The campaign that drives applicants to the form is the simplest part of this entire system. The whole thing is one Facebook leads campaign, $10–$25/day, sending traffic to the Google Form.
That said — the campaign being simple doesn't mean the creative is simple. The image and copy decisions are where most operators leak. This sub-page covers both.
Campaign settings
Here's the actual setup, step by step.
Campaign objective: Leads (or Engagement — both work, I default to Leads).
Buying type: Auction.
Campaign-level budget: CBO. Set a daily budget of $10–$25/day. Don't go higher than $25/day at the start. You'll get creators in very quickly even at $10. I've had brands fill 50+ submissions in 2 days at $25/day.
Naming convention: Use a clean naming convention you'll recognize when you scale. Example: Product Seeding | $25/day | [Brand]. Future you will thank present you.
Conversion location: Website. You're sending traffic to your Google Form, not capturing leads natively in Facebook.
Optimization event: Maximize conversions.
Pixel: Use your normal Shopify pixel. The campaign isn't going to track much through Facebook because the form is hosted on Google — that's fine. You'll measure inflow in the form responses themselves, not in Ads Manager.
Targeting: Broad across the board.
- Geo: United States (or wherever your avatar is).
- Age range: Leave open. Let the algorithm work.
- Detailed targeting: Empty. Don't specify interests, behaviors, demographics.
- Advantage+ Audience: On. The algorithm at lead-campaign budgets is good at finding the right people when you let it. Specifically for this use case — recruiting creators — broad + Advantage+ is what's currently performing best for me.
That's the entire campaign. Save and move on. This setup takes 5 minutes.
Ad creative — the framing that matters
Most operators get the campaign right and screw up the creative because they default to product-marketing instinct. Don't sell the product in these ads. Sell becoming a brand ambassador.
You're not running this ad to a customer who might buy. You're running it to a creator who might apply. The conversion you want is "fill out the form," not "purchase." The creative needs to reflect that.
The ad copy should make the creator feel like they're being chosen. Frame it as opportunity.
Example primary text directions:
- "We're looking for [avatar] to test our [product]. Free product, free trip to [destination] for top performers, and a community of other ambassadors. Apply now."
- "Become a brand ambassador for [brand]. We send you free [product], you create content, top performers get [reward]. Apply below."
- "Want to work with [brand]? We're accepting new ambassadors this week. Free product, weekly leaderboards, real commissions on every sale. Apply now."
Example headline directions:
- "Become a [Brand] Ambassador"
- "Free [Product] + Trip to Hawaii"
- "We're Looking for [Avatar]"
CTA button: Apply Now.
The pattern: lead with the opportunity, list the rewards (product + community + leaderboard prizes + commission), and end with a direct call to action.
Generating copy with Claude
You don't need to write 5–10 ad variants from scratch every week. Drop your existing winning ad copy + a description of your seeding offer into Claude and prompt:
"Here's my seeding offer: [free product, X commission, leaderboard prizes, etc.]. Here's my brand voice and avatar: [details]. Write me 3 primary texts and 3 headlines for a Facebook lead ad recruiting brand ambassadors. Sell the opportunity, not the product. CTA is 'Apply Now.'"
You'll get 3 variants in 30 seconds. Pick your favorites, tweak by hand if needed, ship them.
The whole copy generation step takes 5 minutes a week.
Image creative
The images don't need to be polished. Repeat — the images don't need to be polished.
I make most of mine in Google AI Studio (nanobanana 2 / Gemini image generation) in batches of 5–10 in 10 minutes. They're 3–5 out of 10 on visual quality. They convert fine.
The reason polish doesn't matter: the people clicking these ads are creators. They're used to scrolling past polished brand content. A slightly raw-looking ambassador recruitment ad with clear copy and a strong headline outperforms a glossy professional creative on this specific objective. Authenticity reads as "this is a real opportunity, not a corporate marketing pitch."
The image just needs to:
- Show a person matching the avatar (or show the product in use by someone matching the avatar)
- Have clear, readable text overlay with the headline
- Make the offer (free product, ambassador program, etc.) immediately visible
That's it. Stop overthinking.
Testing rhythm
Upload 5–10 new ads per week. Same campaign, just adding new ads to the existing ad sets.
Look at the ads that are spending the most money and getting applications cheapest. Those are your winners.
Track click-through rate primarily. Cost per qualified lead is the real metric, but CTR is the leading indicator inside Ads Manager — the ads with strong CTR are the ones that will keep producing form submissions over time.
Different ads attract different types of people. An ad with a 35-year-old mom in the creative will pull a different applicant pool than an ad with a 25-year-old fitness avatar. Test both. The diversity of creative directly creates diversity in the creators you recruit.
The campaign runs continuously. You're not pausing and restarting. You're just feeding new ads in weekly, killing the underperformers, and letting the winners scale on the existing budget.
What's next
The community structure where these creators land — the Discord channel architecture, the role setup, the bot configurations — lives in the next sub-page.
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