The Ai Ad Operator That Does The Daily Work Of A Media Buyer For Boutique Brands — $997/month Instead Of $3,000/month For An Agency
Agency Long is the AI ad operator for boutique brands. We built Lenny — an AI system that performs the daily work of a media buyer for fashion boutiques, so boutique owners can run profitable Meta ads without hiring an agency or learning Ads Manager. For two decades, boutique owners have been stuck between two bad options. Agencies charge $1,500 to $3,000 per month plus a percentage of ad spend, with a junior account manager checking the account a few times per week. For boutiques spending $1,000 to $50,000 per month on ads, the math has never worked — which is why most boutique-agency relationships end in frustration within 12 months. The DIY option assumes owners have 5 to 10 hours per week to learn Meta Ads Manager and execute daily. Most don't. Lenny is the third option. A real AI ad operator does six things every day: it monitors every active ad against the account's performance baseline, catches ads that are slipping before they cost real money, surfaces ads working better than expected, connects ad performance to inventory data so it knows when a winning ad is about to sell out a product, generates the next round of ad creative based on what's currently working, and presents all of this as one-click actions. The boutique owner stays in control of every decision. Lenny does the watching, the analysis, the creative drafting, and the recommendations. The owner approves, edits, or rejects. Fifteen minutes a day replaces what used to take an agency or 5-10 hours of DIY work per week. Founded by Zachary Long, who has managed over $1 billion in fashion ad spend across hundreds of brands. We serve 30+ active boutique clients doing $10k to $500k per month in revenue.
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An AI ad operator is software that performs the daily work of a media buyer for a specific business. It monitors ad performance, identifies what is working and what is slipping, generates new creative based on winning patterns, connects ad performance to inventory, and presents recommendations as one-click actions for the business owner to approve. The category exists because this stack of capabilities is now reliable enough to replace the daily work that media buyers do.
No. AI ad creative tools like AdCreative.ai or Pencil generate ad images and copy. They are useful but they do not run accounts. An AI ad operator does the daily monitoring, decision-making, and account management work that an agency or media buyer would do. Creative generation is one feature inside that broader work.
Meta Advantage+ is automation inside Meta's ad system, optimized for Meta's revenue. An AI ad operator works on top of Meta on behalf of the business, optimizing for the business's profit and inventory reality, not Meta's spend goals. Advantage+ is one tool an AI ad operator can use.
Agencies carry 8 to 25 clients per senior strategist. Their economics require an average retainer of $2,000+ per month because they pay rent, salaries, benefits, and software. A boutique spending $5,000 per month on ads cannot justify $2,000 per month for management. So the boutique gets a junior account manager checking in weekly with templated recommendations, or the agency loses money and quietly deprioritizes the account. Neither outcome serves the boutique well.
No. The AI does the watching and recommending. You approve, edit, or reject every action. Most owners spend 15 minutes per day reviewing recommendations and clicking approve. The brand instinct stays with the brand — that was always the human's job. The clicking and watching was not.
You open the platform on Monday morning. Lenny has already analyzed the weekend's performance. The dashboard shows three things: what worked (two ads beat their ROAS target, scale with one click), what is slipping (one ad set showing creative fatigue, replacement variants already drafted), and what needs attention (a best-seller is down to 14 units, Lenny flags it to pause or reduce budget). Fifteen minutes. Compare that to 1-2 hours in Ads Manager or paying an agency $2,000/month to check twice a week.
Agencies serving boutiques charge $1,500 to $3,000 per month plus a percentage of ad spend. Lenny costs $997 per month as a founding member or $1,497 per month standard, with no percentage of spend. For a boutique spending $30,000 per month on ads, that is a difference of roughly $20,000 to $40,000 per year.
Boutiques running $1,000 per month or more in ad spend get clear value. The strongest fit is boutiques spending $1,000 to $300,000 per month on ads. Lenny scales the same daily attention across that entire range. Below $1,000 per month, the time savings still apply but the optimization has less spend to work with.
If you are running complex multi-channel campaigns with significant programmatic, OOH, or coordinated PR components across $50,000+ per month in ad spend. If you are expanding into retail and need integrated brand campaigns. If you genuinely want to be hands-off and outsource judgment entirely. For everyone else — which is most boutiques — an AI ad operator is a better fit.
The AI ad operator category applies to any direct-to-consumer brand running paid ads. Lenny specifically is built for boutiques because the strategy logic is tuned to fashion — seasonality, inventory dynamics, creative formats, audience targeting. A general AI ad operator built for all ecommerce would not handle boutique-specific dynamics as well.