Marketing
How to run Meta ads: a step-by-step guide for Facebook and Instagram
A practical walk-through of running Facebook and Instagram ads in Meta Ads Manager, from account setup and tracking to targeting, creative and optimisation.
Rapid Action Team · · 9 min read
Key takeaways
- Get the foundations right first: a business portfolio, an ad account, a payment method and conversion tracking through the Meta Pixel and Conversions API.
- Every Meta campaign has three levels: the campaign sets the objective, the ad set controls budget, audience and placements, and the ad holds the creative.
- Choose the objective that matches the action you actually want, because Meta optimises delivery towards that result.
- Give new campaigns time and enough budget to exit the learning phase before judging them, and change one thing at a time.
Meta ads let you put your business in front of people on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Meta's partner apps, with control over who sees them and how much you spend. For a local service business or an online shop, they can be one of the most direct ways to find new customers.
The tool is powerful, but Ads Manager has a lot of settings, and a few wrong choices early on can waste budget quickly. This guide walks through how to run Facebook ads step by step, in the order we set them up for clients, with notes on the decisions that matter most.
What you need before you start
Get these in place before you open Ads Manager. It saves a lot of backtracking.
- A Facebook Page for your business. Ads run in the name of a Page, even when they appear on Instagram.
- A business portfolio (formerly Business Manager). This holds your Page, Instagram account, ad account and tracking in one place, with proper permissions for your team. We cover this in our guide to setting up Meta Business Manager.
- An ad account with a payment method. Set the currency and time zone carefully, because they cannot easily be changed later.
- An Instagram professional account connected, if you want ads to run under your Instagram name.
- Conversion tracking. Install the Meta Pixel on your website and, ideally, set up the Conversions API so Meta can see enquiries and sales.
- A clear landing page. The page people land on needs to match the ad and make the next step obvious.
How Meta campaigns are structured
Every campaign in Ads Manager has three levels. Understanding them makes the whole process far less confusing.
| Level | What you set here | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign | Objective, special ad category, buying type, optionally the budget | "Leads – spring boiler servicing" |
| Ad set | Budget and schedule, conversion location, audience, placements, optimisation goal | "Homeowners within 15 miles" |
| Ad | Creative: images or video, text, headline, call to action, destination | "Video testimonial – book now" |
One campaign can have several ad sets, and each ad set can have several ads. This lets you test audiences at the ad set level and creative at the ad level.
Step 1: Choose your campaign objective
In Ads Manager, click Create and pick an objective. Meta currently groups them into six:
- Awareness: show your ad to as many relevant people as possible, or maximise ad recall.
- Traffic: send people to a website, app or profile.
- Engagement: get messages, video views, post interactions or event responses.
- Leads: collect enquiries through instant forms, Messenger, calls or your website.
- App promotion: drive app installs or actions within an app.
- Sales: find people likely to buy, using your conversion tracking.
The objective tells Meta's system what to optimise for. If you want enquiries, choose Leads or Sales, not Traffic. Traffic campaigns find people who click, which is not the same as people who buy.
You will also see the buying type. Almost every small business should use Auction, which lets you spend flexibly. Reservation is for large, fixed-reach campaigns.
Step 2: Set the campaign details
Give the campaign a clear name you will understand in six months' time. Then check two settings.
Special ad categories. If your ads relate to credit or financial services, employment, housing, or social issues, elections and politics, you must declare it. Targeting options are restricted for these categories, and failing to declare can get ads rejected or your account restricted.
Budget location. You can set the budget at campaign level (Meta calls this Advantage+ campaign budget) so it spreads spend across ad sets automatically, or at ad set level for more control. When testing audiences against each other, ad set budgets keep the comparison fair.
Step 3: Set your budget and schedule
You can choose:
- Daily budget: an average amount to spend per day. Meta may spend a little more on some days and less on others.
- Lifetime budget: a total amount for a fixed period, useful for events or time-limited offers.
There is no magic figure. The practical test is whether your budget can generate enough results for Meta to learn. Meta's guidance is that an ad set generally needs around 50 optimisation events within a week to leave the learning phase. If your target cost per lead is £20, a budget of a few pounds a day is unlikely to get there, so consider optimising for a more frequent event or consolidating ad sets.
Step 4: Define your audience
At the ad set level, you decide who should see your ads. There are three broad approaches.
Broad targeting with Advantage+ audience
You give Meta a location, age range and optionally some suggestions, and its system finds the people most likely to take your chosen action. With good conversion tracking, this often performs well and is now Meta's default.
Custom audiences
These are people who already know you: website visitors, people who engaged with your Instagram or Facebook, video viewers, or a customer list you upload. They are ideal for retargeting and for excluding existing customers from acquisition campaigns.
Lookalike audiences
Meta finds people similar to a source audience, such as past customers. They work best with a decent-sized, high-quality source list.
For local businesses, set the location carefully. Use a radius around your premises or list specific postcodes and towns, and check the option to target people who live in the area rather than just passing through, if that suits your service.
Step 5: Choose placements
Placements are where your ads appear: Facebook Feed, Instagram Feed, Stories, Reels, Messenger, the Audience Network and more.
Advantage+ placements lets Meta show ads wherever it expects the best results for your budget. This is usually the right starting point. Switch to manual placements if you have a clear reason, for example creative that only works in a vertical Stories format, or brand safety concerns about partner apps.
Step 6: Build your ads
This is where most of the results are decided. Targeting tells Meta roughly who to look for, but creative is what makes people stop scrolling.
Choose a format:
- Single image or video: simple and effective. Video often works well in Reels and Stories.
- Carousel: several images or videos in one ad, good for showing products or a step-by-step process.
- Collection and catalogue ads: for e-commerce, pulling products from a catalogue.
Then write the elements:
- Primary text: lead with the problem or the offer. The first line matters most because the rest is often cut off.
- Headline: short and specific, such as the offer or the main benefit.
- Call to action button: match it to the next step (Book now, Get quote, Shop now).
- Destination: link to the most relevant page, not your home page.
Upload a few different creatives per ad set so Meta can find what works. Vary the angle, not just the colour: a testimonial, a product demo, a before-and-after and a simple offer can perform very differently.
Step 7: Check tracking and publish
Before you hit Publish, confirm that the right dataset (Pixel) is selected in the ad's tracking section and that your conversion event is firing. Use Events Manager's test tools to check a test lead or purchase is being recorded.
Then publish. Ads go through Meta's review, which usually takes no more than a day, though it can occasionally take longer. If an ad is rejected, the notice explains which policy it breached, and you can edit and resubmit or request another review.
Step 8: Monitor, test and optimise
Once your campaign is live, focus on a handful of numbers rather than every column in Ads Manager.
| Metric | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Cost per result | What you pay for the action you chose, such as a lead or purchase |
| Click-through rate (link) | Whether the ad is relevant and interesting enough to click |
| Frequency | How often the average person has seen the ad; rising frequency can mean fatigue |
| Conversion rate on site | Whether the landing page turns clicks into enquiries |
| Return on ad spend | Revenue generated for every pound spent, for e-commerce |
A sensible routine:
- Weekly: pause clearly underperforming ads, check frequency and look for creative fatigue.
- Every two to four weeks: introduce new creative to replace the weakest performers.
- Monthly: review cost per result against your target and decide whether to scale budgets, test a new audience or change the offer.
When scaling, raise budgets gradually rather than doubling overnight, so delivery has a chance to adjust.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Choosing the Traffic objective when you actually want leads or sales
- Running ads without conversion tracking, so Meta cannot optimise towards results
- Splitting a small budget across too many ad sets
- Sending people to a generic home page instead of a focused landing page
- Judging results after two days
- Using a single creative for months until performance fades
If you would rather have specialists handle the setup and day-to-day optimisation, our Meta Ads management service covers everything from tracking to creative testing.
FAQs
How much should I spend on Facebook ads?
Start with an amount you can afford to test for at least a month, and that can realistically produce enough results for Meta to learn. Work backwards from your target cost per lead or sale to set a sensible daily budget.
How long does it take for Facebook ads to work?
You will see delivery within a day of approval, but allow two to four weeks to judge a campaign properly. The first week is usually the learning phase, when results can be uneven.
Can I run Instagram ads from Facebook Ads Manager?
Yes. Ads Manager runs ads across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and the Audience Network. Connect your Instagram professional account to your business portfolio so ads show under your Instagram name.
What is the difference between boosting a post and using Ads Manager?
Boosting is a quick way to promote an existing post with limited options. Ads Manager gives you full control over objectives, audiences, placements, creative testing and tracking, which is what you need for lead generation and sales.
Do I need the Meta Pixel to run ads?
You can run ads without it, but you should not. Without the Pixel and Conversions API, Meta cannot see who converts, so it cannot optimise for sales or leads and you cannot measure results accurately.
Want a second pair of eyes on your account or a plan for your first campaign? Book a call with our paid social team or request a free audit of your current setup.
