Homework: Publish Your First Ad Campaign

Ads that exist as drafts do not produce data a real campaign running at £5 per day teaches you more in a week than another month of planning

What You Are Building

A completed ADS.md with all sections filled in. A bank of at least 20 hooks generated and filtered to the top 10. One complete Meta ad covering primary text, headline, and CTA for 2 to 3 variations. One Google RSA if Google is your platform with 12 headlines and 4 descriptions. And one campaign set up in Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads that is either live or ready to launch.

Part 1: Complete ADS.md

Fill in every section using the template from the ADS.md lesson.

The three sections that most improve your Claude prompts are:

• What I'm Advertising needs to be specific enough that Claude knows exactly what the ad is for, what the landing page does, and what happens after the click.
• Target Audience should copy the relevant section from MARKETING.md and refine it for the paid ads context asking who is actively scrolling and would stop for this.

Target Metrics requires you to calculate your CPL ceiling today by taking your average project value and dividing by 10. Write the number down. It is your single benchmark for every decision in this campaign.

Run this feedback prompt before moving on:

Using @MARKETING.MD and @SALES.MD — review my ADS.md draft and tell

me what is missing, too vague, or needs to be more specific before I

run my first campaign.

[PASTE YOUR ADS.MD]

Part 2: Write 20 Hooks

Run the 20-hook batch prompt from the hooks lesson with your completed ADS.md.

Filter the output with three tests. Specificity asks whether this could apply to any business. Emotion asks whether it creates curiosity, recognition, or mild urgency. Audience fit asks whether your ideal client would stop scrolling for this.

Keep your top 10. Add them to ADS.md under Winning Hooks as untested candidates. You will mark them as confirmed once they have real data behind them.

Part 3: Write Complete Ad Copy

Take your top 3 hooks. For each one run the complete Meta ad prompt from the Meta ad copy lesson and produce three variations covering the problem angle, the outcome angle, and the social proof angle.

You now have 9 versions of ad copy. Choose the best 2 to 3 to test in your first campaign.

If you are running Google Search: run the RSA prompt from the Google ads lesson, check every headline is under 30 characters, and write the negative keyword list.

Part 4: Produce the Creative

Choose one of these three options.

Option A: Real screenshot. Screenshot your best piece of work such as a website, a booking system, a dashboard, or a before and after. Add a clean border and the headline text in Canva. Simple and authentic.

Option B: Text on background. Write your strongest hook in large bold text on a clean background in your brand colours. No image needed. Works well for testing the message before investing in visual production.

Option C: Brief a designer. Use the creative brief prompt from the creative briefs lesson to produce a brief. Post it on Fiverr or Upwork. Budget £30 to £80 for a static image ad and £80 to £200 for a short video.

Part 5: Set Up and Launch

Set up your campaign in Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads using the structure from the campaign setup lesson.

Create the campaign with a Leads objective at £5 to £10 per day. Create one ad set with Advantage+ Audience, UK targeting, and the correct age range. Upload 2 to 3 ad variations using different copy with the same creative or the same copy with different creative. Confirm the Pixel is firing on the landing page. Then launch.

Let it run for 7 days without touching it.

On Day 7 pull the data, run the Claude weekly review prompt from the reading results lesson, and make one decision.

Post in the Claude Code and Codex Mastery community with the title "AI Ads — First Campaign Live." Share five things: your offer in one sentence, the hook you are most confident about, your platform choice of Meta or Google, your CPL ceiling, and what happened in week 1 even if the results are zero because real data shared helps everyone.

Bonus: Retargeting (After Month 1)

Once your main campaign is profitable, retargeting is the next highest-leverage move.

Using @ADS.md, @SALES.MD, and @MARKETING.MD — write a retargeting ad

for people who visited my landing page but did not submit the form.

These people have already seen the offer. They clicked. They did not

convert. What are the most likely reasons?

Write 3 retargeting ad versions:

1. Addresses the most common objection covering price, trust, or timing
2. Adds social proof they did not see in the first ad
3. Creates a time-limited reason to act now

For each version include primary text, headline, and CTA button.

Retargeting consistently produces CPLs 30 to 60% lower than cold traffic because the audience has already shown intent. Add it after month 1 once you have at least 100 landing page visitors to retarget.

You Are Ready to Run Ads

With a clear offer, a tested hook bank, ad copy written with Claude, a properly configured campaign, and a testing framework to guide weekly decisions, you have everything needed to run paid ads that produce data and improve over time.

Track 2 of the Claude Code and Codex Mastery curriculum is now complete. You have a four-channel client acquisition system covering content, sales conversations, outbound email, and paid ads.

Run the ads. Get the data. Update your ADS.md. Come back and tell the community what you learned.