Initiative

An Initiative is a guided workflow in Agility that helps you plan, build, and launch multi-channel campaigns from a single setup process. Instead of manually creating each campaign, ad group, and flight individually, Initiatives let you define your audience personas, select channels, allocate budgets, and map creatives. The system then automatically generates the full campaign structure for you.

This article walks through each step of creating an Initiative.

To get the most out of the Initiative workflow, make sure you have the following ready before you start:

Personas

You will need at least one Persona created under the advertiser. Personas define your target audience segments and are used to build out ad groups within each campaign. If no Personas exist, you will not be able to proceed past Step 2.

Creative Sets (Optional)

If you want to map creatives during setup, have Creative Sets created and organized by channel and format. You can also skip creative mapping and assign creatives after campaigns are generated.

Budget & Flight Dates

Know your total Initiative budget and the date range for your campaigns.

Navigate to the Initiatives tab in the left-hand navigation panel.

Click Create Initiative to begin the guided workflow.

This starts a 7-step process that will help you plan your channel strategy, define budgets and timelines, and generate campaigns automatically.

The seven steps are:

Provide the following details:

Initiative Name

Give your Initiative a descriptive name. This name will be used as a prefix for all generated campaigns, combined with the moment abbreviation and channel (for example, SPRING_SALE_BC_CTV or SPRING_SALE_BCAP_Display).

Start Date and End Date

Set the date range for your Initiative. These dates will be used as the default flight dates for all generated campaigns. You can adjust individual campaign dates in a later step.

Total Budget

Enter the total budget for your Initiative. This is the full amount that will be allocated across channels and moments in Step 4.

Search for and select the geographic targeting for your campaigns. Supported options include Cities, ZIP codes, States or Regions, and Countries. Geography is applied at the Initiative level and shared across all campaigns generated from it.

Click Next to continue.

In this step, you will select the audience Personas you want to target across your Initiative and assign each one to a moment.

Personas are pre-built audience definitions that include targeting segments such as Behavioral and Contextual. Each Persona you select here will generate corresponding ad groups within the campaigns created by the Initiative.

Select one or more Personas from the list by clicking the checkbox next to each one. Each Persona card shows the persona name and the number of audience segments it contains.

After selecting your Personas, you will need to delegate each Persona to a moment — either Buyer Creation or Buyer Capture. This determines which funnel stage each Persona will be activated in, and directly affects which campaigns and ad groups are generated for that Persona.

Once your Personas are selected and assigned to their respective moments, click Save Changes, then click Next to continue.

Tip: If you do not see any Personas listed, you will need to create them first under the Personas section of the advertiser. Personas must exist before you can proceed.

In this step, you will select the advertising channels to include in your Initiative. Channels are configured separately for each moment — Buyer Creation and Buyer Capture — in a two-column layout. At least one channel selection in Buyer Creation is required to proceed. Each channel you select will generate a separate campaign.

Buyer Creation supports the full list of available channels:

Note: Some channels may not be available depending on your account configuration. If you see channels that are locked or unavailable, reach out to your Agility sales representative to learn more about unlocking additional channel options.

Buyer Capture supports a subset of channels: OLV, High Impact Video, High Impact Display, Display, Social Mirroring, Native Display, Native Video, and Audio.

Channels are organized by moment to support full-funnel campaign planning. You can use Agility’s recommended channel strategy, which is a pre-configured selection of channels optimized for your selected personas. You can also customize the channel selection based on your goals by toggling individual channels on or off.

Note: The channels you select here directly determine which campaigns will be created. For example, selecting CTV and Display will generate two campaigns, one for each channel, per moment.

Click Next to continue.

In this step, you will set your total Initiative budget and distribute it across your selected channels.

The top of the page displays your total budget, the Initiative duration, and the number of tactics (moments) selected.

Based on your selected personas and channels, the system provides a suggested total budget with a monthly breakdown. You can click Use Recommendation to apply the suggested budget, or continue with your own allocation. A comparison bar shows how your current budget compares to the suggestion.

The Monthly Allocation by Channel section lets you distribute your budget across channels within each moment. Budget allocation is broken out separately for Buyer Creation and Buyer Capture, with monthly columns spanning your flight period.

You have two options for distributing your budget:

AI Budget Assistant

Click the AI Budget Assistant button to generate a recommended budget allocation based on your selected channels and goals. The assistant will produce a suggested distribution across your channels. If you want to adjust the recommendation, provide feedback and click Regenerate to get an updated suggestion. Once you are satisfied, click Apply to populate the budget fields.

Manual Allocation

Enter dollar amounts or percentages directly into the budget fields for each channel. Use the Fill button on any channel row to evenly distribute that channel’s budget across its monthly flight periods.

The allocation table shows a breakdown by moment (Buyer Creation and Buyer Capture) and channel, with monthly columns showing how the budget is spread over the flight period. A progress bar at the top tracks your total allocated versus unallocated budget.

At the bottom of the page, a summary table shows the total monthly allocation for each moment (Buyer Creation and Buyer Capture) so you can verify the overall split before proceeding.

Tip: All allocations are rounded to the nearest dollar. Make sure your total allocated amount matches the Initiative budget before proceeding. Any unallocated budget will not be assigned to campaigns.

You can toggle between Dollar and Percent views using the controls at the top right of the allocation table.

Once budgets are set, click Next to continue.

In this step, you will map Creative Sets to the ad groups generated by your Initiative. This step is optional. You can skip it and assign creatives directly to campaigns after they are generated.

The Campaign Structure table lists every campaign and ad group that will be generated, organized by channel and moment. For each ad group row, you can:

Assign a Creative Set

Select from the dropdown. Only Creative Sets compatible with the ad group’s channel type will appear.

Enter a Clickthrough URL

Define the landing page URL where users will be directed after engaging with the ad.

These selections determine which creatives and destinations are used when campaigns are generated.

Click Next to continue.

In this step, you will define performance goals for each campaign in your Initiative.

A Campaign Configuration Progress tracker at the top shows how many campaigns have been configured out of the total. All campaigns must have goals configured before you can proceed.

Each campaign is listed with its moment and channel (for example, "Buyer Capture - OLV"). For each campaign, select a Goal Type from the dropdown. A Status checkmark appears once a campaign has been fully configured. Available goal types include:

CPA, CPCV, CPC, Reach, LTV Reach, CTR, Return on Ad Spend, Viewability, and Completion Rate.

After selecting a goal type, enter a Target Value where applicable, for example a $5.00 CPA target or a 0.10% CTR target.

Tip: Use the Bulk Actions button in the top right to apply the same goal type and target value across all campaigns at once rather than configuring each one individually.

In this final step, you will review a complete summary of everything configured within your Initiative before completing your setup.

The review screen shows your total Initiative budget (with allocation progress), the number of campaigns and their launch readiness, the total number of ad groups configured, and the number of Personas targeted.

Below the summary, a Campaigns by Moment section breaks down all campaigns across Buyer Creation and Buyer Capture. Each campaign row shows the campaign name, channel, budget, number of ad groups, and goal type. You can expand individual campaigns to see their full ad group details.

Campaign names are auto-generated using the format INITIATIVE_NAME_BC_Channel for Buyer Creation and INITIATIVE_NAME_BCAP_Channel for Buyer Capture (for example, BRAND_AWARENESS_Q1_BC_CTV or BRAND_AWARENESS_Q1_BCAP_OLV).

Take a moment to confirm all details are accurate. When you are ready, click Complete to create your Initiative.

Note: Clicking Complete will create all campaigns, ad groups, and flights based on your configuration. The generated campaigns will appear in your campaign list and can be edited individually after creation.

After generation, you will be taken to the Initiative Viewer, which provides an overview of everything created.

From this view, you can see all campaigns created from the Initiative, review channel allocations and budgets at a glance, and click into individual campaigns to manage targeting, creatives, budgets, and optimization settings.

Once an Initiative has been generated, you can make changes at the campaign level at any time. This includes editing campaign budgets and flight dates, updating creative assignments and clickthrough URLs, adjusting targeting and ad group settings, and modifying goals and optimization targets.

Initiative-level settings, such as the original channel selection and persona-to-moment mapping, are locked after generation. The individual campaigns they produced are fully editable. Initiatives provide structure during setup without limiting flexibility after launch.

If you have questions while creating an Initiative, use the in-app chat or contact your Agility support team.