Marketing AI agent · bidding authority
Paid Media and Bidding AI Agent
Treat a bid change as the spending commitment it is: record what changed, how far it could move spend, who approved it, and the standing authority it ran under.
- Typical delivery
- 4–6 weeks
- Deployment
- Your stack
- Named manager
- Authority-bound
- After launch
- Agent Care
What this agent does
Proposes the change, never approves the spend
In
- 01
A change is proposed, and what it could move is worked out before anyone reads it.
- 02
A budget shifts between lines, and the standing authority permitting it is named on the change.
Reason
- 03
A bid ceiling is raised, and how far an automated strategy can carry it overnight is priced first.
- 04
A limit is exceeded, and the change waits on a named manager rather than proceeding and notifying.
- 05
A change is applied, and the part of it nobody can undo afterwards is shown beforehand.
Decide
- 06
A weekend opens, and the tightest guardrails are the ones holding while nobody reads alerts.
- 07
A platform recommends more spend, and the source of that recommendation is labelled on the proposal.
Out
- 08
A change is reversed, and neither the spend already made nor the learning period comes back.
- 09
Execute write actions only inside the approval boundaries agreed during implementation.
Product statement
The agent proposes changes, applies only inside the configured authority and records the approval. A named manager approves anything past the limit.
Example workflow
One change, proposal to approval
- 1Change evidence receivedBid rules, budget records, platform recommendations or delivery feeds
- 2Change context assembledThe line, the budget behind it, the authority it runs under and the day it was raised
- 3Change proposal draftedThe change, its exposure, the authority it needs and completeness
- 4Controls appliedAuthority checks, exposure ceilings, reversibility checks and completeness confidence
No human action required
Stages 1 to 4 run unaided, and nothing is approved at any of them — the agent is proposing, and the finance lane opens at the completeness gate.
Goes to the paid media lead to approve.
Adds a finance manager read first.
Finance review
The change is held with its exposure, its authority and the lines it would touch.
Approve · Append evidence · Send to finance
Approved — by a named manager
- 6Budget and bid records updatedOnly where write access and records policy allow it
- 7Outcome evaluatedExposure accuracy, authority coverage, reviewer corrections and what the read found
Corrections
Each finance correction is counted in the evaluation.
What should not run autonomously
Human approval stays in control
Outside the boundary — human approval required
8 items
- Approving a change above the standing limit.
- Setting the spending limits themselves.
- Committing the brand to a platform contract.
- Deciding what the media budget is there for.
Automation boundary
Agent acts unaided
- ✓Record what a proposed bid change could move before anyone applies it.
- ✓Apply only inside the standing authority your finance.
- ✓Hold the change that exceeds a threshold until a named.
- ✓Show the part of a proposal that reversing it will never give back.
Nothing is approved or committed except by a named person, inside the agreed boundaries.
- Judging whether a spend was worth making.
- Telling finance the quarter is on plan.
- Setting who may approve which changes.
- Changes to budgets, bids or platform accounts.
Example output
One change, annotated
Our media buying and budget assistant builds the plan and proposes the shifts, and our spend pacing triage agent separates a real movement from a reporting artefact; this page is neither of those, because its subject is who inside one company may move budget, up to what limit, and on whose approval.
Change record · single proposal
Illustrative example- Change
- Bid ceiling raised, one campaign line
- Recorded as
- Raised overnight, exposure priced first
- Authority
- Past the limit
- Evidence of record
- Platform change log, 3 August 2026
- Confidence
- Held unapplied
- Held for
- The paid media lead, by name
As received
Taken from the platform change log and the budget record — it reaches as far as those sources do.
What the record holds
- Bid rule before
- Exposure ceiling
- Approval, dated
Why no approval here
Whether this money may run is a budget-holder call, never a model output.
What the score decides
Beyond the configured limit a change picks up a finance read before the manager sees it.
Action
ApproveAppend evidenceSend to financeValue
Where AI adds value
The same four claims, placed at the point in the workflow where each one applies.
Where the value lands
Value 01 – 04
Every change
From the line it would move
Where the evidence is used
Our advertising pages propose to a client who holds the budget; here the keyboard and the budget often sit with one person, so the control worth having stops an unauthorised change.
A bid is a commitment
Automated bidding compounds while unattended, so the limits have to bind hardest overnight, at weekends and across holidays, exactly when nobody is at the desk to read an alert.
What was checked, and not found
No platform publishes the ceiling an automated strategy can reach in an unattended window, no vendor estimate of what a reversal costs was traceable to a stated method, and no independent benchmark for approval thresholds inside brand teams was located.
Build an evidence trail
The change, the budget it moved and the manager who approved it stay on the record.
Integrations
Typical integrations
Five system groups connect to the same agent. Which of them are in scope is decided in discovery.
Bidding and buying platforms
- Search
- social
- programmatic
- Bid rules and change logs
Budget and finance systems
- Planning tools
- finance ledger
- Budget and commitment records
Approval and authority
- Identity provider
- approval matrix
- Standing authority records
Agent
Paid media bidding authority
- Reads the changes
- Prices the exposure
- Holds for the manager
Records and case systems
- Finance tooling
- ticketing
- Approval and audit records
Observability & evaluation
- OpenTelemetry
- Langfuse
- Supported monitoring/evaluation sources
Integration availability depends on the client's existing systems and API access.
Agent controls
Six brakes between the model and the manager
Six brakes applied one after another, the last the hardest. What still runs is named in the map below.
L6 · Outermost — last line of defence
Inward → L1 · closest to the model
- L1 – L2
- Test whether a change may run
- L3
- Puts the decision in a person's hands
- L4 – L5
- Keep the change and the budget behind it
- L6
- Drops to recommendations only when signals degrade
How Nestack evaluates it
Evaluate the whole assembly — not only the change proposal that comes out.
Coverage runs the whole depth of the workflow, and every layer is cut by slice.
Surface — the record a budget holder reads
- E1Final-output evaluationDid the proposal price what the change could actually move?
- E2Step-level evaluationDid the agent read the right line, the right budget and the live bid configuration?
- E3Tool evaluationDid it read and write the correct campaign line and the correct limit?
- E4Confidence calibrationDo low-confidence proposals actually attract more finance corrections?
- E5Slice evaluationHow does performance change across specific campaign lines?
- E6Business outcomeHow many proposals needed a correction before the manager approved?
Floor — the budget the business answers for
Failure modes
Where each failure originates in the agent
Seven failure modes, each placed at the stage where it first shows.
Agent lifecycle
Direction of processing →
01 · Retrieval
1 mode
- LK-03
Stale budget read
The budget read is not the one now in force.
Stage gathers
The lines, the budgets, the rules and the limits
02 · Reasoning
2 modes
- LK-04
Exposure priced too low
A change is applied on an understated ceiling.
- LK-06
Platform advice read as neutral
A vendor recommendation is relayed unlabelled.
Stage proposes
The changes, their exposure and completeness
03 · Tool / write
2 modes
- LK-02
Thin proposal passed forward
A change moves on without the finance read.
- LK-05
Bound to the wrong line
A change is filed against another budget.
Stage writes
Only where write access and approval policy allow it
04 · Output
1 mode
- LK-01
Applied, approval unrecorded
The record shows a change but not who allowed it.
Stage returns
The change a manager approves and finance reads
05 · Change / Version
1 mode
- LK-07
Silent authority drift
A platform update moves the ceiling, not the record.
Stage tracks
Model, prompt, authority rules and change fields
- Sev-1 · unauthorised spend ran overnight
- Sev-2 · wrong budget line was moved
- Sev-3 · source degrades, change held back
Affected slices
Automated bidding absorbs the corrections
A line-level pacing-accuracy figure can read clean while automated bidding lines carry most of the rework. Nestack reports the correction rate by campaign line, not only in total.
Slice performance — reported separately, not only in aggregate
Illustrative example| Slice | Failure rate | Lift | Lift vs. threshold | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automated bidding lines | 9.1% | 3.6× | Review | |
| Broad-match search lines | 6.5% | 2.6× | Review | |
| Retargeting and remarketing | 4.0% | 1.6× | Watch | |
| Brand search lines | 1.7% | 0.7× | Normal |
Bar: correction-rate lift vs. brand search baseline · scale 0–4.0× · tick marks the 2.0× review threshold
2 of 4 slices over threshold
Evidence-linked improvement
What a runaway bid rule costs
The loop shuts when the runaway bid change is a regression case. That suite is what the next change applied is measured against.
Improvement cycle · five stages
Switchback — the path turns at Improve and returns at Learn
- 01
Detect
Correction rate rises on automated bidding lines.
- 02
Diagnose
The bid rule that spent a quarter's budget while nobody was reading alerts is worked back until one cause remains.
- 03
Improve
Any change goes out numbered, with the budgets that caused it attached.
- 04
Verify
One budget case still failing is enough to hold the release back.
- 05
Learn
One case joins the suite, one line joins the approval record.
Learn → Detect
The return edge. The next change applied is weighed against a suite one case longer.
Typical build scope
Twelve workstreams across six weeks
The build scope read against the delivery timeline. Week structure follows the six-week plan — discovery, sources, proposal assembly, evaluation, integration, then production validation and handover.
Workstream
Week 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6
- 01Spending-authority and automation-boundary work.Week 1
- 02Bidding, budget and approval sources.Week 1, Week 2
- 03Change-to-authority and exposure-ceiling mapping.Week 1, Week 2
- 04Change and budget ingestion.Week 2
- 05Line, budget and authority binding.Week 2, Week 3
- 06Exposure scoring and review routing.Week 3
- 07Manager approval workflow.Week 3, Week 4
- 08Bidding-platform integration.Week 5
- 09Pacing and authority cases.Week 4, Week 5
- 10Guardrails and approval controls.Week 4
- 11Change-trail instrumentation.Week 5, Week 6
- 12Deployment, documentation and Agent Care handover.Week 6
12 workstreams · 6 weeks · bar shows the weeks a workstream is active — several run in parallel
Final scope and sequence confirmed in discovery
Engagement tiers
What each tier includes
Rows are the capabilities named in each tier's scope. Higher tiers include everything below them.
| Capability✓ in scope · — not at this tier | PilotOne campaign line, one quarter | ProductionProduction approval workflow | AdvancedMultiple brands / markets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introduced at Pilot | |||
| Proposal assembly to your limits | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Named manager approval | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Managed-budget baseline | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Introduced at Production | |||
| Reporting by campaign line | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Approval workflow in your systems | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Approved write-back | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Bidding-platform integration | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Introduced at Advanced | |||
| Multi-market estates | — | — | ✓ |
| Cross-account approval chains | — | — | ✓ |
| Large account structures | — | — | ✓ |
| Multi-account authority controls | — | — | ✓ |
| Build price | From $5,000 | From $8,000 | Custom quote |
- Final build price
- Confirmed after discovery based on integrations, workflow complexity, spend volume, approval controls and deployment requirements.
- Separate from build
- Build pricing is separate from recurring Agent Care, which covers managed monitoring, evaluations, incidents and verified improvements after launch.
What we need from you
What you bring, and what we build with it
Each input maps to a piece of build scope and a week in the delivery timeline.
You bring
We build with it
01Your campaign lines and the budgets behind them
→Budget mapping and change capture
Week 102Representative bid rules, changes and approvals
→Record binding, authority logic and the exposure baseline
Week 203Your standing authority and its thresholds
→Authority mapping, limit binding and the automation boundary
Week 104Access to relevant APIs, feeds or exports
→Bidding, budget and approval-source assessment, then integration setup
Week 205Changes you would not want reversed
→Pacing cases and the evaluation run
Week 406What no bid change may guarantee
→Exposure scoring, review routing, guardrails and approval controls
Week 307A named manager to approve the change
→Approval workflow, then pilot and production validation
Weeks 5–6
Nothing else is required
Deployment, documentation and Agent Care handover are ours.
Delivery timeline
Four phases across six weeks
The spans below are honest working weeks rather than drawn space, so two of them share week five.
Phase
W1
W2
W3
W4
W5
W6
- DiscoveryW1
- BuildW2 – W3
- EvaluateW4 – W5
- Pilot & LaunchW5 – W6
Week focus
W1Paid workflow discovery, authority mapping and the automation boundary
W2Source integration and the exposure baseline
W3Proposal assembly, authority logic and approval controls
W4Evaluation suite, pacing cases and failure-mode testing
W5Platform integration, pilot changes and targeted corrections
W6One media year run under the paid-media lead, then Agent Care handover
- Reading the band
- Each bar covers only the weeks its own work is named for. Week five doubles up because the work does.
- At the end of W6
- When the change record validates, Agent Care takes the agent on.
- Duration
- Six-week plan shown · typical delivery 4–6 weeks depending on scope confirmed in discovery.
Next step · Marketing AI agent
Build a bidding agent around the change that moved spend before anyone holding the budget had approved it.
Show us one bid change and the authority it ran under. Send a fortnight of change logs and we will hand back the ones nobody authorised. Undoing a change gives back neither the spend nor the learning period, so the irreversible part is shown before it is applied.
- Typical delivery
- 4–6 weeks
- Deployment
- Your campaign lines
- Named manager
- Authority-bound
- After launch
- Agent Care available
Nestack Agents · bidding authority
AGT-MK-08 · Agent Care available after launch