Getting started
Updated November 12, 2026
Getting started with AdsGuru takes about ten minutes: start the 7-day trial, connect Google Ads and Meta over OAuth, set your budget and CPA or ROAS targets, and read the first audit when it lands within the hour. Plan to stay in approval mode for at least the first two weeks.
What setup involves
Setup is five steps, and none of them require a developer or a call:
- Create the account and start the 7-day free trial.
- Connect Google Ads and Meta over OAuth, about two minutes each (Google steps, Meta steps).
- Read the first audit: it lands within the hour and quantifies wasted spend, tracking problems and settings traps.
- Set your targets: monthly budget per account, and a CPA or ROAS goal.
- Approve or reject the first proposals as they arrive, and keep approval mode on for at least two weeks.
Everything after that is the daily loop: a short note each morning, proposals when something needs to change, and a log of what was applied. The loop itself is described on how AdsGuru works.
Before you connect: a short checklist
Five minutes of preparation prevents the two most common setup stalls: missing permissions and broken tracking.
- Google Ads access: sign in with a Google account that has admin or standard access to the Ads account. Read-only access can view but cannot connect for management.
- Meta access: you need admin access to the Business Manager (Business Portfolio) that owns the ad account, with the ad account itself assigned to you.
- Conversion tracking live: AdsGuru optimizes toward your conversion data, so the Google conversion actions and Meta pixel or Conversions API events should already be firing. If they are broken, the audit will catch it, but fixing tracking becomes job one before any optimization.
- Know your numbers: your intended monthly budget per platform, and either a target cost per acquisition (lead gen) or a target return on ad spend (ecommerce). Rough is fine; you can tune later.
- Running ads: proposals need account activity. A brand new account with no spend history should run ads for a week or two first.
Connecting your accounts
Both connections use OAuth, meaning you sign in with Google or Meta directly and AdsGuru never sees your passwords. AdsGuru requests ads-management scope only: enough to read performance and apply approved changes, nothing else.
For Google Ads: Settings, Connections, Connect Google Ads, sign in, pick the account (or the sub-accounts under your manager account). For Meta: Settings, Connections, Connect Meta, sign in with a profile that has Business Manager admin access, select the ad accounts, grant the ads_management permission.
The first sync pulls about 90 days of history from each platform to build the baseline audit. You can revoke either connection at any time from the platform's own security settings, independently of AdsGuru; see security and access.
Reading your first audit
The first audit answers one question: where is this account losing money right now? It lands within the hour of connecting and covers five areas: tracking, wasted spend, structure, settings traps, and budget allocation. The audit page describes each check.
Read it in this order. First, tracking findings: if conversions are double-counted, missing, or inconsistent between the platform and reality, fix that before acting on anything else, because every other number depends on it. Second, wasted spend: search terms and ads that spent without converting, quantified in dollars. Third, everything else.
The audit is informational; it changes nothing by itself. Items that can be fixed with a change arrive as proposals you approve; items that need you (like a landing page problem) are flagged for you to handle.
Setting targets: CPA or ROAS
A target gives every proposal its yardstick, so set it deliberately. Cost per acquisition (CPA) is what you pay per conversion; return on ad spend (ROAS) is revenue divided by ad spend. Lead-gen businesses usually steer by CPA, ecommerce by ROAS, because ecommerce orders vary in value while leads are roughly interchangeable.
To pick a defensible number, work backward from unit economics. A hypothetical example, clearly illustrative: a store sells a $60 product with $21 of product and shipping cost, leaving $39 of gross margin. Breakeven ROAS is price divided by margin, 60/39, about 1.54. If the store wants at least a third of margin kept as profit, it needs ads to return meaningfully above breakeven, so it might set a 2.3 ROAS target. A lead-gen business closing 1 in 8 leads into a $900 sale can afford up to $112 per lead at breakeven and might target $60 to leave room.
Set targets per account, and revisit them when prices, margins or close rates change. A stale target quietly misdirects every downstream decision.
Your first proposals
The first proposals arrive within days and skew conservative on purpose: negative keywords from the search terms report, pauses for ads with clear spend and zero results, tracking fixes. These need little history to justify.
Review each one against its evidence. The proposal shows the reason and numbers; the fastest sanity check is to open the platform and confirm the claim once or twice, until the pattern of accuracy earns trust. Approve what checks out, reject what does not, and tune a routine's thresholds if its proposals keep missing your bar.
Expect lighter weeks sometimes. A healthy account on a stable week generates few proposals, and silence plus a clean daily note is the system working, since unnecessary changes are their own form of waste.
The first two weeks, day by day
AdsGuru needs 7 to 14 days of account data before its trend-based proposals carry full weight, and the product is honest about that rather than faking confidence. Here is the realistic timeline:
| Period | What happens | What you should do |
|---|---|---|
| Day 0 | Accounts connected; 90 days of history synced; first audit lands within the hour | Read the audit; fix tracking findings first |
| Days 1-3 | Daily notes begin; first conservative proposals: negatives, obvious pauses | Approve or reject; verify a couple of proposals against the platform |
| Days 4-7 | Baseline volatility model forms; pacing checks active | Set or refine CPA/ROAS targets; keep approval mode on |
| Days 7-14 | Trend-based proposals mature: fatigue detection, budget reallocation | Judge proposal quality; tune thresholds where needed |
| Day 14+ | Full loop running | Consider autopilot for routines you have approved repeatedly without edits |
When to turn on autopilot
Turn on autopilot per routine, only after that routine has repeatedly proposed changes you approved without modification. Three weeks of unedited approvals is a reasonable bar; there is no prize for rushing.
Start with the lowest-risk routine, usually search terms cleanup, because adding negatives for junk queries is cheap to verify and easy to reverse. Keep budget moves in approval mode longer, and structural changes never run on autopilot at all. Every autopilot routine runs inside caps you set, and you can demote it back to approval mode in one click.
Autopilot is a convenience, never a requirement. Plenty of users keep approval mode on everything forever; the daily review takes minutes.
Setup mistakes to avoid
- Optimizing on broken tracking. If the audit flags conversion problems, fix those first. Every proposal downstream of bad data is bad.
- Setting targets from hope instead of margin. A 4.0 ROAS target on an account whose history shows 2.1 produces a stream of pause proposals that would shrink the account to nothing. Set targets from unit economics, then tighten gradually.
- Connecting mid-crisis and expecting instant rescue. The first two weeks build a baseline. If the account is on fire, the audit helps immediately, but trend-based judgment needs its 7 to 14 days.
- Enabling autopilot on day one. Approval mode exists so the product can earn trust routine by routine. Use it.
- Ignoring the daily note. Two minutes a day keeps you the informed owner of every decision; skipping a month then auditing everything at once recreates the chaos you left.
Common questions
What is the AdsGuru setup process?
Setup is creating an account, connecting Google Ads and Meta over OAuth, setting budget and CPA or ROAS targets, and reviewing the first audit, about ten minutes of active work.
How long until AdsGuru is useful?
The audit is useful within the hour. Trend-based proposals carry full weight after 7 to 14 days of account data, so the first two weeks are a calibration period.
Do I need a developer to set it up?
No. Both connections are OAuth sign-ins, and no code, pixel changes or tag manager work is required for AdsGuru itself.
What access do I need on the ad accounts?
Admin or standard access on Google Ads, and Business Manager admin on Meta with the ad account assigned to you.
Should I pick CPA or ROAS as my target?
Steer by CPA for lead generation and ROAS for ecommerce. Derive the number from your margins or close rates rather than ambition, and revisit it when the economics change.
Can I connect only Google Ads, or only Meta?
Yes. Connect whichever accounts you run; the second platform can be added anytime from Settings, Connections.
When should I enable autopilot?
After a routine has proposed changes you approved without edits for a few weeks. Start with search terms cleanup, keep budget moves on approval longer, and remember autopilot is optional.