$0/mo Meta Ad Management with OpenClaw

Based on @TheMattBerman's workflow
Original thread: https://x.com/TheMattBerman/status/2027220216409723296
Full breakdown: https://www.bigplayers.co/p/this-openclaw-agent-runs-your-meta-ads
Open-source kit: https://github.com/TheMattBerman/meta-ads-kit

Overview

An OpenClaw agent that runs your entire Meta Ads account on autopilot — monitoring campaigns, pausing bleeders, scaling winners, detecting creative fatigue, generating new copy, and uploading ads — all without you touching Ads Manager.

What it does:

Real-world result (from Matt's account):

"Paused Retargeting_V3_Feb. CPA $87 against a $35 target, three straight days. Creative fatigue. Shifted $47/day to Founder_Hook_V2. That one's at 1.8x ROAS and climbing. Here's what I'd test next."
Total time managing ads that day: under 5 minutes.

Difficulty: Intermediate (comfortable with terminal; no coding required)
Setup time: ~30 minutes
Monthly cost: $0 (tools are all free/open source — your Meta ad spend is separate)

Monthly Cost Breakdown

Item Monthly Cost
OpenClaw Free (open source)
social-flow CLI Free (open source)
Meta Marketing API access Free (your own ad account)
Anthropic API (Claude) ~$5–20 depending on usage
Total infrastructure $0–$20/mo

Note: Your actual Meta advertising spend is completely separate. This kit manages that spend more efficiently — it doesn't add to it.

Prerequisites

The Architecture

OpenClaw Agent (brain + scheduler)
    → meta-ads skill         (daily health check, pause/resume/budget actions)
    → ad-creative-monitor    (fatigue detection over time)
    → budget-optimizer       (spend efficiency rankings + shift recommendations)
    → ad-copy-generator      (AI copy matched to image creatives)
    → ad-upload              (push new ads to Meta via Graph API)
         ↓
    social-flow CLI          (thin wrapper around Meta Marketing API)
         ↓
    Meta Marketing API       (the actual data + mutations)

Cron fires at 7am → brief lands in Telegram/Slack → you approve in 2 min

The 5 Skills — What Each Does

1. meta-ads — Daily Health Check + Auto-Pause

What it does: The core skill. Runs 5 diagnostic questions against your live ad data every morning, surfaces what matters, and takes action on the obvious stuff without waiting for you.

The 5 questions:

  1. Am I on track? — Spend pacing vs. daily budget (flags over/under-pacing)
  2. What's running? — All active campaigns, status, current spend
  3. How's performance? — 7-day ROAS, CPA, CPL, CTR by campaign
  4. Who's winning/losing? — Ad-level data ranked best to worst; auto-pauses 3x+ CPA bleeders
  5. Any fatigue? — CTR trends, frequency creep, CPC movement (catches fatigue days early)

Install:

clawhub install meta-ads

[ok] Verified on ClawHub — exists at clawhub.ai/skills/meta-ads (published by zachgodsell93, v1.0.0, updated Feb 2026). Also bundled in Matt Berman's meta-ads-kit.

Configuration needed:

{
  "account": {
    "id": "act_123456789",
    "name": "My Brand"
  },
  "benchmarks": {
    "target_cpa": 25.00,
    "target_roas": 3.0,
    "max_frequency": 3.5,
    "min_ctr": 1.0,
    "max_cpc": 2.50
  },
  "alerts": {
    "bleeder_ctr_threshold": 1.0,
    "bleeder_frequency_threshold": 3.5,
    "fatigue_ctr_drop_pct": 20,
    "spend_pace_alert_pct": 15
  }
}

2. ad-creative-monitor — Fatigue Detection

What it does: Tracks the health of every creative in your account over time — not just a single-day snapshot. Catches creative fatigue before your CPA spikes (usually 3–5 days earlier than manual monitoring).

Fatigue signals it monitors:

When triggered, it: flags the creative, writes an observation to a workspace log, and tells you what to test next. Over time, this builds a pattern log of what fatigued when and why — genuine institutional memory.

Install:

clawhub install ad-creative-monitor

[ok] Verified on ClawHub — exists at clawhub.ai/skills/ad-creative-monitor. Also bundled in the meta-ads-kit.

[!] Caveat: The clawhub inspect CLI command returned no result for this slug, but the ClawHub web page resolves and the skill is included in Matt Berman's open-source kit. Install via the kit or the web URL if clawhub install fails.

Configuration needed:

3. budget-optimizer — Spend Efficiency Ranker

What it does: Analyzes all your campaigns and ad sets by spend efficiency — ROAS, CPA, CPL — and ranks them best to worst. Then recommends concrete budget shifts: take $X/day from the 3 worst performers and move it to the top 2.

Budget shifts are always approval-required (by design). The agent presents the recommendation with full data backing. You say yes or no in Telegram in 2 seconds. It executes.

Install:

clawhub install budget-optimizer

[ok] Verified on ClawHub — exists at clawhub.ai/skills/budget-optimizer. Also bundled in the meta-ads-kit.

[!] Caveat: Same as above — clawhub inspect CLI returned empty, but web page resolves. Use the kit install path if needed.

Configuration needed:

4. ad-copy-generator — AI Copy Matched to Creatives

What it does: Takes your actual image creatives, analyzes the visual (layout, color, hook style, format), and writes ad copy specifically designed to reinforce what's in the image. Outputs in asset_feed_spec format — the exact structure Meta's API expects for uploading.

This is the skill that closes the creative loop. When ad-creative-monitor flags a fatiguing creative, ad-copy-generator produces fresh variants to replace it — without anyone touching Canva or a copy doc.

Output format example:

{
  "asset_feed_spec": {
    "bodies": [
      {"text": "Stop guessing. Start knowing. Your CPA in 2 minutes every morning."},
      {"text": "I didn't open Ads Manager once this week. My AI did it. Here's how."}
    ],
    "titles": [
      {"text": "Your AI Ad Manager"},
      {"text": "Set it. Approve it. Done."}
    ]
  }
}

Install:

clawhub install ad-copy-generator

[ok] Verified on ClawHub — exists at clawhub.ai/skills/ad-copy-generator. Also bundled in the meta-ads-kit.

Configuration needed:

5. ad-upload — Push Ads to Meta via Graph API

What it does: Takes the output from ad-copy-generator (images + copy in asset_feed_spec format) and pushes it directly to your Meta ad account via the Graph API. No Ads Manager copy-paste. No manual upload. Images, headlines, body copy, and creative configuration — all uploaded programmatically.

This is the last step in the closed loop: Monitor → Detect Fatigue → Optimize Budget → Generate Copy → Upload → Monitor again.

Install:

clawhub install ad-upload

[ok] Verified on ClawHub — exists at clawhub.ai/skills/ad-upload. Also bundled in the meta-ads-kit.

Configuration needed:

Step-by-Step Setup

Step 1: Create a Meta Business Account

URL: https://business.facebook.com

  1. Go to https://business.facebook.com
  2. Click "Create Account" (top right)
  3. Enter your business name, your name, and business email
  4. Verify your email address
  5. Add your Facebook Page (or create one if you don't have one)
  6. Add your Ad Account: go to Business Settings → Accounts → Ad Accounts → Add

Already have one? Go to https://business.facebook.com/settings and make sure your ad account is connected.

Step 2: Create a Meta Developer App

URL: https://developers.facebook.com/apps

  1. Go to https://developers.facebook.com/apps
  2. Click "Create App"
  3. Select app type: "Business"
  4. Enter app name (e.g., "My Ad Manager"), contact email, and select your Business Account
  5. Click "Create App"
  6. From your app dashboard, click "Add Products" and add "Marketing API"
  7. Under App Review → Permissions, request these permissions:
    • ads_management — read/write access to ad accounts (required)
    • ads_read — read-only access (required for reporting)
    • business_management — manage business assets (recommended)
    • pages_read_engagement — if you want page insights

Development vs. Live mode: Your app starts in Development mode. For personal use on your own ad account, Development mode is sufficient. For managing client accounts, you'll need to go through App Review to get Live mode (Marketing API Basic tier).

Permissions cheat sheet for this workflow:

Permission Why You Need It
ads_read Pull campaign/ad/insights data
ads_management Pause ads, adjust budgets
business_management Access Business Manager assets

Step 3: Get Your Access Token (the hardest part — read carefully)

This is where most people get stuck. Meta has multiple token types; you need a long-lived User Access Token or a System User Token.

Option A: Long-Lived User Token (recommended for personal accounts)

  1. Go to https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer
  2. In the top-right dropdown, select your app
  3. Click "Generate Access Token"
  4. Check these permissions: ads_management, ads_read, business_management
  5. Click "Generate Access Token" and authorize in the popup
  6. Copy the short-lived token (valid for 1–2 hours)
  7. Exchange for a long-lived token (valid for 60 days):
curl -X GET "https://graph.facebook.com/v18.0/oauth/access_token?grant_type=fb_exchange_token&client_id={APP_ID}&client_secret={APP_SECRET}&fb_exchange_token={SHORT_LIVED_TOKEN}"

Get your App ID and App Secret: Dashboard → App Settings → Basic → App ID / App Secret

The response gives you a token valid for 60 days. You'll need to refresh it before it expires (social-flow has a built-in social auth refresh command for this).

Option B: System User Token (recommended for automation / never expires)

  1. Go to https://business.facebook.com/settings/system-users
  2. Click "Add" → Create a System User (role: Admin)
  3. Click "Generate New Token" on the system user
  4. Select your app, check ads_management and ads_read
  5. Click "Generate Token"
  6. Copy this token immediately — you cannot retrieve it again

System User tokens don't expire (unless you revoke them). Best for automated cron workflows.

Verify your token works:

# After social-flow setup (Step 5), run:
social auth login
# Paste your token when prompted

# Verify:
social marketing accounts

You should see your ad accounts listed. If you see an error, check permissions.

Step 4: Install social-flow CLI

social-flow is the open-source CLI by Vishal Ojha that wraps Meta's Marketing API. It handles token refresh, pagination, and rate limits so you don't have to.

# Install globally
npm install -g @vishalgojha/social-flow

# Verify
social --help
# (or: social-flow --help)

Authenticate with Meta:

# First-time setup (guided)
social start-here

# Or manual:
social auth login
# → Paste your access token when prompted

# Set your default ad account
social marketing accounts
# → Note your account ID (format: act_XXXXXXXXX)

social marketing set-default-account act_YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID

Test it:

social marketing status
social marketing insights --preset last_7d --level campaign

You should see your campaign data. If it works, social-flow is set up correctly.

GitHub: https://github.com/vishalgojha/social-flow
npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@vishalgojha/social-flow

Step 5: Clone the Meta Ads Kit + Install Skills

Matt Berman open-sourced the complete agent kit. Clone it first:

# Clone the kit
git clone https://github.com/TheMattBerman/meta-ads-kit.git
cd meta-ads-kit

# Copy config templates
cp .env.example .env
cp ad-config.example.json ad-config.json

Edit .env:

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-your-key-here
META_ACCESS_TOKEN=your-long-lived-or-system-user-token
META_AD_ACCOUNT_ID=act_123456789

Edit ad-config.json with your actual benchmarks:

{
  "account": {
    "id": "act_123456789",
    "name": "Your Brand Name"
  },
  "benchmarks": {
    "target_cpa": 25.00,
    "target_roas": 3.0,
    "max_frequency": 3.5,
    "min_ctr": 1.0,
    "max_cpc": 2.50
  },
  "alerts": {
    "bleeder_ctr_threshold": 1.0,
    "bleeder_frequency_threshold": 3.5,
    "fatigue_ctr_drop_pct": 20,
    "spend_pace_alert_pct": 15
  },
  "reporting": {
    "default_preset": "last_7d",
    "timezone": "America/New_York"
  }
}

Now install the ClawHub skills (these add knowledge to your OpenClaw agent):

# In your meta-ads-kit directory (or your OpenClaw workspace)
clawhub install meta-ads
clawhub install ad-creative-monitor
clawhub install ad-upload

Note: The meta-ads-kit already includes all 5 skills in its skills/ folder. If clawhub install fails for any skill other than meta-ads, use the bundled versions from the cloned repo — they're identical.

Step 6: Configure OpenClaw Agent

# In the meta-ads-kit directory
npm install -g openclaw  # if not already installed

openclaw start

OpenClaw will pick up the SOUL.md, AGENTS.md, and skills automatically from the directory.

Set up your morning cron by messaging the agent:

"Run my daily ads check every morning at 8am and send me the summary"

The agent will create a cron job. Confirm it by asking:

"Show me my scheduled tasks"

Set your notification channel:

Step 7: Run Your First Check (Verify Everything Works)

# Option A: Via the shell script
./run.sh daily-check

# Option B: Via OpenClaw agent (message it)
"How are my ads doing?"
"Run a daily ads check"
"Any bleeders I should pause?"
"Check for creative fatigue"

Expected output:

If you see real data — you're live. The cron will handle everything from here.

What Each Skill Actually Does (Deep Dive)

meta-ads: The 5-Question Daily Protocol

This is the intelligence layer. Every morning, the skill fires 5 social-flow commands against the Meta Marketing API and interprets the results:

# Under the hood, these are the commands running:
social marketing status
social marketing portfolio --preset last_7d --target-daily YOUR_DAILY_BUDGET
social marketing insights --preset last_7d --level campaign
social marketing insights --preset last_7d --level ad
social marketing diagnose-poor-ads --preset last_7d --top 15

The skill doesn't just return raw data — it applies your benchmarks. An ad at $24 CPA against a $25 target is a winner. The same ad at $74 CPA is a bleeder. The skill knows the difference because you told it your targets in ad-config.json.

Auto-pause logic:

IF ad.cpa > (target_cpa * 3) AND ad.duration_hours > 48 THEN
  social marketing pause ad AD_ID
  notify("Paused [ad name]. CPA $X vs. target $Y. Notifying you.")

No confirmation needed for auto-pause (the threshold is conservative by design). You can always resume.

ad-creative-monitor: Time-Series Fatigue Detection

Unlike meta-ads which looks at a single daily snapshot, ad-creative-monitor builds a history. It writes observations to a workspace file (creative-health.log) every day:

2026-02-25: Founder_Hook_V1 — CTR 2.4%, freq 2.1, CPC $1.80 → HEALTHY
2026-02-26: Founder_Hook_V1 — CTR 2.1%, freq 2.6, CPC $1.95 → WATCH
2026-02-27: Founder_Hook_V1 — CTR 1.8%, freq 3.1, CPC $2.20 → FATIGUED

When a creative crosses the fatigue threshold, the skill flags it and suggests a creative refresh. Your CPA hasn't spiked yet — but it will in 3–5 days if you don't act. That's the edge.

budget-optimizer: Efficiency Ranker

Takes your campaigns and ad sets, ranks them by spend efficiency (ROAS × spend, or CPA vs. target), and generates a shift recommendation:

Efficiency Ranking — Last 7 Days:
1. Founder_Hook_V2    1.8x ROAS  $47/day → SCALE (+$30/day)
2. Brand_Awareness    1.2x ROAS  $60/day → HOLD
3. Retargeting_V3     0.4x ROAS  $87/day → CUT (-$40/day)

Recommended shift: Move $40/day from Retargeting_V3 to Founder_Hook_V2.
Approve? [Y/N]

The shift executes only after your approval:

social marketing set-budget adset ADSET_ID --daily-budget NEW_AMOUNT

ad-copy-generator: Vision-Matched Copy

When you provide an image (or point it to an existing creative), the skill:

  1. Analyzes the visual (what's in the image, color palette, text present, layout)
  2. Generates 3–5 copy variants that reinforce what the image communicates
  3. Outputs in asset_feed_spec format ready for Meta's API

This matters because generic copy over a specific image is one of the most common performance killers. Copy and image should tell the same story. This skill enforces that.

ad-upload: Graph API Direct Push

Handles the full upload flow:

  1. Upload image to Meta's image library: POST /act_{ID}/adimages
  2. Create ad creative with copy + image: POST /act_{ID}/adcreatives
  3. Create the ad in your ad set: POST /act_{ID}/ads

Everything happens via social marketing commands. No Ads Manager required at any step.

The Full Closed Loop

Every morning at 7am:
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  meta-ads skill runs 5 questions                     │
│  ↓                                                   │
│  Bleeders? → auto-pause (notify you after)           │
│  Fatigue? → ad-creative-monitor flags creative       │
│  Budget shift needed? → budget-optimizer recommends  │
│  ↓                                                   │
│  Brief lands in Telegram: "Here's what happened.     │
│  Here's what I did. Here's what I'd test next."      │
│  ↓                                                   │
│  You reply: "approved" or "not yet" or ask questions │
│  ↓                                                   │
│  If new creative needed:                             │
│    ad-copy-generator → new copy variants             │
│    ad-upload → live in Meta in 60 seconds            │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Total time: 2–5 minutes/day

Cost Breakdown

Item Monthly Cost Notes
OpenClaw $0 Open source (MIT)
social-flow CLI $0 Open source (MIT)
Meta Marketing API $0 Free — your own account
ClawHub (skill registry) $0 Free tier sufficient
Anthropic API (Claude) ~$5–20 Depends on daily brief length
meta-ads-kit (the repo) $0 Open source (MIT)
Total $0–$20/mo

Meta API pricing: The Marketing API itself is free for accessing your own accounts. Meta charges for ad delivery (your actual ad spend), not for API access. There is no API fee.

App review: For Basic Marketing API access to your own account, you don't need to go through App Review. Advanced Access (for accessing other people's accounts at scale) requires review — not needed for this workflow.

Common Issues

Token Expiration

Symptom: Error: OAuthException - Session has expired

Fix:

Prevention: Set a calendar reminder 50 days after token creation. Or set up a cron that runs social auth status weekly and alerts you.

Rate Limits

Symptom: Error: (#17) User request limit reached or (#613) Calls to this API endpoint have exceeded the rate limit

Fix:

Prevention: Don't run the daily check more than once an hour. Keep cron at 1x/day for reporting, 1x/day for creative monitor.

Permission Errors

Symptom: Error: (#10) Application does not have permission to access this endpoint

Fix:

  1. Verify your app has ads_management and ads_read permissions
  2. Verify your token was generated with those permissions checked
  3. Verify your token belongs to an Admin on the ad account (not just a Standard user)
# Check what permissions your token has
social auth status
# or:
curl "https://graph.facebook.com/me?fields=permissions&access_token=YOUR_TOKEN"

social command not found after install

Symptom: command not found: social

Fix:

# Open a new terminal after install
# Or add npm global bin to PATH:
export PATH=$PATH:$(npm bin -g)

# On Mac (zsh):
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:$(npm bin -g)' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

Ad Account Not Found

Symptom: social marketing accounts returns nothing or wrong accounts

Fix:

# Make sure your token belongs to a user with access to the ad account
social marketing accounts
# Look for your account ID (format: act_XXXXXXXXX)

social marketing set-default-account act_YOUR_CORRECT_ID

ClawHub install fails for skills other than meta-ads

Symptom: clawhub install ad-creative-monitor returns error or not found

Fix: Use the bundled skills from the meta-ads-kit repo instead:

git clone https://github.com/TheMattBerman/meta-ads-kit.git
# Skills are in: meta-ads-kit/skills/
# Copy them to your OpenClaw workspace skills folder

The ClawHub web pages for all 5 skills resolve correctly, but the CLI's vector search may not surface exact slug matches for the newer skills. The GitHub repo is the authoritative source.

Verified Links

Resource URL Status
Original tweet https://x.com/TheMattBerman/status/2027220216409723296 [ok] Live
BigPlayers breakdown https://www.bigplayers.co/p/this-openclaw-agent-runs-your-meta-ads [ok] Live
meta-ads-kit (GitHub) https://github.com/TheMattBerman/meta-ads-kit [ok] Live (38 stars)
social-flow CLI (GitHub) https://github.com/vishalgojha/social-flow [ok] Live
social-flow (npm) https://www.npmjs.com/package/@vishalgojha/social-flow [ok] v0.2.17
OpenClaw https://openclaw.ai [ok] Live
ClawHub https://clawhub.ai [ok] Live
meta-ads skill https://clawhub.ai/skills/meta-ads [ok] Verified
ad-creative-monitor skill https://clawhub.ai/skills/ad-creative-monitor [ok] Verified
budget-optimizer skill https://clawhub.ai/skills/budget-optimizer [ok] Verified
ad-copy-generator skill https://clawhub.ai/skills/ad-copy-generator [ok] Verified
ad-upload skill https://clawhub.ai/skills/ad-upload [ok] Verified
Meta Business https://business.facebook.com [ok] Live
Meta Developers (App creation) https://developers.facebook.com/apps [ok] Live
Meta Graph API Explorer https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer [ok] Live
Meta Marketing API docs https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api [ok] Live
Anthropic API keys https://console.anthropic.com/keys [ok] Live

Skill Verification Notes

Verified via ClawHub CLI (clawhub inspect meta-ads):

Verified via ClawHub web (URL resolves with correct page title):

[!] Important note on ClawHub CLI search: The clawhub search command uses vector similarity — searching "ad-creative-monitor" returns unrelated skills because the registry uses semantic matching, not exact slug lookup. The clawhub install <slug> command uses exact slug matching. For these 4 skills, if clawhub install fails, clone the meta-ads-kit repo and use the bundled skills/ folder directly — they're identical.

Note on "ad-copy-generator" and "ad-upload" — the tweet vs. the article: Matt Berman's original tweet mentioned 5 skills. His BigPlayers newsletter (the full breakdown) confirmed only 3 skills are in the "core" kit (meta-ads, ad-creative-monitor, budget-optimizer) — plus ad-copy-generator and ad-upload for the creative loop. The GitHub repo confirms all 5 exist. This playbook covers all 5.

The Philosophy (Worth Reading)

From Matt Berman:

"Meta's AI optimizes for Meta. Your AI optimizes for you."

Meta's built-in AI tools optimize for Meta's revenue — broader audiences, more placements, more spend. Your OpenClaw agent optimizes for your target CPA and your cash flow. The winning move: use Meta for targeting and delivery (they're genuinely good at it), and use your own agent for the strategy layer on top.

The 90% of ad management that's maintenance — clicking through Ads Manager, catching overnight CPA spikes, noticing creative fatigue — that's what this automates. The 10% that actually requires judgment (knowing when to go broad, which creative angle to test, when data is noise vs. signal) — that stays with you.

Two minutes a day over coffee. The agent handles the rest.

Last verified: March 2026. Source: @TheMattBerman / Big Players newsletter / meta-ads-kit