Ad Management Intake

What this does. Someone says "I want to run ads on Meta." A good agency would not hand them a twenty-field form. It would read their website first, come back with "here's what I think your business looks like", and ask only the few things it cannot know and cannot afford to get wrong. This skill is that conversation.

The one rule. Ask a question only when both are true:

1. It cannot be inferred. The brand's research, its product catalog and its past campaigns do not answer it.
2. A wrong guess costs something real. Assuming wrong would change money (budget, price, what a customer is worth), claims (what an ad may say), or legal exposure (regulated words, restricted categories, audiences that must be excluded).

Everything else is an assumption, said out loud: "I'm assuming X, Y and Z. Tell me if any of these are wrong."

Limits. At most 4 questions in one turn. At most 5 in total for a brand whose research covers the business, up to 20 for a brand with little or none. Plain business language throughout. No ad jargon unless the user used it first.

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Where this skill's files are

Paths such as references/business-types.md are relative to this skill's own folder, not to your working directory (in GooseWorks: agent-config/skills/ad-management-intake/). The harness docs contract ships with the meta-ad-manager skill, installed beside this one: its contract/RULES.md and contract/templates/.

Choose one mode

1. GooseWorks when the GooseWorks tools are callable (the in-app coworker, or any agent with the GooseWorks MCP). Read references/gooseworks-adapter.md.
2. Local otherwise (a direct Meta host or planning only: intake never touches Meta). Read references/local-adapter.md.

"The adapter" below means the file for the mode you chose.

Inputs

• The user's opening message — what they want ("more trial signups", "sell the new bundle").
• The brand's research — positioning, audience, products, pricing, competitors, past ads. The adapter says where it comes from. This skill never redoes research that exists.
• The product catalog, when there is one — products are referenced by id and never re-described.
• Existing campaigns and their briefs, and anything already in the ads/ docs.
• Mode — progressive (default) or all at once (the user asked to answer everything in one go).

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Workflow

Step 0 — Resume, don't restart

Read in the contract's order: ads/README.md, then ads/brand.md, then the campaign folder if a campaign is in play. Anything already recorded is never asked again. If a fact is there and nothing suggests it changed, use it.

Step 1 — Gather what is already known

Read the brand research, the catalog and the existing campaigns. If the brand has no research, run the adapter's research step first and come back — research is what makes most questions unnecessary. Notes or documents the user gives you count as research. Do nothing beyond what the adapter's research step says: no broad market study of your own.

Step 2 — Build the fact sheet (internal, never shown)

One row per fact the harness needs:

Fact	Value	Source	Wrong-guess cost
e.g. Average order value	~$40	research: product prices	money

• Source is one of: research, catalog, campaign, user, assumed, unknown.
• Wrong-guess cost is one of: money, claims, legal, none.

A row becomes a question only if its source is unknown or a weak guess and its cost is not none. Every other row becomes an assumption you will state. Rank the questions by how much a wrong answer would cost; if they exceed the budget, the lowest-ranked become written assumptions or "unknown — ask at strategy".

A question whose parts settle one fact counts as one question: the budget's total, its run time and any daily cap are one budget question.

Step 3 — Section A: the business (brand level)

Covers what is true for every campaign: business type and model, unit economics (deal size or order value, margin, what a customer is worth, target cost to win one), how long people take to buy, other channels, what ads may and may not claim, and hard safety limits (such as a maximum daily spend). Plus one familiarity question (see How to talk).

Ask only what the next stage needs now. A fact only a later stage uses (lifetime value before any sales tracking is connected, say) is written as "unknown — ask at strategy", not asked.

Step 4 — Section B: this campaign (campaign level)

Covers what is true for this one push: what the money should produce, what is offered and at what price, who it is for, where people land after tapping, the total budget and how long, what number would make it a good run, and which catalog products it features.

Budget is always a total plus a run time. If the user gives a daily figure, ask how long.

In progressive mode, Section A runs at the start and Section B when the campaign is being set up; in one conversation they usually follow each other directly. In all at once mode, send every remaining question from both sections as one numbered list in one message — the user asked for it, so the 4-per-turn limit (which exists for the question widget) does not apply. The asking rule still does: assumptions stay assumptions.

Step 5 — State the assumptions

One message, grouped by topic, in the user's words:

Here's what I'm working from — I'm assuming:

• You sell a self-serve plan at $49 a month, with a 14-day free trial.
• Most customers are small accounting firms in the US.
• People usually decide within a week or two.

Tell me if any of these are wrong.

Never hide an assumption inside a question ("Since you're B2B, what's your ACV?"). Assumptions and questions go in separate, visible places. It is fine to state assumptions in the same turn as the questions, as long as they are clearly separate.

Step 6 — Write it down, then hand over

Write every file in the Output section in one pass, following the contract's rules (whole-file writes, index in step with state.md, decisions.md append-only). Then say in one or two sentences what happens next — the strategy stage drafts the plan — and hand over.

Corrections, at any time

When the user says an assumption was wrong — during intake or weeks later:

1. Rewrite that fact where it lives: business facts in ads/brand.md, this campaign's facts in the campaign brief. Attribute it: "(per <name>)".
2. Append a decisions entry titled Corrected: <fact> saying what changed from what to what.
3. Confirm in one sentence ("Got it — annual plan at $39.99 is the main one. I've updated that.").
4. Do not re-interview. Only re-ask something the correction itself makes unclear.

Business-type examples

A few facts per type that usually pass the asking rule, and why they move money. These are examples, not a checklist. Work out the rest from the rule. More detail, including how to infer each one first, is in references/business-types.md.

Type	Usually worth asking (when research doesn't say)	Why it changes money
Software	How long from first look to paying; self-serve sign-up or a sales call; typical yearly deal size	Decides what a lead is worth and what the ads should ask for (trial vs demo)
E-commerce	Typical order value; how many visitors buy; how many carts are abandoned; how often people reorder	Decides the affordable cost per sale and whether to chase first orders or repeat buyers
App	How many installs turn into payers; revenue per paying user; trial length	Decides what an install is worth — cheap installs that never pay are wasted money
Services / other	Derive from the rule	—

Business type itself is almost always inferable — a Shopify store, an App Store listing and a pricing page with seat tiers say it for you. State it; don't ask it.

How to talk

Business words only. Talk about their customers, their money, their pages. Campaign objectives, optimization goals, ad sets, pixels, conversion events, placements, bid strategies and every id are your vocabulary, not theirs — the launch skill's "How to talk to the user" table is the translation guide. Never ask the user to choose any of them. If the user front-runs with jargon ("CBO, LPV-optimised"), you may mirror their terms back; never introduce a new one.

The familiarity question — asked once, stored, never repeated:

How much have you run ads on Facebook or Instagram before?

• Never, or only boosted a post
• A few campaigns myself
• I (or my team) run them regularly

These map to novice, intermediate and expert. If the user's own messages make the answer obvious (they talk fluently about cost per purchase and frequency), state it as an assumption instead of asking.

Tone by familiarity.

• Novice — each question carries one plain clause saying why it matters ("…so we know how much a new customer is worth to you").
• Intermediate — the reason only when it is not obvious.
• Expert — no explanations. Short questions, precise numbers.

Numbers as choices. A structured question needs 2–4 options, so offer ranges that fit the brand ("Under $30 / $30–60 / $60–120 / More") and let the user type an exact figure. Record a range as a range.

"I don't know" is an answer. Write "unknown — ask at strategy" and move on. Never guess a number the user could not give you.

Decision Rules

• Research answers it → assume and state. Even when the fact matters, if research says it, don't ask it; stating it gives the user the chance to correct it.
• Research is silent, but a wrong guess costs nothing (their brand colours, their office city) → skip it entirely; don't even state it.
• Claims are always the user's call. Whether an ad may name a customer, cite a result, or use words like "clinically proven", "guaranteed", "#1" is asked, unless brand.md already records the answer. Default until they say otherwise: no named customers, no results, no numbers.
• Regulated category (health, finance, housing, employment, alcohol, dating, weight loss, political) → ask what the ads must never say or target. This is legal exposure.
• The budget ran out and questions remain → the cheapest-if-wrong ones become stated assumptions or "unknown — ask at strategy". Never exceed the budget to be thorough.
• The user says "just decide" → every open question becomes a stated assumption, labelled as yours, and carried to strategy as something to confirm. Never silently invent a success number or a claim.
• The user already told you in their opening message → that counts as known. Don't ask it back.
• The objective is never asked. Derive it from what the money should produce.

Output

All files follow the harness docs contract, which ships with the meta-ad-manager skill (contract/RULES.md and contract/templates/ in that skill's folder). Drop the templates' guidance comments when writing. The adapter says where the files and the campaign brief live.

Where	What this skill writes
ads/brand.md	Frontmatter brand_id, business_type, familiarity, updated_at. Every section of the template. Label every fact with where it came from (see Labelling facts below). Claims rules default to "No named customers, no results claims, no numbers unless the user approves one here."
The campaign brief (where the adapter keeps it)	The goal (derived objective), what the campaign is about, the audience, the offer including its price point, featured catalog product ids and constraints. Money and dates go in the brief's own budget and date fields (the adapter says which), never only in prose. The brief text gets a ## Destination section (the landing page) and a ## Success number section. Products referenced by id, never re-described.
ads/campaigns/<slug>/state.md	Created if missing: stage: intake, ids none/[], updated_by: ad-management-intake, each section "None."
ads/campaigns/<slug>/strategy.md	Created if missing, as a version 1 stub: product_ids from the brief, based_on: intake <date>, Goal and Audience filled from intake, every other section "Not decided yet — the strategy stage sets this." If it already exists, leave it alone.
ads/campaigns/<slug>/decisions.md	One entry per intake run (below), plus one per correction. Append only.
ads/README.md	Created if missing. The campaign's row: stage intake, last action "Intake: N asked, M assumed", next action "Strategy drafts the plan".

Labelling facts. Every fact in brand.md and the brief says where it came from, so the next stage knows what it can lean on:

The fact is…	Write it as
Said by the user	"$1,500 over 3 weeks (per Dana)". Use the user's name if you know it, else "per the owner"
Written by the user in notes or a document they gave you	"(per Dana, brand notes)"
From research, and the user saw it stated and did not object	"(from research: pricing page, confirmed by Dana)"
Your own inference the user has not seen or confirmed	"(assumed from <source> — not confirmed)"
Chosen by you because the user said "you decide"	"(our call — confirm at strategy)"
Not known	"unknown — ask at strategy"

Once a fact is confirmed, drop the word "assumed". A confirmed fact labelled as an assumption makes the next stage re-ask it.

The campaign slug is a short kebab-case name from the campaign's own name ("fall trial push" → fall-trial-push). If the harness orchestrator already created the folder, use it.

The intake entry — one line per field, so the contract's validator can read it:

### 2026-09-24 — Intake
- Recommended: Proceed on 8 stated assumptions and 4 answers
- Evidence: intake 2026-09-24; asked: total budget and run time, deal size, claims, familiarity; assumed: business type software (research), buyers are small accounting firms (research), decision in 1-2 weeks (research), …
- Decided: Dana answered 4 questions and confirmed the assumptions
- Outcome: brand.md and the campaign brief written

A correction entry:

### 2026-09-30 — Corrected: main paid plan
- Recommended: Update the main paid plan from assumed monthly ($9.99) to annual ($39.99)
- Evidence: user request
- Decided: Dana corrected it
- Outcome: brand.md Business model and Unit economics updated

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Quality Checks

• No turn has more than 4 questions (outside all at once mode).
• Total questions ≤ 5 for a researched brand, ≤ 20 for a cold one.
• No question asks something the research, catalog or an earlier answer already says.
• Every assumption was stated to the user before it was written down, with an invitation to correct it.
• No ad jargon or id reached the user unless they used it first; the user was never asked to choose an objective, optimization goal, budget type, bid strategy, placement or ad set.
• Budget recorded as a total plus a run time.
• Claims default to none unless the user approved a specific one.
• ads/ passes the contract validator; decisions.md only grew.
• No catalog product description was copied into brand.md or the brief.

Failure Modes

Symptom	Cause	Fix
The user gets a form of 12 questions	Every missing fact was treated as a question	Apply both halves of the rule; rank by cost; turn the rest into stated assumptions
"Is this B2B or B2C?" to a brand with a Shopify store	Asked what research answers	Read research first (Step 1); business type is almost always inferable
The user is asked to pick "conversions vs traffic"	Leaked a Meta setting into intake	Ask what the money should produce; derive the objective
An assumed price ends up in the ad plan unconfirmed	The assumption was written but never stated	Step 5 before Step 6, every time
"What's your LTV?" to someone who has no idea	Asked a later-stage fact too early	Write "unknown — ask at strategy"
A correction re-runs the whole intake	Treated a correction as a restart	Update the one fact, log it, confirm in a sentence
validate.py fails on a new campaign folder	Only state.md and decisions.md were written	The contract needs all three files; write the strategy.md stub
The same question is asked on a second visit	Skipped Step 0	Read the index, brand.md and the campaign folder before anything else