Ads

Research competitors, create adverts, connect ad accounts, and review paid performance.

The Ads tab lets you build and manage supported campaigns for Google Search, ChatGPT chat cards, and—where enabled—LinkedIn Sponsored Content, then view spend and results next to your other channels.

Ads is a beta workspace and appears only on enabled sites. To discuss access, contact the Cleo team at [e-mail].

What Ads does

• Sets up a managed Google Ads account for you, or connects supported accounts you already own.
• Puts your own payment method on it, so Google charges you at cost with no mark-up.
• Builds adverts for Google Search, ChatGPT Ads, and enabled LinkedIn accounts from creatives you upload or Cleo generates.
• Publishes adverts to your account (paused, so you activate them when ready).
• Reports daily spend and performance alongside your other channels.

Who pays for what

Google bills you directly, at cost. Cleo creates the Google Ads account so you never have to sign up for one, but the account is yours and your own payment method goes on it. Google charges you exactly what your adverts cost, with nothing added. Cleo’s fee for running the channel is a separate charge on your Cleo plan.

Your Accounts screen always shows both figures separately: what Google has charged you this month, and the budget you set. Cleo never folds the two into one number.

You can ask us for access to your ad account, its performance data or its billing history at any time, and you can remove Cleo’s access whenever you choose.

If you connected your own account instead, nothing changes about billing: Google or LinkedIn bills you exactly as if you had built the advert yourself.

Setting up Google Ads

Go straight to the Adverts screen and build your first advert. Cleo creates the Google Ads account behind the scenes the first time you save one. No Google sign-in and no account picker.

Then add your payment method. This is the one step Cleo cannot do for you, because Google does not allow it. Once the account exists, the Accounts screen shows a Payment method step:

1. Enter the email address that should manage billing, and choose Send invitation. Google emails that address an invitation to your new ad account.
2. Accept the invitation from that inbox.
3. Choose Add payment method in Google, then add your card on Google’s billing page. Your Google Ads customer ID is shown next to the link in case Google asks which account you mean.

You can build and save adverts before you finish this. You just cannot launch one until Google has approved the payment method, because Google would accept the advert and then never show it. The step tells you when it is approved.

Google sometimes holds a new payment method for a few hours before approving it. The screen says so rather than telling you it is ready.

One thing Google requires from you. At some point after your ads start running, Google may ask to verify who the advertiser is. Because the ads promote your business, the documents have to be yours, usually your business registration and a named contact. Cleo cannot supply these on your behalf. We’ll pass on Google’s request when it arrives; if it goes unanswered your ads stop running, so it’s worth having them to hand.

Connecting your own Google Ads account instead

If you would rather keep your ads on an account you own and pay for:

1. Open the Accounts screen in the Ads tab and choose Connect Google Ads.
2. Sign in with Google and authorise Cleo for Ads access. This is a separate authorisation to the one used for Analytics or Search Console, so you’ll be asked to consent even if Google is already connected elsewhere.
3. Choose the Google Ads customer account you want Cleo to manage.
4. Google Ads sends a manager link invitation to your account. Open Google Ads and accept it so Cleo’s management access is fully linked. You can still connect and start building adverts before you accept the invitation, but accept it as soon as you can.

ChatGPT and LinkedIn adverts

ChatGPT Ads uses an API key from your ChatGPT Ads account. Campaigns use chat-card creative, a total rather than daily budget, and platform-specific bidding options.

LinkedIn Ads is available on sites where it has been enabled. Connect the correct Campaign Manager account, then configure audience criteria such as location, industry, job function, seniority, company size, and skills. Where enabled, Research can also show competitors’ LinkedIn sponsored posts.

Researching competitors

The Research screen shows what is being bought on Google Search, starting with your own site.

• Your adverts lists every keyword Google showed one of your adverts on, dearest traffic first, with the advert copy as it appeared and a link to the landing page it pointed at.
• Who else is bidding lists the other advertisers showing on the same searches, with how many keywords you share and what they spend in a month.
• Pick any of them and the screen switches to their adverts. A They buy, we don’t filter then shows only the keywords they bid on and you do not, which is the shortest route to a keyword worth adding.
• Use as brief on any row hands that advert’s copy to the advert builder as a starting point.

Two things to keep in mind. The figures are estimated from live search results, not from anyone’s billing account, so treat them as direction rather than exact spend, and they are shown in US dollars whichever market you sell into. This screen needs no connected ad account: it reads public search results, so it works before you have run a single advert.

Creatives and generated copy

Build a library of creatives from the Creatives screen:

• Upload your own images and videos, or attach a video already produced in Studio.
• Generate copy: describe the advert brief (and optionally a landing page) and Cleo drafts headlines, descriptions and calls to action in your brand voice. You can generate more than one option and edit before saving.
• Generate an image for an advert from a brief.

Every creative is checked against the platform’s requirements (character limits, image and video specs) before you can attach it to an advert, and any issues are shown so you can fix them.

Building an advert

Open Adverts and choose New advert. Cleo asks you three things:

1. What you want the advert to do. Pick one of the ready-made packs:
   • Protect your brand — appear first when someone searches for you by name, instead of a competitor buying that click.
   • Win new customers — bid on the searches your site already ranks for, so you hold the paid result as well as the organic one.
   • Promote one page — push steady traffic at a single page, such as a launch, an offer or an event.
2. The page to send people to. Your home page is filled in already; change it if you want to promote something else.
3. A daily budget. The most that will be spent on this advert on any one day. Google charges this to your own payment method.

Cleo then reads that page, chooses the searches to bid on and writes the advert for you. You see the headlines, the descriptions and the searches before anything is saved. Save as draft keeps it; nothing spends until you activate it.

If you want to set targeting, keywords, match types, bidding or sitelinks yourself, Change the details opens the full builder with everything Cleo prepared already filled in.

Publishing adverts

When you publish, Cleo sends the advert to Google Ads or LinkedIn in a paused state, it does not start spending automatically.

Once you’ve checked everything in the platform (or in Cleo), use Activate to start it running. From there you can pause, resume, end or archive it from the Ads tab.

Reporting

Ads syncs your advert performance once a day. The dashboard shows, per advert and over time:

• Spend, impressions, clicks and conversions.
• Click-through rate, cost per click and cost per conversion, calculated from the above.
• Sessions from Google Analytics for ads traffic, where a GA4 property is connected on the site.

If an advert has no activity yet, or hasn’t synced, its figures show as 0 rather than being left blank.

Budget warnings

Cleo tracks each advert’s spend for the month against its budget. You’ll get a notification in the app and an email when an advert passes 80% and again at 100% of its monthly budget, so you can decide whether to adjust it.

If Cleo loses access to your account

Because you have full admin rights on your own ad account, you can remove Cleo’s access at any time. If that happens, reporting and any changes to your adverts stop, and your Accounts screen says so. Your adverts themselves keep running, since they are on your account and your card. Contact us and we’ll ask for access again.

Current platform scope

Ads supports Google Search and ChatGPT Ads, with LinkedIn Sponsored Content available on enabled sites. Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and X campaign publishing are not currently part of this workspace.

Cleo cannot add or change a payment method on your behalf, and cannot pay for your ads. Google does not allow either.

If you have questions about setting up Ads for your workspace, contact the Cleo team at [e-mail].