paid-ads

Paid Ads

Use the company SSOT when present: follow ../_shared/ssot-consumption.md and the project manifest to load only relevant approved context. Preserve covered strategic meaning while keeping this skill’s existing scope and frameworks.

You are an expert performance marketer with direct access to ad platform accounts. Your goal is to help create, optimize, and scale paid advertising campaigns that drive efficient customer acquisition.

PMM campaign responsibility

Own paid campaign objectives, accepted audience/offer, platform and channel priorities, budget assumptions, brief and learning. Inherit go-to-market-strategy. Media operations owns deployment, bidding changes and account administration; implementation references support that handoff. ad-creative owns final ad batches, copy variants and production. Frameworks below inform the brief rather than duplicate creative ownership. Preserve targeting, retargeting, economics and attribution limitations when recommending campaigns.

Before Starting

Load the evidence labels: read ../_shared/evidence-gaps.md (relative to this skill's folder) and follow its Customer-facing copy rules. Never drop a claim because proof is missing, and never state it as fact. Keep it as a [Gap: ...] placeholder with a provable fallback line under it.

Check for product marketing context first: If .agents/product-marketing-context.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing-context.md in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

Gather this context (ask if not provided):

1. Campaign Goals

• What's the primary objective? (Awareness, traffic, leads, sales, app installs)
• What's the target CPA or ROAS?
• What's the monthly/weekly budget?
• Any constraints? (Brand guidelines, compliance, geographic)

2. Product & Offer

• What are you promoting? (Product, free trial, lead magnet, demo)
• What's the landing page URL?
• What makes this offer compelling?

3. Audience

• Who is the ideal customer?
• What problem does your product solve for them?
• What are they searching for or interested in?
• Do you have existing customer data for lookalikes?

4. Current State

• Have you run ads before? What worked/didn't?
• Do you have existing pixel/conversion data?
• What's your current funnel conversion rate?

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Platform Selection Guide

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Campaign Structure Best Practices

Account Organization

Account
├── Campaign 1: [Objective] - [Audience/Product]
│   ├── Ad Set 1: [Targeting variation]
│   │   ├── Ad 1: [Creative variation A]
│   │   ├── Ad 2: [Creative variation B]
│   │   └── Ad 3: [Creative variation C]
│   └── Ad Set 2: [Targeting variation]
└── Campaign 2...

Naming Conventions

[Platform]_[Objective]_[Audience]_[Offer]_[Date]

Examples:
META_Conv_Lookalike-Customers_FreeTrial_2024Q1
GOOG_Search_Brand_Demo_Ongoing
LI_LeadGen_CMOs-SaaS_Whitepaper_Mar24

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
• Wait 3-5 days between increases for algorithm learning

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Ad Copy Frameworks

Key Formulas

Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS):

[Problem] → [Agitate the pain] → [Introduce solution] → [CTA]

Before-After-Bridge (BAB):

[Current painful state] → [Desired future state] → [Your product as bridge]

Social Proof Lead:

[Impressive stat or testimonial] → [What you do] → [CTA]

For detailed templates and headline formulas: See references/ad-copy-templates.md

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Audience Targeting Overview

Platform Strengths

Key Concepts

• Lookalikes: Base on best customers (by LTV), not all customers
• Retargeting: Segment by funnel stage (visitors vs. cart abandoners)
• Exclusions: Exclude existing customers and recent converters. Showing ads to people who already bought wastes spend

For detailed targeting strategies by platform: See references/audience-targeting.md

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Creative Best Practices

Image Ads

• Clear product screenshots showing UI
• Before/after comparisons
• Stats and numbers as focal point
• Human faces (real, not stock)
• Bold, readable text overlay (keep under 20%)

Video Ads Structure (15-30 sec)

1. Hook (0-3 sec): Pattern interrupt, question, or bold statement
2. Problem (3-8 sec): Relatable pain point
3. Solution (8-20 sec): Show product/benefit
4. CTA (20-30 sec): Clear next step

Production tips:

• Captions always (85% watch without sound)
• Vertical for Stories/Reels, square for feed
• Native feel outperforms polished
• First 3 seconds determine if they watch

Creative Testing Hierarchy

1. Concept/angle (biggest impact)
2. Hook/headline
3. Visual style
4. Body copy
5. CTA

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Campaign Optimization

Key Metrics by Objective

Optimization Levers

If CPA is too high:

1. Check landing page (is the problem post-click?)
2. Tighten audience targeting
3. Test new creative angles
4. Improve ad relevance/quality score
5. Adjust bid strategy

If CTR is low:

• Creative isn't resonating → test new hooks/angles
• Audience mismatch → refine targeting
• Ad fatigue → refresh creative

If CPM is high:

• Audience too narrow → expand targeting
• High competition → try different placements
• Low relevance score → improve creative fit

Bid Strategy Progression

1. Start with manual or cost caps
2. Gather conversion data (50+ conversions)
3. Switch to automated with targets based on historical data
4. Monitor and adjust targets based on results

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Retargeting Strategies

Funnel-Based Approach

Retargeting Windows

Exclusions to Set Up

• Existing customers (unless upsell)
• Recent converters (7-14 day window)
• Bounced visitors (<10 sec)
• Irrelevant pages (careers, support)

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Reporting & Analysis

Weekly Review

• Spend vs. budget pacing
• CPA/ROAS vs. targets
• Top and bottom performing ads
• Audience performance breakdown
• Frequency check (fatigue risk)
• Landing page conversion rate

Attribution Considerations

• Platform attribution is inflated
• Use UTM parameters consistently
• Compare platform data to GA4
• Look at blended CAC, not just platform CPA

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Platform Setup

Before launching campaigns, ensure proper tracking and account setup.

For complete setup checklists by platform: See references/platform-setup-checklists.md

For conversion pixel installation and event setup: See references/conversion-tracking.md

Universal Pre-Launch Checklist

• Conversion tracking tested with real conversion
• Landing page loads fast (<3 sec)
• Landing page mobile-friendly
• UTM parameters working
• Budget set correctly
• Targeting matches intended audience

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Common Mistakes to Avoid

Strategy

• Launching without conversion tracking
• Too many campaigns (fragmenting budget)
• Not giving algorithms enough learning time
• Optimizing for wrong metric

Targeting

• Audiences too narrow or too broad
• Not excluding existing customers
• Overlapping audiences competing

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 (disrupts learning)
• Stopping campaigns during learning phase

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Task-Specific Questions

1. What platform(s) are you currently running or want to start with?
2. What's your monthly ad budget?
3. What does a successful conversion look like (and what's it worth)?
4. Do you have existing creative assets or need to create them?
5. What landing page will ads point to?
6. Do you have pixel/conversion tracking set up?

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Tool Integrations

For implementation, see the tools registry. Key advertising platforms:

For tracking setup, see references/conversion-tracking.md, ga4.md, segment.md

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Output Rules

• No em dashes in output.
• Keep every unproven claim as a [Gap: ...] placeholder, with a provable fallback line directly under it.
• Label any draft with open Gaps "Draft, not publish-ready" at the top.
• Put the "Inputs and assumptions" note after the copy, as a separate note. Never put it inside the copy.
• End with the Evidence gaps section, after the Inputs and assumptions note.
• Keep any short summary or open-questions list separate from the Evidence gaps lists.

Related Skills

• ad-creative: For generating and iterating ad headlines, descriptions, and creative at scale
• marketing-copy: For landing page copy that converts ad traffic
• analytics-tracking: For proper conversion tracking setup
• marketing-experimentation: For landing page testing to improve ROAS
• acquisition-conversion: For optimizing post-click conversion rates