Getting Started with Meta Ads Manager

Recently updated on July 31st, 2023 at 12:13 pm

We’ve all seen some posts on Facebook and Instagram that have the ‘sponsored’ tag. But do you know how to run paid media activities on these social networks? The answer has been simplified as Meta has introduced Ads Manager, a platform through which you can successfully create, manage and optimise advertisements across all Meta platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Audience Network. 

Meta Ads Manager offers a range of tools and features such as audience targeting, ad creation, budget optimisation, performance tracking, and reporting, allowing advertisers to effectively reach their target audience, maximise ad performance, and drive business objectives within the Meta ecosystem.

What you need to get started

Meta has made getting started with Ads Manager a fairly simple and easy process. The first step in any digital advertising activity on these platforms is to establish a social media/online presence, and in this case, an active Facebook business page or an Instagram business account is required. Once that is done, a few other details will need to be specified for your ad account. These include:

• A currency
• A time zone 
• A form of payment 
• A spend limit

Creating a campaign

Behind every successful campaign there are proven tactics of best practice. Following the path of these best practices offers the advantage of leveraging methods and strategies that have been tested and optimised by experts. Using these strategies increases the likelihood of achieving desired outcomes, maximising performance, minimising errors, and ultimately saving time and resources.

Let’s break down which best practices to follow when creating a campaign in Ads Manager: 

1. Choose the objective you want to achieve with your campaign. This objective needs to align with the business’s goals. Be sure to match relevant metrics to your objective in order to measure performance.
2. Define which audience you want to reach with your campaign, based on factors such as needs, characteristics, and interests.
3. Determine how much budget to allocate towards the duration of the campaign.  You can choose to have a lifetime budget or a daily budget. Maintaining agility while planning and budgeting is key.
4. Set the duration of the campaign.
5. Create high-quality and compelling content for your ads. Always design with your audience in mind. You can learn more about how to design creative for social media here.

Meta Ads manager also provides robust tracking and analytics features that enable advertisers to monitor the performance of their ads in real-time, allowing them to optimise campaigns, adjust budgets, and refine targeting strategies to improve results and achieve their advertising objectives.

The 3 tiers of Ads Manager

Understanding the structure of paid media activities is vital to successfully setting up and running ads. Meta Ads Manager, like Google Ads and LinkedIn, has 3 tiers that need to be organised: Campaign, Ad Set and Ads.

Campaign

In Ads Manager, a campaign refers to a structured and organised advertising effort centred around a specific objective or goal. It serves as the highest level of organisation within the Ads Manager platform. In the beginning stages of creating a campaign advertisers need to be able to define the objective behind their campaign and how it will align with the business goal. Learn more about how to plan a marketing campaign.

Ad sets

An ad set is the level where advertisers can establish their targeting strategy in terms of defining the target audience, budget, schedule, and placement preferences for their ads. By creating multiple ad sets within a campaign, advertisers can test different targeting options, creative variations, or placement strategies, and optimise their ads for better performance and results.

Ad

At this stage of a campaign, advertisers produce creative elements that capture the attention of the target audience, and deliver the advertiser’s message. An ad typically consists of various components including images or videos, ad copy, headlines, call-to-action buttons, and links to a landing page or website. The list of available components for an ad will be determined by the ad format.

If you’re looking for a team to help your business establish a social media presence with Meta or if you’re looking for help to create successful ad content using Meta Ads Manager, contact the Digital Doorway team today.