Overview
Rules & Automations let you automate campaign management decisions based on performance conditions or time-based schedules. When a rule's conditions are met (or its schedule triggers), Hunch executes the defined action automatically — no manual intervention needed.
Key concepts
Strategies
A strategy is a container for one or more rules with a shared purpose. All rules must live inside a strategy. Pausing a strategy pauses all rules inside it. You can reorder rules within a strategy — the order determines execution priority when multiple rules affect the same entity simultaneously.
Rule types
Type | When it runs |
Performance automation | When defined metric conditions are met |
Scheduled automation | On a fixed schedule, regardless of performance |
Action types
Type | What it does |
Action | Makes a change — status change or budget adjustment |
Alert | Sends a notification, no change made |
Creating a rule — step by step
Step 1: Identity
Give your rule a name (required) and an optional description. Clear names matter as you'll be reading these in your execution log.
Step 2: Scope
Define which entities this rule monitors and acts on.
Platform: Meta (Snapchat and TikTok support will be added later)
Ad account: select the connected account
Entity level: apply the rule to Ad sets (default), specific campaigns, or specific ad sets
Narrow selection: filter by campaign name, delivery status, objective, campaign type, campaign source, created date, or last modified date
The Rule overview panel on the right updates live to show how many entities are currently in scope.
Note: Rules on Meta can run on both Hunch-made and non-Hunch campaigns.
Step 3: Conditions (optional for scheduled automations)
Set the performance conditions that trigger this rule.
Choose a metric (e.g. Spend, CPA, ROAS)
Set an operator and value
Add multiple conditions using AND/OR logic with condition groups
Leave conditions empty if you want the rule to run on schedule regardless of performance.
Step 4: Schedule
Define how often the rule evaluates.
Option | Use case |
Every 30 minutes | Fast-moving spend caps, urgent pausing |
Every hour | Standard performance monitoring |
Every 4 hours | Budget pacing checks |
Daily | End-of-day resets, budget management |
Weekly | Weekly reporting or resets |
Monthly | Monthly budget cycles |
Note on data freshness: If performance metrics haven't updated within 6 hours, the rule skips that evaluation cycle and retries on the next run. You'll see this in the execution log as a skipped cycle with a timestamp of last metric update.
Step 5: Actions
Define what happens when the rule triggers.
Status change: set entity status to Active or Paused
Budget adjustment: increase or decrease budget by a fixed amount or percentage
You can also set the rule to Alert only - this sends a notification without making any changes.
Step 6: Notifications
Choose how you're notified when the rule runs. Configure email or in-app notifications.
Rule preview (dry run)
Before activating any rule, use Preview to see:
Which entities are currently in scope
What action the rule would take if it ran right now
Any data freshness warnings
Preview does not make any changes to your campaigns.
Execution log
The execution log records every rule evaluation. For each run you'll see:
Whether conditions were met
Which entities were affected
What action was taken
Before and after values for any changed field
Whether the cycle was skipped (and why)
Access the log via the three-dot menu on any rule → View log.
Managing rules
Action | Notes |
Edit | Opens rule editor. Changes apply from the next scheduled run. |
Pause / Enable | Toggles execution. Paused rules are not deleted. |
Duplicate | Available in Phase 2. |
Delete | Permanent. Cannot be undone. Deleted rules are removed from the log. |
View details | Read-only summary of rule configuration. |
Migrating from the old system
Your existing rules in the previous system remain active and unaffected. The new system runs in parallel.
To migrate an existing rule: Contact your CS representative. Manual migration is available on request.
Our recommendation: Build new rules in the new system from scratch. The new rule builder offers greater flexibility — recreating rules gives you the opportunity to reconfigure them with the improved options now available.
FAQs
Can I apply rules to campaigns I didn't create in Hunch?
On Meta, yes — rules can run on non-Hunch campaigns.
Does the rule use Hunch's stored values or Meta's live values?
Rules always fetch the current value from Meta at execution time. Hunch stores the result after execution. This ensures accuracy even if there's a discrepancy between Hunch and Meta data.
What if I activate a rule and immediately edit it - does the edit affect the current run?
No. Any changes made while a rule is executing apply from the next scheduled run.
Can I save a rule without activating it?
Draft rules are coming in a future release. For now, rules are created as active or inactive using the Rule status toggle at the top of the editor.