Ads

The Ads tab turns a listing into an ad you can download or run on Facebook. Use it when you want a video, a set of animated photos, or a single image ad for a property.

New ad asks one question first: what you want to make. A video ad is edited by describing the change, either in the prompt box on the ad's page or by asking the AI sidebar from anywhere in Gene App. Animated photos are not an ad: they get their own short flow and land on the Animated photos page (see Animate photos).

Three kinds of ad#

The wizard shows the exact total before anything is charged.

Video ads and static ads land in the Ads list and publish to Meta the same way: a static ad runs there as an image ad, a video ad as video. Animated photos made with Animate photos stay out of the Ads list; build an ad from them when you want to run one.

Make a video ad#

1. Upload photos, or choose one of your properties. A property prefills the wizard with its gallery photos, city and price.
2. Put the photos in the order the scenes should play.
3. Choose a template: Classic, Bold, Minimal, Elegant or Showcase.
4. Pick a music track: Aura, Skyline, Horizon, Ember, or none.
5. Set the badge, city, price and agency name.
6. Press Generate.

You can leave the page while it renders. The Ads list shows progress.

Pacing and length#

Pick 3 to 12 photos. Scene length adapts to how many you use, so the ad stays watchable:

Six photos make a 27 second video. When you pick a music track, the cuts are nudged onto the beat.

Create one from the AI sidebar#

You do not have to open the wizard at all. Ask the AI sidebar from any page and name one of your properties:

• "Make a video ad for Privé Pererenan"
• "Turn the Dubai Marina listing into animated photos, Elegant template, music Horizon"

What the sidebar does:

• Pulls that property's gallery photos (the first 12; at least 3 are needed).
• Prefills the city, area and price from the listing, and uses your workspace name as the agency line.
• Shows a confirmation card with the type and the exact credit cost before anything is charged.

Confirm it and generation starts, at the same price the wizard quotes (1 credit to render plus 1 per animated photo).

Once the ad exists, keep going in the same conversation: "now put 'Private beach, 2 minutes' on the second scene" edits the ad you just made. Ask for "my ads" or "my latest ad" and the sidebar lists what the workspace has, with status, so you can edit an older one the same way.

Ready-made templates#

Some workspaces also see a second row in the style picker, Ready-made templates. These are finished layouts from an outside video library, several of them built specifically for property listings.

• Hover one to watch the example play, click it to see it full screen, and pick it the same way you pick a Gene style.
• Your photos, listing name, location, price and agency name are dropped into the layout.
• Your workspace logo goes on the closing card if you have set one in Settings > Business Profile.

The trade-off is that a ready-made template is fixed:

• It costs the same as a Gene-style video (1 credit to render plus 1 per animated photo) and looks finished straight away.
• It cannot be changed afterwards by describing what you want: no text edits, no reordering, no motion changes.

The five Gene styles (Classic, Bold, Minimal, Elegant, Showcase) are the editable ones. That is why they stay first in the picker and stay the default. If you want to keep editing, pick a Gene style.

Animate photos#

Use this when you only want the photos to move, without making an ad. Open Ads > Animated photos and press Animate photos, or pick Animated photos on the New ad page.

It is one screen. Upload 1 to 12 photos, or choose a property and tap the photos you want from its gallery (nothing is picked until you tap it). The cost shows under the photos; press Animate this photo (or Animate 6 photos, and so on).

There is no style, motion, city, badge, headline or music to choose. Every photo gets the same slow camera push-in and becomes its own 5 second clip, at 1 credit per photo, and a photo you have already animated costs nothing.

When it starts you land on the Animated photos page, which shows a progress bar that fills as each clip finishes ("Animating photo 2 of 5", with about how many minutes are left). For a moment right after you press the button it shows a moving bar and "Getting your photos ready" before the first clip is counted. The page refreshes by itself and each clip appears as soon as it is done, usually within a few minutes. You can leave the page meanwhile. The clips stay saved there. Each one has a Download button that saves it as an mp4. To use clips in an ad, select them and press Build an ad from these: the new ad reuses them, so nothing is charged again to animate.

Static ads#

Pick Static ad on the New ad page, or open Static ad in the Ads menu. You start it one of two ways.

Copy the layout of an ad you like#

Drop, paste or choose a screenshot of an ad you like (from Competitor ads under Ad research, or anywhere else). Gene App rebuilds it as movable parts: photo frames, text, buttons, a logo frame and shapes.

• That read costs 1 credit. Nothing is charged when the picture turns out to have no ad layout in it.
• Only the arrangement is copied. The photographs and the words stay in the screenshot: the frames come back empty, and the copy has to be written as yours before the ad runs anywhere.

Start blank#

Press Start blank to build it from one photo frame and a headline.

Lay it out#

1. Pick the shape first: 9:16 for Stories and Reels, 4:5 for the tallest the Meta feed allows, or 1:1.
2. Drag, retype, recolour and layer anything on the canvas.
   • Arrow keys nudge, Delete removes, Cmd-D duplicates.
   • Undo works in human-sized steps rather than one per pixel of a drag.
3. Add your photos. A logo frame fills itself from the logo in Settings > Business Profile. Photo frames never fill themselves, because which photograph an ad shows is your decision.

Keep it or export it#

• Add to my ads puts it in your Ads list as a finished ad, free, ready to publish to Meta or download.
• From then on every change saves on its own as you work. To change it later, open it from the ad's page with Edit ad and change anything. The same ad and its picture are replaced in place, so editing does not fill the list with near-identical copies.
• Export PNG downloads the flattened picture at full size (1080 wide) without saving an ad, for when you only want the file.

Your working layout is kept in the browser as you go, so a reload or a closed tab picks up where you left off instead of costing you the credit again.

Edit an ad by prompt#

Every ad is a document of scenes and text layers, so you change it by saying what you want in plain words. No forms, no re-uploading.

On the ad's page, type the change into the prompt box. Anywhere else in Gene App, ask the AI sidebar and name the ad:

• "Open my Dubai Marina ad and change the badge to Open house"
• "On the third scene put 'Private beach, 2 minutes' as a small caption at the bottom"
• "Make the first clip's motion slower and hold it a second longer"
• "Swap the music to Horizon and use the Elegant template"
• "Move the last scene to the front and drop the price from the outro"

What you can change:

• Text: placed (top, upper, center, lower, bottom), sized, and styled as a chip, plain, or over a scrim. Text can be timed to appear partway through a scene and leave before the cut.
• Scenes: reorder them, change durations, change the motion on one scene.
• Look: switch template, font or music.

What edits cost#

• Text, layout, timing, scene order, template, font and music changes are free. They are quick because every clip is reused.
• Changing the camera motion on a scene is the one exception. That scene is animated again at the AI video provider, at real cost, so the app tells you how many scenes an edit re-animates before it does it.
• Ask for a livelier or more upmarket look and it is answered with the template, the font, the music and the text, not the camera.

Render your changes#

A free edit is saved straight away, but it does not remake the video on its own. The ad page says Saved changes are not in the video yet and offers Render now, which puts every change since the last render into the video in one go.

That is deliberate: make five wording changes, then render once, rather than sitting through a rebuild after each one. A new photo you add to a video in the editor is saved with the layout straight away too, so Back, a refresh or a closed tab keeps it. It is only animated, and charged, when you press Render. A motion change is different. It starts the rebuild immediately, because those scenes have to be animated again either way.

Get the file#

• Video ad: download the finished mp4 (720x1280 vertical, ready for Instagram and Facebook).
• Animated photos: the clips stay saved on the Animated photos page. Press Download under a clip to save its mp4, or select clips and press Build an ad from these to turn them into a video ad.
• Static ad: downloads as a PNG.

Bring in an ad you already have#

Upload your own video#

Already have a finished ad? Upload a video on the Ads tab (mp4, mov or webm, up to 500 MB) and it becomes a ready ad, free, with nothing generated or changed.

There is nothing to edit on an uploaded video. It exists to be published to Meta or downloaded again. Vertical 9:16 works best for feed, Stories and Reels.

Ads built in Ads Manager#

Where your workspace can publish to Meta, an ad you made in Meta Ads Manager, outside Gene App, can join the Ads list too.

1. Open it under Ad research, Your results.
2. Click Move to Ads on its card.

It lands in the list as Built in Ads Manager, free, and nothing changes on Meta: it keeps running exactly as before.

• Its page shows its live numbers and a pause and resume switch that pauses only that ad, never the rest of its campaign.
• There is nothing to edit, render or publish. Its budget, words and picture are changed on its campaign under Ads > Meta campaigns, by asking the AI sidebar (see Build a full campaign from the AI sidebar), or in Ads Manager.
• Removing it from the Ads list only takes it off the list. It keeps running on Meta.

Publishing to Meta#

When your workspace has publishing enabled and a Meta connection with ads access, the ad's page shows a Publish to Meta card.

1. Pick the ad account and Facebook Page. Only this workspace's own are listed (those of the business behind its connected Page), not every account your Meta login can reach.
2. Choose the goal (see below).
3. Set the daily budget, the destination link and the country.
4. Optionally set a run time.
5. Review and confirm.

Important

Publishing is live. The campaign, ad set and ad are created in your own ad account, and once Meta finishes reviewing the ad (usually within a day) it starts delivering and spending the daily budget you confirmed.

You can pause or stop it at any time on the ad's page, under Ads > Meta campaigns, or in Meta Ads Manager, and the ad's page links straight to the campaign there.

Goals#

The form picker lists your Page's existing forms. Create new ones under Ads > Lead forms.

Run time#

You can give the ad a run time of 3, 7, 14 or 30 days. Meta then stops it by itself on that date, so a forgotten ad never spends longer than you meant it to. Or pick until I pause it and stop it manually.

After it is live#

Once published, the ad's page becomes its control panel:

• It shows whether the ad is live, in review or paused, what it has spent, and the impressions and clicks so far.
• You can pause and resume the ad or change its daily budget right there. An ad built in Ads Manager is paused and resumed here, but its budget stays in Ads Manager.
• Anything more advanced (targeting, placements, a second ad, deleting) can be changed on its campaign under Ads > Meta campaigns, by asking the AI sidebar (see Build a full campaign from the AI sidebar), or in Meta Ads Manager, one click away.

Running it again#

An ad publishes once. To run the same video again as a new campaign, duplicate the ad and publish the copy. A static ad is edited in place rather than duplicated: to run a second version, start another one from New ad.

Build a full campaign from the AI sidebar#

The Publish to Meta card puts one finished ad live with a few choices. When you want more than that, ask the AI sidebar for a campaign, for example "run a leads campaign for Privé Pererenan in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, 50 a day for two weeks". It works where your workspace can publish to Meta, in your own ad account.

To do the same by hand, use Ads > Meta campaigns: a step-by-step build, every campaign's results, and every setting below in an editor that saves as you type. See Meta campaigns.

What it can set, the same settings Ads Manager has that matter for property:

• Goal: leads, traffic or awareness.
• Budget: on the campaign or on each ad set, daily or for the whole run, with an optional spend cap, bid strategy and bid amount. With one campaign budget you can still give an ad set a minimum or maximum daily spend. Say the amount in your own currency ("AED 150 a day"): if your ad account runs in another one, Gene converts it and the card shows both, for example AED 150 (USD 40.84) a day.
• Schedule: start and end dates, in your ad account's timezone ("starting tomorrow for 14 days" works). When your request gives a start or a duration, Gene works out the dates from your words and puts them on every ad set: "14 days starting tomorrow" starts tomorrow at 00:00 and ends at 00:00 fourteen days later. The card's schedule row then says "Dates set from your brief". With no dates, the card says it starts as soon as you switch it on and runs until you pause it.
• Audience: countries, regions, cities and pins with a radius, interests, languages, your custom audiences (a customer list, for example) and Advantage+ audience.
• Placements: name the platforms ("Facebook and Instagram, automatic placements") and the ads run only there, with Meta choosing the positions inside them. Name none and Meta places them everywhere (Advantage+ placements: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network). You can also pick exact positions, such as Instagram Stories.
• Where a tap goes: a Meta lead form, your website or WhatsApp. A website goal can track your Meta pixel's conversion event, with the attribution window you choose.
• A new lead form: an existing form is used only when it asks exactly what you asked for (a form with "First name" does not stand in for "Full name"). When none does, the sidebar proposes a new one (name, phone, email and your own questions with their answers, such as "When are you looking to buy?") and creates it on the Page together with the campaign. Meta requires a link to your privacy policy; the sidebar asks you for it. Your Meta connection needs permission to manage the Page's ads for this; if it lacks it, create the form in Meta and tell the sidebar its name.
• The ads: image, video (a finished Gene ad works) or carousel, with the text, headline, description, button, link, lead form and UTM tags. Pictures come from your own property photos or Gene ads first. A lead-form ad still needs a link to your website (Meta requires it); the button opens the form.
• Instagram and advertiser details: the ads carry your Page's Instagram account (or one Meta sets up for the Page). Every ad set is sent your Page as advertiser and payer, but Meta only keeps them on ad sets that reach the EU or EEA. For an ad set elsewhere the card says so: if Ads Manager shows "Please add: Advertiser / Payer" on it, fill them in there before going live.

How it goes:

1. The sidebar checks your ad accounts, Pages, pixels, audiences, lead forms and the website on file (Settings > Business Profile), then lays out the whole plan in words and asks about anything it would otherwise guess, the budget above all. When no website is on file, it asks for one in that first reply, since lead-form ads need it. When more than one ad account can run ads, it asks which one and does not build until you name it, by its name or the last digits of its id ("the one ending 4821"); it never picks one for you.
2. Once you agree, it checks the plan against your workspace and Meta before showing anything, and fixes what it safely can:
   • A photo named instead of picked by id ("Canal Heights 2 photo 1") is matched to that photo in your documents.
   • An interest whose Meta id is wrong is looked up again by its name.
   • An active lead form on your Page that already asks exactly the questions you asked for is reused, whatever it is called, and the card says which form it reuses. Otherwise a new form whose name is taken is called "<name> (2)". This also applies when you ask for a form on its own.
   • An existing form whose questions differ from what you asked for is refused, and the sidebar proposes a new form with your questions instead.
   • A picture link that does not open is refused, and the sidebar asks for another picture.

   Then a confirmation card shows the plan, with the ad account first and in larger type so you can check it before anything is created. Settings read in plain words (Leads, Lowest cost no cap, Sign up, India), not Meta's codes. The card shows every ad's words (primary text, headline, description, button and link), the questions each existing form really asks, and the website link the ads carry, and a Fixed before building row lists anything the check changed.

3. When you confirm, it builds the campaign paused: it is in your ad account but not live, and nothing spends. The sidebar then reads back what Meta stored (budget, dates, places, form, Instagram) and tells you exactly that, then what is left before it can go live (the India answer or the advertiser and payer in Ads Manager, a card still waiting). Until that read-back arrives nothing has been built, and the sidebar does not say otherwise. If a campaign with a similar name already exists, it asks whether to build a new one or work on that one.
4. It goes live only when you say so, on a confirmation card that states what it will spend per day. The sidebar does not ask you whether to launch.

If Meta refuses a confirmed card, the reason shows in red under its row in the sidebar, in Meta's or Gene App's own words. When the same card fails twice for the same reason, the sidebar stops proposing it and tells you what is blocking it and what it needs from you.

A big brief (several ad sets, a new lead form, carousel ads) can take the sidebar a few minutes. If one request runs longer than the sidebar can work in one go, it stops and replies "This is taking longer than I can run in one go, so I stopped before finishing." Reply "continue" and it tries again. Confirmation cards it already showed stay where they are.

To tune it later, ask: "how is my Dubai campaign doing" reads spend, leads and cost per lead from Meta, and you can change budgets, bids, dates, targeting, the ad's words or picture, pause or resume it, duplicate it to test a variation, or archive it. Every change shows a confirmation card first, and the card names what it changes and its campaign, for example: Change Meta ad set "UAE Residents" in campaign "GENE TEST 4 - Creek Harbour". The same change is never shown as two cards. When one card depends on another in the same reply (an ad set's minimum spend after the campaign budget is raised), it says "Runs after" the other; confirm it first and it waits, with a note, until the other has run. Cards run in the order you confirm them. A card you cancel, or leave by sending a new message, changes nothing, and the sidebar says so rather than calling it done. Pausing something that is already paused changes nothing, and the sidebar tells you it was already paused. A changed ad goes back through Meta's review.

Things Meta checks before it accepts a campaign:

• A leads campaign that sends people to a website needs your site's Meta pixel. Without one Meta flags "Tracking Pixel Required"; use a traffic campaign instead.
• Lead form ads need your Facebook Page to have accepted Meta's Lead Ads terms.
• No promises of returns. Words such as "guaranteed ROI" or "risk-free investment" are refused before anything is built, because Meta rejects them as misleading. Say what the listing has instead: location, payment plan, handover date.
• Only facts you gave. The ad words may state a handover date, Golden Visa, financing, a payment plan, scarcity ("limited units"), a "leading developer", a yield or a price only when you said it or the linked property's record has it. The same goes for investment and outcome claims: "smart investment", "proven market", "secure your future", "attracts international investors", "strong demand", capital growth or an "easy process". Anything else is refused before the card, so add the fact to the property or tell the sidebar if you want it in the ad. A backed fact shows its source on the card, for example "Ready 2027": from the property record: handover Sep 2027. Plain description of the area and the homes is always fine.
• Some interests are not allowed on property ads. If Meta refuses one, the sidebar names it so you can drop it.
• One campaign budget, one budget. When the campaign holds the budget, an ad set cannot also have its own, and Meta does not let an existing campaign switch to a budget on each ad set. Ask for "200 a day on the UK ad set" and the sidebar proposes the fix that keeps the campaign: raise the campaign budget to the sum and give each ad set a minimum daily spend (UAE AED 150 and UK AED 200 = a campaign budget of AED 350 a day, with minimums of 150 and 200). The other way is a new campaign with a budget on each ad set.
• Ads that reach India need one answer in Ads Manager. Meta asks every ad set that reaches India whether its ads are about securities and investments, and Gene cannot answer it for you. Before you put the campaign live, open the ad set in Ads Manager and answer No (property ads are not securities). The card and the sidebar's reply both remind you.
• A started ad set keeps its start date. Meta does not move it once it has passed, even while paused; set an end date, or duplicate the ad set with the new start.

Cost per lead is what you spent divided by the leads that sent the form.

What Meta fixes, not Gene#

Some of what a published ad does is not ours to choose. The publish card states the result, and this is the reason behind it.

Every property ad is a housing ad#

Meta runs housing, employment and credit advertising under what it calls special ad categories, because those are the categories where targeting has historically been used to exclude people.

A property listing is housing, so the campaign is created under the HOUSING category whether or not you ask for it. That is not a setting Gene can switch off: misdeclaring the category is how an ad account gets disabled.

What the category takes away#

Inside the housing category, Meta blocks:

• Any age range other than the full 18 to 65+.
• Choosing a gender.
• Postcode targeting and excluding places.
• Lookalike audiences.
• A radius under 15 miles (25 km) around a city or pin.

Excluding interests is gone for every advertiser, not only housing ones.

It is not Gene being coarse and it is not a feature that is coming. These are switched off at Meta's end for every advertiser, including agencies running the same ads by hand.

What the category still allows: countries, regions, cities and pins with a big enough radius, interests you include, languages, custom audiences, Advantage+ audience and every placement. The Publish to Meta card keeps it simple and offers countries only; a campaign built in the AI sidebar or under Ads > Meta campaigns can use all of them.

How to aim, then#

The strongest levers are still the creative and the destination. The photos you pick, the headline, the price you lead with and the page the tap lands on decide who responds, and Meta's own delivery optimisation does the rest from who engages.

A broad audience with a sharp ad outperforms a narrow audience with a vague one. That is the shape housing advertising has had since the category existed.

Placements#

The Publish to Meta card places the ad on Facebook feed, Stories and Reels. A campaign built in the AI sidebar or under Ads > Meta campaigns can also run on Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network, or let Meta choose with Advantage+ placements. Organic posting to Instagram is a separate thing and works today under Posts.