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Launch Monitor: watch new ads and stop the weak ones
Launch Monitor tracks newly launched ads through their early performance window. It compares each new ad with your account's own benchmark and tells you when an ad looks like a winner or a loser. Open it from Performance > Launch Monitor.
Problem and intended user
This page is for the media buyer (the person who runs your paid ads). The ecommerce manager (the person who runs the store) can use it to see how new creatives start. A new ad spends budget from its first day, and its early numbers are noisy. A weak ad that keeps running can use budget that a better ad could have used.
Current workflow
You filter Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads for recent ads. You work out the account's average click-through rate (CTR) by hand or in a spreadsheet and compare each new ad with it. You pause weak ads one platform at a time, or an agency reviews them.
Prerequisites
- Connect Meta Ads or Google Ads and let the account sync. See Meta Ads and Google Ads.
- Launch at least one ad in the last 14 days. The page lists only those ads.
- Have some click and impression history on your own ads in the last 30 days. Nexus needs it to work out the benchmark.
How Nexus works
Nexus reads your synced ad data. Fixed rules, not AI, set the benchmark and each status. This page changes nothing in your ad account by itself. You choose to stop an ad, and you confirm in a window first.
The page depends on your ad sync. New ads, spend and clicks appear only after the sync brings them in.
The benchmark
The header shows Benchmark CTR. It is the weighted average click-through rate (clicks divided by impressions) of your own ads over the last 30 days. Nexus compares every new ad with this number. Hover the info icon to see the exact cut-offs for your account.
Find an ad
Use the controls above the table.
- Search ads by name matches the ad headline.
- Status shows one status, or All statuses.
- Kind shows one ad format: carousel, collection, dynamic, image, reels, stories, text or video. The names show in lowercase. The list can also hold other formats found in your ads. The default is All kinds.
- Select the Days, Spend or CTR column header to sort. Select again to reverse the order.
- Select Clear to remove your filters.
The platform buttons in the page header (All Platforms, Google and Meta) do not filter this table. TikTok shows as Coming soon.
A long list splits into pages. Use Prev and Next to move between them.
See your auto rules
A strip above the table shows Auto rules active and the number of active rules. Select it to list them. Select Manage to open the rules page. With no rules, the strip reads No automatic rules yet and offers Create rules. See Ad Auto Rules.
Kill an early loser
WARNING
Archive (permanent) stops the ad for good and removes it from Meta or Google. Choose Pause (reversible) unless you are sure.
Archive (permanent) works only for ads you deployed through Nexus. For an ad that Nexus did not deploy, Pause (reversible) works only on Meta.
Kill appears only on Early loser rows. Early winner rows show Platform auto-scaling, and the other two statuses show Monitoring.
- Find an ad with the Early loser status.
- Select Kill in its row. A window opens. Its title reads Kill and the ad headline in quotes. It states the ad's CTR, the benchmark and the days since launch.
- Under Stop action, choose one option:
- Pause (reversible) sets the ad to paused on the platform. Resume an ad deployed through Nexus with Resume in Review and deploy ads. Resume any other Meta ad in Meta Ads Manager.
- Archive (permanent) stops the ad for good. The creative stays in your library, but this ad never runs again.
- Optional: write a reason in Reason (optional).
- Select Pause ad or Archive ad.
A short message confirms Ad paused. or Ad archived. Killing an ad does not create a replacement. To replace it, build a new ad in the Creative Wizard. See Generate a creative batch.
Exact output
The page lists your recent launches in a table.
The header shows Benchmark CTR. The table has these columns: Ad (the headline, or Untitled ad, with its platform and format), Days, Spend, CTR, Status and Actions.
The four statuses
Each ad carries one status badge. Hover the info icon next to it for the numbers that apply to your account.
| Status | What it means | The row reads |
|---|---|---|
| Gathering data | The ad is too new, or has spent too little. Nexus makes no call yet. The info icon states the minimum days live and the minimum spend. | Monitoring |
| Showing signal | CTR sits between 0.6 and 1.2 times the benchmark. | Monitoring |
| Early winner | CTR is above 1.2 times the benchmark. The ad platform's own budget optimisation moves spend toward it. | Platform auto-scaling |
| Early loser | CTR is below 0.6 times the benchmark. | Kill |
What to do with it
| What you see | Decision or action | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Gathering data and Monitoring | Wait. Nexus makes no call yet. | media buyer |
| Showing signal and Monitoring | Keep watching. | media buyer |
| Early winner and Platform auto-scaling | Nothing in Nexus. Budget moves toward the ad on the ad platform. | media buyer |
| Early loser and Kill | Decide whether to stop it. Select Kill, then Pause ad to keep the option to resume it, or Archive ad to end it for good. | media buyer |
| An ad you stopped | Build a new ad to replace it. See Generate a creative batch. | creative strategist (the person who plans and makes ad creatives) |
| A paused ad you want back | For an ad deployed through Nexus, select Resume in Review and deploy ads. For any other ad, resume it in Meta Ads Manager, outside Nexus. | media buyer |
| No automatic rules yet | Select Create rules if you want Nexus to act on weak ads without a manual check. | media buyer |
Expected value and measurement
This page can help you spot weak new ads earlier and see which new ads start well. It does not improve results by itself. The decisions you take on the ads do.
To check it, read the CTR and Spend columns here and compare them with Benchmark CTR. For the result after a change, open Performance > Ad performance and choose By ad. Pick two equal date ranges, one before you stopped or replaced ads and one after. Compare Spend and ROAS for the ads concerned.
You cannot isolate one decision when you change budgets, creatives or offers at the same time. Benchmark CTR also moves as new ads add clicks, so the same ad can change status without any change to the ad.
Limitations and exceptions
- One signal. Statuses use CTR only. They do not use sales, ROAS or profit. An early winner can still lose money, and an early loser can still sell. Check Performance > Ad performance before you stop an ad that matters.
- No benchmark. With no click history in the last 30 days, Benchmark CTR reads 0.00%. No ad then becomes Early winner or Early loser. Ads stay Gathering data or Showing signal.
- Days count. Days counts from the ad's launch date on the platform. For a Google ad that Nexus did not deploy, Nexus uses the first day of performance data it holds. A late-synced ad can then look new.
- No recent launches. When no ad launched in the last 14 days, the page reads No recent launches with "Ads launched in the last 14 days will appear here." Launch an ad, or wait for the next ad sync.
- No match. When your filters match no ad, the table reads "No ads match the current filters." Select Clear filters.
- A failed kill. If the action fails, a Couldn't kill the ad banner shows the reason. For an ad that Nexus did not deploy, the banner explains that Archive (permanent) is unavailable, or that a Google ad cannot be paused here. You can choose again and retry.
- A failed load. If the page cannot load, a red message starts with "Failed to load launch monitor data". Reload the page later.
- Demo Mode. The page shows sample ads. Kill shows the confirmation message but changes no ad.