LinkedIn Ads Weekly — optimise-and-report cycle

Reads a LinkedIn Ads account, proposes a ranked change list, applies what is approved, and drafts the weekly client update. The Google sibling is /google-ads-weekly; this is the same optimise-first-report-second discipline for LinkedIn. The report describes what changed, not just what happened.

Doctrine inherited

• linkedin-ads-spend.md gates every write. Preview before mutate, confirm before spend or delete, never auto-confirm in batch, default to DRAFT/PAUSE. Where LinkedIn Ads writes are not yet enabled (pending Advertising-API / Developer-Portal approval), Phase 3 emits an operator-applies-manually change list and the gate activates once writes land. Non-negotiable when they do.
• pii-redaction.md applies to lead-gen form data, which carries names, work emails and job titles people submitted directly.
• output-simplicity.md caps the Slack update. One screen for a senior reader, not a metrics dump.

When to use

Use it for the weekly cycle on a live LinkedIn Ads account where you hold at least read access.

Do not use it for:

• Google Ads → /google-ads-weekly
• A one-off, deep account audit → /paid-ads-audit
• The read-only week-over-week report on its own → /paid-ads-report (this skill invokes it in Phase 4)
• The standalone change journal → /paid-ads-experiment-log (also invoked in Phase 4)
• Writing or refreshing ad copy → /linkedin-ads-copy

Inputs

Input	Required	Notes
Client slug	yes	Resolves the workflow binding, e.g. ClientCo
Account data	yes	Either the linkedin-ads MCP read tools, or a pasted/CSV export. Both are first-class.
Client workflow file	recommended	{client}/workflows/linkedin-ads-weekly.md carries the account's targets, campaign split and Slack format
Campaign strategy	recommended	The intended structure, so the cycle can detect drift, plus the persona + awareness tiers the angle matrix reads

The export path is not a fallback. While the API is not authenticated, or access is read-only, or writes are not yet enabled, the cycle runs identically off a pasted export and simply produces a manual-apply change list in Phase 3.

Process

Phase 0 — Ground

Read the client workflow file, the paid strategy doc, and goals/ for targets. Establish: the conversion action being optimised for (lead-gen form completion vs website conversion), the monthly budget, the intended campaign structure (a small set of campaigns spanning use-case, awareness, case-study and retargeting), and the reporting bar. Never invent a target. If it is an unfilled placeholder, say so in the output rather than substituting a benchmark.

Phase 1 — Pull

Run the read tools in the premium reference against the linkedin-ads MCP, or parse the pasted export. Persist the raw pull to the client's paid/execution/ and keep only a summary in context, per context-management.md.

Redact PII from lead-gen form data before it is stored or shared.

Phase 2 — Propose

Run the ten levers in the premium reference. For each finding, produce: the lever, the evidence, the proposed change, the tier it falls in under linkedin-ads-spend.md, and the volume behind it. Rank by expected impact on cost per result.

State the floor next to every verdict. A creative with 300 impressions and no conversion is not a loser, it is unmeasured. Say that rather than proposing a pause.

Output the change list and stop. The operator approves before anything applies.

Phase 3 — Apply

Only after approval, and only for approved items.

• While writes are not yet enabled: emit the approved changes as an operator-applies-manually list — the exact Campaign-Manager steps to take — and log each to the change journal via /paid-ads-experiment-log. Nothing is written through the API.
• When writes land: follow the gate — spend-reducing items (pause a fatigued creative, lower a bid or budget) may share one approval after being itemised; spend-increasing items (raise a budget, activate a campaign) are confirmed individually; deletes are refused. Create as DRAFT/PAUSED. After the batch, re-read the affected resources through the read tools and confirm each change landed. Report anything that did not.

Skip this phase entirely when running from an export.

Phase 4 — Report

Reuse, do not re-implement:

1. The WoW dashboard — invoke /paid-ads-report for the client's week-over-week LinkedIn Ads report (it owns the dashboard render + auto-insight opener). This cycle supplies the window; the report skill owns the rest.
2. The change journal — log each applied (or manually-applied) change via /paid-ads-experiment-log with its hypothesis + expected metric, so next cycle can read the lift.
3. The Slack update — in the client's format. One screen. What changed, what it means, what needs a decision.
4. The cycle record — at {client}/paid/execution/MMYY-NN-linkedin-ads-cycle.md: the pull summary, the full change list with approved/rejected status, what was applied (or listed for manual apply) and verified, and the hypothesis for next week.

Then append a run entry to the client's history.md and refresh latest.md.

Nothing posts to a client channel unprompted. The Slack update is a draft for review.

Known limitations

State these rather than working around them:

• Writes may not be enabled until a LinkedIn Developer App is approved for the Advertising API. Reads work; Phase 3 is manual-apply until then.
• Competitor share is not in the API. LinkedIn has no auction-insights equivalent. The competitor read is a separate /linkedin-ad-teardown run against the public Ad Library, and it feeds lever 9, not a query here.
• High CPMs, thin volume. At £1,500/mo a week is a handful of leads. Most kill decisions sit below the floor weekly — that is the whole reason for the split.
• Reporting lag + sampling. Recent days under-report; demographic breakdowns are sampled. Never conclude from the last 2 days, and compare like windows.
• Frequency is derived. LinkedIn does not expose frequency directly — compute it as impressions ÷ approximateUniqueImpressions.

Anti-patterns

• ❌ Proposing a creative pause below the impression floor. That is optimising noise.
• ❌ Reporting a cost-per-lead verdict for a single week on a small account without its floor stated.
• ❌ Re-implementing the WoW dashboard or the change journal inline. Invoke /paid-ads-report and /paid-ads-experiment-log.
• ❌ Bundling a budget increase into a soft-tier creative-pause approval.
• ❌ Treating a blocked write as a data problem. It is an auth state; run manual-apply and log it.
• ❌ Reallocating an entire budget off one week of demographic data.
• ❌ Posting the Slack update without the operator seeing it.
• ❌ Substituting an industry benchmark when the client's own target is missing. Flag the gap.

Final ship gate

Run /premortem --output before ship. See /premortem skill for the 5 execution domains and output template.

For the Slack update specifically, also run the output-simplicity.md §10 pre-ship check: right length for a senior reader, no robot tells, sources placed correctly for a client-team artifact.