 30+ conversions/month per campaign — that's the threshold for Smart Bidding to actually work. More on Google Ads budgeting.
It depends entirely on your margin structure. For e-commerce with 40–50% margins, target a 3.5–5x ROAS minimum. For high-margin SaaS or service businesses, anything above 2x can be profitable. For luxury retail or considered-purchase B2B, ROAS isn't the right metric — track pipeline value instead. The trap most advertisers fall into is chasing ROAS at the expense of growth: a 6x ROAS on $5,000 spend is great, but a 3x ROAS on $50,000 spend often produces more profit. Get a ROAS audit on your account.
Three highest-leverage moves: (1) Fix your conversion tracking first — about 40% of accounts we audit have broken or incomplete conversion data, which sabotages all bidding. (2) Audit search terms weekly and add negative keywords aggressively; most accounts waste 15–25% of spend on irrelevant queries. (3) Restructure into 5–10 tight ad groups by intent stage rather than 50+ keyword-stuffed ad groups — the algorithm performs better with concentrated data signals. Most accounts can drop CPA 20–35% in 60 days with just these three. Book a free Google Ads audit.
Yes, but not as your only campaign. Performance Max works well as a layer on top of strong Search and Shopping campaigns — it fills coverage gaps and finds incremental conversions. It works poorly when used as a primary strategy because you lose granular control over placements and search terms. Best results we see are with this stack: branded Search + non-brand Search + Shopping + Performance Max, with Performance Max getting 30–40% of total Google Ads budget. Always exclude branded terms from PMax. Our full PPC approach.
Meta (Facebook + Instagram) is the workhorse for B2C: broad reach, low CPMs ($8–$15), strong conversion tracking. TikTok is essential for brands targeting under-35 audiences and is the cheapest scale platform right now ($5–$11 CPM) but demands a high creative volume. LinkedIn is mandatory for B2B with deal sizes above $10K — high CPMs ($30–$50) but the targeting (job title, company, seniority) is unmatched. Most balanced paid social mixes split 60/25/15 between Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn for B2C; 20/15/65 for B2B. See our full paid social approach.
The 2026 playbook is different from what most guides still teach. Stop layering audiences and let Advantage+ Shopping or broad targeting run. Fix your Conversions API setup if you haven't — iOS 14.5 broke pixel-only attribution and most accounts still haven't moved to CAPI. Run a creative volume strategy: 8–15 fresh variants per ad set every 2 weeks, not 2 variants every 2 months. And consolidate ad sets — the algorithm needs $50–$100/day per ad set minimum to exit learning. Most accounts drop CPA 25–40% in 6 weeks with this stack. Talk to our paid social team.
TikTok CPMs in 2026 range from $5–$11 for broad targeting, $11–$18 for narrow interest stacks, and $18–$28 for retargeting. Engagement rates are 2–5x higher than Meta on cold traffic when creative matches platform norms (vertical, native, hook in first 1.5 seconds). The trap: cheap CPMs mean nothing if creative refresh cadence is slow — ad fatigue on TikTok hits at roughly 4–6 impressions per user, half what Meta tolerates. Plan for 8–12 creative variants per month minimum. Our TikTok creative approach.
LinkedIn CPMs in 2026 range from $30 (broad B2B targeting) to $80 (senior decision-makers in tech/finance). CPC averages $6–$14. Minimum realistic monthly spend is $5,000 — below that, ad sets can't exit learning. Lead Gen Forms typically deliver MQLs at $50–$200 in mid-market B2B; $250–$700 for enterprise. LinkedIn is expensive but conversion quality is unmatched if your average deal size is above $15K. For deal sizes under $5K, you're usually better on Meta or programmatic ABM. More on LinkedIn for B2B.
GA4 attribution is more complex than Universal Analytics was, but it's also more accurate when set up right. Three musts: (1) Enhanced conversions enabled with first-party data passed via gtag or a server-side tag. (2) Conversions configured as Events with the right counting method (once per session vs every event). (3) Server-side GTM running in parallel to client-side so iOS and ad-blocked traffic gets captured. Most accounts under-report conversions 20–40% because they skip server-side tagging. Get a GA4 audit.
Multi-channel attribution is how you assign credit to each touchpoint in a customer's journey before they convert. If your customer journey spans more than one channel (it does), and you're spending more than $20K/month total (you probably are), then yes — you need it. Last-click attribution dramatically under-credits awareness channels like programmatic, CTV, and paid social, which is why those budgets often get cut prematurely. We typically recommend data-driven attribution in GA4 plus a quarterly media mix model for clients above $50K/month. More on attribution.
For Google Ads with a healthy conversion stream, you should see directional signal in 2–3 weeks and stable performance in 6–8 weeks. For programmatic and CTV, expect 8–12 weeks before optimization compounds — these channels need data volume that takes longer to accumulate. For paid social, 4–6 weeks if creative volume is sufficient; longer if you're refreshing slowly. If you're 12+ weeks in and not seeing clear improvement, something structural is broken (tracking, audience, creative, or bidding) — not a patience problem. Get a diagnostic audit.
Honest answer: it depends on spend level and channel complexity. Below $50K/month total media spend, an agency almost always wins on cost — an experienced senior in-house buyer alone costs $120K+ fully loaded. Above $200K/month, a hybrid model usually wins: in-house strategy + agency execution. Single-channel businesses (only Google Ads, only Meta) can go in-house earlier than multi-channel brands. We've run both models for clients before. More about our agency model.
We're a Toronto-based paid media agency that runs campaigns across programmatic, Google Ads, paid social, CTV, and digital audio for brands in Canada and the United States. We operate inside 13 DSPs and every major paid social platform. Most of our clients are mid-market B2C and B2B brands spending $20K–$500K/month on paid media who want senior strategist attention rather than being handed to a junior account manager. See all our services.
A real one-on-one strategy call with our founder Ryan Roberts. We review your current paid media accounts, identify the two or three biggest leaks in your media mix or attribution setup, and tell you honestly whether your current spend level is sufficient to move the metrics you care about. No sales pitch, no obligation. About a third of brands who book it walk away with a plan they can execute themselves; the rest end up working with us. Book your audit.
Yes. About 60% of our client book is in Toronto and the GTA, with the remainder split across Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, and major US metros (New York, LA, Chicago, Austin). Paid media is location-agnostic on our end; we work in your time zone and report on your cadence. Meet our founder Ryan Roberts.
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