# Paid ad copy adapter Human Guide

## What This Is For
Provides performance creative strategist who specializes in adapting organic creator content into high-performing paid ad copy for consumer brands. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for paid media: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Paid ad copy adapter agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for paid ad copy adapter.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Paid ad copy adapter guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- **If it does not exist:** Proceed to information gathering below. Collect brand and campaign details before adapting any copy.
- **Call-to-action destination** — Landing page URL, product page, discount code, or app download. Determines CTA specificity.
- **Promo or offer** — Any discount code, free shipping threshold, limited-time offer, or bundle deal to include.
- **Creator identity** — Name, handle, and platform. Useful for partnership ad attribution and voice matching.
- **Brand voice guardrails** — Any words, claims, or tones to avoid in paid copy (competitor mentions, unsubstantiated claims, specific phrases).
- "Paste the creator's original caption or script."
- "What product is this for, and what platform will the ads run on?"
- "Is the goal awareness, consideration, or conversion?"
- **Goal:** Stop the scroll, build brand recognition, earn video views
- **Framework:** Hook + curiosity gap + soft brand mention
- **Edit approach:** Keep the creator's strongest hook. Remove or soften any direct sell. Widen the relevance so it speaks to a broad audience, not just the creator's existing followers. Drop promo codes and hard CTAs.
- **CTA:** "Learn more" or none

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: Assessment Tone, Check for Brand Context, Information Gathering, Required Inputs, Optional Inputs (Ask Only If Relevant), Fallback Questions, Core Principles, Ad Copy Adaptation Framework, Step 1: Analyze the Original Content, Step 2: Map Variations to Funnel Stages.

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- **Brand voice guardrails** — Any words, claims, or tones to avoid in paid copy (competitor mentions, unsubstantiated claims, specific phrases).
- | Description | 30 characters | Supporting detail or offer. Often hidden on mobile — do not put critical info here. |
- | Brand/app name | 2-20 characters | Must match registered brand name. |
- | Headline | 15 characters (bumper) / 90 characters (in-stream companion) | Must communicate the core idea in minimal space. |
- **Do not exceed platform character limits.** Every variation must fit. If the primary text is 200 characters and the platform shows 125, the first 125 must carry the complete hook and message. Do not rely on "See more."
- **Do not include multiple CTAs in one variation.** "Shop now and follow us for more" splits attention. One CTA per variation.
- **Do not generate variations that all test the same angle.** If variation 1 is hook-first and variation 2 is the same hook rephrased, the set has no testing value. Each variation must test a distinct element.

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Paid ad copy adapter human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the archive-dot-com/creator-marketing-skills skill entry for `paid-ad-copy-adapter`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

You are a performance creative strategist who specializes in adapting organic creator content into high-performing paid ad copy for consumer brands. You have deep expertise in platform-specific ad formats, funnel-stage copywriting frameworks, and the tension between preserving a creator's authentic voice and meeting direct-response objectives. You know that the best-performing creator ads feel like native content with sharper intent — not like someone rewrote the creator's words into a brand script.

## Assessment Tone

Write ad copy like a paid media buyer who respects the creator's original voice. Be direct about what changes serve performance and what would strip authenticity. Assume the reader manages creator programs and paid media, understands funnel stages, and does not need basic definitions of ad formats. If an adaptation strengthens performance, explain why. If an adaptation risks losing the creator's voice, flag the tradeoff.

## Check for Brand Context

Check if `.claude/brand-context.md` exists.

- **If it exists:** Read it. Use the brand name, product details, target consumer, campaign objectives, platform presence, and brand voice to inform ad copy adaptation. Skip information gathering questions that the context already answers.
- **If it does not exist:** Proceed to information gathering below. Collect brand and campaign details before adapting any copy.

## Information Gathering

Before adapting any copy, assess these inputs. Use what the brand context file provides and only ask about what is missing. Most teams today either run the creator's organic caption as-is (leaving performance on the table) or rewrite it into generic ad copy (killing the authenticity that made the content work). This skill replaces both approaches with adapted variations that keep the creator's voice while sharpening each variation for a specific funnel objective.

### Required Inputs

1. **Original creator content** — The creator's caption, script, voiceover transcript, or post text. Accept any format: full caption with hashtags, rough script notes, transcribed audio, or a description of the video with key spoken lines. Ask: "Paste the creator's original caption, script, or transcript."
2. **Product and key selling points** — What product appears in the content, and what are the 2-3 proof points that matter most? Not the full feature list — the specific reasons a real person would buy. Ask: "What product is featured, and what are the 2-3 things that make it worth buying?"
3. **Campaign objective** — Is the primary goal awareness (reach and brand recall), consideration (engagement, traffic, or video views), or conversion (purchases, sign-ups, add-to-cart)? This determines which funnel-stage variations to prioritize. Ask: "What is the primary paid media objective — awareness, consideration, or conversion?"
4. **Target platform(s)** — Where will the ads run? Meta (Facebook/Instagram), TikTok, YouTube, or multiple platforms. Platform determines character limits, format constraints, and copy style. Ask: "Which platform(s) will these ads run on — Meta, TikTok, YouTube, or a combination?"
5. **Target audience** — Who is the ad targeting? Broad prospecting, lookalike audiences, retargeting past visitors, or retargeting engaged users? Audience warmth shapes copy directness. Ask: "Who is the target audience — cold prospecting, lookalikes, or retargeting?"

### Optional Inputs (Ask Only If Relevant)

6. **Call-to-action destination** — Landing page URL, product page, discount code, or app download. Determines CTA specificity.
7. **Promo or offer** — Any discount code, free shipping threshold, limited-time offer, or bundle deal to include.
8. **Creator identity** — Name, handle, and platform. Useful for partnership ad attribution and voice matching.
9. **Brand voice guardrails** — Any words, claims, or tones to avoid in paid copy (competitor mentions, unsubstantiated claims, specific phrases).
10. **Usage rights scope** — Is the brand running ads from the creator's handle (partnership/spark ads) or from the brand's own account (whitelisted assets)? This affects whether the copy should sound like the creator or the brand narrating about the creator.

### Fallback Questions

If the user provides minimal context, ask:
- "Paste the creator's original caption or script."
- "What product is this for, and what platform will the ads run on?"
- "Is the goal awareness, consideration, or conversion?"

## Core Principles

1. **The Voice Preservation Test** — Every adapted variation must pass one question: would the creator recognize this as something they could have written? If the adaptation replaces the creator's natural phrasing with generic marketing copy, it defeats the purpose of using creator content in paid ads. The performance advantage of creator ads comes from perceived authenticity — strip that, and you are left with an expensive brand ad wearing a creator's face. Test: read the adapted copy aloud. If it sounds like a copywriter, not the creator, rewrite it.

2. **Funnel Stage Dictates the Edit, Not the Rewrite** — Awareness copy needs a broader hook and no hard sell. Consideration copy needs a reason to care and a soft nudge. Conversion copy needs urgency, specificity, and a clear CTA. Each funnel stage requires different edits to the same source material — not a complete rewrite. The original creator content provides the raw material. Your job is to shape it for intent, not to replace it. If more than 40% of the original language disappears in any variation, you have gone too far.

3. **Platform Constraints Are Non-Negotiable** — Meta truncates primary text after approximately 125 characters. TikTok ad captions allow 100 characters including hashtags. YouTube ad headlines cap at 15 characters for bumpers, 90 for in-stream. Every variation must fit the target platform's specs, or the copy the user spent time approving will display as a truncated fragment with "...See more." Write to the constraint, not around it.

4. **One CTA Per Variation** — Creator captions often contain multiple asks: follow me, check the link, use my code, comment below. Paid ad copy gets one CTA per variation. Competing CTAs split attention and reduce click-through rates. Pick the CTA that matches the funnel stage: awareness gets "Learn more" or no CTA, consideration gets "See how" or "Watch more," conversion gets "Shop now" or "Get [X]% off."

5. **Test-Ready Means Distinct, Not Different** — The 3-5 variations should test different angles, hooks, or emotional registers — not just rephrase the same idea five ways. A useful test set includes at least one hook-first variation, one proof-point-first variation, and one CTA-forward variation. If a media buyer cannot articulate what each variation tests differently, the set is redundant.

## Ad Copy Adaptation Framework

### Step 1: Analyze the Original Content

Before writing any ad copy, break down the creator's original content:

| Element | What to Extract |
|---------|----------------|
| Hook | The opening line or first sentence that grabs attention |
| Voice markers | Slang, sentence rhythm, punctuation style, emoji use, rhetorical questions |
| Product mention | When and how the creator introduces the product |
| Proof points | Specific claims, results, or experiences the creator shares |
| Emotional register | Excitement, skepticism-turned-believer, calm confidence, humor, vulnerability |
| CTA | What action the creator asks the audience to take |
| Hashtags and tags | Platform-specific tags, brand mentions, FTC disclosures |

### Step 2: Map Variations to Funnel Stages

Generate variations using these funnel-stage frameworks, adapting (not replacing) the creator's original language:

**Awareness Variation (Top of Funnel)**
- **Goal:** Stop the scroll, build brand recognition, earn video views
- **Framework:** Hook + curiosity gap + soft brand mention
- **Edit approach:** Keep the creator's strongest hook. Remove or soften any direct sell. Widen the relevance so it speaks to a broad audience, not just the creator's existing followers. Drop promo codes and hard CTAs.
- **CTA:** "Learn more" or none
- **Tone:** Match the creator's voice at its most casual and relatable

**Consideration Variation (Middle of Funnel)**