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SKILL DETAIL
thought-leadership-ads
mbfinotti/advertising-skills/thought-leadership-ads
Plan a campaign that promotes an executive's or founder's existing organic posts as paid person-fronted ads - post selection, sequencing, audience and exclusions, permission and governance, budget, and measurement. Use whenever the user mentions thought leader ads, promoting a founder's or CEO's post, sponsoring an employee's or a creator's post, executive content amplification, running ads from a personal profile, or B2B trust ads - even if they never say 'thought leadership'. Covers B2B trust-layer campaigns on professional networks with pipeline-lens measurement, and B2C founder-led brands with direct-response measurement. Plans the campaign only, never the featured person's content: ad copy is mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-copy-variants.
安裝量 · 848查看來源
Installation
npx skills add https://github.com/mbfinotti/advertising-skills --skill thought-leadership-ads
技能檔案
SKILL.md
最近同步 · 2026年10月23日
evals/evals.json›
{
"skill_name": "thought-leadership-ads",
"evals": [
{
"id": 1,
"prompt": "I run marketing at Kelvane, a B2B contract-analytics SaaS ($48k ACV, 6-month sales cycle). The board wants pipeline from a new channel this quarter, and I want that channel to be promoting our CEO Dana's LinkedIn posts - she posts weekly and gets solid traction. We haven't set up conversion tracking or any retargeting audiences yet; the plan was to add that later once we see whether the ads work. Dana seemed enthusiastic when I floated it over lunch. Budget is $6k/month. Build me the campaign plan - post picks, audience, budget, the works.",
"expected_output": "A refusal to deliver a launch-ready plan: the response names the failed eligibility gates (no capture layer, no explicit consent, in-quarter deadline), prescribes conversion tracking and the retargeting scaffold plus written per-person agreements first, resets the payback timeline, and routes the in-quarter pipeline goal to direct-response spend instead.",
"files": [],
"expectations": [
"Declines to deliver a launch-ready campaign plan and says explicitly which eligibility gates failed, instead of planning around them",
"Names the missing downstream capture layer (no conversion tracking, no retargeting audiences) as a failed gate",
"States that retargeting is not retroactive: engagement generated before audiences exist is lost and cannot be recovered later",
"Sequences the fix as build conversion tracking and the retargeting scaffold first, then return to this format - rejecting the 'add tracking later once we see if it works' order",
"Treats the CEO's lunch enthusiasm as not consent, and requires her explicit per-post agreement before planning around her",
"Requires a written commercial agreement beyond the platform's in-app approval",
"States that consent is revocable at any time and the ad turns off immediately when revoked",
"Flags the board's in-quarter pipeline deadline as incompatible with the format's slow payback (multi-quarter, roughly 90+ days to ROI)",
"Recommends direct-response and retargeting spend for the in-quarter pipeline goal rather than this format",
"Does not cite the $48k ACV as a reason to decline - it clears the roughly $25k practitioner bar",
"Flags the single-featured-person risk: one revocation or departure ends the program, and recommends a multi-person roster",
"Does not propose reported CTR anywhere as a success metric for the future campaign"
]
},
{
"id": 2,
"prompt": "I'm head of demand gen at Brightlark Software (B2B, LinkedIn-centric). Our VP greenlit thought leader ads off an agency deck claiming they get 2.68% CTR vs 0.42% for company-page ads. He wants the success metric locked in as 'beat 2% CTR by week 4, then scale.' Our existing brand campaigns pay about $5.80 per landing-page click to the same audience. Write up the measurement framework I should put in the campaign doc.",
"expected_output": "A measurement framework that refuses reported CTR as the KPI (negative pipeline correlation, engagement-objective denominator artifact, vendor provenance of the 2.68% figure), sets a week-6 gate on cost per landing-page click against the $5.80 in-account baseline plus retargeting-pool floor, defines fail branches, and puts the lagging verdict on pipeline metrics over 2-4 quarters with the pipeline-to-spend bar agreed now.",
"files": [],
"expectations": [
"Rejects reported CTR as the campaign's success KPI",
"States that reported CTR was found negatively correlated with pipeline in the largest published dataset (negative correlation stated; rho about -0.17 acceptable)",
"Explains the denominator artifact: under an engagement objective, reported CTR counts reactions, comments, shares, and follows, not just clicks to a destination",
"Labels the 2.68% vs 0.42% comparison as vendor-published and self-serving rather than settled fact",
"Notes the headline CTR figure and the negative-correlation warning trace to the same vendor source, or that the CTR claim is not independently verified",
"Sets gate 1 as cost per landing-page click at or below the account's own $5.80 brand-ads baseline",
"Uses the $5.80 in-account baseline as the bar rather than a $3-5 provisional external figure, since the provisional bar is only for accounts with no baseline",
"Sets gate 2 as the engager retargeting pool crossing the downstream platform's minimum serveable audience floor (about 300 matched members, flagged for verification)",
"Moves the review to about week 6 and pushes back on the week-4 read as too early",
"Defines the lagging verdict on influenced pipeline, sales-accepted opportunities, and cost per opportunity over a 2-4 quarter window",
"Gets the pipeline-to-spend bar agreed now during planning (3-5x territory), not at review time",
"Specifies the fail branches: gate 1 failing alone means rotate in a different validated post before touching audience or budget; gate 2 failing alone means widen the list or raise spend",
"Ranks engagement rate last, or explicitly demotes it, among the leading diagnostics",
"Does not adopt 'beat 2% CTR then scale' as the scaling rule"
]
},
{
"id": 3,
"prompt": "I'm head of brand at Mossvale Robotics. Our founder Priya agreed to let us promote her LinkedIn posts and I need to pick which ones. Her recent posts: (a) a carousel about our Series B, 3,100 reactions; (b) a poll on warehouse automation pain points, 890 votes; (c) a plain-text story about a customer's picking-error problem, 210 reactions and 40 comments; (d) a product-launch pitch for our new robotic arm, 95 reactions; (e) a PDF document post tearing down warehouse costs, 1,500 reactions; (f) a video on her hiring philosophy posted yesterday, already at 600 reactions and climbing. Her median post does about 120 reactions. Separately, our content lead offered to ghost-write two posts next week designed specifically to be promoted. Which posts go into the campaign?",
"expected_output": "A selection that drops the carousel, poll, and document post as format-ineligible regardless of their reaction counts, scores the rest against Priya's own median, prefers the evergreen customer-problem post over the Series B news spike, caps pitch content near 20%, waits out the fresh video's organic surge, rejects manufacturing posts to promote, and discloses the validation rule as contested.",
"files": [],
"expectations": [
"Excludes the Series B carousel as an ineligible format, or marks it 'format eligibility: verify in platform'",
"Excludes the poll as an ineligible format, or marks it verify in platform",
"Excludes the PDF document post as an ineligible format (or marks it verify in platform), despite its 1,500 reactions",
"Scores candidates against Priya's own trailing median (about 120 reactions), not an absolute engagement threshold",
"Recommends the plain-text customer picking-error post, noting its existing engagement or comments carry into the ad as visible social proof",
"Prefers evergreen buyer-problem content over the Series B news spike",
"Caps product-pitch content at roughly 20% of the promoted set (about 80% genuine thought leadership) rather than banning or freely including the arm-launch pitch",
"On the day-old video: waits for the roughly 3-day organic surge to settle, about a day past peak engagement, before launch",
"Requires any edit or pinned comment to happen before launch, warning that a later edit changes the running ad",
"Rejects or clearly cautions against the ghost-written-to-promote posts: manufactured posts read as ads and defeat the format",
"Discloses that the organic-validation rule is contested (majority pre-validation practice vs a minority content-quality view), not presented as law",
"Notes a promoted post inherits its comment thread, dead or alive",
"Includes a link plan for each selected post (pinned first comment, in-post tracked link, or a declared no-destination choice)"
]
},
{
"id": 4,
"prompt": "Quorindale, B2B treasury software - our CFO Marek has become a genuine voice on LinkedIn and three of his posts are approved for promotion. Demand gen insists every ad needs a 'Book a demo' button and a UTM-tagged landing URL. RevOps says if we can't get a CTA we should just run them with no link at all, since brand lift is the point anyway. One thing about Marek: he's precious about his feed - getting him to change anything already published takes weeks of nagging. How do we handle click-through on these?",
"expected_output": "An answer that explains the advertiser cannot attach any CTA or URL on this network, lays out the three destination options, defaults to the tracked link in a pinned first comment, deletes the in-post edit from Marek's menu by name given his refusal to edit, and accepts the no-link route only as a written retargeting-pool-builder declaration with the measurement consequence stated.",
"files": [],
"expectations": [
"States the advertiser cannot attach a CTA button, headline, or destination URL to the ad on this network",
"States a link exists only if the author placed it, in the post or a comment",
"Presents the three destination options: link in a pinned first comment, tracked link edited into the post, or no destination declared in writing as a retargeting-pool builder",
"Recommends the pinned first comment as the default for Marek's posts",
"Justifies the default: the pinned comment never touches the approved post and repeats across posts without spending political capital",
"Deletes the in-post link option from Marek's menu by name, with the reason that he will not edit live posts - rather than ranking it second or keeping it as a later fallback",
"Acknowledges the in-post link buys the most attributable clicks in the format even while removing it here",
"Treats the no-link option as legitimate only if declared in writing as a retargeting-pool builder",
"States that with no landing-page clicks the cost-per-click review gate cannot be computed, and the campaign is judged on pool growth alone",
"Calls a promoted post with no link and no written declaration a failure mode, not a minimalist choice",
"Confirms pinned-comment clicks are fully trackable, so UTM-tagged attribution survives for demand gen",
"Does not promise demand gen a 'Book a demo' button or any advertiser-attached CTA workaround"
]
},
{
"id": 5,
"prompt": "Growth lead at Ferrowdyne, B2B logistics SaaS. For eight weeks we've had $2,400/month behind our COO's LinkedIn posts, targeted at our full ICP - about 310,000 logistics professionals in the US. Results are basically nothing. My CEO's fix is to double the budget to $5k/month. Also, do we need audience exclusions? We have roughly 1,900 customers, a 40-person team, and our platform rep already told us they can't enable the site-visitor URL exclusion at our account tier. What should we change?",
"expected_output": "A diagnosis of budget-to-audience mismatch with the frequency math shown, a recommendation to shrink the list into the 20,000-50,000 band via a matched account list with layering rather than doubling budget, and a full exclusion list ordered by wasted spend prevented - customers and open pipeline tied first, URL-based exclusion deleted outright since the platform withheld it.",
"files": [],
"expectations": [
"Diagnoses the core problem as budget-to-audience mismatch: $2,400/month against 310,000 people produces near-zero frequency",
"Uses or prescribes the frequency computation: budget divided by CPM divided by audience size",
"Recommends shrinking the audience to fit the budget rather than raising the budget",
"States that doubling to $5k/month against 310,000 people still leaves frequency far too low",
"Targets an audience in the 20,000-50,000 band for this budget level, or derives a similar size from the frequency rule",
"Rebuilds the audience as a matched account list layered with job function and seniority, rather than the whole ICP",
"Puts existing customers and open pipeline at the top of the exclusion list",
"Explains customers and open pipeline tie because one CRM export produces both lists",
"Includes employees, competitors, and students in the exclusion list, with employees ahead of competitors and students",
"Deletes the URL-based logged-in-user exclusion from the list and says so in the plan, since platform support withheld it - instead of leaving it as pending work",
"States an impression served to a customer or employee is wasted twice: spend and credibility",
"Treats the exclusion list as a first-class deliverable that can end up longer than the inclusion list",
"Does not propose fixing performance by widening the audience further or raising spend before the list is resized"
]
},
{
"id": 6,
"prompt": "Marketing director at Novantis Grid - enterprise energy analytics, a well-known name in the utility space with 40k company-page followers. We just hired a brilliant CTO out of academia; her posts are sharp but she has 900 followers. Our agency proposed the classic thought-leader playbook: run her posts cold to our ICP to build trust first, then hit the engagers with brand ads. We already run always-on cold brand campaigns that feed healthy retargeting pools. Does the agency's sequencing hold up?",
"expected_output": "A rejection of trust-first for this case: awareness-first is chosen because the brand outranks the person in recognition and the cold layer already exists, with the person-fronted ads placed mid-funnel, the conversion handoff designed deliberately, and every retargeting audience created before launch.",
"files": [],
"expectations": [
"Rejects the agency's trust-first sequence for this case",
"Chooses awareness-first because the brand outranks the featured person in recognition",
"Says the recognition comparison out loud as the deciding criterion, not just a preference",
"Notes the existing always-on cold brand layer means awareness-first requires no extra setup here",
"Places the CTO's person-fronted ads mid-funnel, warming audiences the cold brand layer built",
"Reserves conversion-capable formats for engagers as the final stage",
"States the format cannot carry a conversion objective on the professional network, so a deliberate handoff is structural",
"Requires every retargeting audience the sequence needs to exist before the first ad serves",
"Notes prospects who engage with the person often never connect her to the company, and prescribes deliberate bridging (company references in posts, theme alignment across personal and brand streams)",
"Frames trust-first as correct when the person outranks the brand - the ordering is context-dependent, not a law",
"Explains that engagers become the retargeting pool feeding the later stages"
]
},
{
"id": 7,
"prompt": "CMO at Sterret & Vail, a UK- and EU-facing wealth-management platform, so yes, regulated. Two posts we want to sponsor on LinkedIn: our Head of Advisory's market commentary, and a glowing post a client wrote about us unprompted. The client said 'go for it' in a DM and our Head of Advisory clicked approve in the platform, so permissions feel covered. We want to launch next week - anything we're missing?",
"expected_output": "A governance-led answer that voids both permission assumptions (click-to-approve and the DM), requires written agreements with named terms plus licensed usage rights and the partnership label for the client, mandates pre-publication compliance review and retention with the 2024 enforcement precedent, covers UK/EEA disclosure and targeting restrictions, and defers the launch until those close.",
"files": [],
"expectations": [
"States platform click-to-approve is not a commercial agreement and requires a written agreement per featured person",
"Rejects the client's 'go for it' DM as sufficient permission",
"Requires licensed usage rights for the client's post, as a non-employee, in the written agreement",
"Requires the partnership label for the client's post, on top of the paid-promotion label",
"Lists concrete written-agreement terms - several of: usage fee, term (30/60/90 days), spend caps, who may edit the post, pause and revocation handling, disclosure obligations",
"Mandates pre-publication compliance review and retention because the firm is regulated",
"Cites the 2024 enforcement precedent: a US regulator fined a firm $850,000 over unsupervised influencer posts",
"Flags the UK/EEA rule that ads must be obviously identifiable as advertising even when the poster is commercially connected to the brand",
"Flags the EEA targeting restriction: sensitive-category signals excluded, with some group or affinity targeting disabled there entirely",
"States consent is per-post and instantly revocable - a live switch someone else holds",
"Warns that the Head of Advisory leaving would end that campaign and the creative cannot be retained, re-run, or re-hosted",
"Recommends a multi-person portfolio with an explicit takedown-and-replace step",
"Explains the disclosure rationale: a brand paying to amplify a post about itself is an endorsement with a material connection",
"Does not greenlight next week's launch as-is; agreements and compliance review come first"
]
},
{
"id": 8,
"prompt": "Founder of Denholt Labs, a B2B dev-tools company. Our CTO Ravi produces great content on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and we run an active subreddit. Our agency pitched a 'founder amplification program': sponsor his existing posts natively on all four channels - including running his YouTube videos as ads under his channel identity and promoting his top subreddit answers - $12k/month split evenly four ways. Sanity-check the plan?",
"expected_output": "A correction that names YouTube and Reddit as having no equivalent mechanic (wrong, not suboptimal), reroutes that budget to standard brand campaigns, notes X promotion runs from the advertiser's account, keeps LinkedIn as the conversion-objective-free trust layer, rejects the even split, and requires live verification of current capabilities.",
"files": [],
"expectations": [
"States YouTube offers no equivalent mechanic - there is no way to sponsor a creator's organic upload under their identity",
"States Reddit has no personal-profile-sponsorship equivalent",
"Calls the plan wrong on those two networks, not merely suboptimal, and refuses to force the format onto them",
"Routes the YouTube and Reddit budget to standard brand campaigns, or drops those channels",
"Notes that on X the promoted post runs from the advertiser's account, a structurally different mechanic from profile-fronted ads",
"Keeps LinkedIn as a trust-layer channel where no conversion objective is available",
"Rejects the even four-way split; allocates by where the mechanic and the audience actually exist",
"Recommends verifying current platform capabilities live before building, since they have changed repeatedly",
"Does not invent a YouTube or Reddit workaround that serves ads under Ravi's identity",
"Distinguishes the permission mechanics across the remaining networks (in-platform approval vs authorization codes)"
]
},
{
"id": 9,
"prompt": "I run Amberpetal, a DTC haircare brand, $42 average order value. Our founder Lucia films short videos that regularly pop off organically on TikTok and Instagram. I read a B2B thought-leader-ads playbook that says run a trust layer first, never use conversion objectives, don't judge on CTR, and expect payback over multiple quarters. Do we really have to wait quarters before asking for the sale? And how do we lock down rights to keep promoting her videos - she's technically a contractor, not an employee?",
"expected_output": "A B2C-corrected answer: direct-response from day one since consumer platforms allow conversion objectives on this mechanic, pixel CPA/ROAS measurement on a short window with a split test against brand creative, 3-7 day refresh cadence, and permission handled as per-video authorization codes with expiry tracking plus a written agreement for the contractor founder.",
"files": [],
"expectations": [
"Answers no: on consumer platforms this mechanic runs direct-response with conversion objectives from day one",
"Explains the forced trust layer is structural only on professional networks; for B2C the sequencing collapses to a performance campaign",
"Uses pixel-based CPA or ROAS on a short window as the measurement, not a multi-quarter pipeline window",
"States the B2B reported-CTR caution does not transfer to this purchase-conversion case",
"Prescribes a split test of Lucia's person-fronted creative against brand-account creative",
"Sets the keep rule: retain the founder variant only while its CPA is at or below the brand-creative control",
"Sets creative refresh on the short-video cadence of 3-7 days, explicitly not the B2B two-week rotation",
"Describes permission as per-video authorization codes with fixed terms (7/30/60/365 days)",
"Plans continuity around expiry dates with a renewal calendar, instead of revocation risk",
"Still requires a written agreement with Lucia covering usage rights and disclosure, beyond platform codes, since she is a non-employee contractor",
"Selects only videos already earning organic saves, shares, or watch-through for promotion",
"Recommends a portfolio - Lucia plus at least one other creator - so the account is not hostage to one person's feed"
]
}
],
"trigger_queries": [
{ "query": "How do I set up LinkedIn thought leader ads for our CEO?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "We want to put paid spend behind our founder's LinkedIn posts - where do we start?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "My boss asked me to boost his personal LinkedIn post from the company ad account. Is that a thing?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Can we sponsor one of our engineers' posts about our product?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Planning a TikTok Spark Ads campaign using our founder's organic videos", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "What's the right way to run Meta Partnership Ads on a customer's post about us?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Our CTO's post about our incident response went viral - should we promote it to prospects?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "budget and audience size for thought leader ads", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Executive content amplification strategy for a B2B SaaS", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "How much should we spend promoting our CEO's posts each month?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Which of our founder's posts should we turn into ads?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Is it worth paying to promote employee posts instead of running company-page ads?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "We got approval to run ads from our VP's personal profile - how do we plan the campaign?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "B2B trust ads - does the founder-fronted format actually drive pipeline?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "How do I measure whether promoting our founder's content is working?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Our CEO agreed to let us sponsor her posts. What agreement do we need in place?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "What happens to our sponsored posts if the exec who wrote them leaves the company?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Spark Ads authorization codes - how should we manage creator permissions for our campaign?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "The company page gets no engagement but our founder's profile does. Can we run our ads through him?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "How big should the audience be for ads promoting our CMO's posts?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Person-led ads first or brand ads first - how do we sequence the campaign?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Want to amplify our head of product's build-in-public posts to enterprise buyers", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Our client wrote a glowing post about us - can we put ad dollars behind it?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Do thought leader ads work for ecommerce or just B2B?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "What KPIs should I report for our executive amplification campaign?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Governance checklist before we start promoting our executives' posts", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Legal wants to know what we need before sponsoring our advisor's LinkedIn commentary - we're a fintech", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Promote CEO post to cold audience - good idea?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "boost founder post", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "We're a founder-led skincare brand - should we run Lucia's videos as ads from her own handle?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "How do I pick which employee posts deserve ad budget?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Thought leadership ads vs regular sponsored content - planning our Q3 campaign around the exec's posts", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Can marketing run ads on the CEO's profile without asking him each time?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "What audience exclusions do we need for our founder-post campaign?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Setting up our first campaign promoting the CRO's posts - what could go wrong?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Our agency says exec-fronted ads get 6x CTR - how should we structure the test?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "There's no CTA button on these person-post ads - how do people click through?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "How do we get a link into the founder's promoted post?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Whitelisting our brand ambassador's account so we can run ads through it - campaign plan?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Is $3k/month enough to promote our CEO's content to 40,000 prospects?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Can we run paid distribution behind our founder's tweets?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "My CEO posts great stuff weekly to only 2k followers. We have ad budget sitting unused - what would you do?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Should we pay to amplify our employees' posts or hire influencers instead?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "What's a realistic timeline for founder-post ads to show pipeline impact?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Turn our exec's viral post into a lead gen campaign", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "person-fronted ads playbook", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "How do other B2B companies use their founders in paid campaigns?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "We need a warm audience for retargeting - can promoting our CEO's posts build one?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Renewal tracking for creator video authorizations in our ad account", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Our head of engineering writes about our architecture. Sales wants those posts in front of buyers. Plan?", "should_trigger": true },
{ "query": "Write five ad copy variants for our founder-story campaign", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Draft a LinkedIn post for our CEO about our Series B", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Ghostwrite a week of thought leadership posts for our CTO", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Design our retargeting funnel stages and recency windows", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Which ad platforms should a B2B SaaS with $20k/month be on?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Check whether our conversion tracking fires correctly before launch", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Script a founder-led UGC video for TikTok ads", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "How do I build an employee advocacy program to boost organic reach?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Map the buying committee for our $80k ACV deal and how to target each role", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Our ad creative is fatiguing - frequency at 9, CTR dropping. Refresh now?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Split our $40k paid budget across search, social, and retargeting", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Build a layered targeting plan from our ICP", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Audit why our LinkedIn lead gen forms stopped converting", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Write a creative brief for the designer on our new brand campaign", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Help our CEO grow his personal brand on LinkedIn", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "What should our executive post about to build thought leadership?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Set up an influencer gifting campaign for our skincare launch", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Negotiate a flat-fee sponsored placement with a newsletter author", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Pay a TikTok creator to make three new videos about our product", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Which hooks in these founder video scripts should we test?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Boost our company page's top post to more followers", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Promote our latest blog post with LinkedIn sponsored content", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "How do I get more engagement on my personal LinkedIn posts?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Plan our lead gen form campaign targeting VPs of finance", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Our founder wants media training before the podcast tour", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Write a press release quoting our CEO on the funding round", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "A/B test plan for our new static ad concepts", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Is our CAC of $310 too high for a $42 AOV brand?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "When should we scale the budget on our winning campaign?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Landing page for our exec webinar isn't converting paid clicks", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Build negative keyword lists from our search terms report", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "LinkedIn organic strategy for our sales team's social selling", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Compare CPMs across TikTok ad formats for our media mix", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "How do we get more of our executives posting on LinkedIn regularly?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Set frequency caps for our retargeting sequence", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Turn our CEO's conference keynote into a YouTube pre-roll ad", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Choose seed lists for our lookalike audiences", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Why does the ad platform report 3x the conversions our CRM shows?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Our exec's newsletter needs more subscribers - growth ideas?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Write CEO quotes for our product launch announcement", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "What's a good bid strategy for our LinkedIn campaigns?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Consolidate our 40 ad sets - too many stuck in learning", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Track competitor founders' ads in a swipe file", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Employee-generated content program for our careers page", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Should our CEO do a Reddit AMA to promote the launch?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Budget pacing check: are we on track to spend this month's $9k?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Hire a performance marketer to run our founder-brand ads", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "How much can we afford to pay per lead before unit economics break?", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Cut our founder's podcast interview into clips for organic social", "should_trigger": false },
{ "query": "Which creator should we partner with for our ambassador program?", "should_trigger": false }
]
}
references/platform-capability-matrix.md›
# Platform capability matrix (vendor-specific)
Capabilities in this category have changed repeatedly, and the platforms' own help pages have been internally inconsistent (notably on document posts and articles). If you can browse the web, confirm every row against current official documentation before building. If not, mark each platform-dependent fact in the plan as "verify in platform".
| Network | Product | Objectives | Permission token | Eligible formats | Advertiser CTA / link |
| ------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| LinkedIn (professional network) | Thought Leader Ads | Brand Awareness, Engagement, Video Views only - no lead-gen form, no conversion objective | In-platform partnership request; author approves/declines, can auto-approve, can revoke instantly (ad turns off immediately) | Single image, single video, text-only, article, newsletter, event. Not: carousels/multi-image, polls, documents, reshares, celebration posts, group posts | None - no headline, intro text, URL, or button (event posts excepted). A link exists only if the author put it in the post |
| Meta (Facebook/Instagram) | Partnership Ads (ex-Branded Content Ads, renamed 2022) | Full objective set including conversions/sales | Account-level access via partnership hub, or per-post code; "Paid partnership" label | Feed, Reels, Stories posts | Full - advertiser controls targeting, budget, destination; both identities shown |
| TikTok | Spark Ads | Full objective set including direct response and shop | Creator-generated authorization code per video with chosen duration (7/30/60/365 days) | Organic in-feed video | CTA buttons available; caption locked after authorization |
| X | Amplify / promotable posts | Reach, video views, engagement | One account authorizes another to create promotable posts; the ad runs from the advertiser's account | Posts, video | Standard promoted formats |
| YouTube | (none) | (none) | **No equivalent.** You can run your own uploaded video; there is no mechanic to sponsor another creator's organic upload under their identity | (none) | (none) |
| Reddit | Promoted posts | Awareness, traffic, conversions | **No personal-profile-sponsorship equivalent** | Post promotion | Standard |
## Planning consequences
- **The objective ceiling is the real differentiator.** On LinkedIn the format cannot carry a conversion objective, which forces the sequenced handoff design in SKILL.md. On Meta and TikTok the same mechanic runs straight to purchase - which is why founder-led consumer brands treat it as a performance channel rather than a funnel stage.
- **Permission duration differs structurally.** A per-video code with a fixed term is a licence with an expiry date to track and renew. An approve/revoke toggle is consent that can vanish mid-flight. Plan continuity differently for each.
- **Employment tie (LinkedIn only):** the featured person must list the sponsoring company as a current employer or collaborator, and the ad is bound to the parent company page. Departure breaks eligibility and the creative cannot be re-hosted. Non-employees became eligible (with consent and partnership labelling) on 1 April 2024.
- **No cross-network efficiency ranking is offered here, deliberately.** The featured person's audience exists on one or two networks and nowhere else, so presence decides the network before any value-per-effort comparison would - ranking the rows would be false precision.
- Where a person is genuinely active on both a full-objective and a trust-layer network, rank by handoff work: efficiency full-objective (Meta, TikTok) > trust-layer (LinkedIn). The full-objective network pays back inside the flight, while the trust-layer one makes the downstream conversion stage a standing job.
- Value inverts that wherever the buying committee only exists on the professional network, the ordinary B2B enterprise case.
- **Two networks simply do not offer this.** A plan naming YouTube or Reddit for this format is wrong, not merely suboptimal - route those channels to standard brand campaigns instead.
- **EEA specifics (LinkedIn):** targeting based on group membership was disabled in the EEA in 2024 because it could reveal sensitive-category data. Sponsored messaging requires explicit consent in the EU. Factor both into audience design for EEA-inclusive campaigns.
references/published-benchmarks.md›
# Published benchmarks with provenance
Read this before quoting any number to the user. Every figure here is vendor-published, agency-reported, or a single-practitioner anecdote - none is independently verified. The one apparent third-party corroboration of the headline CTR figure is a company citing the original vendor, not measuring independently.
Two "vendor-published" clusters recur below and are not the same source. ZenABM's 2026 LinkedIn ABM benchmarks report backs the median CTR, median CPC, cost-per-landing-page-click, and headline correlation figures - the same report cited four different ways, not four converging sources. Fractional Demand's 2026 15-month B2B SaaS portfolio analysis (17.4M impressions, 6,280 ads, $3.5M spend) backs the CTR-lift and budget-allocation-tier figures - a genuinely separate source, directionally consistent with ZenABM's numbers but not a replication of them: the two datasets disagree on the size of the lift (6.9x vs. ZenABM's implied ~6.4x) and were built from different ad samples.
## How to judge a number before using it
1. Rank provenance: the client's own account data > independent research > platform-published > vendor or agency case study. Use the highest rank available. Never present a lower rank as settled fact.
2. Check cohort fit: platform, objective, industry, geography, audience size, and attribution window must roughly match the client's situation, or the number does not transfer.
3. Check the denominator (see trap below) before comparing any two CTRs.
4. Prefer teaching the user how to build their own baseline (2-4 weeks of their own data) over asserting any figure below.
## The denominator trap
Under an engagement objective, reported CTR counts social actions - reactions, comments, shares, follows - not just clicks to a destination. A person-fronted ad optimised for engagement will always beat a brand conversion ad on reported CTR partly as an artifact. Compare cost per landing-page click instead, on both sides.
## The number that outranks the rest
The largest disclosed dataset (ZenABM, 119 sponsored person-fronted posts, ~$300k spend, 161,256 ads across 211 companies, 2026) found reported CTR **negatively** correlated with pipeline: rho = -0.170. Whatever else in this file is quoted, quote this next to it.
## Performance claims
| Claim | Value | Provenance |
| ---------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Median CTR, person-fronted vs brand-page | 2.68% vs 0.42% single image (0.32% carousel, 0.24% video) | ZenABM 2026 (vendor, self-serving; same report as the correlation figure above) |
| Median CPC | $2.29 vs $13.23 single image, $15.61 video | ZenABM 2026 (vendor; same report as the correlation figure above) |
| Cost per landing-page click | ~$3.06 (~77% cheaper than brand single image) | ZenABM 2026 (vendor; same report as the correlation figure above) |
| CTR lift | 1.7x in the platform's 2023 pilot; "~2x" in later statements | Platform's own claim; pilot has early-adopter bias |
| CTR lift | 155% (0.87% vs 0.34%), 2M+ impressions | Single practitioner |
| CTR lift | 6.9x, 15-month B2B SaaS portfolio | Fractional Demand 2026 (vendor; independent of ZenABM) |
| Best allocation tier | 25-50% of channel budget → 5.08% CTR at $0.84 CPC (17.4M impressions, $3.5M spend) | Fractional Demand 2026 (same source as the CTR-lift row above; warns to widen the account list before passing ~40%) |
| Objective economics | Engagement objective ≈ $4.80 landing-page CPC vs $7.90-12+ for awareness objective | Practitioner ($300k spend analysis) |
| Single-deal anecdote | $120k ACV closed from $2,035 spend | Single practitioner, n=1 |
Vendor lift claims relayed through platform interviews (33% more leads for frequently posting founders, 24% and 120% deal-size lifts on committee engagement, 6x conversion lift preceding sponsored messaging, 20-30% ROI lift) are correlations presented as causal, near-certainly confounded by pre-existing buyer interest. Do not repeat them as outcomes.
## Budget and cost context
| Item | Value | Provenance |
| -------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- |
| Floor for meaningful data | $50-100/day per campaign | Practitioner-cited |
| Monthly minimum / optimal per campaign | $1,500-3,000 / $2,000-5,000 | Vendor-published |
| Expected CPC | $2-6 precise targeting; $5-12 broader | Practitioner-cited |
| Bidding pattern | Max delivery 7-14 days, then manual/cost-cap at 70-80% of suggested bid | Practitioner-cited |
| B2B justification bar | ACV ~$25k+ with narrow ICP; payback ~a year or more to traceable revenue | Practitioner-cited |
| Audience bands | 20,000-50,000 (sub-$10k/mo budgets, practitioner); 5,000-50,000 (vendor); 500-2,000 contacts for named-account programs (agency) | Mixed, as labelled |
| Trust premise | 73% of B2B decision-makers rate thought-leadership content a more trustworthy vendor signal than marketing materials | Platform-sponsored survey (2024, ~3,500 respondents) |
No published agency-retainer norm exists for this format. State that as a gap if asked.
## Consumer-side claims (same provenance problem)
- Platform-published short-video figures: 134% higher completion rate, 157% higher 6-second view-through, 69% higher conversion rate, 37% lower CPA (internal A/B tests from 2020-2022 auction conditions).
- A widely repeated third-party CPA comparison ($14.62 vs $23.18 across 780 campaigns) traces only to a secondary aggregator, not a primary document.
- A 2022 meta-analysis of 15 split tests reporting lower CPA for partnership-labelled ads is the platform's own research.
- Creative refresh cadences of 3-7 days (short-video) and 14-21 days (social feed) are agency-reported.
- The claim that founder-shot phone content beats polished creator content on engagement and CAC is a vendor claim, directionally consistent with the B2B authenticity finding, not independently verified.
references/worked-plan-examples.md›
# Worked plan examples
All numbers below are illustrative planning inputs for fictional companies, not benchmarks - take real values from the interview and from the client's own account data.
## Example 1 - B2B plan (passes the gates)
**Context from interview:**
- B2B data-security vendor, $60k ACV, 5-month cycle.
- Three willing featured people (CTO, a staff engineer, one customer champion), written agreements signed.
- Retargeting audiences and conversion campaigns already live.
- $9k/month for this format (~30% of channel budget), target list of 800 accounts.
- Not regulated, no EEA audience.
**Plan produced:**
- **Roster:** CTO + staff engineer (employees, paid-promotion label + visible role) + customer champion (non-employee: partnership label, licensed usage rights, usage fee, 90-day term). Portfolio of three, so one revocation cannot end the program. Takedown-and-replace step: on any revocation or departure, pause within 24h and rotate the next scored post from another person.
- **Post selection:**
- Each person's trailing 20 posts ranked by engagement rate against their own median.
- Top-quartile evergreen posts about the buyer's problem shortlisted.
- Product-pitch posts and a funding announcement excluded.
- Format check: two shortlisted carousel posts dropped as ineligible.
- Each selected post: author edits a tracked link in before launch, one day after its organic peak. The in-post edit is promoted over the default pinned comment here because all three authors edit their own posts unprompted, so the ask costs nothing and the higher click volume decides.
- **Sequence:** awareness-first. The brand is better known than either individual in this market, and the cold prospecting layer already exists.
- Person-fronted ads warm the existing cold-engager pool.
- Engagers hand off to the conversion-capable retargeting stage (designed in `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@retargeting-funnel`).
- All engager/viewer audiences confirmed created before launch.
- **Audience:** matched account list (800 accounts, partial match expected) layered with security + IT functions, manager-and-above seniority ≈ 24,000 members.
- Frequency math: $9k/month at the account's observed CPM supports meaningful weekly frequency at this size. List not widened.
- Exclusions (6 entries vs. 3 inclusion layers): customers, open pipeline, employees, competitors, students, /login visitors (180-day window).
- **Budget/bidding:**
- $100/day per campaign, two campaigns.
- Max delivery days 1-14, then cost-cap at ~75% of suggested bid.
- Allocation share capped at 30% of channel budget, with the rule "widen the list before adding budget" written into the plan.
- **Measurement:**
- Week-6 gate: cost per landing-page click ≤ the account's brand-ads baseline ($6.10 from its own last quarter), engager pool ≥ the platform's serveable floor. Fail branches as in SKILL.md.
- Two-quarter review on influenced pipeline and sales-accepted opportunities against a 3x pipeline-to-spend bar agreed with the client.
- Reported CTR explicitly excluded from all success criteria.
## Example 2 - B2C variant (what changes)
**Context:** founder-led skincare brand, $55 average order, founder posts short-form video weekly, full-funnel objectives available on the chosen consumer platforms.
Only the deltas from Example 1:
- **Objective:** direct response (purchase) from day one - no forced trust layer, no structural handoff. Sequencing collapses to one performance campaign plus standard retargeting.
- **Permission:** per-video authorization codes, 60-day terms, tracked in a renewal calendar - expiry management replaces revocation risk.
- **Selection cadence:** promote only videos that already earn saves/shares/watch-through organically. Refresh every 3-7 days (short-video). The B2B two-week rotation is far too slow here.
- **Measurement:** split test person-fronted vs brand-account creative. Keep the person-fronted variant only while its pixel CPA is at or below the brand control. No pipeline window, no landing-page-CPC gate.
- **Governance kept identical:** written agreement, disclosure labelling, portfolio thinking (the founder plus at least one creator so the account isn't hostage to one person's feed).
## Example 3 - Broken plan (negative example, with diagnosis)
**The plan as submitted:** "Boost the CEO's latest post to our whole TAM (300,000 professionals) at $2k/month with a conversion objective. The CEO is on board - he liked the idea in the hallway. No link needed, people will find us. We'll judge it on CTR after two weeks; our agency says this format gets 3-6x the CTR of company ads."
**Diagnosis, mapped to the skill:**
1. **Consent:** a hallway remark is not consent, and nothing is per-post. No written agreement means the company has no rights to the creative and no revocation/pause terms. Fails the eligibility gate before anything else.
2. **Objective:** a conversion objective is structurally unavailable on the trust-layer network. The plan as written cannot be built. Running it "cold as direct response" is the most common documented misuse even where objectives allow it.
3. **Audience/budget:** $2k/month against 300,000 people produces near-zero frequency, the exact mismatch practitioners warn about.
- Either cut to a list the budget can hit repeatedly, or raise budget. Neither was considered.
- No exclusion list at all: customers and employees will absorb spend.
4. **No capture layer:** nothing says retargeting audiences exist. Engagement generated before they are created is unrecoverable.
5. **No link, no declaration:** "people will find us" is the no-destination failure mode. It must be a pinned-comment link, a tracked-link edit, or a declared retargeting-pool builder - the plan chose none.
6. **Measurement:** judging on reported CTR adopts the one metric shown (in the largest published dataset) to correlate negatively with pipeline, and the quoted "3-6x CTR" is an agency figure with an engagement-inflated denominator. Two weeks is also inside the learning window.
7. **Single person:** the whole program dies the day the CEO revokes, gets busy, or leaves.
**Smallest viable fix:**
- Written agreement with the CEO plus one more featured person.
- Engagement objective.
- Matched list sized to the budget with the standard exclusions.
- Retargeting audiences created pre-launch.
- A tracked link in the author's pinned first comment, the smallest ask that still attributes clicks.
- Week-6 gate on landing-page CPC and pool growth instead of CTR.
SKILL.md›
---
name: thought-leadership-ads
description: "Plan a campaign that promotes an executive's or founder's existing organic posts as paid person-fronted ads - post selection, sequencing, audience and exclusions, permission and governance, budget, and measurement. Use whenever the user mentions thought leader ads, promoting a founder's or CEO's post, sponsoring an employee's or a creator's post, executive content amplification, running ads from a personal profile, or B2B trust ads - even if they never say 'thought leadership'. Covers B2B trust-layer campaigns on professional networks with pipeline-lens measurement, and B2C founder-led brands with direct-response measurement. Plans the campaign only, never the featured person's content: ad copy is mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-copy-variants."
license: MIT
metadata:
author: Maya-Beth Finotti
version: "1.3.9"
---
# Thought Leadership Ads
Plan a paid campaign that amplifies a named person's own organic posts from that person's profile, under a paid-promotion label naming the sponsoring brand. The advertiser buys distribution for a post it does not own and cannot edit - every planning decision below follows from that constraint.
## Scope and handoffs
This skill selects posts, sequences the campaign, designs the audience, sets governance, sizes budget, and defines measurement. It hands off neighbouring work:
- Writing or improving the featured person's posts - never done here. This skill only chooses among posts that already exist.
- Working conversion tracking is a prerequisite → verify via `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-conversion-tracking`.
- The broader layered targeting plan → `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-audience-targeting`.
- The downstream retargeting sequence this campaign feeds → `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@retargeting-funnel`.
- Ad copy variants and creative briefs → `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-copy-variants`, `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-creative-brief`.
- Which channels to run at all → `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-platform-selection`.
- Buying-committee role mapping → `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-buyer-group-mapper`.
- Total budget split across campaigns → `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-spend-allocation`.
- Ongoing decay monitoring after launch → `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-creative-fatigue`.
If you draft any illustrative copy while explaining a step, route it through your preferred humanizer skill before the user ships it - AI-sounding text is a documented killer of this format (see Failure modes).
## Interview
Ask one question at a time, multiple-choice where possible. Stop as soon as you can plan. Do not run the full list when early answers already settle later questions.
1. Business model: (a) B2B, (b) B2C / consumer, (c) hybrid?
2. Who are the candidate featured people: (a) founder/CEO only, (b) several executives, (c) employees beyond the exec team, (d) customers or external creators, (e) a mix?
3. Have those people already agreed to have their posts promoted: (a) yes, explicitly, (b) informally / assumed, (c) not asked yet?
4. Does a written agreement exist beyond platform click-to-approve: (a) yes, (b) no, (c) only for some people?
5. B2B: typical ACV and sales-cycle length? B2C: typical order value and purchase-decision time?
6. Does each candidate already post organically - roughly how often, and is there an engagement history to score against?
7. What downstream capture layer exists today: (a) retargeting audiences + conversion campaigns live, (b) tracking live but no retargeting built, (c) nothing yet?
8. Monthly budget for this format, and a rough size for the target audience or account list?
9. What does the account currently pay per landing-page click on brand-account ads to a comparable audience, and what pipeline-to-spend bar should the two-quarter review judge against? Both are gate inputs, not context:
- Without the first, the week-6 gate falls back to a provisional external bar.
- Without the second, the lagging verdict has nothing to be measured against.
- Agree the bar now, never at review time.
10. Regulated industry (financial services, health, or similar)?
11. Does the audience include the EEA or UK?
12. Date the result must land by: (a) inside this quarter, (b) two to four quarters out, (c) no fixed date?
13. One-off win or compounding asset: (a) clicks and pipeline from this flight, (b) a warm pool and a person-fronted channel that keeps paying?
14. Effort ceiling: hours per week available, and how much political capital - can you ask an executive to edit their own live post, and can you license a customer's content?
Re-rank every ordered menu below against answers 12-14, and say out loud which answer moved which option. Where an answer rules an option out entirely instead of merely lowering it, delete it by name rather than ranking it last.
- Answer 12 (date inside this quarter): fails the B2B trust layer at the eligibility gate and promotes the B2C direct-response shape.
- Answer 13 (compounding mandate): promotes trust-first sequencing, the multi-person roster, and the declared pool-builder link option.
- Answer 14 (low political-capital ceiling): promotes the pinned-comment link and employee-authored posts over an exec edit or a licensed customer post.
Every ordering in this skill is a default, not a law - it shifts with context and with who executes it. Re-rank against what you already know about the user - each of these invalidates an assumption the default order makes:
- A founder whose audience outranks the brand's.
- An in-house editor.
- A customer who has already licensed their content.
- A compliance team that clears a post in a day.
## Eligibility gate
Do not produce a plan when any of these holds. Say which gate failed and what to do instead - a plan that dies at day 45 is worse than a refusal.
- **No downstream capture layer.** Retargeting is not retroactive: audiences not being captured today are gone forever, and this format's main output is a warm pool. Build tracking and the retargeting scaffold first (`mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-conversion-tracking`, then `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@retargeting-funnel`), then return.
- **The featured person has not consented.** Consent is per-post, personal, and revocable - marketing cannot run this unilaterally. Get explicit agreement (and the written agreement from Governance) before planning around anyone. Never treat "the CEO will probably say yes" as consent.
- **Budget cannot sustain frequency against the audience.** If the budget spread over the audience yields near-zero frequency, nobody changes their mind. Shrink the audience to fit the budget (see Audience). If the user refuses both, decline the format.
- **B2B with low ACV.** This is a slow-payback trust layer. Practitioners cite roughly $25k+ ACV with a narrow ICP as the justification bar (practitioner-cited, not a law). Far below that, route the budget to direct-response and retargeting instead, where payback is measurable within the quarter.
A single-person program is not a hard stop but flag it: one revocation or resignation ends it (see Governance).
## Post selection
Select from what the person already publishes, never manufacture a post purely to be advertised - volunteer output beats mandated programs, and manufactured posts read as ads, which defeats the format.
1. **Apply the organic-validation rule, and disclose that it is contested.**
- Majority practice promotes posts that already earned organic engagement, because existing reactions and comments carry into the ad as visible social proof.
- A minority of practitioners argue performance comes from content quality, not pre-validation, and write posts intending to promote them.
- Both camps agree on one thing: a post with a dead comment thread inherits that dead thread.
- Default to validation. Note the minority view when the user has strong content but a small following.
2. **Score relative to that account's own median, not an absolute bar.**
- Rank each candidate post against the author's trailing posts (engagement rate, comments, shares). Promote from the top quartile.
- There is no defensible absolute threshold to hold every account to. One agency benchmark cites ~2-3% organic CTR as the candidate bar (agency-reported), usable as a cross-check only.
3. **Check format eligibility as a concept.**
- Networks typically allow single-asset posts (one image, one video, plain text, long-form article, newsletter, event) and reject multi-asset or interactive ones (carousels, polls, document posts, reshares, celebration posts).
- Platform documentation on this is internally inconsistent and changes often.
- If you can browse the web, verify the current list on the chosen network before finalizing.
- If not, mark each selected post "format eligibility: verify in platform".
4. **Respect the recency and edit window.**
- Organic reach concentrates in a post's first ~3 days.
- Let the surge settle, roughly a day past peak engagement, then have the author make any edit or add the pinned comment before launch.
- The ad references the live post. A later edit changes a running ad.
5. **Solve the edit problem explicitly.** On trust-layer networks the advertiser cannot attach a URL or CTA. A link exists only if the author put one there. Three options, ordered by attributable clicks bought per ask made of the author:
1. **Link in a pinned first comment.** The ask is one comment and it never touches the approved post, so it repeats across every person on the roster and every post in the quarter without spending capital you need later. Clicks are fully tracked. The volume is lower than an in-post link because the destination sits one tap away.
2. **Tracked link edited into the post.** The most attributable clicks, and the only rung that puts the destination where the reader already is. It is also the largest ask in the format - an executive editing their own live post - plus a wait on their calendar and, in a regulated firm, a second pass through pre-publication review and retention (Governance).
3. **No click destination, declared in writing as a retargeting-pool builder.** Near-zero ask, near-zero attribution: gate 1 below cannot be computed without landing-page clicks, so the campaign is judged on pool growth alone. A post with no link and no such declaration is a failure mode, not a minimalist choice.
- value (attributable click volume): tracked link in post > pinned comment > no destination (zero)
- effort (political capital spent, and a wait on someone else's calendar): tracked link in post > pinned comment > no destination
- efficiency: pinned comment > tracked link in post > no destination
**Default: the pinned first comment.**
- What this order starves: the tracked in-post link buys the most attributable clicks in the format and costs the most political capital, so the ratio refuses it every round. A plan computing only efficiency never once puts the destination where the reader already is.
- Promote the in-post link whenever the author edits their own posts without being chased - a founder who runs their own marketing, or anyone already on auto-approval - because the political-capital term collapses and the value term decides alone.
- The ranking is a default, not a law: it turns entirely on who has to make the ask and to whom.
**Delete, don't demote.** An executive who will not edit a live post does not push the in-post link to second place. It leaves that person's menu instead, and the plan names it deleted with the reason. Ranked second, it comes back in week 4 as an ask nobody is willing to make, against a gate that was already computed without it.
6. **Prefer the content the format rewards**, ordered by inherited engagement bought per unit of clearance work:
1. **Employee low-polish posts about building the product or about the buyer's problem.**
- The paid-promotion label plus the author's visible role clears them.
- No licence, no negotiation, no second label.
2. **Customer- or creator-authored posts.** They outperform employee posts on engagement and credibility (practitioner-reported) and rank second only because each one costs a licence, a partnership label, and a negotiation (Governance). They take first place once the licence is signed, or when the author is a name your ICP already knows.
3. **Produced brand content posted from a personal profile.** Reads as an ad from the one account whose entire asset is not reading like one.
4. **Product pitches.** Practitioners hold roughly 80% genuine thought leadership to 20% solution content across the promoted set.
- value (engagement and credibility carried into the ad): customer/creator > employee build-in-public > brand-produced > pitch
- effort and compliance cost (licence, extra label, negotiation): customer/creator > employee post > brand-produced == pitch
- Brand-produced posts and pitches tie on that axis because clearance treats them identically - the brand's own words about the brand's own product, no licence, no partnership label, no negotiation. Everything separating them lives on the value axis, not the clearance one.
- Delete, don't demote: with no route to license a customer's content (interview question 14), the customer/creator rung leaves the menu by name rather than sitting at the top of an order the user cannot execute.
- Independent of the four rungs: evergreen > news spikes.
## Sequencing
Two documented sequences compete, ordered by warm pool built per week of setup:
1. **Trust-first (default).**
- Person-fronted ads run cold to the ICP.
- Engagers become a cheap, engaged retargeting pool.
- Brand-labelled ads run to those engagers.
- Social-proof formats run last.
- Right whenever the featured person outranks the brand in recognition - the usual founder-led, early-stage, personal-brand-heavy case.
2. **Awareness-first.**
- Cold brand-account ads establish awareness.
- Person-fronted ads warm that audience mid-funnel.
- Engagers get conversion-capable formats for the direct ask.
- Right whenever the brand outranks the person in recognition.
- Also right whenever a cold prospecting layer has to be built anyway to seed retargeting pools - then its extra layer buys two things at once and stops being extra.
- efficiency: trust-first > awareness-first
- effort (layers to stand up before this format serves one impression): awareness-first > trust-first
- value (minds changed per impression): trust-first > awareness-first where the person outranks the brand; the order inverts where the brand outranks the person
Say which one you chose and why - the wrong default here wastes the whole budget. The order is a default, not a law: recognition flips it, a compounding mandate (question 13) reinforces trust-first, and a deadline inside the quarter promotes neither, because both sequences pay back slowly (see Eligibility gate).
Both sequences agree on two invariants:
1. **The format must hand off to something that can convert.**
- On professional networks it cannot carry a conversion objective at all. Prospects who engage with a person often never connect that person to the company.
- Bridge deliberately: the person references the company in some posts, themes align across personal and brand streams, and proof formats reinforce later.
- Design the downstream sequence via `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@retargeting-funnel` before launch.
2. **Every retargeting audience the sequence will ever need exists before the first ad serves.**
- Post engagers, video viewers, ad engagers, page and site visitors: create them all up front.
- Data not captured is unrecoverable.
B2C difference: consumer platforms allow direct-response objectives on the same mechanic, so the sequence can collapse to a single performance campaign - sequencing becomes optional there, not structural.
## Audience
- **Build from a matched account list plus function/seniority layering** (B2B): upload the target company list, expect a partial match rate, then layer job function and seniority on top. For named-account programs, contact-level lists of 500-2,000 people run at high frequency (agency-reported). B2C: start from the featured person's follower lookalikes and interest layers instead.
- **Size the audience to the budget, never to the market.** Published practitioner bands: 20,000-50,000 members for sub-$10k/month budgets (practitioner-cited), and a wider 5,000-50,000 band (vendor-published). The rule behind the bands is what matters: compute expected frequency (budget ÷ CPM ÷ audience) and shrink the list until frequency is meaningful. "Spending 2k/month against 300k people, no one's seeing your stuff" (practitioner).
- **Write the exclusion list.** It often ends up longer than the inclusion list (agency-reported, and correct).
- Build every entry. When only part of it can ship before launch, order by wasted spend prevented per minute of setup: existing customers == open pipeline > employees > competitors > students > URL-based exclusion of logged-in users (the only entry that needs tracking work, and the only one platform support can withhold).
- Existing customers and open pipeline tie because one CRM export produces both lists in the same minute of setup, and an impression on either is bought against an account already reached by name.
- Every dollar shown to a customer or an employee is wasted twice: spend and credibility.
- Where platform support withholds the URL-based exclusion, delete that entry from the list and say so in the plan. Left ranked last, it reads as pending work and quietly never lands.
- Route the wider layered-targeting design (interest, lookalike, retargeting tiers across the account) to `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-audience-targeting`.
## Governance
Keep this practical: it decides whether the campaign can exist, keep running, and survive a departure.
- **Consent is per-post and instantly revocable.** The author approves each sponsorship in-platform, may enable auto-approval, and can revoke at any time - on revocation the ad turns off immediately. Plan for it as a live switch someone else holds.
- **Departure ends the campaign.** On professional networks the featured person must list the sponsor as a current employer or collaborator. Leaving breaks eligibility, and the creative cannot be retained, re-run, or re-hosted, because the post lives on their profile. Absent a written agreement, case law leans toward the individual owning the account and its content.
- **Mitigate with a portfolio.** Run several people's posts in parallel so one revocation or resignation cannot end the program, and write an explicit takedown-and-replace step into the plan.
- **Platform click-to-approve is not a commercial agreement.** Sign a written agreement per featured person, covering:
- Usage fee (if any).
- Term (commonly 30/60/90 days).
- Spend caps.
- Who may edit the post.
- Pause and revocation handling.
- Disclosure obligations.
- For non-employees, add licensed usage rights.
- **Disclose.** A brand paying to amplify a post about itself is an endorsement with a material connection.
- Employees: the platform's paid-promotion label plus the author's visible role is the practical mechanism.
- Non-employees (customers, creators, independent experts): additionally require the partnership label.
- Regulated firms (financial, health): pre-publication compliance review and retention are mandatory. A US regulator's first enforcement action in this area (2024) fined a firm $850,000 over unsupervised influencer posts.
- UK/EEA: ads must be obviously identifiable as advertising even when the poster is commercially connected to the brand. EEA targeting excludes sensitive-category signals (some group/affinity targeting is disabled there entirely).
- **Treat the featured person as an approver with a veto, not a content supplier.** That inversion is the documented relationship failure mode.
- B2C difference: permission is commonly a per-video authorization code with a fixed term (7/30/60/365 days) - a licence with an expiry date to track and renew, rather than an open-ended toggle that can vanish mid-flight. Plan continuity around expiry dates instead of revocation risk.
## Budget and bidding
- **Concept first: the floor is the spend that buys meaningful frequency against the chosen audience for 4-6 weeks.** Compute it from audience size and expected CPM before quoting any published number.
- Published ranges, with provenance:
- $50-100/day per campaign as the floor for meaningful data (practitioner-cited).
- $1,500-3,000/month minimum and $2,000-5,000/month optimal per campaign (vendor-published).
- Expected CPC $2-6 with precise targeting, $5-12 broader (practitioner-cited).
- Treat all of these as cohort-dependent, not targets.
- **Cap the format's share of channel budget at roughly 25-40%.** The best-performing tier in the largest published portfolio was 25-50% of channel budget (vendor-published). The same source warns to expand the account list before scaling past ~40% - beyond that, you are buying more frequency against the same accounts, not more minds.
- **Widen the audience before adding budget.** Above the optimal per-campaign range, extra spend meets a saturated list. Grow the list first.
- Bidding pattern (practitioner-cited): maximum delivery for the first 7-14 days to gather cost data, then manual or cost-cap at 70-80% of the platform's suggested bid.
- Reconcile the funding-order dispute honestly:
- One agency doctrine funds this format last (slowest payback of any campaign type, 90+ days to ROI).
- The portfolio data above says once funded, fund it properly.
- Resolution: fund it last, but never at token levels - a trust layer at 5% of budget produces frequency too low to change anyone's mind.
- Route the account-wide split across all campaigns through `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@ad-spend-allocation`.
## Measurement and pass gate
**Never judge this format on reported CTR.** The largest published dataset (119 sponsored posts, ~$300k spend, 211 companies - vendor-published) found reported CTR negatively correlated with pipeline (rho = -0.170). Worse, under an engagement objective the reported-CTR denominator includes reactions, comments, shares, and follows - so the format always "wins" on a number that is partly an artifact and does not predict revenue. The metric this format wins on is the metric that fails.
Split metrics:
- **Leading (diagnostics only, weekly), ordered by decisions changed per minute spent reading them:** cost per landing-page click (never reported CTR) > retargeting-pool growth > comment volume (highest-intent signal) > account-level engagement > frequency > engagement rate. The first two decide the week-6 gate below. Engagement rate ranks last because it is the closest cousin of the metric this format wins on and does not deserve.
- **Lagging (the verdict, 2-4 quarter window, B2B):** influenced pipeline, sales-accepted opportunities from engaged accounts, cost per opportunity. B2C: pixel-based CPA/ROAS on a short window - the CTR caution does not transfer, because the conversion is a purchase days later, not a pipeline guess.
**Week-6 review gate (B2B).** The campaign passes only if both hold:
1. Cost per landing-page click ≤ the account's own cost per landing-page click on brand-account ads to a comparable audience. If no brand baseline exists, use $3-5 as a provisional bar (vendor-published median territory), and label it provisional in the plan.
2. The engager retargeting pool has crossed the downstream platform's minimum serveable audience floor (commonly ~300 matched members - verify the current floor), so the handoff stage can actually launch.
Fail branches:
- Fails gate 1 only: the post is the problem. Rotate in a different validated post before touching audience or budget.
- Fails gate 2 only: the audience or budget is the problem. Widen the list or raise spend toward the floor.
- Both fail again after one post rotation (~week 10): pause the format and return budget to retargeting and direct-response.
- At the 2-quarter review, judge on the lagging set against a pipeline-to-spend bar agreed with the user during planning (account-based programs commonly plan against 3-5x, agency-reported).
**B2C gate:** run the person-fronted post against the brand-account creative as a split test. Keep it only while its CPA is at or below the brand-creative control. Refresh creative on the short-video cadence (3-7 days) or feed cadence (14-21 days) - both agency-reported - instead of the B2B two-week rotation.
## Failure modes
| Failure | What it looks like | Fix |
| ---------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Permission revoked / person leaves | Ad turns off instantly; creative unrecoverable | Multi-person portfolio; written agreement before spend; takedown-and-replace step in the plan |
| Run cold as direct response | Spend with no pipeline; "the format doesn't work" | It has no conversion objective; design the handoff before launch (Sequencing) |
| One profile carries everything | The person's feed reads as all-sponsored; credibility being purchased is destroyed | Cap the promoted share of any individual's output; spread across people |
| Budget-to-audience mismatch | Frequency collapses; nobody sees anything twice | Size audience to budget (Audience); shrink the list, not the ambition |
| AI-sounding copy | Practitioners name it directly: "the em dashes, the vocabulary… AI slop" | The format's only asset is a real person speaking; select only genuinely authored posts; humanize anything you touch |
| No link anywhere | Promoted post with no destination and no declared purpose | Pick one of the three edit-problem options and instrument it (Post selection, step 5) |
One criticism to state in the plan rather than suppress: the format works because it does not look like advertising, and critics call that stealth branding. The honest answer is stronger disclosure and genuinely useful content, not defending the ambiguity.
## Output shape
Deliver one plan document containing:
- Featured-person roster with consent and agreement status.
- Selected posts with their relative scores and link plan.
- The chosen sequence with the handoff design.
- Audience definition, exclusion list, and frequency math.
- Budget, bidding pattern, and allocation share.
- Governance annex (agreement terms, disclosure duties, takedown-and-replace).
- The measurement plan with both review gates and their fail branches.
- A named list of every option a stated constraint deleted from a menu.
A full worked example and a broken counter-example live in [./references/worked-plan-examples.md](./references/worked-plan-examples.md).
If your harness has persistent memory, record for later sessions to tune against instead of re-deriving:
- The chosen sequence.
- Audience sizing math.
- Gate thresholds.
- Each featured person's consent status.
If not, put that rationale block at the top of the delivered plan.
## Integration note (optional, vendor-specific)
The mechanic is platform-generic, but the named products differ in objectives, permission tokens, and CTA rights:
- LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads: trust-layer constraints described above.
- Meta Partnership Ads and TikTok Spark Ads: full-funnel objectives, per-post or per-video authorization.
- X Amplify: runs from the advertiser's account.
Two networks (YouTube, Reddit) have no equivalent - a plan naming them for this format is wrong, not suboptimal. Full comparison in [./references/platform-capability-matrix.md](./references/platform-capability-matrix.md). Capabilities changed repeatedly in recent years, so verify live before building.
## References
- [./references/worked-plan-examples.md](./references/worked-plan-examples.md) - one worked B2B plan, one worked B2C variant, one broken plan with diagnosis. Load when producing the deliverable.
- [./references/platform-capability-matrix.md](./references/platform-capability-matrix.md) - per-network objectives, permission tokens, format eligibility, CTA rights. Load when mapping the plan onto concrete networks.
- [./references/published-benchmarks.md](./references/published-benchmarks.md) - every performance number with its source, and how to judge one before using it. Load before quoting any benchmark to the user.