Ads

---
name: Ads
description: Use when the user wants help planning, targeting, or optimizing paid ad campaigns on Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, or X — budgets, bidding, audiences, retargeting, or campaign structure.
category: Paid & Measurement
version: 2.0.0
tools: []
---

# Paid Ads

Strategy and execution guidance for creating, optimizing, and scaling paid advertising campaigns that drive efficient customer acquisition.

## Before Starting

Search the Knowledge Base for existing product marketing context before asking questions; use what's already there and only ask about what's missing.

Gather (ask if not provided):

**Campaign goals** — primary objective (awareness, traffic, leads, sales, app installs), target CPA or ROAS, monthly/weekly budget, and constraints (brand guidelines, compliance, geography).

**Product & offer** — what's being promoted (product, free trial, lead magnet, demo), the landing page URL, and what makes the offer compelling.

**Audience** — the ideal customer, the problem the product solves for them, what they're searching for or interested in, and whether lookalike-ready customer data exists.

**Current state** — prior ad history and what worked or didn't, existing pixel/conversion data, and current funnel conversion rate.

## Platform Selection Guide

| Platform | Best For | Use When |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | High-intent search traffic | People actively search for your solution |
| Meta | Demand generation, visual products | Creating demand, strong creative assets |
| LinkedIn | B2B, decision-makers | Job title/company targeting matters, higher price points |
| Twitter/X | Tech audiences, thought leadership | Audience active on X, timely content |
| TikTok | Younger demographics, viral creative | Audience skews 18-34, video capacity |

## Campaign Structure

Organize accounts as Campaign (objective + audience/product) → Ad Set (targeting variation) → Ad (creative variation), with 2-3 creative variations per ad set.

**Naming convention:** `[Platform]_[Objective]_[Audience]_[Offer]_[Date]` — e.g. `META_Conv_Lookalike-Customers_FreeTrial_2026Q1`, `GOOG_Search_Brand_Demo_Ongoing`, `LI_LeadGen_CMOs-SaaS_Whitepaper_Mar26`.

**Budget allocation.** Testing phase (first 2-4 weeks): 70% to proven/safe campaigns, 30% to testing new audiences/creative. Scaling phase: consolidate budget into winning combinations, increase budgets 20-30% at a time, and wait 3-5 days between increases so the algorithm can re-learn.

## Ad Copy Frameworks

**Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS):** problem → agitate the pain → introduce solution → CTA.
**Before-After-Bridge (BAB):** current painful state → desired future state → product as bridge.
**Social Proof Lead:** impressive stat or testimonial → what you do → CTA.

## Audience Targeting

| Platform | Key Targeting | Best Signals |
|---|---|---|
| Google | Keywords, search intent | What they're searching |
| Meta | Interests, behaviors, lookalikes | Engagement patterns |
| LinkedIn | Job titles, companies, industries | Professional identity |

Base lookalikes on best customers by LTV, not all customers. Segment retargeting by funnel stage (visitors vs. cart abandoners). Always exclude existing customers and recent converters — showing ads to people who already bought wastes spend.

## Creative Best Practices

**Image ads:** clear product screenshots showing UI, before/after comparisons, stats/numbers as the focal point, real (not stock) human faces, bold readable text overlay kept under 20% of the image.

**Video ads (15-30 sec):** Hook (0-3s) — pattern interrupt, question, or bold statement. Problem (3-8s) — relatable pain point. Solution (8-20s) — show product/benefit. CTA (20-30s) — clear next step. Caption always (85% watch without sound); vertical for Stories/Reels, square for feed; native feel outperforms polished; the first 3 seconds determine whether they keep watching.

**Testing hierarchy** (by impact): concept/angle > hook/headline > visual style > body copy > CTA.

## Campaign Optimization

| Objective | Primary Metrics |
|---|---|
| Awareness | CPM, Reach, Video view rate |
| Consideration | CTR, CPC, Time on site |
| Conversion | CPA, ROAS, Conversion rate |

**High CPA:** check the landing page for post-click problems, tighten audience targeting, test new creative angles, improve ad relevance/quality score, adjust bid strategy.
**Low CTR:** creative isn't resonating (test new hooks/angles), audience mismatch (refine targeting), or ad fatigue (refresh creative).
**High CPM:** audience too narrow (expand), high competition (try different placements), or low relevance score (improve creative fit).

**Bid strategy progression:** start with manual bids or cost caps, gather at least 50 conversions of data, switch to automated bidding with targets based on that history, then monitor and adjust.

## Retargeting Strategies

| Funnel Stage | Audience | Message | Goal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | Blog readers, video viewers | Educational, social proof | Move to consideration |
| Middle | Pricing/feature page visitors | Case studies, demos | Move to decision |
| Bottom | Cart abandoners, trial users | Urgency, objection handling | Convert |

**Windows:** Hot (cart/trial) 1-7 days, higher frequency OK. Warm (key pages) 7-30 days, 3-5x/week. Cold (any visit) 30-90 days, 1-2x/week.

**Exclusions:** existing customers (unless upsell), recent converters (7-14 day window), bounced visitors (<10 sec), irrelevant pages (careers, support).

## Reporting & Analysis

Weekly review: spend vs. budget pacing, CPA/ROAS vs. targets, top and bottom performing ads, audience performance breakdown, frequency check for fatigue risk, landing page conversion rate.

Attribution caveat: platform attribution is inflated — use UTM parameters consistently, compare platform data to GA4, and judge by blended CAC, not just platform-reported CPA.

## Pre-Launch Checklist

Conversion tracking tested with a real conversion; landing page loads in under 3 seconds; landing page is mobile-friendly; UTM parameters working; budget set correctly; targeting matches the intended audience.

## Common Mistakes

**Strategy:** launching without conversion tracking, too many campaigns fragmenting budget, not giving algorithms enough learning time, optimizing for the wrong metric.
**Targeting:** audiences too narrow or too broad, not excluding existing customers, overlapping audiences competing against each other.
**Creative:** only one ad per ad set, not refreshing creative (fatigue), mismatch between ad and landing page.
**Budget:** spreading too thin across campaigns, making big budget changes that disrupt algorithm learning, stopping campaigns during the learning phase.

## Task-Specific Questions

What platform(s) are you running or want to start with? What's the monthly ad budget? What does a successful conversion look like, and what's it worth? Are creative assets ready or do they need to be built? What landing page will ads point to? Is pixel/conversion tracking set up?

## Related Work

For bulk ad copy generation and iteration, use **ad-creative**. For landing page copy that converts ad traffic, use **copywriting**. For conversion tracking setup, use **analytics**. For landing page testing to improve ROAS, use **ab-testing**. For post-click conversion optimization, use **cro**.