Doctor Ads Request an examination
Igor Ivitskiy, PhD  ·  "The Google Ads Scientist"

Every ad report tells two stories. The flattering one, and the true one. I read the true one.

I am a mathematician trained to catch instruments that lie. Now I examine advertising accounts the way a doctor examines a patient who feels fine. They call me Doctor Ads. What I find, I sign.

Igor Ivitskiy, PhD
#6 of the Top 50 PPC Experts worldwide $770M+ in ad spend overseen 200+ scientific publications
What I do ↓
Exhibit A  /  The Two StoriesReading
MONTH 1MONTH 12 PROFIT the story you are told the one in the bank
What I do
Read the true one, and sign it.
Method
Profit Forensics
The Problem I Work On

Marketing reports are written to be approved, not to be true.

Not because anyone is lying to you. Each layer between you and the raw data simply rounds in its own favor: the platform grades its own spending, the agency summarizes its own work, the deck simplifies for the board. By the time a number reaches you, it has been polished three times. And part of every ad budget quietly buys nothing. Someone with no stake in the answer has to check which part.

RAW DATA PLATFORM AGENCY BOARDROOM DECK 1.9x 2.6x 3.4x 4.6x optimistic attributionaveragedsimplified what the account really earned

Across 116,000 ads I examined, Google's own "Poor" label out-clicked "Excellent" three to one. The labels point backwards. See the finding →

Clarity beats creativity. Precision beats guesswork. Science beats luck.
The Doctor's Practice

Four ways I am useful.

Examine.

Profit Forensics: I take one ad account apart and show which dollars buy customers and which buy nothing. Signed.

Examine my account →

Read.

The Lab: findings from 9.5 million anonymized search queries, published as I go.

Read the research →

Advise.

A few seats for boards and founders: marketing, go-to-market and pricing decisions, checked against the numbers.

Discuss advisory →

Speak.

I share what the data shows: conference keynotes and private sessions for teams and boards.

Discuss a talk →
The Record
"One of the leading Google Ads experts in the world."Perry Marshall
Best PPC Case in Europe, AdWorld 2024 National science awards: the President's Prize, Young Scientist of the Year Business education: Cambridge and Berkeley Author of "19 Google Ads Secrets"
The Ad Profit Lab

One finding at a time, in writing.

The Ad Profit Lab: real patterns from real ad accounts, and what to do about them. No schedule, no noise. When the data shows something worth your time, I write.

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A new finding, this issue and what to do about it no schedule, no noise