Field notes. John Arndt, Soxoa. Published .
Small businesses usually lose ad money in two places. The first is the one everybody talks about: a weak hook nobody stops for. The second is quieter and more expensive. Someone clicks, lands on a page that doesn't match the ad, gets lost on a phone-sized form, or reaches a payment step that errors. You paid for that click, and you never find out what happened.
ad-path-check handles both, and treats the second as the bigger risk.
Ten concepts that are actually different
Ten versions of the same ad with different wording isn't ten concepts. The skill varies the mechanic: a static note that looks like a letter, a phone screenshot of a notes app, the founder talking to camera, a side-by-side comparison, one highlighted item in a grid of grey ones, a plain-text price anchor, a seasonal planning angle, a short demo, a retargeting reminder.
Each concept is tied to one buyer persona and written out in full: what's on screen, the hook, the primary text, the headline, the call to action, the exact landing URL with tracking parameters, and a line of reasoning that's labeled as judgment, not data. Every concept states the same real offer. Any example companies in the ads are fictional, and labeled that way when shown.
Exact targeting
For each ad set: locations, ages, placements, interests or job titles where the platform allows them, the audiences to exclude (people who already signed up), lookalikes if there's a seed audience, and an avoid list of audiences that look relevant but won't buy. The skill looks up what the platform currently offers instead of relying on memory, because those options change often.
The path check blocks launch
This part is non-negotiable. For every landing URL, on a phone and on a laptop:
Open it from the ad's exact URL and confirm the tracking survives every redirect
Check that the first screen keeps the ad's promise
Sign up with a test address and confirm the welcome email and the owner's signup alert both arrive
Reach the payment or trial step in the payment provider's test mode
A test card should succeed, a declined card should show a clear error, and the terms on the page should match the ad.
Confirm the conversion event fires exactly once in the ad platform's test tool
Confirm retargeting and exclusion audiences pick up the visitor
Any failure blocks launch until it's fixed or the owner explicitly accepts it.
What it won't do
It doesn't create campaigns, spend money or enter real card details. The owner launches. And it doesn't put a claim or a statistic in an ad that the business can't back up today.
Get the skill
ad-path-check is part of the free Soxoa Ops plugin for Claude. In Claude Code, add the marketplace with /plugin marketplace add johnarndt/soxoa-claude-plugins, then run /plugin install soxoa-ops@soxoa-plugins. You can read the skill on GitHub before installing it, or copy its folder into ~/.claude/skills/.