The RUN Framework for AI Ad Management

Running ads by feel means some weeks you check everything and some weeks nothing, and the results follow your mood. A short, named routine fixes that. This post sets out the RUN framework for AI ad management: Restrict, Understand, Nominate. It is our own simple way to organise the work, not an industry standard, and you can adapt it.

Each letter is one stage, each stage has a checklist, and the whole thing fits in a weekly slot. The framework follows the same order the ads lesson teaches: Run your ads with AI, safely is Lesson 4.4, and it covers connecting an account, seeing what works, approving changes and setting a limit.

RUN keeps AI useful and safe: Restrict what it can touch, Understand what your ads are doing, then Nominate changes that you approve.

R is for Restrict

You do this once, then glance at it monthly. The aim is to make sure that even a bad suggestion cannot do real damage.

Restrict access. Use the lowest access level that still lets AI read your data. Google's access levels page lists email-only, billing, read-only, standard and admin, and says read-only users can view campaigns and run reports while editing campaigns needs standard access or above. Meta's ad account roles are admin, advertiser and analyst, with analysts able to view ads and access reports.

Restrict spend. Set a budget ceiling you chose. On Google Ads, the average daily budget can be exceeded on a given day by up to two times according to Google, with a monthly maximum of 30.4 times the daily figure. On Meta, an account spending limit is a cap on the total the ad account can spend. Work out your worst case in money, and make sure you could live with it.

Restrict the job. Tell the AI in plain words what it may do: read, summarise, propose. It may not change settings or raise budgets.

1. Check access levelConfirm the AI tool, or the person connecting it, has read-level access only.
2. Confirm the capWrite down your daily budget, the worst day it could produce and your monthly maximum.
3. Write the ruleKeep one line you paste at the top of every request: propose only, no changes, explain every suggestion.
4. Add a card alertSet a spending notification with your bank or card provider as a second layer.

U is for Understand

This is the weekly review. You ask the same questions in the same order so that weeks are comparable.

The five weekly questions:

1. What did I spend this week and last week?
2. What did each campaign produce in terms of my one chosen result?
3. Where did money go with no result?
4. What changed in the account since last week? (Your log, and the platform's change history, answer this. Google's change history lists changes over the past two years and who made them.)
5. What looks unusual, either higher or lower than normal?

Ask AI to answer these from an export or from read access, then check at least two numbers against the platform. The checking is not a formality. It is what lets you trust the other three answers.

Define the result first. Google's page on conversion measurement says you choose what to count as valuable, for example a purchase, a sign-up or a call. If you have not defined this, AI will default to the numbers that are easy to see. Decide once per campaign.

Read slowly when data is thin. If an ad only had a few clicks, a week of numbers is mostly noise. Note the observation and move on rather than changing things.

N is for Nominate

Here AI proposes and you decide. The word nominate is deliberate: AI puts names forward, you vote.

Ask for a numbered list of proposed changes, no more than five. For each one, require:

• the exact change (what, where, from what to what)
• the reason, with the numbers it used
• the risk if it is wrong
• how to undo it

Then apply a short filter. Approve only changes you can explain to someone else in a sentence. Make small, reversible ones first: pause an obviously weak ad, add a clearly irrelevant search term as a negative keyword. Google's search terms report guidance describes adding selected terms as negative keywords, which by default are added as negative exact match.

Avoid approving more than three changes in a week. Google's help page says smart bidding strategies need a learning period of several days and recommends avoiding frequent changes to budgets or targets during it, so piling on edits works against you.

The weekly RUN sheet

Copy this into a note and fill it every week. It takes about as long as a coffee.

An illustrative run

Say you run a small bakery with a local search campaign and a social campaign. This is an illustration, not a result.

On Monday you open your RUN sheet. Restrict checks pass. In Understand, AI reports that the search campaign spent on a handful of terms unrelated to bread, such as unrelated recipes. You verify two of those in the search terms report yourself. In Nominate, AI proposes adding three terms as negatives, pausing one ad with a weak headline and rewriting another. You approve the negatives and the pause, hold the rewrite until next week, and log the date.

Next Monday, you compare. Fewer unrelated terms? Same orders? You note it and carry on. Nothing dramatic happened, and that is the point: a routine builds knowledge slowly.

When to change the framework

After a couple of months, revisit each stage. If the AI has been right every time, you might loosen approvals for tiny changes, such as adding negatives. If it has been wrong, tighten them or stop. The framework is meant to move with your trust, not to stay fixed. For ten smaller tactics to fold into stage N, see 10 AI ad management strategies.

Common questions

Questions people ask

Is RUN an official method?

No. It is a simple structure we use to teach the safe order of work. The platforms do not define it.

How often should I run it?

Weekly suits most small accounts. If your budget is very small, every two weeks may be enough.

Can I skip Restrict once things are going well?

Do not skip it. It is the stage that protects you when something unexpected happens, such as a wrong suggestion or a changed setting.

What if AI suggests nothing?

That is a valid result. Not every week needs a change.

Start this week

Set up Restrict today, run Understand on your next review day, and keep Nominate to three approvals. Lesson 4.4 shows the whole routine on screen: Run your ads with AI, safely.