I'm Ismaeel Motala.

The short version

I started in Computer Science and moved into marketing, which turned out to be the more useful combination. Most marketers can run a campaign but can't read the data properly or fix what's technically broken underneath it. Most developers can build the system but have no view on whether it sells anything. I work in that overlap.

I've managed over $1 million a month in advertising spend and run campaigns for Crocs, Under Armour, Ted Baker and Vans, alongside independent businesses where every rand is felt immediately. Large accounts teach you structure and measurement discipline. Small accounts teach you that a lot of published best practice was written by people who never had to make R5,000 work.

Why this site exists

AI is changing how all of this works, and most of what's published about it is either speculation or a tool list. I'd rather show the actual build: the architecture, the cost per run, the thing that broke and why.

I'm confident about what I know well — paid media, tracking, site performance. I'm openly working things out where the ground is newer, like AI agents and generative search. Both get published. Claiming mastery of a field that's eighteen months old would be an obvious lie, and hiding the experiments would make the wins less useful to you.

What's here

• Teach — explainers you can apply the same day
• Build — complete builds with architecture and costs
• Learn — experiments, failures and open questions

Core subjects: paid media, Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, AI SEO, analytics, automation, websites, CRO and e-commerce.

Working with me

I take on a small number of projects. If something here was useful, or wrong, or you want to talk about work, get in touch.