Facebook Ads Manager is a Facebook advertising tool that allows you to create, administer, publish and manage ads and advertising campaigns scheduled on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and other platforms within the Meta Audience Network.
If you plan your first advertising campaign on social networks, you will likely face questions about how to use Facebook Ads Manager and how it works. Through this content, I will try to answer all your questions about the tool and give you tips on using it to create ads and campaigns like a professional.
Before you begin, you need to have a Facebook business ad account to use Meta Business Manager.
What is Facebook Ads Manager?
In a few words, Facebook Ads Manager is the Meta tool that allows you to create, administer, publish, manage, and track your ads and advertising campaigns scheduled on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or an additional tool within the Audience Meta Network.
The tool is available to use from your laptop or desktop computer and even on your mobile device, with an app for iOS and Android to track your ads from wherever you are.
How to enter a Facebook Ads Manager account?
Very easy! Follow these steps to enter your Facebook Ads Manager account :
- Sign in to Facebook.
- Enter the Meta Business Manager.
- If you already have an account, select your business profile. If you don’t have an account yet, create a new one by clicking the blue button located at the top right of the screen.
- Enter your data and email and click next.
- Add your business information, such as address and payment methods.
- Start using the tool!
Once you have created your account, you will find those in which you have a management role, whether a page administrator, advertiser, or editor, in the pages section. If you maintain a role as an analyst or as a moderator, you will not be able to schedule announcements; you will only be able to see the statistics. Take it into account.
What is the difference between Facebook Ads Manager and Meta Business Suite?
The main difference between Facebook Ads Manager and Meta Business Suite is that the former focuses on ads and advertising campaigns. In contrast, the latter focuses on managing all organic and paid content of a Meta business profile.
Is it not clear to you? Don’t worry; we list the main differences between Facebook Ads Manager and Business Suite using this table.
Facebook Ad Manager
It focuses on creating ads and Facebook ad campaigns, making advanced segmentation, and defining payment methods.
It allows you to manage ads from two or more pages from the same site.
It maintains a simplified version of a business profile
You will be able to see in detail the performance of your ads and campaigns.
It is possible to edit ad sets and do A/B tests.
Meta Business Suite
It focuses on managing all types of content on a Facebook page.
You can only manage the content of one page per tab.
It gives you access to more ad and content management tools.
It will give you a summary view of the performance of your ads and campaigns.
It is only possible to edit already created ads and create ads with simple features.
Therefore, if you want to run campaigns and ads with advanced targeting and A/B testing between ads and creatives, Facebook Ads Manager is your tool. If your meta’s Business Suite comes in handy to make ads with simpler targeting or edit an advertisement in production, does Meta’s Facebook Ads Manager work?
Depending on the goals you have in mind, Facebook Ads Manager works like this:
- An ad maker for your brand.
- A Facebook ad campaign manager with multiple ads.
- An audience segmenter to define the public according to your brand’s needs.
- An advertising amplifier to increase the reach of your ads.
- An advertising content delivery system for different locations in the Meta ecosystem.
- A test lab for optimizing ads, copy, and audience segments.
- An automated dynamic content publishing and optimization tool.
- An advanced advertising ad budget manager, campaigns, and creatives.
- A custom report builder to visualize and improve campaign performance.
- A scheduler of advertising campaigns and ads allows actions to be triggered when you decide.
How do you pay for advertising on Facebook?
There are different payment methods for advertising on Facebook, some of which the platform accepts are:
- PayPal
- Credit card
- Debit
- advertising credits
Tip: Avoid sharing bank information to set up Facebook Ads Manager, especially if different people have access to this tool and can create Facebook Ads with the same account.
How long should a Facebook ad campaign last?
Considering an average time, a campaign should last at least two weeks; in this way, you will be able to obtain enough information to optimize and improve the reach of your advertising pieces. If you stop it before the necessary information is collected, you may not be able to edit it and republish it.
In contrast, the maximum duration of a reach and frequency campaign on Facebook is 90 days. Take this into account as extending the time but not reducing the initial period is possible. Pay close attention to this because you should keep it in mind when publishing your ads.
How to start publishing on Facebook Ads Manager?
Let’s move on to the most practical part of this content. Now I will tell you how to post ads and campaigns using the Facebook Ads Manager.
1. Choose your goal
Start by thinking about what you need to achieve with your Facebook ads. In the Facebook Ads Manager, you will be able to choose one of the objectives contained in the three broad categories of advertisements:
- Recognition
- Consideration
- Conversions
What are the campaign objectives on Facebook?
Within the three broad categories, there are eleven Facebook campaign goals, which are:
1. Brand recognition
Show your ads to the people most likely to remember them.
2. Reach
Show your ads to as many people as possible.
3. Traffic
Send people to a website, app, or event on Facebook.
4. Interaction
Get more people to like your page, respond to events, react to your posts, and comment or share them.
5. App installs
Show your ads to people who are more likely to download your app.
6. Video Views
Show people video ads.
7. Lead Generation
Use forms, calls, or chats to obtain information from people interested in your ad.
8. Messages
Show your ad to people to interact with you through Messenger, WhatsApp, or Instagram Direct.
9. Conversions
Show your ad to people who are more likely to make a purchase or call you from your website.
10. Catalog sales
Use your target audience to show people ads with items from your catalog.
11. Traffic in the business
Show your ad to people who are likely to visit your physical store.
2. Create a campaign in Ads Manager
Did you choose your target? Now it’s time to create the campaign by following these steps:
- Click the green button that says “+ Create.”
- Select the objective that your campaign will have.
- Assign a name to the campaign, the ad set, and the ads contained in this group.
- Click the blue-button at the bottom of the screen that says “Continue.”
- Enter additional settings for your campaign, such as whether your ad belongs to a special category, whether you want campaign budget optimization, spending limit, or A/B testing of your ads.
- Click on “Next.”
Tip: make sure you have chosen your campaign objective well because after this step, it will be impossible to change it, and you will have to create a new one with the function you want. You can include in the campaign name a nomenclature that helps you recognize the objective assigned to this ad group.
3. Segment your audience
Before moving on to targeting, including the start and end date of your campaign, you can define a specific day and time to stop the publication of your ads or leave this field open. Once you’ve done that, let’s target the audience you want to see your ads. You can create a new audience or use one you have used before.
How to segment Facebook Ads?
- Choose your audience by place: by country, state, region, municipality, and even neighborhood.
- Select the age of your target audience: from 18 to 65 or more.
- Choose the gender of your audience: male, female, or both.
- It includes detailed segmentation parameters: tastes, interests, behaviors, etc.
- Select the language of your target audience.
- Have connections to your Facebook page, your app, or specific events.
Each field you select will limit your audience so that you can reach a specific audience. However, consider that the more precise the segmentation, the higher the cost per result, and you will have to increase your campaign’s budget.
Tip: save your audiences using a specific vocabulary or trait, that way, you can use or optimize them later depending on the performance of your ads.
4. Select the placements for your ad
To choose the placements where your ad will show, there are two options available:
- automatic locations
- manual locations
Automatic placements will show your ads on the sites most likely to perform better. In contrast, manual posts will allow you to select which platforms your ads are shown on, as well as which sections they are visible in, such as news feed, Instagram or Facebook feed, Stories, Reels, Instream, the Messages section, in Articles, Apps and many more places.
Do you want to prevent your ad from appearing anywhere? You can exclude types of content, such as avoiding your post from being shown in live streams or videos on certain topics, such as politics, religion, spirituality, news, or video games.
5. Set the budget for your campaign
You can set the budget for your campaign by choosing between the two options available for your Facebook Ads:
- daily budget
- Total budget
What is the difference between both? I explain below:
daily budget
This will be the average amount you want to spend per day, either on an ad or campaign. It is useful for more consistent daily results, as it helps you “stretch” your budget over a specific period.
Total budget
Its name indicates the total number of what you want to spend throughout your campaign or ad. It works as a fixed limit that can help you not exceed a specific figure.
What is the best option for my campaign or ad?
It depends. Select the daily budget if you want to get consistent results over a specific period. Consider the total budget if you want to avoid exceeding your budget limit, regardless of spending less on certain days and more on others.
Do you still have doubts about how the Facebook Ads Manager manages the campaign budget? I recommend reading the best practices on minimum budgets that Meta has online. So you can get more out of your marketing budget.
6. Add your ad and the texts that will accompany it.
These are the alternatives accessible for your ad, depending on the aim you’ve chosen and the parameters of your ad or campaign. Among the formats available in the Facebook Ads Manager are:
- Images
- Videos
- stories
- sequences
- Collections
- instant experiences
- Playable assets
- Presentations
If you selected the option to optimize the content, fields would appear to include variations of the main text of your ad, the title of your ad, the description, and even the call to action or calls to action, making the one that has a better performance be displayed more frequently. You can include up to five different options in each case.
Tip: If you want your content to be displayed with the correct characteristics in stories, feed, and Audience networks, I recommend working on your images in three proportions: 1:1, 16:9, and 9:16.
7. Publish it and let it run
Are your campaign settings correct? Then it only remains to click the green button in the lower right corner that says “Publish” and let your ad set run.
Once you’ve published your ad, it will go through a review stage by Facebook to ensure that it complies with the Facebook Advertising Rules and Conditions. This review is usually done through automated technology, but it is done manually for certain ads in some cases. Depending on the results, the advertisement can be rejected or authorized.
How long does it take for Facebook to approve an ad?
This process usually takes 24 hours, although it may take a little longer in certain cases. If your account is several months old with constant investments, the review process may be more streamlined.
Tips for using Facebook Ads Manager like a professional
Before you start using Facebook Ads Manager, I’ll give you some tips that will help you take advantage of this tool and improve the performance of your campaigns. Put them into practice!
- Optimize your ads.
- Improve your segmentation.
- Try different ad formats.
- Stay up to date on Facebook’s advertising policies.
- Keep track of the performance of your ads.
I explain a little more about each point so that there are no doubts.
1. Optimize your ads
If you gave yourself the task of generating different ads, texts, descriptions, and calls to action, take into account the recommendations of the platform and those that had a better performance to build new campaigns. I will give you some suggestions to write better ads for social networks.
Tips for writing Facebook Ads
- Always highlight the benefits for the user.
- Add keywords in the description and text of your ads.
- Do not occupy more than 20% of the text in the images you publish.
- Use short and clear titles.
- Create clear calls to action with actionable verbs and phrases: “Download,” “Send a message,” “Subscribe,” etc.
- Use emojis to draw attention or focus on certain parts of your message.
- Add a sense of urgency by using phrases like “Only today,” “Available only,” “For a limited time,” etc.
2. Improve your segmentation
Knowing who our ads reach is vital to improving the performance of our campaigns. In the Facebook Ads Manager, you can create multiple segments and know the estimated sample of users that your campaign will impact. Dare to experiment, develop new features, and create different ads depending on your segmentation because not all ads have the same impact on audiences.
If you run a shopping cart website traffic campaign and want to capture the attention of people who clicked to buy from you again, you can create a custom audience with the help of the Facebook pixel.
3. Try different ad formats.
Don’t just stick with static image or image carousel ads; try video, instant experience, or story ads. Each format has its advantages and strengths in impacting the audience. It will also provide a mechanism to update and modify the handling of a message after it has already been sent to an audience.
4. Get up to date on Facebook’s advertising policies.
Facebook constantly makes updates regarding its advertising policies. To prevent your ad from being rejected or having a limited reach, consider participating in the workshops that Meta always organizes. Facebook Blueprint is the free online training platform dedicated to online advertisers and entrepreneurs so they can improve their use of Meta tools.
Tip: Similar to this blog, if you subscribe to the Metablog, you will receive interesting content in your email that will help you improve the performance of your posts.
5. Keep track of the performance of your ads.
When you have scheduled an ad, never neglect its performance. Some of the worst mistakes in advertising have occurred when this happens. Many things can happen, such as spending more budget than expected, receiving many comments and negative reactions from the audience, segmentation errors, and it is even possible that the Meta team removes your ad due to community reports.
And with that, I’m not saying that it’s something you should look at all the time, but you should supervise at least in the morning, at noon, and in the afternoon so that you keep track of how your campaigns are working that everything goes smoothly.
In summary
Let’s summarize what we have learned so far, do you think? This summary will serve as an accordion of the most important things about Facebook Ads Manager.
Facebook Ads Manager is the Meta tool that allows you to create, administer, publish, manage, and track your ads and advertising campaigns scheduled on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or an additional tool within the Meta Audience Network.