Running campaigns

Campaigns

Build a campaign, choose its daily budget and channels, launch it, and manage delivery across mobile web, TV, audio, search, and social.

Your path to a live campaign

1. 01Goal & budget

   Choose the result and daily limit.

2. 02Buyers & where

   Review buyers, locations, and channels.

3. 03Your ads

   Preview and edit your creative.

4. 04Review & launch

   Review funding and start.

On this page

Launch your first campaign

1. Open your business and choose New campaign.
2. Goal & budget: name it, pick one objective, and set a daily budget and dates.
3. Buyers & where: review who your ads reach and where they run, and answer the category question. Open a card only if you want to change something, including Search ads & keywords when Google Search is in the plan.
4. Your ads: preview the ads required for launch (included for businesses; agencies pay published unit prices). If an ad is still being made, you can keep going; it joins when ready. Switch off any you don't want with Don't serve.
5. Review & launch: review the summary and the first charge, then press Launch. Each channel starts as soon as its ad is ready. A campaign with a future start date starts funding on its first day.

You can Save & exit at any step and resume the draft later.

If one optional channel can't run, launch leaves it out, launches the rest, and tells you how to add it back. See Why did my campaign launch without one of its channels?

Check that it's working

1. Open the campaign page. The Channels & delivery card shows each channel moving from Preparing, to Starting, to Live. A channel that could not start shows Didn't start with the reason.
2. Within a day, the Summary tab shows spend and early results, and your wallet shows the daily charge. Reporting from some channels can take longer to arrive.

If no channel goes live at all, the full day's charge is refunded to your wallet automatically.

Objectives

Every campaign has one objective. Pick it while the campaign is a draft; after launch it stays locked (start a new campaign to change it). The objective shapes creative, landing, bidding, and the headline result you see:

• Get known (Awareness): put your name in front of as many of the right people as possible.
• Get visitors (Traffic): send interested people to your website.
• Get leads (Leads): collect sign-ups and inquiries you can follow up on.
• Get calls (Calls): make the phone ring from people ready to talk.
• Get foot traffic (Foot traffic): bring people to your location. Success is Visit intent from Get directions clicks, not website Ad visits.
• Get bookings (Bookings): fill appointment and reservation slots.
• Get sales (Sales): drive purchases and revenue directly.

Budget and flight

• Daily budget: $30 to $10,000 per day, whole dollars.
• Flight length: from 1 day up to 365 days, or open-ended until you end it.
• Channels: the recommended set is Mobile web, Mobile apps, TV, Audio, Google (including YouTube, Display & Discover, and Search), Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Reddit, and TikTok. Audio runs alongside Mobile web when the budget allows. To change the set, choose I'll choose the channels in Where your ads run. See How do audio ads work?
• The daily budget is split for you across channels and buyer profiles. Autopilot rebalances that split daily and runs a larger weekly review from longer results. To set TV's share yourself, see How do I choose TV publishers and set TV prices?

The daily budget covers all media costs, including measurement. Campaign ads for businesses are included. Extra ads and agency ad creation use published unit prices.

The budget guide shows when your daily amount meets a channel's minimum. Google Search runs at any campaign budget and spends from the budget you set. See How do I edit Google Search ads and keywords?

Campaigns default to Autopilot. Switch to Guided when you want Autopilot to suggest changes for your approval instead of applying them. This is separate from the workspace setting that makes new ads wait for your approval. Unlocking ads to pause or resume them does not change Guided or Autopilot.

You don't need your own advertising accounts. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit ads run on Adwave's shared accounts, and Adwave sets up a Google Ads account for your workspace. See Do I need my own Meta, TikTok, Reddit, or Google ad account?

Where ads run

Choose where ads run during Campaign setup: entire US, states, a radius around your business locations, zip codes, metro areas (DMA), or cities. Autopilot recommends a starting area from your service area and locations. The same targeting applies across the channels in the campaign.

Buyer profiles (personas) and Reach

Each campaign chooses which buyer profiles to target for that flight. Every buyer profile carries a Reach plan: Autopilot's suggested interest and demographic buy plan. On a draft, Audience targeting for this campaign sums that plan up in one line. Expand it to see who will see your ads, buyer profile by buyer profile, with readable segment labels, Your pick only on guides you always included, and tap-for-detail on path / reach / fee. You can also Add buyer profile from the campaign: that creates a business buyer profile and attaches it here in one step. At launch, the campaign copies each buyer profile's reach into its own targeting; Autopilot then optimizes that flight. Soft details on the Ad style guide ad writing; they are not the live channel targeting.

After launch, the campaign page Ads and Audience tabs show the campaign's ads and who is seeing them. Audience starts with the buyers who are winning budget; Audiences (how each group is doing) and Where it runs each have their own section, and you can add a customer list from the Buyers view. The business Overview lists campaigns and overall performance for the site. Open Buyers or Profile when you want to edit who you sell to or the site read-back.

Lifecycle

1. Draft: setup runs in three parts. Plan covers Goal & budget and Buyers & where (who your ads reach, where they run, and a required category question that changes which channels can run). Your ads shows the required ad previews, with optional feedback, or Create everything now for a quoted full set. You can continue while ads are being made. Review & launch shows the summary. Use the step list to reopen any completed step, or Change on Review & launch to edit one section and return. Save & exit keeps the draft.
2. Launch: sends your ads to the channels. Ads still being made join when ready. The daily budget starts on launch, or on the first day of a later flight. If the wallet can't cover that day, launch shows Add funds instead. If one optional channel can't run, launch leaves it out and tells you; launch is refused only when no channel could run.
3. Live: the daily budget is charged once per active day, in US Eastern time. Interest and demographic Customize guides you edit later apply to future launches only. Autopilot still manages live targeting: it retires weak interest segments, adds replacements, and can swap demographic filters when delivery stalls (see Profile reach). A live campaign is never paused for low delivery.
4. Channel status: each channel moves from Preparing (gathering early results), to Starting (setting up or beginning to serve), to Live (steady serving). The Channels & delivery card lists Mobile web and TV as separate rows, plus Google, Meta, Reddit, and TikTok when selected. YouTube, Display & Discover, and Search appear under Google, and Facebook and Instagram appear under Meta, as delivery status rather than separate channels to buy.
5. Delivery reporting: before launch, selected channels show Starts at launch. Platform performance shows selected social channels as placeholders until they have delivery to report. TV shows Pending activation until video delivery is live: a ready TV spot alone is not enough. Mobile web shows Needs attention when it is fully paused on a live campaign.
6. Paused / ended: stops all future daily charges immediately. Pausing keeps the campaign resumable; ending is final.
7. Archived / deleted: from the campaign page menu. A draft that never ran can be deleted permanently (ads already made stay in your Ad Library). Anything that has run is a permanent record: archive it instead to hide it from your lists while keeping its ads, spend, and results. Archived campaigns can't launch or resume until restored, and restoring is one click.

Your ads before launch

Open Your ads to check the previews required for launch. Businesses get them included with the campaign; agencies pay published unit prices. You can pick a different person or tone for the ads we make next. Create everything now quotes a full set and charges only when you accept. Or choose Upload your ads to attach finished ads and fill only the formats you still need. Required picture and video previews must be ready before launch. Switch off any ad you don't want with Don't serve.

Google Search ads are headlines and descriptions, not a substitute for image, video, TV, or audio ads. Edit them, and their keywords, on Your ads or in the Search ads & keywords card in your plan. See How do I edit Google Search ads and keywords? See Creating ads for formats and pricing.

Editing the budget

The daily budget is editable at any time, whether draft, live, or paused. Today’s charge stands; the new amount applies from the next daily charge. There is no proration, and the change propagates to the channels for you.

Renaming a campaign

You can rename a campaign at any time (before launch, while it’s live or paused, even after it has ended) using the pencil next to the title on the campaign page. The name is just a label: reports, history, and delivery follow the campaign itself, so renaming never affects serving or billing. The only moment a rename waits is the Campaign setup launch step itself.

Measurement before launch

Draft campaigns surface a measurement checklist: the site tag should have recorded a visit, and something should count as a conversion (Form conversions and/or a thank-you URL rule). Cost per conversion works from there. To unlock return on spend, set what a win is worth on Tracking. Until then Autopilot still optimizes for cost per conversion.

Pausing and restoring delivery

You can pause or end a campaign anytime. Pausing stops future daily charges; today's charge stands. If the wallet can't cover a day, the campaign pauses automatically. Add funds and it starts again on its own within the hour, or press Resume to restart it right away.

Low delivery never pauses a live campaign. If a campaign delivers little or nothing, it stays live and Autopilot keeps adjusting audiences, bids, and ads. A day when nothing can serve is not charged, and a day that runs under budget is credited back. See Will my campaign pause if it isn't delivering?

If a campaign shows Rebuild reach, its interest audiences ran out. Press it to plan new audiences; ads turn back on automatically when the rebuild finishes. You are not charged while a campaign is paused.

Performance after launch

On a live campaign, the Performance tab shows last-touch results (spend, conversions, CPA, ROAS) plus assisted conversions when another channel on the same campaign touched someone earlier. Use the period control (All time, Last 30 days, Last 7 days, Yesterday, or Today) to filter those results; days follow the US Eastern billing calendar and Last 7 / Last 30 include today. Assists are reporting-only and do not change wallet charges. When enough of the budget sits in a holdback, the Lift scorecard compares treated vs holdout outcomes. Autopilot may soft-credit recent assists when shifting journey-stage mix; that does not change last-touch attribution. Full methodology: Assisted conversions and Lift.