Mike Vakulenko. $35M+ managed across Taboola, Outbrain, Mediago, Newsbreak, Microsoft Audience, MGID, and others. Campaign experience with Plarium, Bigpoint, Innogames, Yoozoo, NeuroNation, PokerStrategy, Shoop, and Hitfox — plus 50+ direct-response brands across gaming, e-commerce, supplements, subscription, and lead gen (many under NDA). I'm the strategic lead on every account I take — and the person you meet on the first call is the person directing the work, every week.
Is this a fit?
When I run the ads
Plarium — gaming MMO, scaled native traffic across Outbrain and Taboola.
The original funnel sent cold native traffic straight to the conversion step. Real conversions, but expensive. The lever: a pre-qualifying landing page upstream. I architected and ran it — it warmed up the cold traffic, answered objections, filtered for fit, then handed the warm visitor to the conversion step. Same ad spend, 60–70% drop in CPA.
Brain training · subscription
NeuroNation
3× ROAS
Replaced direct-to-app-store native traffic with story-driven advertorials that warmed the visitor before the install ask.
Gaming MMO · under NDA
Gaming MMO (NDA)
180% ROAS
Sustained over 6 months at 7-figure spend across MGID, Taboola, Outbrain, and Google Display (GDN). Systematic creative iteration — hundreds of visuals and landing-page variants.
DTC e-commerce · under NDA
Dog-niche DTC (NDA)
140% ROAS
Story-driven advertorials on 6-figure native spend. Editorial format, not product-page traffic.
How I work
I specialize in native because that's where direct-response math currently works. Taboola, Outbrain, Mediago, Newsbreak, Microsoft Audience, MGID, and others — six-plus platforms, eleven years deep.
I'm the strategic lead on every account I take. I own direction, testing, and the weekly readouts. A small team I supervise handles execution — creative iteration, daily optimization, tracking — often alongside your internal team. Senior ownership, plus the capacity to move fast.
I build the attribution stack myself — Voluum, RedTrack, Bemob, AppsFlyer, Adjust, GA4. Set up before the spend climbs, not cleaned up after the budget's gone.
Three years of testing every AI tool that touched media buying. The ones that earn their place, I use — for creative iteration, copy variants, attribution analysis. The rest waste your money. AI is a tool, not the brand.
Common questions
We're already running on Meta and Google. Do we even need native?
Maybe — that's part of what the audit answers. About half the brands I work with come from Meta/Google having plateaued. The other half are on native already but want a dedicated specialist. If native doesn't fit your offer or stage, I'll tell you that on the audit call instead of selling you something.
We have a Taboola/Outbrain account manager already. What's different about working with you?
Platform account managers are excellent — and they support hundreds of advertisers at once. I support a small number. Most of my clients in this position keep their platform AM relationship intact and add me for the dedicated account-level work the platform team doesn't have time for at scale: creative iteration, advertorial production, attribution, pre-qualifying funnels.
Who actually runs my account?
I'm the strategic lead on every account I take. I own direction, testing roadmap, and the weekly readouts. A small team I supervise handles the execution layer — creative iteration, daily optimization, tracking — often working directly with your internal team. You get one senior owner of the outcome, plus the execution capacity to move at native speed.
→ Meet Mike.What's the minimum spend?
Retainers start around $25K/mo. For one-off work, the advertorial package — three variants for proper A/B testing on three different direct-response frameworks — is a fixed-scope project, quoted per brief. If you're under $25K/mo, the advertorial package is almost always the better starting point.
→ See what's in the package.Do you use AI?
Yes, where it earns its place. Three years of testing every AI tool that touched media buying — creative iteration, copy variants, attribution analysis. The ones that work, I use. I don't sell "AI services" — I'm a native media buyer who happens to be current.
How fast can you start?
Audit within 5 business days of intake. Campaign launch depends on tracking + creative readiness — typical first launch is 2–4 weeks.
Start with a free native ads audit — a review of your offer, funnel, tracking, and where native could fit (or whether it should fit at all). No pitch unless there's real fit.