Learn best practices for Facebook Ads structure 2023
Struggling to understand the Facebook ads structure? Don’t worry… Everyone’s been there.
When I first started advertising on Facebook, I was confused, too. Now after several years of running Facebook Ads campaigns, I’m sharing what I’ve learned to help you understand and save you hours of research.
In a few steps, I’ll cover the Facebook ads structure to help you get started:
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Facebook ads must be in an ad set and ad sets must be in a campaign
- The “ad” is the creative, destination URL, and tracking parameters
- The ad set is where you choose the audience targeting, placements, and budget (unless it’s inside a CBO campaign)
- The campaign is where you set the objective and budget if you make it a CBO campaign
- Keep structured and consistent naming conventions to avoid reporting headaches
Overview of the Facebook Ads structure
Ads in Facebook are structured in three hierarchies referred to as ‘levels:’
- Campaigns
- Ad sets
- Ads
I’ll go over each one in more details, but the Facebook Ads campaign is at the top and is where you set the objective of the ads that will go inside it. Ads don’t go directly inside campaigns, they first go into ad sets. Ad sets are where you’ll set the targeting (the audiences you want to see your ads) and fine tune your budget, optimization, and bid. And finally, the ads go inside the ad sets. You can have multiple ad sets in campaigns and you can have multiple ads inside ad sets.
Here’s what that looks like:
Although it may seem complex in the beginning, this campaign structure for Facebook Ads is designed to help advertisers be successful. Facebook is always making changes to its ad platform, but luckily the ad account structure hasn’t changed a bit.
Once you structure your account and campaigns correctly (and I’ll show you how), all you have to do is just keep an eye on your key performance indicators (KPIs).
Sounds easy, right?
Well, it actually is! Each level serves to set up a different set of parameters. Let’s go through all of them.
What is a Facebook Ads campaign?
A Facebook Ads Campaign is the top level container to organize your audiences, targeting, bid strategy, and ad creatives toward a single advertising objective. It helps make sure your workflow and the hundreds of ads you may create stay structured at all times making it easier for you to manage your ads.
You’ll start off with creating a campaign. Campaigns are where you set your objective. Facebook has a plenty of them:
Why should I use more than one Facebook campaign?
You should create additional campaigns when you have a different objective for your next campaign. Don’t try to outsmart Facebook–just choose the objective that best matches the goal you have for the campaign. Here’s why:
Facebook’s algorithms are very sophisticated and it will do its best to help your campaign achieve the objective you set. It works by prioritizing the users it shows your ads to who are most likely to perform the action you set your objective to. For example, if you set the objective to “Traffic”, Facebook will target people who it knows are more likely to click the link in your ad.
Or if your campaign goal is conversions on your website, set the objective to “Conversions” and Facebook will target the people who are more likely to convert. This works for all other objectives, too.
It also might make sense to create more than one campaign even with the same objective just for organizational purposes.
Why should I use more than one Facebook campaign?
You should create additional campaigns when you have a different objective for your next campaign. Don’t try to outsmart Facebook–just choose the objective that best matches the goal you have for the campaign. Here’s why:
Facebook’s algorithms are very sophisticated and it will do its best to help your campaign achieve the objective you set. It works by prioritizing the users it shows your ads to who are most likely to perform the action you set your objective to. For example, if you set the objective to “Traffic”, Facebook will target people who it knows are more likely to click the link in your ad.
Or if your campaign goal is conversions on your website, set the objective to “Conversions” and Facebook will target the people who are more likely to convert. This works for all other objectives, too.
It also might make sense to create more than one campaign even with the same objective just for organizational purposes.
How do I know which Facebook campaign objective to use?
Here’s a useful table to help you choose the right objective for your campaigns: