Skills
Operate paid media safely with ak:ads-management
Plan, inspect, and optimize paid ads while separating drafts and reports from credentialed account, budget, tracking, and activation changes.
Use ak:ads-management for paid-media setup, copy, targeting, creative briefs,
measurement, account reporting, and controlled optimization. The Skill covers
Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and TikTok Ads at the planning layer. It also
ships direct Google and Meta API scripts whose write actions can change live
accounts, budgets, assets, and delivery state.
Choose ak:ads-management for paid-media operations
Use ak:ads-management when
- You need a platform-specific campaign structure, bidding proposal, audience plan, ad-copy variants, creative requirements, or test design.
- You need to read Google or Meta account reports with approved credentials.
- You need a controlled plan for budget pacing, negative keywords, pauses, activation, or other account changes.
- You want to generate draft image or video assets after separately approving the generation provider, inputs, output location, and possible cost.
Choose another workflow when
- You need a paid-ad strategy and creative package without account operations.
Use
ak:paid-ads. - You need a coordinated multi-channel campaign that includes email, content,
or organic work. Use
ak:campaign. - You need organic social, SEO, email marketing, or website development. Those are explicitly outside this Skill's scope.
- You do not have current platform policy, account access, tracking consent, or an approved spend boundary. Prepare those before any API mutation.
Prepare the account and credential boundary
Provide the platform, campaign type, objective, approved account identifier, audience evidence, offer and claims, geography, exclusions, daily and total budget ceilings, tracking definitions, date range, and desired output. Mark the request as planning, reporting, or mutation; never leave that choice implicit.
The Google script accepts google-ads.yaml or these environment variables:
GOOGLE_ADS_DEVELOPER_TOKEN, GOOGLE_ADS_CLIENT_ID,
GOOGLE_ADS_CLIENT_SECRET, GOOGLE_ADS_REFRESH_TOKEN,
GOOGLE_ADS_CUSTOMER_ID, and GOOGLE_ADS_LOGIN_CUSTOMER_ID. The Meta script
uses META_APP_ID, META_APP_SECRET, META_ACCESS_TOKEN, and
META_AD_ACCOUNT_ID. Keep values out of prompts, output, source control, and
screenshots. Use only the intended ad account and least-privilege provider role.
| Runtime | Invocation | Availability boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | /ak:ads-management ... | Native delivery is the default; plugin delivery is explicit. Provider tools and credentials remain separately configured. |
| Cursor | /ak:ads-management ... | Slash invocation is user-verified. This does not prove equivalent provider, Agent, or Hook behavior. |
| Codex | $ak:ads-management ... | Native Skill discovery is supported. Hook projection is partial and there is no Marketing statusline. |
See Runtime adapters for component-level differences.
Invoke a bounded paid-media task
/ak:ads-management "Google Search campaign for approved brand terms. Inspect the supplied export, draft structure and copy, and propose a $150/day ceiling. Do not use credentials or change the account"/ak:ads-management "Google Search campaign for approved brand terms. Inspect the supplied export, draft structure and copy, and propose a $150/day ceiling. Do not use credentials or change the account"$ak:ads-management "Google Search campaign for approved brand terms. Inspect the supplied export, draft structure and copy, and propose a $150/day ceiling. Do not use credentials or change the account"The Skill argument hint is [platform] [campaign-type], but a safe request also
states the evidence, account, budget, authority, and stopping point.
Follow the paid-media stages
- Define the contract. Confirm objective, platform, account, campaign type, audience, exclusions, claims, landing destination, budget ceiling, success measures, and whether the run is draft-only, read-only, or authorized to mutate.
- Research and structure. Review supplied keyword, competitor, account, and audience evidence; propose campaign, ad-group or ad-set, bidding, placement, and exclusion structure.
- Create reviewable assets. Draft ad copy, creative briefs, variants, and measurement requirements. Generated images or videos are separate network actions and require provider access plus content review.
- Validate tracking. Define conversions, values, attribution assumptions, naming, and report fields. Pixel, CAPI, GTM, customer-list, or similar setup changes data collection and must be approved independently.
- Operate only within approval. Read reports first. Preview exact IDs, fields, amounts, and expected state before any create, upload, pause, enable, keyword, or budget call.
- Measure and document. Record the provider response, account and object IDs, time range, spend units, before/after state, and next review point. Treat recommendations as hypotheses, not guaranteed outcomes.
Separate reads from live mutations
The installed Skill includes scripts/google-ads-manager.py and
scripts/meta-ads-manager.py. Run them only from a trusted installation after
reviewing the current provider API and script source.
| Script surface | Effect |
|---|---|
Google report --days <n> [--customer-id <id>] | Reads campaign performance and prints JSON. It still makes an authenticated network request and exposes account data to the local process. |
Google create-campaign --name <name> --budget <amount> | Creates a budget resource and a paused Search campaign. The amount is a daily USD budget in the shipped script. |
Google pause / enable --campaign-id <id> | Changes campaign delivery state. enable can begin delivery and spend. |
Google add-negative-keyword --campaign-id <id> --keyword <text> | Creates a campaign-level broad negative keyword. |
Google update-budget --budget-id <id> --amount <amount> | Changes the referenced daily budget in USD. |
Meta report --preset <value> --level <campaign|adset|ad> / list-campaigns [--status <value>] | Reads account data and prints JSON. |
Meta create-campaign --name <name> --objective <value> | Creates a paused campaign. The shipped common objective values are traffic, awareness, engagement, leads, sales, and app_promotion. |
Meta create-adset --campaign-id <id> --name <name> --budget <amount> --countries <codes> | Creates a paused ad set; the amount is converted to a daily USD value in cents. Optional age fields are --age-min and --age-max. |
Meta create-ad --adset-id <id> --name <name> --page-id <id> --image <path> --link <url> --message <text> | Uploads the image, creates a creative, and creates a paused ad. These are durable account mutations even before activation. |
Meta pause / enable --id <id> --type <campaign|adset|ad> | Changes delivery state. enable can activate spend. |
Meta update-budget --adset-id <id> --budget <amount> | Changes the referenced ad-set daily budget in USD. |
Enabling is a spend decision
A paused object is still a live account mutation, and an enabled object can
deliver immediately. Before any write, verify the provider account, object
IDs, currency and units, total and daily ceilings, targeting, destination,
creative rights, tracking consent, policy status, and rollback owner. Require
a fresh approval for enable and every budget increase.
Creative generation examples in the package use external commands and can download packages, send prompts or assets to a provider, consume quota, and write image or video files. Approve those effects separately; review brand, rights, disclosure, likeness, claims, and platform specifications before use.
Review outputs and evidence
A complete run should provide the campaign structure, copy and creative variants, targeting and exclusions, bidding and budget proposal, tracking map, test design, and an operation log. For API work, keep the exact command, account and object IDs, before/after state, returned JSON, timestamp, approver, and any provider warning or partial failure.
Do not record credential values. Do not call a predicted CTR, CPA, ROAS, conversion rate, or scaling result an outcome. Historical thresholds and platform specifications bundled with the Skill require current validation.
Troubleshoot safely
| Symptom | Safe next step |
|---|---|
The runtime cannot find ak:ads-management | Confirm Marketing Kit target and scope, restart the runtime, then follow Runtime cannot find a Skill or Agent. |
| A dependency or provider SDK is missing | Stop before mutation. Review the installed Skill and provider's current official setup; do not install or download packages without approval. |
| Credentials or account ID are missing | Keep the run draft-only. Ask the account owner to configure least-privilege access outside the prompt. |
| The report is empty or metrics disagree | Verify account, date range, level, currency, conversion definitions, attribution window, and provider reporting delay. Preserve the raw response. |
| The wrong object or amount appears in the preview | Stop. Resolve IDs and units from read-only account data; do not use a guessed identifier or corrective live write. |
| A write partly succeeds | Do not rerun blindly. Capture returned IDs and provider state, inspect read-only, then prepare a bounded recovery action for approval. |
| Current platform rules differ from the bundled reference | Follow current official provider documentation and policy; treat the packaged material as historical workflow guidance. |
Know the current limits
- The direct scripts cover Google and Meta only; LinkedIn and TikTok material is planning guidance, not a shipped direct API manager.
- Provider APIs, policies, objectives, formats, attribution, pricing, and SDKs can change independently of AgentKit.
- The Skill cannot guarantee approval, delivery, reach, conversion, revenue, CPA, ROAS, or creative performance.
- Runtime installation does not grant provider credentials, account authority, tracking consent, media rights, or budget approval.
Continue with the Marketing Kit overview and Projects, artifacts, and checkpoints for runtime ownership and recovery boundaries.
Design paid-ad campaigns with ak:paid-ads
Build a reviewable paid-media strategy, audience plan, copy, creative tests, and measurement framework without assuming account access or launch authority.
Design affiliate programs with ak:affiliate-marketing
Define partner economics, platform requirements, recruitment, compliance, fraud controls, and measurement without committing spend or contacting partners by default.