How To

Getting started

The app runs entirely in your browser — nothing to install. Sign in with your work email on the login page; accounts are invite-only, and new signups need a one-time email verification (check your inbox for the link). Forgot your password? Use the reset link on the login page — it is fully self-serve.

Once signed in, the top navigation is the whole app: Generate builds creatives, Library holds every past run — open one to zoom, MagicFix, and download, Image Search finds source photos, Meta Assets shows everything pushed to Meta, and Changelog lists what is new.

The Generate page

Generate is the production hub. Five tabs across the top pick a way of working — Light, Ultra, Bulk Upload, AG Guide, and Creative Agent — each documented below. Two things live above the tabs:

• Recent runs — your latest generate runs, one click to reopen any of them in the Library viewer.
• Visual treatment — applies to Light and Ultra renders. Photo — bright (the default) puts copy straight on the photo with a dark outline so white type stays readable. Scrim text draws a rounded black panel behind each text block. Dark hero dims the whole canvas and cuts a feathered spotlight around the equipment.

Light Generate tab

Build branded banners in every approved size from your own photos and copy. Best when you already know what you want to say.

1. Output prefix. Names the run and every file in it. Letters, digits, hyphen, underscore; up to 40 characters (e.g. edmonton_q3).
2. Campaign type. Leave on auto-detect (it flips to Event when any proof point looks like a date) or set Event / Evergreen / Awareness explicitly. This drives Meta routing.
3. Images. Upload up to 20 photos. Each is classified on upload so you can filter to single-equipment shots — single-unit hero photos have historically out-performed fleet shots about 2× on the same audience.
4. Copy. One line per variant, and the columns pair up by line number: headline 1 goes with subheadline 1, proof point 1, badge 1, and CTA 1. A proof point (a date, dollar figure, or named auction) flips that line's layout — the headline demotes to a small all-caps label and the proof point becomes the dominant line. Badges are 8 characters max (e.g. SOLD), CTA pills 16 (e.g. View listings).
5. Dimensions. Tick the sizes you need, or add a custom width × height (32–12,000 px per axis).
6. Generate. Watch progress on the page; finished runs open straight in the Library viewer.

Ultra Generate tab · Meta-driven

Start from what is already winning. Ultra reads your live Meta performance and generates new creatives that imitate your best ads.

1. Pick an ad account, and optionally type to drill into one campaign. Leave the campaign blank to rank winners across the whole account.
2. Refresh inspiration. Pulls active campaigns and the last 30 days of performance from Meta. Results are cached for a day per account; the button re-runs the pipeline.
3. Read "What's working." A KPI row and a pattern callout summarize what your spend data says is performing.
4. Pick 1–4 winners to imitate. Their visual style and copy patterns seed the generator. Hover a card to see which sizes Meta is actually spending on for it.
5. Copy instructions (optional). A free-form brief for the Claude copywriter, e.g. "big online auction May 11 in Edmonton — short punchy copy with CTA." Brand constraints still apply.
6. Set the fan-out. Heroes per winner × copy pairs per winner controls how many creatives you get. Sizes default to the dimensions Meta is currently spending on; override with the checkboxes.
7. Prefix and Generate. The run lands in the Library like any other.

Bulk Upload Generate tab · Name-routed

Take a folder of finished creatives, match each file to the right live Meta campaign and ad set by its filename, and push the whole batch in one go — every ad created PAUSED.

1. Pick the ad account.
2. Drop your files (JPG/PNG) on the dropzone — drop or pick as many times as you like; new files add to the staged set.
3. Check the preview table. Filenames are matched loosely: the tool scans for any mix of location, industry, language, month, year, quarter, size, and brand markers. Event files need at least 4 of those labels, brand files at least 2. A red BELOW-THRESHOLD chip lists what is missing from the filename; a yellow REVIEW chip means it just barely matched — double-check the matched campaigns before pushing. "Show naming conventions" on the tab documents the standard patterns, and Meta's _105 re-upload suffix is stripped automatically.
4. Ad copy (optional). Leave everything blank to inherit each matched ad's existing copy, or open the panel to set up to 5 body/title variants for A/B testing, a call-to-action, URL tracking parameters, a link description, and a label suffix for ad names. Destination URLs come from the shared event schedule sheet automatically on every push — each ad is matched by the event code and month in its filename; upload a CSV only to override a single push.
5. Push. The button tells you exactly how many ads are about to go up, always as PAUSED. The results table shows per-file status with a direct "open in Ads Manager" link for each new ad.

AG Guide Generate tab · Print PDF

Build the press-ready Ag Auction Guide page — photos, auction details, Territory Manager, and consignors — and download a print-ready PDF.

1. Pick a template, then create or select a build. Save named checkpoints as you work ("before reordering photos") and roll back to any of them — checkpoints live on the server, so they survive a reload and follow you to any device.
2. Add photos. Use "Add photos in bulk" or fill slots one by one. Dark photos are auto-brightened (uncheck to disable). Ordering is automatic by equipment category, or switch to custom and drag to arrange. Photo codes from the SOP sort automatically, and printed captions are generated for each photo.
3. Paste the sale write-up from the Word doc or Wrike and click Auto-fill fields from text — the auction fields below fill themselves, and bulleted equipment lines become the printed Equipment Highlights. Always review the filled fields before generating.
4. Complete the auction details — date, auction type, location, seller, directions, equipment-viewing dates, GPS, legal land description, auction URL, and page number.
5. Territory Manager. Search the saved TM library by name to fill everything in one click, or type new details and hit "Save TM" to add them. Headshots are cropped face-aware so the head sits correctly in the portrait slot.
6. Seller contact. Up to two consignors print in the page footer; leave blank to use the seller line.
7. Generate Press PDF. Check the warnings list, inspect the zoomable preview, then download. Output is press-ready with print-correct (CMYK) photo color.

Creative Agent Generate tab · Chat

Set up Meta campaigns by talking, powered by Claude. Describe what you want in plain language and the agent does the campaign and ad-set legwork with you.

• Chat naturally. "Set up a retargeting campaign for the June Edmonton auction" is a fine place to start. The agent asks for whatever it is missing.
• Attach photos to the chat and rendered previews appear inline, so you confirm each creative before anything is pushed.
• Start from scratch. No reference creative needed — give the agent a written brief and it generates branded creatives directly from it.
• Your conversations persist. Threads are saved to your login and reload when you come back.
• Nothing ships silently. Every push to Meta asks for your explicit confirmation first, and every ad is created PAUSED.

Library

Every past generate run, newest first — and the place to open one: see every creative at a glance, fix the fixable, and download the set.

• Open a run by clicking its card, or follow the "View run" link from Generate's results, the Recent runs list, or a Creative Agent run card. All the run's creatives render as one grid.
• Filter by size or image name. Creatives whose copy lacks specificity (no date, dollar figure, or place) carry a "no proof point" chip right on the grid.
• Click a creative to zoom. Step through the run with ← / →, close with Esc.
• MagicFix. In the zoomed view, describe what to change — "brighten the machine", "remove the second excavator" — and the image model re-renders that creative in place.
• Download as zip grabs every image in the run, named and foldered exactly as Bulk Upload expects.

Image Search

Natural-language search across the Ritchie Bros. reference photo library. Describe the shot you need; get the closest photos back.

• Type a plain description — "yellow bulldozer at an auction yard", "aerial view of a full yard", "close-up excavator bucket". No tags or exact keywords needed.
• Read the relevance badges. Results are scored perfect / strong / partial / weak so you can tell an exact hit from a near miss at a glance.
• Use it to feed Generate. Found the right source photo? Download it and upload it on the Light tab, or reference it in a Creative Agent chat.

Meta Assets

A gallery of every creative this app has pushed to Meta's image library, grouped by run. The source of truth is Meta itself — thumbnails are re-fetched fresh on every page load, so what you see is what Meta has. Use Upload a run to send a finished generate run's images to the Meta library, and the filter box to find a file by name, run, or hash.

Usage

A live feed of who used which feature and when — "Venice used AG Guide at 12:30pm PDT" — grouped by day, newest first, with all times in US Pacific. It refreshes itself every 30 seconds. Repeated activity within ten minutes (say, several searches in a row) is recorded as one use, so the feed stays readable.