01 / BEHIND THE BUY
Auction mechanics
Understand how inventory is priced and won, so bidding decisions support the audience, timing, and budget.
Smarter buying decisions.
ABOUT CIPHER
Built closer
to the machinery.
Cipher was created to bring platform-side knowledge and senior-level media expertise directly to the organizations spending the money.
After six years inside Meta’s political advertising operation across two presidential cycles, we saw the industry from a perspective most buyers never get: how platforms work, how campaigns are built, how optimization decisions get made, where media economics become opaque, and where seemingly small technical decisions can materially change the outcome.
Cipher exists to put that knowledge to work for clients.
WHY CIPHER EXISTS
The media got more complicated.
The relationship didn’t need to.
MORE CAPABILITY. MORE COMPLEXITY.
More moving parts.
Too many layers.
Platforms, buying systems, data, fees, and measurement models. Modern media offers extraordinary capability—and a lot to navigate.
Larger agencies often add more people between the client and the people doing the work.
COMPLEXITY, DECODED.
Closer to the work.
Clearer on the why.
Direct access to senior people who stay close to strategy and execution. Clear pricing, recommendations with a reason, and reporting that explains what happened.
Highly technical behind the scenes.
Refreshingly clear in front of you.
The dark arts, without the black box.
There is a side of modern media most clients should never have to spend their day thinking about.
EXPLORE THE WORK BEHIND THE BUY
02 / BEHIND THE BUY
Audience matching
Connect the audience strategy to the signals and targeting options available across platforms.
A clearer path to the right people.
03 / BEHIND THE BUY
Frequency controls
Balance repeated exposure with incremental reach, keeping the message visible without overworking the same audience.
Repetition with a reason.
04 / BEHIND THE BUY
Inventory paths
Look closely at where placements come from, how they are sold, and what the budget is actually buying.
More visibility into the buy.
05 / BEHIND THE BUY
Platform optimization
Read delivery and performance signals, then adjust the campaign when the evidence supports a change.
Adjustments grounded in evidence.
06 / BEHIND THE BUY
Attribution
Connect media exposure and conversion activity to the question the campaign needs to answer.
Measurement with a purpose.
07 / BEHIND THE BUY
Mixed media models
Look across channels to understand how the mix works together, with modeling appropriate to the available data.
One view across the media mix.
08 / BEHIND THE BUY
Technical setup
Get the campaign structure, tracking, and platform details in place before the budget starts moving.
A stronger foundation for delivery.
The countless small choices between an approved budget and a delivered campaign.
We like that part.
Cipher’s value is not making the technical work look mysterious. It is knowing that machinery well enough to make the decisions around it simpler.
Outcomes before activity.
A metric matters because it helps answer a question, not because a platform makes it easy to report.
Transparency makes the work better.
Clients should understand what they are buying, where the money is going, and why we are recommending one decision over another.
Senior attention is part of the product.
Experience loses value when it disappears after the pitch.
The people responsible for the thinking should remain connected to the work.
Good advice is not always agreement.
If we think a requested tactic, platform, or allocation works against the objective, we will say so.
Our job is to help make the right decision, not simply execute the first one.
Complexity belongs behind the scenes.
The harder our work becomes technically, the more important it is that the client experience remains straightforward.
PLATFORM-SIDE EXPERIENCE
6 years
Inside Meta political advertising
2 cycles
Presidential election experience
Multi-channel
Planning + buying
One standard
Know why the money is moving
THE TEAM
Small by
design.
Cipher is built around direct access to experienced people rather than layers of account management.
The person discussing the strategy should understand the buy. The person interpreting the results should understand why the campaign was structured the way it was in the first place.
That continuity keeps the work faster, clearer, and more accountable.
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[Zach Gregory]
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[Short bio placeholder] Platform-side media expertise, political advertising, programmatic strategy, measurement, and cross-channel buying.
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WHAT WE ARE NOT
We are not a self-service platform.
We are not a giant agency with a dozen people between the pitch and the buy.
We are not a political shop trying to force every problem through a campaign template.
And we do not believe more dashboards automatically create more clarity.
Cipher is a focused media partner for organizations that want experienced people thinking carefully about where the money goes.