launch-ad-campaign

What this skill does

# /digital-marketing-pro:launch-ad-campaign

## Purpose

Create and launch a paid advertising campaign on the specified ad platform with proper campaign structure, audience targeting, bid strategy, budget controls, and compliance checks. Includes mandatory budget safeguards that require explicit re-confirmation when spend exceeds brand thresholds, and sets up post-launch monitoring to catch early performance issues before budget is wasted on underperforming configurations.

## Input Required

The user must provide (or will be prompted for):

- **Ad platform**: Where to launch — Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, or TikTok Ads — must have the corresponding MCP server connected
- **Campaign objective**: Primary goal — awareness (reach/impressions), consideration (traffic/engagement/video views), or conversion (leads/sales/app installs/ROAS target)
- **Budget**: Daily budget or lifetime budget with currency and any maximum CPC or CPA caps the brand requires
- **Campaign dates**: Start date, end date, and any dayparting or ad scheduling preferences (hours of day, days of week)
- **Audience targeting**: Demographics (age, gender, income), interests, behaviors, custom audiences (email lists, website visitors), lookalike or similar audiences, and retargeting segments — with geographic and language targeting
- **Ad creative**: Headlines (multiple variants for responsive ads), descriptions, images or video assets, display URLs, final URLs, and sitelink extensions or callout assets where applicable
- **Bid strategy preference**: Manual CPC, maximize conversions, target CPA, target ROAS, maximize clicks, or platform-recommended — with any bid caps, floors, or portfolio bid strategy settings
- **Conversion tracking**: Which conversion events to optimize for, pixel or tag installation status, conversion value assignment, and attribution window preference (7-day click, 1-day view, etc.)
- **Negative targeting**: Negative keywords (Search), placement exclusions (Display/Video), or audience exclusions to prevent wasted spend on irrelevant traffic
- **Landing page**: Destination URL(s) with confirmation that the page is live, loads under 3 seconds, and has conversion tracking installed
- **Campaign naming convention**: Custom naming format or use the brand's standard naming convention from agency SOPs for consistent cross-platform reporting
- **Ad extensions or assets**: Optional — sitelinks, callout extensions, structured snippets, price extensions, or lead form extensions for Google Ads; instant experience or lead forms for Meta; conversation ads or message ads for LinkedIn
- **Remarketing strategy**: Optional — whether this campaign should feed into a retargeting funnel, and if so, which audiences to build from campaign engagers (website visitors, video viewers, lead form openers)
- **UTM parameters**: Tracking parameters for all destination URLs (source, medium, campaign, content), or auto-generate based on campaign naming conventions

## Process

1. **Load brand context**: Read `~/.claude-marketing/brands/_active-brand.json` for the active slug, then load `~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/profile.json`. Apply brand voice, compliance rules for target markets (`skills/context-engine/compliance-rules.md`), and industry context. Also check for guidelines at `~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/guidelines/_manifest.json` — if present, load restrictions. Check for agency SOPs at `~/.claude-marketing/sops/`. If no brand exists, ask: "Set up a brand first (/digital-marketing-pro:brand-setup)?" — or proceed with defaults.
2. **Verify budget against brand thresholds**: Check the campaign budget against `budget_range` in `profile.json`. If the daily or lifetime budget exceeds the brand's defined maximum, halt and require explicit re-confirmation from the user with the exact dollar amount displayed prominently. This safeguard cannot be bypassed — it protects against accidental overspend.
3. **Verify ad platform connection**: Check which ad platform MCP server is connected and confirm it matches the user's target platform. Verify conversion tracking pixel or tag is active on the brand's website. If not connected, instruct the user to configure the MCP server and tracking first.
4. **Build campaign structure**: Design the campaign hierarchy per platform conventions — campaign level (objective, budget, schedule), ad group or ad set level (audience, placement, bid), and ad level (creative). Apply naming conventions from brand profile or agency SOPs for clean reporting. Structure ad groups by audience segment, keyword theme, or funnel stage.
5. **Configure audience targeting**: Set up targeting parameters per platform specs — consult `platform-publishing-specs.md` for audience field mappings, custom audience upload formats, lookalike source requirements, exclusion list configuration, and any platform-specific targeting features (Google affinity audiences, Meta detailed targeting, LinkedIn job title targeting, TikTok interest categories).
6. **Conduct compliance review**: Check all ad creative against industry-specific requirements — mandatory disclaimers (financial services, healthcare, real estate), prohibited content categories, platform advertising policies (restricted content, special ad categories), and regulated industry restrictions. Flag any creative that needs modification before launch.
7. **Score ad creative quality**: Evaluate ad creative — headline character limits and keyword relevance, description effectiveness and CTA clarity, image and video specs (dimensions, file size, text overlay percentage for Meta), landing page relevance, and ad-to-landing-page message match. Score against platform-specific quality benchmarks and provide improvement recommendations.
8. **Configure bid strategy and budget controls**: Set bid strategy per user preference with appropriate guardrails — bid caps or target CPA/ROAS values, budget pacing (standard vs. accelerated), frequency caps to prevent ad fatigue, placement controls (automatic vs. manual), and device targeting adjustments. Verify conversion tracking is active and receiving data if using conversion-based bidding.
9. **Apply negative targeting**: Configure negative keywords for Search campaigns, placement exclusions for Display and Video, and audience exclusions to prevent overlap and wasted spend. Include brand safety exclusion lists if defined in brand guidelines.
10. **Create approval record**: Run `approval-manager.py` with risk level set to high, or critical if daily budget exceeds $1,000. Generate a campaign summary with projected reach, estimated cost per result, targeting details, creative preview, budget safeguard verification, and compliance status.
11. **Present detailed campaign summary**: Display the complete campaign configuration for user review — platform, objective, budget with safeguard status, audience size estimates per ad group, creative preview with quality scores, bid strategy and caps, projected reach and cost range, and compliance checklist. Wait for explicit approval.
12. **Execute campaign creation via MCP**: On approval, create the campaign through the connected ad platform MCP server. Set campaign status per user preference — active (launch immediately), paused (review in platform before activating), or scheduled (activate on start date).
13. **Verify campaign status**: After creation, query the platform API to confirm the campaign exists with correct settings, is in the requested status, has no policy violations or ad disapprovals, and that conversion tracking is firing correctly on test events.
14. **Set up monitoring schedule**: Define a post-launch monitoring cadence — check performance at 4 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, and 7 days. Set alert thresholds for CPC, CPM, CTR, conversion rate, cost per conversion, and daily spend pacing. Define escalation triggers for budget pacing anomalies or sudden performance drops.
15. **Log execution**: Run `execution-tracker.py` to log the campaign launch wi