Why Freedom, Not ROI, Is the Real Endgame of Running Ads

For over a month I’ve been grinding away at one project, and I’ve finally taken it from 0 to 1.

Next comes scaling. So I can take a break and chat a bit about what I think the endgame of advertising is: freedom.

Shot at Xunliao Bay

First, the thing that has changed my work the most recently: working remotely.

With AI tools, I can be out and about and use my phone to connect back to the computer at home.

Send a few instructions and let Codex or Claude keep adjusting ads, editing scripts, generating content, organizing documents.

On my end I open one of the phone apps, for example Claude’s Dispatch.

And at that moment, outside might be mountains, or the sea, or just an afternoon in an unfamiliar city.

But on the other side of the screen, the computer is still on, the tasks are still running, the system is still moving.

It feels great. Once you’ve experienced it, you know the pleasure this kind of “freedom” brings.

Though Guangdong has been way too hot lately, and humid on top of that, so you can’t stay at the beach for long.

People who run ads want freedom more than anyone

When many people hear “Affiliate”, their first reaction is freedom.

No office, no clocking in, no boss to keep happy.

You’re out, the ads keep running, you wake up and there are a few more payments in the dashboard.

Back then I thought more or less the same.

Who doesn’t want freedom?

But once you’re in, you find out!

Instead of keeping the boss happy, you keep the networks and advertisers happy.

You’re out, and the ads are losing money in a spectacular mess.

You wake up: the dashboard is down, postbacks are lost, the offer is paused, the AM isn’t replying, the invoice is late.

If you haven’t been through these things, you can’t become a free Affiliate.

You think you’re chasing freedom, but for a long stretch you’ve really just found a different way to be tied down.

First it was the office that tied you down, then the computer, and later it was data, accounts, creatives, payments and budgets.

It looks like freelancing.

But a lot of the time, you’ve just moved the office into your own computer.

AI isn’t the entrance, it’s the interface

So now that I can remote back into that computer and have Codex and Claude keep executing tasks for me, I do feel a little dazed.

It was while working on this new project that I suddenly realized the processes I’d built up over many years could finally be taken apart.

Before, many things required me to sit there and do them.

Now part of it can become instructions, can become scripts, can become automation, can become a system I can push forward remotely.

But there’s a precondition.

You have to have a business first!

Without a business, remote access is just remotely opening an empty computer.

Without processes, AI will just generate a pile of files that look busy.

Without judgment, the faster automation runs, the faster it goes wrong.

Without steady cash flow, so-called freedom is just anxiety in a different place.

The cruelest thing about advertising is that it burns money every day to test your judgment.

Pick the wrong offer, lose money. Misread the GEO, lose money. Trust the wrong data, lose money. Scale too early, lose money. Cut too slowly, lose money too.

AI can help you execute, organize, write scripts, draft landing pages, sort creatives.

But it can’t bear the consequences of your judgment for you.

Whether to add budget, whether to stop a campaign, whether this offer is a short-term dip or already dead, whether this traffic source can still run: in the end it still comes down to a person.

More precisely, it comes down to the feel you’ve trained over the years through losses, payments, account bans, scaling and blow-ups.

Shot at Haigui Bay

Freedom isn’t not having to work

The freedom I used to picture was not having to work.

Later I found that’s not realistic.

At least for most Affiliates, it’s not realistic.

We’re not people who lie back and collect rent.

Most of the time it comes from judgment, trial and error, execution and continuous optimization.

Traffic won’t treat you better because you want a rest, platform rules won’t update later because you’re traveling, and ad accounts won’t stop having problems because you’re in a good mood.

So real freedom isn’t not having to work.

Real freedom is not being tied to one fixed spot forever.

You can leave that desk for a while, change places, be on the road, sit by a window and look at the view, then turn back and handle what needs handling.

The work, the business, the system are still there.

That’s already pretty good.

Shot at Shuangyue Bay

So if someone asks me what the endgame of running ads is.

I probably wouldn’t say a higher ROI now, or a bigger budget, or some amazing tool.

Those are all just the process.

The endgame is still freedom.

Not the kind of freedom where you don’t have to work.

But the kind where one day you can finally stand in the wind and glance back at your phone.

The system is still running.

And then keep walking.