💡 Before you begin: For best results, set up your Creative Toolkit before launching your first campaign. Your toolkit stores your brand logo, color palette, product catalog, inspiration templates, and ad disclaimers, and is referenced during creative generation. To set up your toolkit, navigate to Settings → Creative Toolkit from the left navigation bar.
Step 1: Choose Your Landing Page
Navigate to Build Ads from the left navigation bar.
On the Choose Landing Page screen, select where you want your ads to send traffic. You have two options:
Landing Pages - search for a recently used page or paste a new URL. Supported destinations include Amazon product pages, your DTC site, Amazon storefronts, Walmart, and publisher articles. You can select multiple landing pages, which will each run as a separate ad set.
Campaigns - select an existing live campaign to add new ads into. You can choose which landing pages within that campaign to target.
Once you have selected your landing page, you have two paths for creative generation:
Continue to Design -- Wayward's AI will generate ad creatives for you based on your landing page, products, and brand assets
Build your own ad -- manually upload your own images and set your headline and social copy yourself, bypassing AI creative generation
📍 If you would like to use your own image assets in your campaigns, select "Build Your Own Ad" to upload them.
Otherwise, click Continue to Design and Wayward's AI will generate creatives for you.
Step 2: Build Your Creative
Products
Select the product you want to feature in your ads. You can pull products from three sources:
From this page -- Wayward automatically pulls product images from your landing page URL
Toolkit -- select from your existing product catalog in your Creative Toolkit
Upload -- manually upload additional product images
Creative Brief
Enter a high-level direction or vibe for your ads -- for example, "approachable, warm, not too salesy." You can leave this blank and let the ad inspiration and style drive the creative direction.
Use Inspire me to have Wayward's AI automatically generate a creative brief based on your landing page and products.
You can set an Overall brief that applies to all creatives, or use Split to set separate directions for image and copy.
Ad Inspiration (Optional)
Browse and select ads to use as creative reference. You can pull inspiration from your own past ads or search across the broader Wayward network for high-performing creatives. You can also upload your own inspiration images directly.
Advanced Controls
Expand Advanced Controls to access additional settings:
No people or scenery -- generates ads on a flat studio backdrop with no humans or environments. Recommended for restricted accounts
Preserve people from inspiration -- keeps the face, identity, and clothing from your inspiration image while allowing the scene and composition to change
Logo & Guidelines
Your brand logo will be pulled in automatically from your Creative Toolkit if set up. You can also upload assets directly here. Toggle Apply disclaimer to add required fine print to the bottom of your ads.
Text on the Image
Control how much text appears on the ad image:
No text -- no text overlaid on the image
Minimal -- limited text only
Allow -- the AI may add headline text where it strengthens the ad
Ad Copy
Enter your headline and social copy for the generated ads.
Step 3: Generate Your Ads
Click Generate Ads. Wayward's AI engine will generate creative variants based on your inputs. Once complete, review your creatives, refine using written instructions or product scale adjustments, select the ones you want to move forward with, and proceed to campaign setup.
💡 Note: Unlike partnership campaigns, brand-owned ads do not require publisher approval and can move directly to campaign launch once creatives are ready.
Step 4: Launch Your Campaign
Campaign setup follows the same steps as a partnership campaign -- objective, budget, targeting, and launch. See How to Launch a Partnership Campaign for a full walkthrough of the campaign setup process.