Advertising unifies your paid media in one place. Instead of logging into multiple ad platforms, you can:
This works for both retargeting (re-engaging people who know you) and prospecting (finding new audiences).
Go to Advertising in your main navigation. The dashboard shows:
ILLIXIS integrates with 8 advertising platforms. Each platform has its own connection flow, audience sync method, and ad format options.
| Platform | Audience Sync | Ad Creation | Key Strength | Dedicated Guide |
|----------|---------------|-------------|--------------|-----------------|
| Google Ads | Yes (via GA4) | Yes | Largest search network | Guide 163 |
| Meta (Facebook/Instagram) | Yes | Yes | Social + visual targeting | Guide 164 |
| LinkedIn | Yes | Yes | B2B professional targeting | Guide 165 |
| Microsoft (Bing) | Yes | Yes | Lower CPC, no minimums | Guide 159 |
| TikTok | Yes | Yes | Video-first, younger demo | Guide 157 |
| Spotify | Yes | Manual | Audio advertising | Guide 158 |
| Pinterest | Yes | Yes | Visual discovery + shopping | Guide 166 |
| Snapchat | Yes | Yes | AR ads, younger demo | Guide 167 |
Each platform guide covers connection setup, campaign creation, and platform-specific best practices in detail. The sections below provide a summary of what each platform offers within Advertising.
Re-engage people who have visited your website or consumed your content.
How it works:
Best for:
Find new audiences who haven't visited your site yet.
Audience sources:
How it works:
Campaign types:
Audience sync: From Google Analytics 4, ILLIXIS creates audiences based on content consumption patterns. These sync automatically to your Google Ads account.
Campaign types:
Features:
Campaign types:
Best for:
Features:
Campaign types:
Why Microsoft Ads:
Features:
Campaign types:
Best for:
Features:
Campaign types:
What makes Spotify different: Spotify is an audio-first platform. Ad creation is manual -- you provide or produce the audio creative, and ILLIXIS handles audience targeting, campaign setup, and performance tracking. Use ILLIXIS Audio Ad Production to generate voiceover-based audio spots.
Features:
Campaign types:
Best for:
Features:
Campaign types:
Best for:
Features:
What it is: Video ad campaigns using your AI-generated videos from ILLIXIS.
How it works:
Benefits:
What it is: Television advertising for small and medium businesses.
Why it matters: Traditional TV advertising requires $10K+ minimums and media buying expertise. Roku's self-serve platform has a $500 minimum, making TV ads accessible.
How it works:
Targeting options:
ILLIXIS automatically clusters your content by topic. Visitors who read content in each cluster become audience members.
Example: If you have 20 articles about "marathon training," readers of those articles form a "Marathon Training" audience. Retarget them with ads for your marathon coaching program.
Create audiences from specific articles or pages:
Audiences sync automatically to connected ad platforms:
Sync happens every 24 hours, or manually trigger a sync from the Advertising dashboard.
Lookalike audiences help you find new people similar to your best existing customers or engaged readers.
How to create a lookalike:
Seed audience options:
Lookalike percentage:
| Percentage | Reach | Quality |
|------------|-------|---------|
| 1% | Smallest | Most similar to seed |
| 3-5% | Medium | Good balance |
| 10% | Largest | Broader, less similar |
Start with 1-3% for best results, then expand if performance is strong.
Platform-specific behavior:
Best practices:
For detailed workflows, see the dedicated Lookalike Audiences guide.
Create professional display ads without design skills.
Build ads with these elements:
| Option | Best For |
|--------|----------|
| AI Generated | Unique, branded backgrounds |
| Product Image | E-commerce retargeting |
| Upload | Custom brand imagery |
| Solid Color | Clean, minimalist design |
Describe what you want, and AI image generation creates a custom background:
"Abstract gradient with purple and blue tones, professional and modern"
The AI creates unique imagery you own and can use anywhere.
Click "Generate Copy" to have ILLIXIS write:
Copy is tailored to your product, audience, and campaign goal.
For HTML5 animated ads:
After creating a campaign, configure detailed targeting at /advertising/campaigns/:
Set budgets at the campaign level:
ILLIXIS shows estimated reach based on your budget and targeting.
Budget Pacing: The campaign detail page shows a pacing card with:
Budget alerts are checked automatically after each performance sync. You'll see a notification when a threshold is crossed.
Set up rules that automatically take action based on campaign performance. Go to any campaign and click "Manage" in the Rules sidebar card.
Available conditions (metrics you can monitor):
Available actions (what happens when the condition is met):
Configuration:
Example: "If CPA is greater than $50 over the last 7 days, pause the campaign." This lets you set guard rails so campaigns don't overspend while you're away.
Rules are evaluated daily at 10:30 AM UTC. All triggered actions are logged in the Change History.
Clone any campaign (with or without its creative variants) by clicking "Clone" on the campaign detail page. This creates a copy with all settings, targeting, and optionally all ad variants — useful for testing different budgets or targeting on the same creative.
Select multiple campaigns from the list and apply actions in bulk:
Click "Compare" on any campaign to see side-by-side platform performance with Chart.js visualizations. This shows which platforms deliver the best results for that campaign, helping you decide where to shift budget.
Monitor campaigns in real-time:
| Metric | What It Means |
|--------|---------------|
| Impressions | Times your ad was shown |
| Clicks | Clicks on your ad |
| CTR | Click-through rate (Clicks / Impressions) |
| Conversions | Goal completions (sales, signups, etc.) |
| CPC | Cost per click |
| CPA | Cost per acquisition |
| ROAS | Return on ad spend |
Every campaign modification is logged in the Change History sidebar card: status changes (pause, activate, launch), cloning, rule triggers, budget rebalancing, targeting updates, and rule creation. Each entry shows who made the change, when, and what changed.
ILLIXIS provides both manual and automated optimization:
Manual:
Automated:
1. Start with Retargeting Retargeting warm audiences converts better and costs less than prospecting. Build retargeting first.
2. Match Creative to Audience Show marathon ads to marathon readers, not generic fitness ads. Relevance increases conversion.
3. Test Multiple Creatives Run 3-5 ad variations per campaign. Let the platforms optimize toward winners.
4. Set Realistic Budgets Start small ($20-50/day) to gather data before scaling. Premature scaling wastes money.
5. Use Video When Possible Video ads typically outperform static images, especially on social platforms.
6. Track Conversions Properly Ensure your conversion pixels are installed. Optimization without conversion data is guessing.
7. Review Weekly Check campaigns at least weekly. Pause underperformers, scale winners, test new ideas.
8. Diversify Across Platforms Different platforms reach different audiences. Running campaigns on 2-3 platforms simultaneously reduces your dependency on any single channel and improves overall reach.
Q: Do I need existing ad accounts? Yes. ILLIXIS connects to your existing ad accounts on each platform. We don't create accounts for you.
Q: How much should I spend? Start with $500-1,000/month across platforms. Scale based on results. Roku has a $500 minimum per campaign. Most other platforms have no minimum or very low minimums.
Q: Can I use my own creative instead of AI-generated? Yes. Upload your own images and videos in the ad builder.
Q: How do audiences sync between platforms? ILLIXIS creates audiences in your GA4 property, which syncs to Google Ads. For Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, and Snapchat, we use their Custom Audiences APIs directly. Microsoft uses customer match lists.
Q: What's the difference between retargeting and remarketing? They're the same thing. We use "retargeting" to describe ads shown to people who've previously interacted with your content.
Q: Can I run campaigns in multiple countries? Yes. Set geographic targeting in campaign settings. Each platform has different geographic options.
Q: How does billing work? Ad spend is billed directly by each platform (Google, Meta, etc.). ILLIXIS doesn't charge separately for ad spend.
Q: Which platform should I start with? Start with the platform where your audience already spends time. For B2B, LinkedIn is often best. For e-commerce, Meta and Pinterest drive strong results. For broad reach, Google Ads covers the most ground. For younger demographics, TikTok and Snapchat are the strongest options.
Each advertising platform has a dedicated guide with detailed setup instructions, campaign types, targeting options, and best practices:
Related guides:
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