Engage Ads
Meta ads to guests who allow them, with the fee on its own line
Engage Ads is a pilot Purple sets up with you. Turn consented guests into Facebook and Instagram audiences, approve the exact campaign and its fee, and pause any campaign in one tap.
How does Engage Ads decide who sees an ad?
One eligibility rule, applied to every guest before anything is uploaded. A segment becomes a Meta Custom Audience of only the guests whose consent allows ads, and only scrambled (hashed) emails and phone numbers leave Engage. Two templates, "reach new locals" (1 to 80 km around the venue) and "promote an event or offer", target a radius and upload nobody.
- Any segment becomes a Meta Custom Audience, updated as guests change and reconciled nightly
- Only hashes of email and phone leave Engage; raw emails and numbers never do
- Only guests whose consent allows ads, under one rule by region
- Withdrawn consent, a STOP reply, a preference centre choice, a connected system's opt-out or erasure removes a guest from every audience straight away
How does advertising consent work in the UK, EU and US?
Ad consent rides on the guest's marketing opt-in, given under Engage's ad-consent wording: one tick, with no separate ad box. Older opt-ins stay unknown for ads, so an existing list does not become an ad audience overnight. Only the guest can give ad consent; an operator, an import, the API or the AI team cannot give it for them.
- One tick: ad consent rides on the marketing opt-in, with no separate ad box
- Opt-in in the UK, the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and everywhere else outside the US. Opt-out in US states, with Meta's Limited Data Use setting for California and any state not yet known. A guest seen in several places gets the strictest rule
- A browser's Global Privacy Control signal is honoured
- A public ad choices page where a guest turns ads off, with a "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" version for the US
How does Engage Ads measure whether an ad brought guests in?
Where the list is big enough, by comparing guests who were targeted with guests held back on purpose. 10% of the audience is held back by default and never uploaded, and the report gives the extra visits with a 95% range. Where the list is too small, the screen says "not measured yet", and where the two groups do not clearly differ it says "no clear difference yet", rather than show a number.
- 10% of the audience held back by default (0 to 50%), never uploaded, and left out of every other audience while the campaign runs
- By design, a measured result appears only above 500 held out and 4,500 targeted, about a 5,000-guest consented list, so a UK group usually sees Meta's own figures first
- Visits, bookings, till purchases and offer redemptions go to Meta as in-store conversions, only for guests whose consent allows measurement
- Meta's own figures sit in a labelled section of their own and are never added to measured results
How is ad spend controlled?
Nothing spends until a person approves one screen. The approval is bound to that exact campaign and used once: change a word, picture, budget or audience rule and it is cancelled. Engage builds the campaign paused and checks consent, the wallet and venue locations again just before switching it on.
- One approval screen: the audience after consent and holdout, the dates, the daily and total budget, Purple's fee as its own line and the maximum total
- Purple-managed accounts use a prepaid wallet with an append-only history that keeps media and fee apart; a launch needs four days of the daily budget plus the fee, with low-balance alerts
- Spend capped at Meta and by Engage: Engage reads spend hourly, warns at 80% and pauses at the cap
- One-tap pause that needs no approval, because stopping spend must always work
- Ads never launch on their own. A person approves the exact campaign and every budget increase
What do I need to set up to run Engage Ads?
Purple sets up Engage Ads with you, so use the form below to talk to us. By default Purple runs a Meta ad account for you, so there is nothing to create at Meta; agencies and enterprise groups can connect their own instead. Then choose a template and answer three questions: who to reach, the daily budget and the dates.
- Purple creates one Meta ad account per advertiser under its own Business Manager; the venue's Page admin accepts a share request
- Agencies and enterprises connect their own account through Facebook Login for Business (a personal login is refused); Meta bills the media and Purple bills only the fee
- The website an ad links to must be verified by a DNS record or a small tag, re-checked every 30 days
- Four templates: win back lapsed guests, fill quiet times, reach new locals, promote an event or offer
- A single-image ad from your brand kit, with never-say phrases refused and up to three AI copy suggestions written with no guest data sent
What does Engage Ads cost?
Purple's fee is a standard 15% of media spend, always shown as its own line. For example, £500 of media carries a £75 fee, £575 in all. With your own Meta account, Meta bills the media and Purple bills only the fee. The maximum total is on the approval screen before you approve anything.
How do ads work with my other campaigns?
Ads draw on the same guest record, segments and offers as your email and text campaigns, and every launch goes through the same approval screen.
- At most once a week per venue, the AI team suggests a win-back ad for lapsed guests when at least 1,000 can be uploaded after the holdout; a person approves the exact campaign
- A live offer's headline and terms can ride on an ad, with no code in the ad because vouchers are personal
- Redemptions go back to Meta as in-store conversions for guests who agreed to measurement
Talk to Purple
Plan your advertising campaigns
Tell us how many venues you run and which tools you use. We will set up Meta with you and connect your audiences, campaigns and budgets.
- Setup help
- A Purple-managed Meta ad account, or connect your own
- Your audiences, templates and budgets set up with you
Questions
Which advertising channels can I use?
Facebook and Instagram, through Meta. Every campaign follows the same approval, spend caps and fee rules.
Can the AI team run ads on its own?
No. It can stage an ad draft, and a person approves the exact campaign and its spend every time. It cannot launch an ad, resume one, raise a budget, connect an ad account or fund the wallet, and no API key or outside assistant can either.
Can I upload my existing email list?
Not as such. In opt-in places a guest needs an opt-in under the ad-consent wording; older opt-ins stay unknown for ads, so a UK venue starts with no ad audience. In US opt-out states, guests who have not said no are eligible.
What if my list is small?
Under about 5,000 consented guests a campaign usually cannot show a measured result. Radius campaigns need no guest list and report Meta's own figures, so a venue without Purple WiFi can run them, and it can also reach US guests who have not opted out.
Connect your ads to your wider marketing
Ads use the same guest record, consent and offers as every other channel. The free plan is listed at 500 credits a month; ad media and Purple's fee are billed separately.