paid-ads

---
name: paid-ads
description: Use when creating, optimizing, or scaling paid ad campaigns on Google, Meta, LinkedIn, X, or TikTok — targeting, budget allocation, creative, or bidding.
category: Marketing
version: 1.0.0
tools: []
---

# Paid Ads

Help create, optimize, and scale paid advertising campaigns that drive efficient customer acquisition.

Check the Knowledge Base for existing product-marketing context first, and use it instead of re-asking questions already covered there. Otherwise gather: campaign goals (objective, target CPA/ROAS, budget, constraints), product/offer (what's promoted, landing page, why it's compelling), audience (ideal customer, problem solved, what they search for, existing customer data for lookalikes), and current state (prior campaigns, existing pixel/conversion data, current funnel conversion rate).

## Platform Selection

| Platform | Best for | Use when |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | High-intent search traffic | People actively search for the solution |
| Meta | Demand generation, visual products | Creating demand, strong creative assets available |
| 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 exists |

## Campaign Structure

Organize as Account → Campaign (objective + audience/product) → Ad Set (targeting variation) → Ad (creative variation). Use a consistent naming convention: `[Platform]_[Objective]_[Audience]_[Offer]_[Date]`, e.g. `META_Conv_Lookalike-Customers_FreeTrial_2026Q1` or `GOOG_Search_Brand_Demo_Ongoing`.

**Budget allocation:** testing phase (first 2–4 weeks) — 70% to proven/safe campaigns, 30% to testing new audiences/creative. Scaling phase — consolidate into winning combinations, increase budgets 20–30% at a time, and wait 3–5 days between increases for algorithm learning.

## 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/testimonial → what you do → CTA.

## Audience Targeting

Google targets keywords/search intent; Meta targets interests/behaviors/lookalikes on engagement patterns; LinkedIn targets job titles/companies/industries on 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.

## Creative Best Practices

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

**Video ads (15–30 sec):** hook (0–3 sec, pattern interrupt/question/bold statement) → problem (3–8 sec, relatable pain point) → solution (8–20 sec) → CTA (20–30 sec). Captions always (85% watch without sound); vertical for Stories/Reels, square for feed; native feel outperforms polished; the first 3 seconds decide whether they keep watching.

**Creative testing priority order:** concept/angle (biggest impact) → hook/headline → visual style → body copy → CTA.

## Campaign Optimization

Primary metrics by objective: Awareness → CPM, reach, video view rate. Consideration → CTR, CPC, time on site. Conversion → CPA, ROAS, conversion rate.

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

**Bid strategy progression:** start manual or with cost caps → gather 50+ conversions → switch to automated bidding with historical-data targets → monitor and adjust.

## Retargeting Strategy

Funnel-based: top (blog readers, video viewers) gets educational/social-proof messaging to move to consideration; middle (pricing/feature page visitors) gets case studies/demos to move to decision; bottom (cart abandoners, trial users) gets urgency/objection-handling to convert.

**Windows:** hot audiences (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. Always exclude existing customers (unless upsell), recent converters (7–14 day window), bounced visitors (<10 sec), and irrelevant pages (careers, support).

## Reporting & Analysis

Core calculations: ROAS = revenue / spend; CPA = spend / conversions; CPC = spend / clicks; CVR = conversions / clicks; margin-adjusted ROAS applies the actual margin (e.g. 0.7) rather than raw revenue. A weighted 0–100 account-health score with severity-ranked findings is a useful way to track account quality trend over time.

**Weekly review:** spend vs. budget pacing; CPA/ROAS vs. targets (margin-adjusted, not platform-reported); account-health score trend, investigating any category that dropped; top/bottom performing ads; audience performance breakdown; frequency check for fatigue risk; landing-page conversion rate. Platform attribution is inflated — use UTM parameters consistently, compare platform data to GA4, and look at blended CAC rather than 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, fragmenting budget across too many campaigns, 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 with each other. Creative: only one ad per ad set, not refreshing creative, mismatch between ad and landing page. Budget: spreading too thin, making big changes that disrupt learning, stopping campaigns during the learning phase.

## Communication

Always confirm conversion tracking is in place before recommending creative or targeting changes — a campaign without proper attribution is guesswork. State the rationale (testing vs. scaling phase) behind any budget recommendation. Deliver ad copy as complete, ready-to-launch sets: headline variants, body copy, CTA. Proactively flag when an ad/landing-page promise mismatch is the likely conversion bottleneck.

## Proactive Triggers

- ROAS dropping → check creative fatigue and ad frequency before adjusting targeting or bids.
- First paid campaign → run the pre-launch checklist before touching creative.
- High CTR but low conversions → diagnose the landing page, not the ad.
- Aggressive budget scaling → warn about algorithm learning-phase disruption; recommend 20–30% incremental increases with 3–5 day stabilization windows.
- B2B lead gen via ads → recommend LinkedIn for job-title targeting, and flag that CPL will be higher but lead quality typically better than Meta for high-ACV products.

## Coordinate With
@mention a creative specialist for deep ad-visual or video-script direction beyond basic guidelines, an analytics-tracking specialist for pixels/UTMs/attribution setup, a campaign-analytics specialist for performance diagnosis and reporting dashboards, and a copywriter for landing-page copy that needs to match ad messaging.