🔍 Overview
If you already have an OTTO project set up for your business, you may be surprised to find that Smart Ads asks you to create a separate Business profile. This article explains why these two records exist independently and what each one does.
🗂️ What Is an OTTO Project?
An OTTO project is the central workspace for your SEO automation — storing your domain, target keywords, on-page recommendations, and content tasks. OTTO projects are built around your website and organic search performance.
📢 What Is a Smart Ads Business Profile?
A Smart Ads Business profile is a separate record used exclusively by the Smart Ads tool. It stores the information needed to generate, target, and run paid ad campaigns, including:
- Business name and category
- Physical or service-area location
- Ad-specific contact details and landing page URLs
Because paid advertising requires a different set of inputs than SEO, Smart Ads maintains its own profile rather than pulling directly from your OTTO project.
❓ Why Are They Separate?
The two tools serve distinct purposes and are built on different data models:
- OTTO projects focus on organic visibility — keywords, content, and on-page SEO signals tied to your domain.
- Smart Ads Business profiles focus on paid campaign delivery — ad copy, geo-targeting, and budgets in the format ad networks require.
Keeping them separate means changes to your SEO project never accidentally affect live ad campaigns, and vice versa. It also allows you to run Smart Ads for a business even if that business does not yet have an OTTO project.
⚙️ Setting Up Your Smart Ads Business Profile
Even though some information overlaps with your OTTO project, creating a Smart Ads Business profile is a distinct step. To get started:
- Navigate to the Smart Ads section of the platform.
- Look for the option to create or add a new Business profile.
- Enter your business details as prompted — such as your business name, category, location or service area, and the landing page URL you want ad traffic sent to.
- Complete any remaining fields shown on screen and save your profile.
If you are unsure which fields are required or cannot locate the Business profile creation option in your account, our support team can walk you through the exact steps for your account.
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.
Additional Notes
Open your OTTO project in a separate browser tab for reference, so you can copy basic details like your business name and website URL. Navigate to Smart Ads in your main tab and begin creating your Business profile.