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Practical AIpaid mediaSEOautomation education

I've managed over $1M a month in ad spend and built the tracking, sites and automations underneath it. I write down how it actually works — including what AI changes, what it doesn't, and where I get it wrong.

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Illustration of Ismaeel Motala, digital marketing and AI specialist
Teach

How this actually works.

30 posts → Build

Things I'm building, with the receipts.

1 post → Learn

What broke, and what it taught me.

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What this is

Practical, not prophetic

There's no shortage of people explaining what AI will do to your industry. There's much less writing about what happens when you sit down and build the thing.

I work in paid media, SEO and automation. I've run campaigns for Crocs, Under Armour, Ted Baker and Vans, and for independent businesses where every rand of spend is felt immediately. Both teach different lessons.

Everything here is written to be used. If a post doesn't change how you do something, it shouldn't have been published.

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Ismaeel Motala is a digital marketing and technology specialist based in Cape Town, South Africa. He works across paid media, SEO, AI SEO, analytics and automation, has managed over $1 million a month in advertising spend, and has run campaigns for brands including Crocs, Under Armour, Ted Baker and Vans.

Ask Ismaeel is a practical education site covering AI, paid media, SEO and marketing automation. It publishes explainers, complete build walkthroughs, and honest write-ups of experiments that failed.

Yes. Every post is free to read, with no paywall and no gated downloads.

Weekly.