How to Set Up an Ad on Facebook: Step-by-Step Guide
Set up your first Facebook or Instagram ad in Meta Ads Manager: campaign objective, budget, audience, placements, creative, and review.
ADS Beast editorial teamPublished 12 min read
To set up an ad on Facebook, open Meta Ads Manager at business.facebook.com, click Create, and choose an objective. Set budget and schedule at the campaign level, define audience and placements at the ad set level, then upload creative and copy at the ad level. You need a linked Facebook Page and a valid payment method before publishing.
In short
- All Facebook and Instagram ads are built in one place: Meta Ads Manager, not the Facebook or Instagram app.
- Ads Manager has three levels. Campaign holds the objective and budget, ad set holds audience, placements, and schedule, ad holds the creative and copy.
- Facebook and Instagram placements live inside the same ad set. One campaign can serve both.
- A linked Facebook Page and a working payment method are required before anything can go live.
- Meta reviews most new ads within 24 hours, so plan your launch a day ahead.
What you need before you start
You need three things in place before Ads Manager will let you publish. A Facebook Page that represents the business, an ad account with a valid payment method, and the right admin access to both. If you also want Instagram placements, connect an Instagram professional account to that Page.
Access is the part people skip. If you are running ads for a client, ask for admin access to their Business Manager rather than their personal login. Working from someone else's account creates ownership problems later, and you cannot hand the account back cleanly.
For Instagram, the professional account requirement is firm. A personal Instagram profile cannot receive ad placements. You convert it to a professional account in the Instagram settings, then link it to the Page inside Business Manager.
How to set up an ad on Facebook, step by step
The setup runs top to bottom through the three levels of Ads Manager. Each level asks a different question: campaign asks what you want, ad set asks who and where, ad asks what the person sees.
- Go to business.facebook.com and open Ads Manager from the menu.
- Click the green Create button. If a guided creation flow opens, switch to the full Ads Manager view for all settings.
- Choose a campaign objective. Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App Promotion, and Sales are the standard options. Pick the one that matches the action you want, not the one with the biggest reach.
- Name the campaign and set the buying type and budget. You can set budget at the campaign level or push it down to each ad set.
- Move to the ad set. Define the audience: location, age, gender, interests, and behaviors.
- Choose placements. Select Automatic to let Meta distribute across Facebook and Instagram, or Manual to pick exact surfaces.
- Set the schedule, then the budget and bid strategy for that ad set.
- Move to the ad level. Upload image or video, write the primary text, headline, and description, and add the destination URL.
- Review the preview for each placement, fix anything that gets cropped, then click Publish.
The campaign name matters more than it looks. Six months from now you will be comparing results across dozens of campaigns, and "Test 3" tells you nothing. Name it by objective, audience, and date.
One practical note on budget: you can start small. Daily budgets at the ad set level let you test several audiences without committing the whole budget to one guess.
Choosing the right objective
The objective tells Meta what result to optimize for, and it changes who sees your ad. Awareness optimizes for reach and impressions. Traffic optimizes for link clicks. Engagement optimizes for reactions, comments, and shares. Leads optimizes for form submissions or messenger conversations. Sales optimizes for purchases and works best with the pixel installed.
A common mistake is choosing Traffic because clicks are cheap, then wondering why nobody buys. Cheap clicks from people who never intended to purchase are not progress. If your goal is sales, choose Sales and let Meta find buyers, even if the cost per click looks higher.
If you are unsure, start with the objective that matches your actual business goal and let the campaign run long enough to gather data. Switching objectives mid-flight resets the learning.
Setting your audience and placements
Audience is where most of your result is decided. At the ad set level you define location, age range, gender, detailed interests, and behaviors. You can also build a custom audience from your customer list or website visitors, and a lookalike audience based on that list.
Broad targeting works better than it used to. Meta's delivery system now does much of the audience matching itself, so stacking twenty interests usually narrows you into an expensive corner rather than a precise one. Start broad, then narrow only if the data tells you to.
Placements decide where the ad appears. Automatic placements let Meta spread your budget across Facebook Feed, Instagram Feed, Stories, Reels, Explore, and the rest. Manual placements give you control, which matters when your creative only works in one format.
Here is how the two approaches compare:
| Automatic placements | Manual placements | |
|---|---|---|
| Who chooses the surface | Meta's delivery system | You |
| Budget spread | Across all eligible placements | Only the ones you select |
| Creative requirement | Must work in every format | Can be tailored per format |
| Best for | Most campaigns, especially at the start | Strict format or brand requirements |
| Main risk | Creative that breaks in some formats | Missing cheaper, high-performing placements |
If you go automatic, check the preview for every placement before publishing. A horizontal image that looks fine in Feed can get cropped badly in Stories.
How do you do Instagram ads?
Instagram ads run through Meta Ads Manager, not the Instagram app. Inside your ad set, select Instagram as a placement, or choose Advantage+ Placements to let Meta distribute budget across Facebook and Instagram automatically. You need an Instagram professional account linked to a Facebook Page to run them.
This is the answer to most questions about how to do Instagram ads, and it is the point where people get stuck. They open the Instagram app looking for an ad builder and find only the Boost button. The full toolkit lives in Ads Manager, and it is the same toolkit you use for Facebook.
Once Instagram is selected as a placement, the ad level changes slightly. You pick the exact surface: Instagram Feed, Stories, Reels, or Explore. Each has its own creative expectations, and Meta will warn you if your asset does not fit.
If you want to build the creative side properly before you touch Ads Manager, the format rules for feed posts, Stories, and Reels are covered in this guide to how to make an ad for Instagram.
How do I make an Instagram ad?
Start in Meta Ads Manager, create a campaign, and at the ad level pick Instagram Feed, Stories, Reels, or Explore as your placement. Upload a vertical image or video, 1080x1350 for feed and 1080x1920 for Stories and Reels. Add a caption under 125 characters for feed ads, set the destination URL, then review and publish. Review usually finishes within 24 hours.
The format numbers are not suggestions. Feed ads at 1080x1350 take up more vertical space in the scroll and get more attention than a square. Stories and Reels need the full 1080x1920 because anything shorter gets letterboxed with dead space at the top and bottom.
Keep the primary text short for feed. The first line is the only one most people read before deciding to keep scrolling, so lead with the offer or the problem, not with the brand name.
If you are producing video for these placements, the production side is a separate skill from the setup. This breakdown of how to create AI video ads and creatives that convert covers what actually holds attention in a vertical feed.
How do you promote on Instagram?
You can boost a post directly from the Instagram app by tapping Boost under any post, choosing an audience, budget, and duration, starting from around $1 per day. For more control over targeting and objectives, use Meta Ads Manager instead. Both routes require an Instagram professional account.
Boosting is the fast lane. It takes two minutes, it works from your phone, and it is genuinely useful when you want to put budget behind a post that is already performing. The trade-off is control. You get a simplified set of goals and limited targeting options.
Ads Manager is the slow lane that pays off. You get full objective selection, custom and lookalike audiences, manual placements, and proper reporting. If you plan to run ads regularly, learn Ads Manager and treat boosting as a shortcut for one-off posts.
The same logic applies to Facebook. If you want the full walkthrough of building a campaign from an empty account, this guide on how do I create a Facebook ad covers the setup from scratch.
How do you post an advertisement on Instagram?
Regular posts are not ads. You either boost an existing post or build a new ad in Ads Manager. To boost, open the post, tap Boost Post, set your goal, audience, and budget, then confirm payment. The post then appears as Sponsored in other users' feeds and Stories.
There is no separate "post an ad" button in Instagram. Every ad you see in the app was created either through the Boost flow or through Ads Manager, and both end up in the same delivery system. The Sponsored label is added automatically; you do not write it.
One thing to check before boosting: make sure the post you are promoting has a clear next step. A boosted post with no destination and no call to action spends money without sending anyone anywhere.
Can you make Facebook ads for free?
No. Meta does not run ads without payment. There is no free tier, no credit, and no way to reach a paid placement without a funded ad account.
What is free is the entire setup process. Creating a Business Manager account, building campaigns, defining audiences, uploading creative, and previewing everything costs nothing. You only pay when the ad starts delivering, and you can pause at any time.
The practical version of "how to make Facebook ads for free" is to build and test the campaign structure without publishing, get the creative and copy right, then fund the account for the launch. Everything except delivery is available to you at no cost.
Common mistakes and how to catch them early
The most expensive mistakes happen before publishing, and most of them are visible in the preview. Check these before you spend anything.
- Wrong objective for the goal. Traffic campaigns rarely produce sales. Match the objective to the action you actually want.
- Audience too narrow. Stacking many interests shrinks your reach and raises costs. Start broad.
- Creative that breaks in some placements. Open the preview for every placement, not just Feed.
- No pixel or conversion tracking. Sales campaigns without tracking cannot optimize for purchases.
- Budget set at the wrong level. Campaign budget and ad set budget behave differently; know which one you set.
- Publishing Friday afternoon. Review can take up to 24 hours, and you lose the weekend.
Next step
Pick one product or service, open Meta Ads Manager, and build a single campaign with one ad set and one ad. Keep the budget small, publish it, and let it run long enough to produce real numbers before you change anything. If you would rather have the campaign structure and creative built for you, see how to set up an ad on Facebook with a guided setup.
FAQ
How do you set up an ad on Facebook?
Go to Ads Manager at business.facebook.com, click the green Create button, and pick an objective such as Awareness, Traffic, or Sales. Set your budget at the campaign level, define audience, placements, and schedule at the ad set level, then upload creative and copy at the ad level. Facebook requires a linked Page and a valid payment method before the ad can go live.
How do you do Instagram ads?
Instagram ads run through Meta Ads Manager, not the Instagram app. In Ads Manager, choose Instagram as a placement inside your ad set, or select Advantage+ Placements to let Meta distribute the budget across Facebook and Instagram automatically. You need an Instagram professional account linked to a Facebook Page to run them.
How do I make an Instagram ad?
Start in Meta Ads Manager, create a campaign, and at the ad level pick Instagram Feed, Stories, Reels, or Explore as your placement. Upload a vertical image or video (1080x1350 for feed, 1080x1920 for Stories and Reels), add a caption under 125 characters for feed ads, and set a destination URL. Review and publish; ads usually go through review within 24 hours.
How do you promote on Instagram?
You can boost a post directly from the Instagram app by tapping Boost under any post, choosing an audience, budget, and duration, starting from around $1 per day. For more control over targeting and objectives, use Meta Ads Manager instead. Both routes require an Instagram professional account.
How do you post an advertisement on Instagram?
Regular posts are not ads; you either boost an existing post or build a new ad in Ads Manager. To boost, open the post, tap Boost Post, set your goal, audience, and budget, then confirm payment. The post then appears as Sponsored in other users' feeds and Stories.
Do I need a separate account to run Google ads alongside Facebook?
No. Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads are separate platforms with separate accounts, budgets, and reporting. If you plan to run both, the setup differences are covered in this Google Ads setup guide, and ongoing optimization is covered in this guide to Google AdWords management.