New report The State of YouTube in AI Search
Michael Buckbee

Knowatoa for Paid Ads Research

Use your AI assistant plus Knowatoa data to plan paid ads grounded in what AI is actually answering today.

• Michael Buckbee

Starting paid ad campaigns is costly. Knowatoa data can improve them out of the gate.

What you need for more efficient paid ad campaigns

Here’s how to get started.

1. ChatGPT, Claude Desktop, or other MCP-capable AI assistant

AI assistants can bring in data from other services via MCP connectors. This lets them reason better and offer better advice.

See the Knowatoa MCP feature page for the full list of supported clients and one-minute setup guides.

2. Knowatoa account

Knowatoa tracks what questions people are asking about your site, brand, and industry: which sources AI assistants cite, what brands they mention.

3. Your website (we’re using sendcheckit.com for the examples below)

SendCheckIt is a SaaS application that helps marketers with email deliverability. It offers technical verification of email security features (DKIM, DMARC, SPF) as well as content tools like a subject-line analyzer and suggestion tool.

Data-driven targeting for Reddit ads

Ask any AI assistant cold for subreddits to target and you get a reasonable-ish list based on whatever data the AI has hoovered up from the Internet.

Ask the same question with Knowatoa connected and you get the subreddits AI assistants are already citing in this space:

In your AI assistant

What subreddits should I target for Reddit Paid Ads for SendCheckIt?

Generic AI Suggestions

  • r/copywriting
  • r/devops
  • r/ecommerce
  • r/marketing
  • r/msp
  • r/SaaS
  • r/selfhosted

Overlap

  • r/Emailmarketing
  • r/Entrepreneur
  • r/sysadmin
Based on Knowatoa questions for SendCheckIt, what Subreddits should I target for ads?

Suggestions Based on Knowatoa Questions

  • r/Affiliatemarketing
  • r/businessemail
  • r/coldemail
  • r/DigitalMarketing
  • r/MailChimp
  • r/SaaSMarketing
  • r/smallbusiness

Overlap

  • r/Emailmarketing
  • r/Entrepreneur
  • r/sysadmin

Result

  • Much less generic
  • Less expensive to advertise on
  • Less competition
  • Exactly the places SendCheckIt’s prospects are getting their answers from right now

Visibility patching with Google ads

Top-of-funnel Google ads work best when they show up in searches where you don’t appear in the organic AI answer. Pay to fill the gap, get the click, and you’ve patched a spot where you’d otherwise be invisible.

The trick is knowing where those gaps actually are. A cold AI assistant can guess. Knowatoa knows which searches AI is answering today without ever mentioning SendCheckIt.

In your AI assistant

What Google ad keywords should I target for SendCheckIt?

Generic AI Suggestions

  • "email subject line tester"
  • "spam word checker"
  • "DKIM checker"
  • "DMARC validator"
  • "email deliverability test"
What Google ad keywords should I target where I'm not already organically appearing? Use my Knowatoa data.

Suggestions Based on Knowatoa Questions

  • "why are emails going to spam"
  • "test subject line before sending"
  • "email authentication setup"
  • "how to pass spam filters"
  • "improve email open rates"

Result

Much more efficient at the start because they only target keywords where SendCheckIt isn’t already organically visible.

OpenAI ads (ChatGPT sponsored placements)

OpenAI ads don’t run off keywords or questions. They use context hints: descriptions of the conversations, topics, and language where your product fits. The matching engine reads those hints and decides when to surface your ad.

Context hints field in the OpenAI ad creation form
Context hints field in the OpenAI ad creation form

Knowatoa data plus a few targeted MCP calls is a fast way to write hints grounded in real conversations rather than guesses.

Building context hints with Knowatoa

  1. Filter to commercial intent. Knowatoa already classifies every tracked question as navigational, informational, or commercial. Only commercial questions are worth ad spend.
  2. Tag commercial questions by product area. For SendCheckIt that's "subject lines," "deliverability," "authentication," and so on. All of this happens through the MCP, from your AI assistant. Go through my questions in Knowatoa and add the tag 'subjectline' to any question about email subject lines.
  3. Pull questions one tag at a time. For the SendCheckIt subject-line ad group, pull every commercial question tagged "subject lines." Find all the questions in Knowatoa with a commercial intent that are tagged 'subjectline'.
  4. Turn those questions into context hints. Ask your AI assistant to summarize the questions and language into hints that fit the OpenAI ad form. Turn these questions into context hints for an OpenAI ad campaign promoting SendCheckIt's subject-line tool.

Result

Context hints grounded in the actual conversations your buyers are having today.

Get started

If you don’t already have a Knowatoa account, you can get started today with a free seven-day trial.