How Ignite Founder Alex Forest Built an AI Ad Engine That Runs Campaigns Automatically

Social Networking

London

20 Years

I’m Alex - the founder of Ignite. I kept seeing the same pain point from talking with other founders: “I just want users - I don’t want the hassle of marketing.”

So I built an AI-driven ad engine that creates, launches, and optimises campaigns straight from a single input - your URL. In our own testing we’ve already created more than 300 ad variants and learnt exactly what cuts through for young startups.

Marketing success isn’t about guessing right first time - it’s about testing quickly and letting the data steer you. Ignite automates that loop, so founders can stay focused on the product.

With ignite, you can:

Manage and create your campaigns with a simple view.

Enter your URL and budget after setting up your account and our engine will take it away.

A peek at two of our best-performing ads being run on our own campaigns, both made using Ignite:

Behind the scenes, Ignite runs a full-stack engine, connected directly to the Google Ads API. Every ad is generated, launched, and monitored in real-time. Our backend tracks click data, placements, and spend hour by hour – flagging underperformers and replacing them with stronger variants automatically. We're feeding that performance data back into the system to improve what we generate next.

“Marketing shouldn’t be a second job. Drop your link, set your budget, and let Ignite do its thing.”

What inspired you to start your own business?

A book about envelopes and a 35% drop in charity donations.

Eight months ago I was reading Alchemy by Rory Sutherland. One case study showed that adding a line about UK Gift Aid - “the government tops up your donation” - actually reduced donations. Completely backwards to what I thought at first. It occurred to me that if something that obvious can back-fire, imagine all the digital ads that never get tested at all and are missing out.

I sketched a rough plan, rang a few friends and family to refine the idea, and then pulled a fortnight of 14-hour days to hack together the first Ignite ad engine. I used Ignite to run ads for Ignite - cheap, messy experiments that taught me two things:

Advertising is needlessly hard for founders who just want users.
Rapid testing beats perfect planning every single time.

Those early wins (after plenty of changes) convinced me the idea was worth going for.

How did you get your customers?

I spent a few months testing the best way to generate different types of digital ads. I tried LLMs, image generators, basic design tools and all of them sucked. The results looked weird, or took too much effort to get something usable.

Then, big breakthroughs in image generation came out at the perfect time. I’d already built the ad engine expecting this kind of thing to happen, so once the tools got good enough, I just hooked them in. Everything was already set up to deploy and optimise ads.

The website was a whole other thing. I do a lot of programming, but web dev’s a different world. I used tons of AI tools to get it built, just enough to get a working version out there.

The biggest shift was focus. My original idea tried to solve all of marketing. It was too broad and too complicated. I had to strip it back to the fastest, highest-value pain point - get that right first, then build from there.

And during all this I just kept learning - read Zero to One, Blitzscaling (loved that one), Lean Startup, Diary of a CEO, Growth Hackers and more. I wanted to learn how to move faster and make better decisions.

How did you get your customers?

I use Ignite on my own campaigns, so shipping fast isn’t optional. Ad spend using our tool is about 95% of our marketing budget. The other 5% is for testing other approaches.

However, one free growth trick that worked well was Reddit. I put up a post asking SaaS founders to comment their business, what it does, and a link - in return, I’d give them actionable feedback. Things like what stood out on their site, what I’d change, how they might improve their pitch.

At the top of the comments, I shared my own business - Ignite - as the first example. It gave me exposure, but it was a fair exchange - they got feedback, I got visibility and insights from people using the site. That post ended up getting around 10,000 impressions and a few hundred site visits.

Cold emails are next. Haven’t run them yet, but they’re going to be tested.

What is your average monthly revenue?

I’m deliberately pre-revenue. We don’t have many users yet, so the goal right now is learning, not stunting growth just to make £50 a month. I’d rather focus on improving the product, testing what works, and getting real feedback than lock it behind a paywall too early.

However, when I got my first user I was incredibly proud. Knowing my effort to make something easier for people had paid off, even if it was only for 1 business. This was my primary goal when I started.

How are you doing today and what plans for the future?

Our next milestone is 100 active users running campaigns. To get there, I’m balancing two things: improving the product and acquiring users. They go hand in hand, but I’m careful about how I split my time between them. It’s easy to get pulled too far in one direction and end up with a great product no one uses, or traffic to something should be better.

One of the best decisions I’ve made is removing ego from user engagements. Being successful is better than being right. When I talk to users, I want the most honest response possible, even if it’s uncomfortable. It’s better to hear the hard stuff early than waste months polishing something that doesn’t land.

My biggest mistake was taking too long to build a proper prototype. I spent way too much time in Miro, refining things in my head. I learnt way more from doing. Even if it means binning what you built after a week of work, the insights are usually worth it.

What advice would you give to budding founders?

Ship ugly and fast - a prototype in users’ hands beats a perfect plan.
Remove ego - blunt feedback is worth more than praise.
Pick one painful problem and crush it. Depth > doing everything alright.
Use your product - if you aren’t using it, why would anyone else?
Consume information constantly in whatever way works best. Books, blogs, podcasts, reddit, youtube, competitor websites.. Apple’s website. Whatever helps you learn more.

Where can we find you?

Website

Book Recommendations

Blitzscaling by Reid Hoffman & Chris Yeh
$100 Million Dollar Leads by Alex Hormozi
The Diary of a CEO by Steven Bartlett
Zero to One by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
Inspired by Marty Cagan

Podcast Recommendations

Diary of a CEO Podcast