One desk across every network worth buying.
We're the buying desk between you and the ad platforms — planning the mix, negotiating the placements, and running the spend across search, programmatic, developer networks and direct publishers. We own no inventory, so the only thing we're selling you is judgment.
AI buyers don't move like the audiences most agencies were built for.
A developer reads a benchmark post, lurks in a community thread, sees your founder on a podcast, then signs up three weeks later by typing your name into a browser. A generic media buyer calls that "direct traffic" and keeps optimizing toward the cheapest click. We place your budget across the networks that path actually runs through — and instrument all of them so you can see the whole thing.
Two jobs, done properly: place the media, prove the return.
We're not a dashboard vendor and we're not a creative shop that dabbles in ads. Plugged In is the operating layer between your budget and the networks — planning it, placing it, and reporting on it like an operator rather than a vendor protecting its own numbers.
Channel strategy & media planning
We map where your specific buyer — the platform engineer, the head of AI, the technical founder — already spends attention, then build a spend plan against it instead of copying a generic B2B playbook.
Campaign build & technical creative
Ad copy and landing pages written for people who will absolutely read the docs before they book a call. No breathless "revolutionary AI" filler — specifics, benchmarks, and a clear next step.
Placement sourcing & rate negotiation
We approach the networks, marketplaces and individual publishers on your behalf, benchmark what they're quoting, and negotiate the rate and the terms. You see what was quoted and what we got it down to.
Multi-touch attribution
Tracking wired into your product and CRM so a signup gets credited to every touch that earned it — not just the last ad someone happened to click on the way to the door.
Pipeline & spend-efficiency reporting
Cost per qualified signup, cost per demo, payback window by channel. Reporting written so a founder can read it in four minutes and know what to cut and what to fund.
Continuous testing & reallocation
Creative, audience, and placement tests running on a fixed cadence — with budget moved toward what's converting instead of what looked good in the kickoff deck.
We sit between you and every network worth buying.
You get one desk, one plan and one set of numbers. Behind it we operate accounts across the major ad platforms, demand-side platforms, developer-native networks and direct publishers — chosen per campaign on fit, never on what's convenient for us.
Search & shopping platforms
Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising — category, competitor and problem-led queries. Bing in particular is chronically underweighted for enterprise technical buyers, and it shows in the CPCs.
Social & professional networks
LinkedIn, Meta, Reddit and X — role, seniority and company-profile targeting, plus the subreddit and community surfaces where practitioners argue about tooling in public.
Demand-side platforms
Programmatic buying through DSPs including The Trade Desk and StackAdapt — reaching your audience across the open web and CTV with account-level targeting and proper inventory exclusions.
Developer-native networks
Ad networks built specifically for engineering audiences — Carbon, EthicalAds, Stack Overflow and the documentation, tooling and open-source properties where evaluation actually happens.
Newsletter & podcast marketplaces
Sponsorships sourced through marketplaces such as Paved, beehiiv Ads and Swapstack, plus direct negotiation with the AI and infrastructure publishers who don't list their inventory anywhere.
Retargeting & ABM platforms
Account-based and retargeting layers pointed at docs readers, trial abandoners and your named target list — sequenced so sales inherits a warm account rather than a cold one.
Platform mix is set per engagement and reviewed quarterly. We hold no ownership stake in any network and take no rebate, commission or kickback from a publisher — every recommendation has to survive on performance alone.
The middle is where the money is made or lost.
Anyone can open an ad account. What's hard is running eleven of them coherently, knowing which ones deserve budget this quarter, and getting a straight answer out of the whole mess.
Buying leverage you don't have alone
We negotiate placements and sponsorship rates as a desk with multiple accounts behind it, not as a single advertiser making a one-off inquiry. Direct publishers price accordingly.
One contract instead of eleven
One scope, one point of contact, one reporting spine. No chasing a newsletter operator for an insertion order while your DSP rep pushes a spend commitment you don't need.
Nobody's house money
Platform reps are paid to grow platform spend. Networks are paid to fill their own inventory. We're paid a flat fee whichever way the budget moves — which is what makes the recommendation worth anything.
Comparable numbers across networks
Every platform grades its own homework with its own attribution window. We normalize all of it against your CRM so a newsletter and a DSP can finally be compared on the same basis.
The number that matters isn't cost per click.
Every account we run gets the same reporting spine: what we spent, what it produced downstream, and what it cost to produce it — by channel, updated continuously.
| Channel | Spend | Signups | Qualified | Cost / qualified | Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search — category intent | $18,400 | 412 | 96 | $192 | Fund |
| Newsletter sponsorships | $12,000 | 286 | 71 | $169 | Fund |
| Paid social — role targeted | $9,600 | 340 | 38 | $253 | Test |
| Podcast — long form | $8,000 | 121 | 24 | $333 | Test |
| Retargeting — docs readers | $4,200 | 198 | 63 | $67 | Fund |
Events come from your signup flow and CRM, so "qualified" means what your team says it means — not what an ad platform is incentivized to call a conversion.
Multi-touch modeling so the newsletter that started the journey doesn't get zeroed out by the branded search click at the end.
Ad accounts, tracking, and data live under your ownership from day one. If you leave, the whole system stays with you.
A channel that isn't working gets flagged and cut. We'd rather hand back budget than defend a line item that isn't earning.
Four steps from kickoff to a spend plan you can defend.
First 30 days are about instrumenting and finding signal. After that it's compounding — more budget behind what's proven, less behind what isn't.
Strategy sprint
Two weeks inside your spend, funnel, and buyer. You leave with a written media plan — channel mix, budget split, and the number each channel must hit to stay funded. Yours to keep, and credited against month one.
Instrument
Tracking, events, and CRM connections go in before a dollar is spent. Attribution is the foundation here, not a reporting feature we bolt on at the end.
Launch & learn
Campaigns go live across the planned mix with structured creative and audience tests. Early budget is deliberately spread to find signal, not to chase volume.
Scale what works
Budget shifts toward the channels producing qualified pipeline at a cost you can live with. Losing channels get cut, not quietly carried.
Flat management fee. Your media budget stays yours.
You pay the platforms and publishers directly — we never mark up your spend or take a percentage of it. Engagements begin with a paid strategy sprint so the first dollar of media goes out against a plan, not a hunch.
For teams with product-market fit putting serious budget behind media for the first time.
- Media plan & channel strategy, refreshed quarterly
- Up to 3 channels run end to end
- Ad creative & copy written for technical audiences
- Conversion tracking & event instrumentation
- Monthly efficiency report & review call
- Named strategist, shared Slack channel
For funded companies with a working motion that needs more volume and defensible proof.
- Everything in Core
- Up to 6 channels including direct placements
- Newsletter, podcast & community sponsorships sourced and negotiated on your behalf
- Full multi-touch attribution build
- Landing pages built, tested & iterated per campaign
- Creative testing program with a fixed monthly cadence
- Bi-weekly review, quarterly strategy session
For companies running multi-market spend with a sales organization attached to it.
- Everything in Scale
- Unlimited channels & managed spend
- Account-based targeting aligned to your sales list
- Pipeline, payback & incrementality modeling by segment
- Dedicated pod: strategist, buyer, analyst, creative lead
- Weekly cadence & board-ready reporting pack
- Named senior partner accountable for the account
Management fee only — media budget is billed to you directly by the platforms and publishers. Engagements are 90 days minimum, month-to-month thereafter. A $6,500 strategy sprint precedes every engagement and is credited against your first month.
Specialist units you can bolt onto any engagement.
Each one is staffed and scoped separately, so you're buying a capability rather than a vague uplift in retainer. Add or drop them at 30 days' notice.
A dedicated creative pod producing static, motion, and short-form video on a weekly shipping cadence — built specifically to survive the scrutiny of a technical audience.
A modular landing page system built on your stack, plus an ongoing experimentation program with statistically honest test design — no calling a winner at 40 conversions.
Warehouse-native attribution: event pipeline, identity resolution, CRM stitching, and a modelled view of spend to pipeline that survives an audit by your data team.
Coordinated paid, content, and outbound pressure against a named target list, reported by account penetration rather than impressions.
Paid distribution behind your founders' and researchers' organic work — the posts, talks, and threads that already earned attention, put in front of the accounts you want.
Geo-fenced and account-targeted media timed to the conferences your buyers attend, with pre-event demand capture and post-event follow-through sequencing.
Market-by-market entry: localized creative, region-specific placements and publishers, and separate reporting so a new market can't hide inside blended numbers.
A monthly pack written for your board and investors — efficiency, payback, and cohort behavior framed the way a finance audience expects to read it.
Add-ons are available on Scale and Network engagements. Core engagements can add Creative Studio and Executive Reporting.
Four commitments we don't negotiate on.
Senior people, start to finish
The strategist who builds your plan runs your account. Nothing gets quietly handed to a junior once the contract is signed.
A deliberately small book
We hold capacity rather than fill it. If taking your account would mean under-serving it or a competitor already on our roster, we'll say no.
We report against our own targets
Every media plan states what each channel must hit to stay funded. You get told when we miss it — before you have to ask.
You keep everything
Accounts, pixels, creative files, attribution models, warehouse code. Built under your ownership, portable the day you decide to leave.
Questions we get a lot.
Stop guessing which dollars actually worked.
Start with a 30-minute conversation. We'll pressure-test what you're spending now and tell you plainly what we'd change — including the cases where the answer is that you shouldn't be buying media yet.