# Ads

URL: /systems/ads · Id: `system:ads`

> Ads places paid and house Ads for Offers to Audiences within Campaign budgets and attributes the conversions they earn.

[Ads](/business/nouns/ad) runs paid and house placements for a [Startup](/business/nouns/startup)’s [Offers](/business/nouns/offer), each [Campaign](/business/nouns/campaign) reaching its [Audiences](/business/nouns/audience) within budget. Each conversion is credited to the Ad that earned it, and spend above a [Limit](/business/nouns/limit) waits for an [Approval](/business/nouns/approval).

## Summary
| Part | This System |
| --- | --- |
| Group | Marketing |
| Status | Beta: it works, and its Verbs may still change |
| Shelf | Front: offered from a Startup’s first days |

You can ask:

- “Spend $200 on ads this week”
- “Show ads to people who visited pricing”
- “Which ad brought in customers?”
- “Pause the ads that are not converting”

## What you get
| Part | This System |
| --- | --- |
| Starts | On for every Startup at creation, with nothing to install. |
| Built from | [Integrations](/code/platform/integrations), [Payment rails](/systems/finance/payments), [Event streams](/code/platform/event-streams), [Market data](/systems/marketing/market-data), [Media](/systems/marketing/media) |

## Nouns it owns
| Noun | Definition |
| --- | --- |
| [Ad](/business/nouns/ad) | An Ad is one paid or house placement promoting an Offer to an Audience, in a format such as search, display, or video. |
| [Campaign](/business/nouns/campaign) | A Campaign is a bounded effort toward a Goal, with a budget, a window, and the Ads or Messages it sends to Audiences. |
| [Audience](/business/nouns/audience) | An Audience is a saved query over Visitors, Leads, Prospects, or Customers, used to target Ads and Messages. |

## Verbs
| Verb | Object | Approval | Event |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Campaign.create](/business/nouns/campaign/create) | [Campaign](/business/nouns/campaign) | None | `Campaign.created` |
| [Campaign.update](/business/nouns/campaign/update) | [Campaign](/business/nouns/campaign) | None | `Campaign.updated` |
| [Ad.create](/business/nouns/ad/create) | [Ad](/business/nouns/ad) | None | `Ad.created` |
| [Audience.create](/business/nouns/audience/create) | [Audience](/business/nouns/audience) | None | `Audience.created` |

## Events
| Direction | Event | How |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Emits | `Campaign.created` | By [Campaign.create](/business/nouns/campaign/create) |
| Emits | `Campaign.updated` | By [Campaign.update](/business/nouns/campaign/update) |
| Emits | `Ad.created` | By [Ad.create](/business/nouns/ad/create) |
| Emits | `Audience.created` | By [Audience.create](/business/nouns/audience/create) |

## States
None.

## Who operates it
| Part | This System |
| --- | --- |
| Accountable | [Marketing Lead](/agents/marketing/marketing-lead) |
| Team | [Marketing Team](/agents/marketing) |
| Seat | A role agent holds it until a Human is seated. |
| Autonomy | `supervised` |
| Also calls its Verbs | [Paid Media Manager](/agents/marketing/paid-media-manager) |

## Approvals and limits
None.

## Processes that use it
None.

## Rail underneath
None.

## Views and dashboards
| View | Shows | Metrics |
| --- | --- | --- |
| The [Marketing Lead](/agents/marketing/marketing-lead)’s view | The Metrics its accountable Role answers for. | [Play-sourced Customers](/agents/marketing#play-sourced-customers), [Fully loaded acquisition cost](/agents/marketing#cac-fully-loaded), [Organic share](/agents/marketing#organic-share), [Referral share](/agents/marketing#referral-share), [Spam rate](/agents/marketing#spam-rate), [Play payback](/agents/marketing#play-payback) |

## Access
What each Access level may call here.

| Access level | May call |
| --- | --- |
| `owner` | Every Verb (15) |
| `admin` | Every Verb (15) |
| `member` | Every Verb (15) |
| `viewer` | Read only (6 of 15) |

## Import and export
None.

## Fees and pricing
Ad spend goes to each ad Venue at the Venue’s price, inside the Campaign budget, and posts to the Ledger as the Venue bills it.

## Availability and limits
| Part | This System |
| --- | --- |
| Status | Beta: it works, and its Verbs may still change |

## Compliance notes
Each Campaign spends within its budget and the Marketing Lead’s Limit; ad claims stay the founder’s.

Controls it carries:

- [Log completeness](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/log-completeness)
- [Boundary protection](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/boundary-protection)
- [Append-only records](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/append-only-records)
- [Upstream review](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/upstream-review)

## Related Systems
- [Product analytics](/systems/product-analytics)
- [Experiments](/systems/experiments)
- [Social](/systems/social)

## Example
A [Dataset API](/products/templates/dataset-api) for legal research runs a $300 test on [Google Search](/workflows/plays#google-search) against 12 [Keywords](/business/nouns/keyword). Ads credits four paid signups to two of them, so the [Marketing Lead](/agents/marketing/marketing-lead) [Agent](/business/nouns/agent) moves the budget to those two. House Ads on sibling [Sites](/business/nouns/site) across the [Portfolio](/business/nouns/portfolio) reach the same buyers for free.