How launching works

Every campaign starts as a draft in Koast. You shape it in the campaign builder, check it, and then publish it to your ad account on Meta or to your Koast ad account. Nothing reaches the ad platform until you publish.

The short version

Start a campaign: with the Koast Agent, by hand, by importing a live one or by cloning one you already have.
Build it in the campaign builder: the campaign, its ad sets and their ads, plus the launch settings for each level.
Select the publish button, check everything in Review & Launch, and launch.
Watch it launch, campaign by campaign and account by account.
Edit it later in the same builder and publish your changes.

Two ways to build

The campaign builder is the main way. Each campaign you start opens in its own builder page, with a table (or visual) view of the campaign, ad sets and ads, and a settings drawer for every level. Most of these pages describe the builder.

Generate Ads on the Creatives page is an older wizard that's still live for every ad account. You pick creatives in your library, let Koast write copy, then walk through campaign setup, launch settings and a final review. It publishes the same way the builder does. See Launch from the Creatives page.

Campaigns, ad sets and ads

Koast uses the same three levels as the ad platforms:

Level	What it holds
Campaign	The objective, special ad category and, with CBO, the budget.
Ad set	Budget (with ABO), schedule, targeting, placements and the page, pixel and tracking.
Ad	The creative, the copy, the destination and the call to action.

Settings you choose at a higher level flow down to the levels below it. You can override them lower down where a setting allows it. See Build a campaign in the builder.

Drafts and live campaigns

A campaign you haven't published is a draft. Drafts sit in the Drafts tab of Ads Manager, next to All, Active and Paused. Open one to keep building.

Once it's published, the same campaign is live. When you click a live campaign in Ads Manager it opens in the builder, and Koast imports it first if it isn't already there. Live parts are locked until you unlock a field to edit it. See Edit a live campaign.

The publish button

The button in the top right of the builder changes with the state of the campaign.

Label	When you see it
Publish	The campaign has ad sets or ads that aren't live yet.
Publish changes	You've edited something that's already live. If you've also added new ad sets or ads, they go out in the same publish.
Publish Changes (greyed out)	Everything is already live and nothing has changed. Add an ad set or an ad to publish an update.
Publish Now	The campaign is still empty.
View Launch Progress	A launch is running. Select it to watch the progress.
Retry Launch	The last launch failed.
Retry Failed Campaigns	The last launch went through only partly and something is left to create.
Example Campaign (greyed out)	You're looking at an example campaign. Examples can't be launched: start a new campaign instead.

Statuses

Each campaign, ad set and ad carries one status:

Status	What it means
Draft	Not published yet.
Live	Switched on and delivering.
Scheduled	Published with a start date in the future.
Off	Paused, archived or deleted, or switched on but not delivering.
Under Review	The ad platform is reviewing it.
Processing	The ad platform is still processing it.
Rejected	The ad platform rejected it.

If the ad platform hasn't reported a status yet, you see Unknown for a short while. For more on statuses and the on/off toggle, see Campaign statuses.

What this means for you

Build freely. Nothing you do in a draft costs money or touches your ad account.
Publishing is the only step that talks to the ad platform, and Review & Launch checks your campaign first.
Meta and Whop don't support exactly the same settings. Koast hides what your ad account can't use and tells you before launch if something won't go through. See What works on Meta and what works on Whop.