Issue 08 · 3 July 2026 · Freshly compiled CPC index +4.2% · Impression share −1.8%
ISSUE 08 · SUMMER 2026

Auction
economics,
// annotated

A quarterly review of what's happening inside the bid stream — Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, and the ancillary auctions that now decide most digital media spend. Written by practitioners, for practitioners, in a language a CFO can also read.

128 pages 17 contributors £14 / issue
bidfloor@issue-08 ~
$ read --issue 08
# parsing summer 2026...
cover = "The last-click compromise"
benchmarks = 3 // UK retail, SaaS, DTC
autopsies = 2 // £4M and £11M
interviews = 2 // heads of paid
$ write("issue") ✓ ready
01 · Cover essay

The last-click compromise.

Cover
COVER · STRATEGY

Every PPC dashboard is wrong. Some of them are usefully wrong.

The gap between what an ad platform reports as a conversion and what closes the till has widened, quietly, in every account we audited in 2025. We break down the mechanics of the compromise and offer a smaller set of numbers to run the function on.

By Dagny Halloran · 18 min · Strategy
$ read cover.md →
02 · Benchmarks

Three CPC reads, quarter on quarter.

all_benchmarks →
Retail CPC
BENCHMARK · UK RETAIL

UK retail search: the CPC index, Q2 2026.

Across 42 UK retail accounts we track, non-brand search CPC rose 4.2% quarter on quarter. Brand-defence spend rose faster. The delta is the story.

Ruaridh Kastanis · 12 minread →
SaaS CPC
BENCHMARK · B2B SAAS

B2B SaaS non-brand search: plateauing, at last.

After four years of double-digit annual CPC inflation, non-brand SaaS search costs held roughly flat this quarter. We trace where the pressure went — and why it's temporary.

Priya Fenella-Moreau · 10 minread →
DTC CPC
BENCHMARK · DTC

DTC shopping: the margin squeeze in three charts.

Reported ROAS across DTC shopping campaigns rose 8%. Contribution margin, on our shared benchmark cohort, fell 3%. The difference lives in the returns line, and nobody is talking about it.

Malachi Osgood · 14 minread →
// ACCOUNTS TRACKED
341
UK, EU, and US, mid-market to enterprise
// SPEND COVERED
£1.4bn
Annualised paid-search spend in the benchmark cohort
// PIECES IN ISSUE
08
Long-form, all reported in Q2 2026
// SUBSCRIBERS
6.2k
Working practitioners, no ads inside the cover
03 · Autopsies

Two accounts opened, live.

all_autopsies →
Autopsy 1
AUTOPSY · £4M · GOOGLE ADS

How a smart bidding migration lost £310,000 in a quarter.

A UK homewares brand switched from manual to tCPA at the wrong moment in the wrong campaign. The dashboard reported a win. The MMM told a different story. We read both, side by side.

Dagny Halloran · 16 minread →
Autopsy 2
AUTOPSY · £11M · PMAX

The brand-blend that ate an eight-figure account.

Performance Max, allowed to bid on the brand's own trademark, absorbed a share of spend nobody had budgeted for. We reconstruct the quarter and the £600k of reallocated budget that fixed it.

Malachi Osgood · 19 minread →
04 · Conversations

Two heads of paid, at length.

all_conversations →
Interview 1
CONVERSATION · 63 MIN

"I don't touch the bid anymore."

The head of paid at a fintech scale-up walks through what he actually does with his week now that the platforms have taken the bid lever away. Less optimising, more editing.

Ruaridh Kastanis · 15 minread →
Interview 2
CONVERSATION · 51 MIN

The paid lead who runs no Microsoft Ads. She has reasons.

A challenger retail brand has, deliberately, no active Microsoft Ads presence. Her reasoning — commercial, operational, and slightly heretical — is worth an hour of your quarter.

Priya Fenella-Moreau · 12 minread →
05 · The letter

$ tail -f bidfloor

One email, first Tuesday of the month. A single benchmark chart, a short annotation, a link to the piece we most enjoyed writing. Free. Unsubscribing is one click and takes.