> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hightouch.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Paid media

> Paid media teams use Ad Studio to find creative opportunities in their ad performance data, create ad concepts with an agent, and launch the ads they approve. This guide covers the daily workflow, from spotting fatigue to launching new creative.

> [!NOTE]
>
> Ad Studio doesn't require a data warehouse connection or Customer Studio setup. A platform admin connects your ad platforms and sets up your brand in [Context Hub](https://docs.hightouch.com/context-hub/overview). After that, you can start creating ads.

## Before you begin

* Access to a Hightouch workspace with Ad Studio
* A role that includes the `Access Agents` grant. See [Roles](https://docs.hightouch.com/workspace-management/roles.md#agents).
* At least one [ad platform connected](https://docs.hightouch.com/context-hub/connections.md#connect-advertising-and-lifecycle-platforms). Launching ads and reviewing performance both need a connected platform.

A [brand profile](https://docs.hightouch.com/context-hub/brands.md) isn't required, but the agent uses it to match your logos, colors, and fonts, so ask your admin to set one up early.

## What you can do yourself vs. what requires setup

| You can usually do this yourself | Your platform admin sets this up |
| - | - |
| Review ad performance, fatigue, and competitor activity in Insights | Connect ad platforms |
| Create ads in a chat and generate variants, sizes, and motion versions | Create brand profiles and upload brand guidelines |
| Refine ads in the chat or the visual editor, and comment with your team | Upload logo files and fonts |
| Upload assets and add business context the agent can use | Set guardrails for how the agent can modify images |
| Queue approved ads and launch them to a connected platform | Assign roles that grant access to Ad Studio |

If your team also uses [Customer Studio](https://docs.hightouch.com/customer-studio/overview), your data team sets up the customer data you use to build audiences for your campaigns.

## Choose your starting point

| If you want to... | Start here |
| - | - |
| Refresh ads that are losing performance | [Detect creative fatigue](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/insights.md#detect-creative-fatigue) |
| Respond to a competitor's campaign | [Riff on a competitor](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/ads.md#riff-on-a-competitor) |
| Create ads for a specific product | [Choose a product](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/ads.md#choose-a-product) |
| Turn a campaign brief into concepts | [Upload a brief](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/ads.md#upload-a-brief) |
| Make new sizes or motion versions of an ad | [Create more formats](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/ads.md#create-more-formats) |
| Write prompts that get better first results | [Ad Studio prompting guide](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/prompting-guide.md) |

## Core workflow

Most paid media work in Hightouch follows a loop: find an opportunity, create ads, refine them with your team, launch, then use the results to decide what to make next.

### 1. Find an opportunity

Start in [Insights](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/insights.md) to see how your ads are performing across your connected platforms.

* **Performance** shows which ads and messaging angles are working.
* **Fatigue** flags ads that are losing efficiency, so you can replace them before results drop further.
* **Competitors** shows what other brands are running.
* **Signals** surfaces trends you might respond to.

When you find something worth acting on, create a new ad directly from Insights. You can also start from a brief, a product, or an idea.

### 2. Create ad concepts

[Start a chat in Ad Studio](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/ads.md) and describe what you want. Choose a starting point if you have one: a brief, a product from your catalog, an existing ad, a competitor ad, or a trend.

The agent generates a batch of concepts using your brand profile, assets, product details, and business context. Review the concepts and keep the ones worth developing. From there, you can create additional sizes, variants, and motion versions.

> [!TIP]
>
> Ask for several concepts at once, then narrow down. The [prompting guide](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/prompting-guide.md) has templates for common requests.

### 3. Refine and review with your team

[Refine the concepts](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/refine.md) until they meet your standards.

* Ask the agent for changes in the chat, such as a new headline, a different background, or a tighter crop.
* Make precise edits yourself in the visual editor.
* Use comments to get feedback from teammates before you approve an ad.

If your design team wants to polish an ad in their own tools, [hand it off to Figma](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/figma.md) as an editable, layered frame.

### 4. Launch approved ads

When an ad is ready, add it to the launch queue. Then [launch it](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/launch.md): choose the destination campaign, fill in the platform fields, and launch.

You approve every ad before it goes live. Ad Studio never launches an ad on its own.

### 5. Learn from results and repeat

After launch, return to Insights to see how the new creative performs against what it replaced. Use what you learn to decide which concepts to build on and which to retire.

Over time, add the context that improves the agent's first drafts: more [assets](https://docs.hightouch.com/context-hub/assets.md), a [product catalog](https://docs.hightouch.com/context-hub/assets.md#connect-a-product-catalog), and [business context](https://docs.hightouch.com/context-hub/business-context.md) such as messaging guidance and campaign formats.

## Related products

These products work alongside Ad Studio. Ask your admin which ones are available in your workspace.

* [**Customer Studio**](https://docs.hightouch.com/customer-studio/overview): Build audiences from customer data and sync them to your ad platforms for targeting and suppression.
* [**Match Booster**](https://docs.hightouch.com/match-booster/overview): Help ad platforms recognize more of your customers by adding identifiers to the audiences and conversions you sync.
* [**Agents**](https://docs.hightouch.com/agents/overview): Ask questions about campaign performance in plain language.
* [**Intelligence**](https://docs.hightouch.com/campaign-intelligence/overview): Measure campaign results with experiments and holdouts.

## Next steps

* [Ad Studio overview](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/overview): See what you can make in Ad Studio and how the pieces fit together.
* [Create ads](https://docs.hightouch.com/ad-studio/ads.md): Walk through every way to start a chat and generate concepts.
* [Lifecycle marketers](https://docs.hightouch.com/getting-started/lifecycle.md): See how lifecycle teams use Hightouch for email, SMS, and push campaigns.
