Your first campaign, step by step

Creating a campaign takes a few minutes. The wizard has three steps, and you can leave and come back — your progress is saved as a draft.

Before you start

Have these ready:

• A campaign name you will recognize in reports, for example "Spring sale — Parramatta".
• Where you want to be seen: an address, suburb, city or metro.
• A budget in the market's currency, or an impression goal.
• Your creative: a portrait 1080 × 1920 image or video, or a rough idea for Spark to generate one. You can also reserve screens now and add creative later.

Step 1: Audience and targeting

1. Name the campaign and pick an objective: Brand awareness, Drive foot traffic or Drive website visits. The objective shapes the recommendations you see; it does not change the price.
2. Add locations. Search for an address, suburb, city, metro or state and set a radius around it. Add as many as you like.
3. Add points of interest (optional). Search a brand or a category such as "gyms" or "coffee shops" and set a radius. Screens must fall inside your location and near a point of interest.
4. Filter the audience (optional). Narrow to areas by household income, age, families with children or education level, using census data for the neighborhoods around each screen.
5. Review the screens. Every screen that matches is selected. Sort by name, city or venue and untick any you want to leave out.

Prefer to describe it in words? Type a plain-language brief into the Spark box ("gym-goers within 5 km of Bondi, A$3,000, next two weeks") and Spark fills in the targeting for you. See Plan from a brief with Spark.

Step 2: Schedule and budget

1. Choose dates, or switch on Run continuously for an always-on campaign.
2. Pick a daypart: All day, Rush hour, Business hours, Evenings or Custom. See Dayparting.
3. Choose pacing: Even (recommended) or As fast as possible. See Pacing.
4. Enter a budget: a total, a daily amount, or an impression goal. The quote card updates live with your CPM, forecast impressions, plays and screen time. See Budgets and flight dates.

If the forecast says there is not enough inventory for your budget, one-click fixes appear: expand the radius, add a week, switch to Even pacing or All day. See Fixing a low-inventory forecast.

Step 3: Creative and launch

1. Add creative. Upload a file, generate one with Spark, import from Canva, or pick from your library. See Creative specs and upload.
2. Add a QR code (optional) so people can scan straight from the screen. See QR codes on creatives.
3. Review the summary: objective, locations, screens, schedule, estimated impressions, cost and creatives.
4. Click Launch campaign. If you have no creative yet, click Reserve screens — add creative later instead and upload before the deadline shown. See Reserve screens and add creative later.

What happens next

Your creative goes to the JOLT team for review, usually under one business day. Once approved, your ads start playing on the scheduled start date and we email you the moment they do. You are only charged for impressions that deliver. See What happens after you launch.