Feature discovery emails for underused ad tools

One complaint stood out from the rest: 'There's so much to this platform, I feel like I'm missing out on some features.' That's a different problem from not being able to get started — that's someone who is using the tool but suspects they're leaving value on the table and has no way to find out what they don't know.

This gap exists because in-app feature discovery is expensive to build well and ad platforms rarely invest in it proportionally. Help centers are organized by feature name, which only helps if you already know the feature exists. There's no mechanism that says 'you've been running retargeting campaigns for 60 days and haven't touched lookalike audiences — here's what that does and when it makes sense.'

What someone actually needs is a structured drip of contextual tips triggered by their account behavior — not generic newsletters, but messages that reference what they're actually doing. 'You've set a $50/day budget on three campaigns. Here's what bid cap does and why it might cut your CPL.' This doesn't exist as a standalone product for ad tools, and the vendors won't build it because it requires surfacing complexity they'd rather hide behind a 'managed' upsell.

This is a business because it directly affects retention and ad spend performance for the businesses running these tools. An agency that sends clients monthly 'here's what you should be using' reports builds stickiness and justifies retainer fees. The need recurs every month as account conditions change. The buyer is an agency that wants to look proactive to clients without having to manually audit every account.

What to build

Build a reporting add-on that connects to ad platform APIs (starting with AdRoll and Google Ads), analyzes which available features an account hasn't used, and generates a monthly plain-English email for the account owner explaining two or three specific unused features relevant to their current campaign structure.

Where to start

Start with agencies already using AdRoll, which has a documented API and a large SMB agency base, and position the first version as a client retention tool — the agency's clients get a monthly 'what you could be doing' email branded under the agency, making the agency look smart without extra manual work.

The hard part

API access varies significantly by platform and some mid-tier tools (AdScale, Adzooma) have limited or poorly documented APIs, which constrains how much account behavior data you can actually read — potentially forcing you to start with only one or two platforms and grow slowly.

How it makes money

Per-account monthly fee around $15–25 per connected ad account, billed to the agency managing it; minimum viable contract of five accounts to ensure meaningful revenue per customer.