Documentation

Using Ephermal

Everything you need to run your store's advertising without a marketing background: a plain-English walkthrough of the setup, and a glossary for every term you'll see on your dashboard.

1. Connect your Shopify store

The first step of account setup.

1

Enter your store URL

During setup, enter your .myshopify.com address (or just the subdomain) and click Connect with Shopify. You'll be redirected to Shopify to approve the connection. Ephermal never sees your Shopify password.

2

What gets synced

Once connected, Ephermal automatically pulls your products, orders and revenue so the AI can write ad copy, pick what to advertise, and measure how ad spend translates into real sales.

2. Connect Meta Ads & Google Ads

The second and third steps of account setup.

1

Meta Ads (all plans)

Click Connect Meta Ads and log in with Facebook to link your Meta Business ad account. No API keys or developer setup required.

2

Google Ads (Growth & Scale plans)

Connect your Google Ads account the same way, from Settings → Integrations if you skipped it during setup. You can run Meta-only, Google-only, or both at once.

You can skip either step and connect later. Ephermal will show a reminder banner on your dashboard until at least one ad platform is linked.

3. Launch your first campaign

From the Launch Ads page in the sidebar.

1

Click + New Campaign

Ephermal's AI writes the ad copy, generates creative, and picks a starting audience for you based on your store and products, no ad manager experience needed.

2

Review before it goes live

Every AI-generated creative lands on the Creatives page for your review and approval first. Nothing is published to Meta or Google without your sign-off.

3

Turn it on

Once approved, use the On/Off toggle on the Launch Ads or Dashboard campaign table to start or pause spend at any time.

4. Reading your dashboard

The Dashboard page is your home screen: four numbers matter most.

1

The four stat cards

Average ROAS, Total Ad Spend, UGC Ads Created and Total Conversions, a 30-second snapshot of whether ads are making you money. See the glossary below for exactly what each one means.

2

Campaigns table

Every live and paused campaign with its ROAS, spend, CTR and status at a glance. Click any row to see full detail.

3

Deeper views

For trends over time, open Analytics. For revenue vs. spend combined, open MRR Tracker. For AI-recommended budget changes, open Budget AI.

5. What to do if a metric looks bad

Common situations and where to go.

1

ROAS is dropping

Open Launch Ads → Live Performance and click Optimize ROAS to have the AI re-balance budget toward your best-performing campaigns. Also check Creatives → Creative Fatigue Radar: a tired ad is a common cause.

2

CTR is low

Low CTR usually means the creative or audience isn't resonating. Generate a fresh creative from the Dashboard, or build a new audience on Audience Intel.

3

Not sure why? Ask Auren

Auren, Ephermal's built-in AI, has live context on your ROAS, creatives and audiences. Open it from the sidebar and ask directly, e.g. "why is my CTR low?"

Performance terms

ROAS Return on Ad Spend

For every $1 you spend on ads, how many $ you get back in sales. A ROAS of 3.0 means $1 of ad spend generated $3 of revenue. Higher is better.

Blended ROAS Combined

The same ROAS calculation, but combining all your ad spend (Meta + Google) against your total store revenue, rather than looking at one platform or one campaign alone. It's the truest picture of whether advertising overall is profitable.

CTR Click-Through Rate

The percentage of people who saw your ad and actually clicked it. A higher CTR means your ad creative and targeting are catching attention.

Impressions

The number of times your ad was shown on screen, whether or not anyone clicked it. This measures reach, not engagement.

Clicks

The number of times someone tapped or clicked your ad to visit your store.

Conversions

The number of times a click actually turned into a result you care about, usually a completed purchase on your store.

Creative fatigue

What happens when an ad has been shown to the same people too many times: performance (CTR, ROAS) starts declining even though nothing about your store changed. The Creative Fatigue Radar on the Creatives page flags this automatically so you know when to refresh an ad.

Money & revenue terms

Ad spend

The total amount of money paid to Meta and/or Google to run your ads, before accounting for any revenue those ads generated.

MRR Monthly Recurring Revenue

Here, MRR tracks your Shopify store's revenue over a rolling 30-day window, shown alongside your ad spend for the same period so you can see the two side by side.

Orders

The number of paid orders placed on your Shopify store in the selected time window.

Campaigns & creative terms

Campaign

A single advertising effort with its own budget, audience and creative, for example, "Summer Sale" or "Best Sellers Retarget". Campaigns live on Meta and/or Google but you manage them entirely from Ephermal.

Creative

The actual ad itself: the headline, copy, and (on Meta) image a shopper sees. Ephermal's AI generates ad copy and UGC-style scripts for you to review before anything goes live. Video ad generation is coming soon and not yet available.

Live / Paused / Draft / Failed

Live means the campaign is actively spending and showing ads right now. Paused means it exists but isn't currently spending, you can resume it any time. Draft means it hasn't been launched yet. Failed means the ad platform rejected it, usually a policy issue worth reviewing before relaunching.

Audience & targeting terms

Custom audience

A specific group of people you build to target with ads, for example, past customers or people who visited your site but didn't buy. Built on the Audience Intel page.

Lookalike audience

A new audience Meta builds automatically by finding people who resemble an existing custom audience (e.g. your best customers), so you can find more shoppers likely to convert. A "0.02" similarity ratio means the top 2% most similar people to your source audience: smaller ratios are more precise but reach fewer people.

Meta Pixel

A small snippet of tracking code installed on your store that tells Meta when someone views a product, adds to cart, or completes a purchase after clicking your ad. It's what makes accurate ROAS reporting and audience building possible. Check its status on the Audience Intel page.

Google Search Ads

A genuinely different kind of advertising from Meta — worth understanding before you launch your first one.

1

Meta is asset-based. Google Search is intent-based.

On Meta, you upload an image or video and Meta shows it to people it thinks will like it, based on interests and behavior. There's no equivalent creative to upload for Google Search: instead, your ad is a few lines of text that appears when someone types a search that matches your chosen keywords. You're not interrupting a scroll, you're answering a search someone already typed. Same product, completely different mechanic and completely different ad format.

2

Ranking works differently too

A Meta ad's reach depends on your budget and the algorithm's read on relevance to an audience. A Google Search ad's position on the results page depends on your bid and Google's Quality Score, how well your keywords, ad copy, and landing page all match the searcher's intent. A well-matched, lower-bid ad can outrank a poorly-matched, higher-bid one.

Keywords & match types

Keyword

A word or phrase you're telling Google to show your ad for, e.g. "waterproof running shoes." Ephermal's AI generates these from your product catalog when it builds a campaign.

Match type

How closely a shopper's search has to match your keyword for your ad to show. Ephermal uses a deliberate mix, not one blanket setting:

Exact match — only very close variations of the keyword trigger your ad. Tightest control, used for your highest-intent, most specific terms.
Phrase match — searches containing your keyword phrase (with extra words before or after) trigger your ad. Broader reach while staying relevant.
Broad match — Google has the most latitude to match related searches. Used sparingly, only for genuine discovery terms, since it carries the most risk of showing your ad for an irrelevant search.

Negative keywords

Terms you explicitly tell Google not to show your ad for, even if they'd otherwise match. For example, if you sell full-price running shoes, you might exclude searches containing "free" or "jobs" or "diy repair." Ephermal generates a negative keyword list automatically for every campaign it builds — without one, an account can burn real budget on clicks that were never going to buy anything.

Ad extensions

Extra pieces of information Google can attach to your text ad to make it larger and more useful, at no extra cost. Ephermal generates three kinds for every campaign:

Sitelinks

Extra clickable links to specific pages on your store, e.g. Best Sellers, New Arrivals, Sale — letting a shopper jump straight to what they actually want instead of landing on your homepage.

Callouts

Short, non-clickable highlights like "Free Shipping" or "30-Day Returns" that add credibility and detail to the ad itself.

Structured snippets

A themed list under a fixed header (like Brands, Styles, or Types) showing specific things your store offers.

What's not supported yet

Ephermal's Google integration currently builds Search campaigns only. Shopping, Performance Max, Display, and YouTube campaigns are not yet supported — if you've used other tools that offer those, you won't find them here today. Search alone is genuinely useful (it's how your store shows up when a customer is actively searching for what you sell), but it's narrower than the full Google Ads product suite.