Frequently asked questions

A website URL and an email address. Waverunner reads your site, builds a business profile and customer personas, and generates ready-to-run ads from there. Creating an account is passwordless; we email you a one-time code.

Minutes, not weeks. Site analysis and ad generation each take a few minutes; once you fund your wallet, launching a campaign distributes your ads to the channels the same day.

No. Waverunner runs the media itself through our own ad-platform accounts. You never create a Meta Business Manager, a Google Ads account, or anything else. One wallet and one daily budget cover every channel.

Businesses that want performance advertising in one product: creative, media buying, tracking, and always-on autopilot. Roofers, HVAC companies, landscapers, and other local service businesses use it to run their own ads. Agencies use the same stack for their clients, with a workspace per client under the agency's brand.

Yes. Every account starts with an Individual workspace, even if you first signed up from a team invitation. Team workspaces are additional memberships. Agency clients sit under their agency in that list. Switch workspaces from the sidebar anytime; businesses, campaigns, wallet, and API keys stay scoped to the workspace you have active.

Yes. Businesses use it as a full performance stack: personas and ads from your website, multichannel buying from one daily budget, first-party measurement on your site, and always-on autopilot. Agencies run the same stack for their clients under the agency's brand, with a workspace per client, a license subscription, and published unit prices for ad creation. A business that runs its own ads funds its own wallet with no subscription.

Campaigns can run on mobile web, mobile apps, and TV today, with audio and OOH coming soon on the same connection, plus Google (including YouTube, Display & Discover, and Search), Meta (Facebook and Instagram nested as delivery status), Reddit, and TikTok. Pinterest is also coming soon. New campaigns start on the recommended mix (Mobile web, Mobile apps, TV, plus the recommended named channels). Customize lets you run any live subset, including TV-only or Meta plus Google without Mobile web. Reddit and TikTok still need Mobile web, Mobile apps, Google Search, or an imported customer list. Each channel moves from Preparing, to Starting, to Live under one daily budget. On the campaign page, Channels & delivery lists Mobile web, Mobile apps, and TV separately (plus Google, Meta, Reddit, and TikTok when selected). When Google is on, YouTube, Display & Discover, and Search appear nested under Google as delivery status, not as separate channels to buy. When Meta is on, Facebook and Instagram appear nested under Meta as delivery status, not as separate channels to buy. Before launch, selected channels show Starts at launch. Platform performance shows the same selected follow channels as status placeholders until they have delivery to report (never as fake zero Ad views). TV shows Pending activation until video delivery is actually live (a ready TV spot alone is not enough while the campaign is still concentrating spend on mobile web). Mobile web shows Needs attention when it is fully paused on a live campaign; after launch, a channel still finishing setup shows Starting, not Preparing.

Every channel moves through the same statuses under one daily budget. Preparing means the channel is gathering early results before it scales. Starting means it is setting up or beginning to serve. Live means it is actively serving. Waiting is readiness, not guesswork. You see the same labels on Channels & delivery.

A persona is an ideal customer profile Waverunner builds from your website: who they are, what they care about, and a Reach plan of interest audiences. Campaigns can run one or more personas. Ads and targeting are organized around them so messaging stays relevant.

Yes. Add multiple businesses under one organization. Each business has its own website, personas, ads, tracking tag, and campaigns. The wallet and billing stay at the organization level.

Static image ads sized for each platform's ratios, plus video ads in three formats: a broadcast-ready TV spot, a long-form cut, and an animated ad.

A Launch pack is the starter creative set for a persona: image ads, social video, and 15s plus 30s TV spots. For businesses, campaign ads are included with the campaign, so you do not need starter credit to see that set. Direct business signups start with $60 of starter credit in the wallet for media and optional extra ads. Agencies pay the published unit prices for every generation we run, including that first sample.

Yes. Every creative has a chat editor. Before a campaign launches, edits update the creative directly. After launch, Autopilot manages ads by default: give a reason to refresh, and that creates a new serving version while the previous one stays under Previously served with the media that actually ran. You can also open Media history on an ad and restore an earlier image or video for free (no creation charge); live campaigns get a new serving version when you restore. Choosing Don't serve asks you to unlock ad controls on the campaign page (Ads tab), give a reason, and stops live campaigns from serving that ad; allowing it again does not auto-resume serving. No design tools required.

For businesses, analysis, personas, and chat copy edits stay included. Campaign ads are included with the campaign. New ads and billed image or video regenerations use the published creation prices. Agency license customers get landing pages and chat edits included in the license. Optional upfront full sets and Ad Library extras use published unit prices from the wallet. Direct business signups start with $60 of starter credit. Agencies pay the published unit prices for every generation we run, including the first sample. Fair-use limits of 20 generation runs and 100 chat messages per organization per day apply.

You do. Ads are generated from your website and your business profile, and you're free to use them in your campaigns on Waverunner.

Ad platforms review creatives against their own policies and occasionally reject one. When that happens you can regenerate or edit the ad and relaunch. Chat copy edits stay included. New ads and billed image or video regenerations use the published creation prices. Agency license customers get landing pages and chat edits included in the license.

No. Waverunner generates broadcast-ready TV spots from your business profile and website. You can refine them in chat. There is no separate shoot or agency production step required to launch.

For businesses, you prepay into a wallet, then each live campaign charges its daily budget once per active day (billed in US Eastern time). That number is the most the day can cost. There are no subscriptions, no contracts, and no other fees. The daily budget is the whole bill. Agencies pay a license plus published unit prices for ad creation; media is pass-through at cost.

No. Waverunner does not guarantee ROAS, leads, or sales. What we stand behind is the process: results measured on your own site (with an honest dash when we cannot measure), autopilot that logs every decision, a prepaid daily budget, ads you can see before you spend, and a weekly digest of what changed.

Five things already built into the product: results measured on your site, autopilot that logs every decision, a prepaid daily budget, ads you can create before you spend from the wallet, and a weekly digest of what changed. That is the process. It is not an outcome SLA.

A planning aid from your website URL. We classify your market and recommend daily spend and a learning timeline using published WordStream industry Search benchmarks plus our mobile-web reach math. Figures are labeled Estimated on purpose. The brief is not a delivery contract and not a promised return on ad spend. Real results are measured on your site after a campaign runs.

Always on, on a schedule. Audience activation and funnel tuning run every hour. Creative, journey-stage budget, segment, and bidding decisions run daily from your site data, with a larger weekly journey mix pass and monthly holdout readout. On live campaigns, Autopilot retires weak interest segments, promotes reserves, refills the bench when it runs dry, can swap demographic filters when delivery stalls, and can rescue under-delivery without pausing the campaign. Every change is logged, so you are not waiting on a weekly review to see what moved.

You choose a daily budget between $30 and $10,000 per day. Campaigns run open-ended until you pause or end them, or you can set an end date (flights up to 365 days). Wallet top-ups run from $30 to $50,000. Turn on auto-refill (recommended) or keep about 10 days of daily budget prepaid so campaigns do not pause unexpectedly.

If a launch fails completely on day one, the full day is refunded automatically. If channels deliver less than your daily budget authorized, the undelivered amount is credited back to your wallet automatically. You only pay for ads that actually ran. No support ticket needed.

Anytime. Pausing or ending a campaign stops all future daily charges immediately; the current day's charge stands.

Campaigns pause automatically, so you can never go into debt. Turn on auto-refill (recommended) or add about 10 days of daily budget prepaid. Once your balance covers the day again, paused campaigns start back up on their own within the hour.

Billing stops while it is paused. If interest audiences are missing, use Rebuild reach on the campaign page. Audiences are replanned and ads turn back on when that finishes. Otherwise review delivery and press Resume once ads can serve again.

Auto-refill is opt-in and recommended. When your balance drops below roughly 3 days of live campaign spend, we charge your saved card for the amount you chose (minimum $100). Without auto-refill, keep about 10 days of daily budget prepaid. 3 consecutive failed attempts switch auto-refill off until you re-enable it.

Yes. Pick the whole US, states, a radius around your locations, zip lists, DMAs, or cities for Mobile web, Mobile apps, and TV. You can change geo after launch. Follow channels stay tied to people who already saw your Mobile web ads.

Yes. Edit the daily budget anytime. Today's charge stands and the new amount applies from the next daily charge; there's no proration. You can also set Your split so each channel and persona keeps a fixed share of daily media. Autopilot will not move that mix until you return it.

Yes. Open Budget mix on the campaign and choose Your split. You set how each channel and persona shares daily media. Autopilot keeps those shares until you return the mix. New channels and unfunded Follow seats start at 0% until you assign a share.

You can change the daily budget, flight end date (or clear it for always-on), landing page, name, geo, channels, pause/resume/end, and Audience boost without unlocking Autopilot. Ads are Autopilot-managed: unlock ad controls to pause or resume serving; refreshing a creative asks for a reason and creates a new version (older versions stay under Previously served). Allowing a previously stopped ad again does not auto-resume it on live campaigns. Interest and demographic Customize guides on Website audiences apply to the next launch; Autopilot still retires, promotes, refills, and can swap live targeting on its own. How Meta or Google finds people stays locked after the first create: start a new campaign to switch follow and open prospecting. Personas, objective, and start date stay locked after launch. Every edit shows up in Change History on the campaign page.

Channels begin moving through Preparing, Starting, and Live after launch. Early days are for delivery and learning. Site visits and conversions update as your tag fires; spend and delivery reconcile daily after platform stats settle. Judge performance after a full learning window for your market, not the first afternoon.

Audience boost is an opt-in lookalike path seeded only from your own imported customer list. It can expand reach on follow channels using that first-party seed. It never uses another business's data, and it is not the same as Mobile web prospecting. You can toggle it after launch.

No, not for businesses. You prepay a wallet and set a daily budget per campaign. Pause or end anytime. There are no monthly platform subscriptions and no long-term contracts. Agencies pay a license (Agency, Growth, or Scale) plus published unit prices for ad creation. See /agencies.

Add one script tag to your site. It's SPA-aware and there are no pixels to configure per channel. Guided installs are provided for Shopify and WooCommerce, and server-side conversion webhooks cover Stripe, Zapier, and custom backends. On Tracking you can also connect a CRM such as HubSpot or HighLevel. We pull contacts for match lists, and HighLevel can receive form and completed-call leads. Form conversions can count successful marketing form submits without a thank-you URL. On Tracking, set what a win is worth so return on spend can show; until then we still optimize for cost per conversion.

Not for counting conversions or cost per conversion. Return on ad spend needs a value. Purchases should send the real order amount. For leads and signups, set an estimate on Tracking (including Form conversions: lead, signup, subscribe); you can edit that estimate anytime. A real amount from track, a webhook, or an order total always overrides the estimate for that same conversion name. We never invent a default dollar amount; without a value, ROAS shows a dash and Autopilot keeps optimizing for cost per conversion.

ROAS needs a dollar value on wins: a real order amount, or an estimate you set on Tracking for leads and signups. Until then we still count conversions and optimize for cost per conversion. An honest dash means we cannot measure return yet, not that performance is zero.

Last-touch, first-party attribution drives billed results: ad clicks carry a first-party click ID, and a click always beats a view-through. View-through windows are configurable at 7, 14, or 30 days. On Tracking, you can also compare first touch, last touch, linear, time decay, position, and data-driven splits for the same sales; those views are reporting-only and never restamp last-touch money or ROAS. Assisted conversions show when another channel on the same campaign touched the person earlier (click, household view, or person-resolved view). Assists are reporting-only and do not change wallet charges or ROAS. Autopilot may use a soft credit of recent assists when shifting journey-stage budgets; that never restamps last-touch money. Person-resolved assists need overnight identity matching, so coverage can lag.

Yes. Campaigns can use a geo holdout so some states stay out of prospecting for comparison. Lift scorecards report whether exposed regions outperform holdout. Holdout readouts are for learning; they do not invent ROAS. Follow channels stay tied to people who already saw your Mobile web ads.

Page views, sessions, UTMs, and conversions on your site. Emails and IP addresses are hashed with a salt before storage; Waverunner never stores raw personal identifiers from your visitors.

Yes. The REST API includes a full-organization export endpoint that returns your businesses, campaigns, ledger, and tracking data as one JSON document.

Yes. Campaign reporting includes a read-only insights chat: ask plain-English questions about spend, conversions, CPA, ROAS, and what changed. Answers use the same numbers as your Performance tab. Insights chat explains your data; it does not change campaigns.

Yes. Waverunner has an MCP server at https://waverunner.adwave.com/api/mcp so Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT, and other assistants can create an account, fund the wallet, launch campaigns, and read performance. Without a key, the server only exposes signup_start and signup_poll (email one-time code). After auth (API key or Cursor OAuth client cursor-mcp), tools match the REST API. See the MCP docs for setup, every tool, and prompts.

Paste your agency website on the homepage or /agencies, or create it from Settings → Workspaces if you already have an account. You keep your Individual workspace. Confirm the name, add a client, then check out an Agency, Growth, or Scale license when you are ready to launch. Clients do not sign up on your domain; you invite them. Agencies do not get the $60 starter credit that business accounts get.

They don't, unless you invite them. You create a workspace per client (it sits under the agency in the sidebar) and choose whether you operate it yourself or send a branded invite. Invited people sign in on your domain and only see that client. There is no public signup on an agency host.

The agency wallet. Media is pass-through at cost: each client campaign day debits the agency wallet at 100% of the daily budget. You bill your clients however you already do. Adwave's charge is the license plus published unit prices for ad creation. Campaigns pause only if the wallet cannot cover the day, never because of a spend band. Channel unlock dollars in setup use that media-at-cost budget, not the direct-business Search or TikTok figures on /pricing.

Adwave's agency revenue is the license (Agency $499, Growth $1,999, or Scale $4,999 a month) plus published unit prices for ad creation. Media is pass-through at cost, so your client markup is yours. The estimator on /agencies names the license from spend; it does not take a cut of spend.

No. The Partner program is affiliate referrals: share a link and earn 10% of net applied spend for 12 months. Agencies who run client campaigns under their own brand use /agencies. Those are separate programs.

A weekly email that summarizes measured performance on your site, what Autopilot changed, and under-delivery credits when media did not fully run. You can turn digests on or off in notification preferences.

Email support@adwave.com, or start from the documentation for setup guides, API reference, and product how-tos. Campaign Change History and the Autopilot feed also show what the system did so you can debug without waiting on a status call.

Pause or end every live campaign so daily charges stop, then empty or stop auto-refill on the wallet. There is no contract to break. Contact support if you need help closing an organization or exporting your data first.