Paid social media advertising is a popular business marketing strategy. If your target audience is on Facebook, a Facebook ad campaign can help you reach potential customers through a series of ad sets centered around a single business goal.

Ready to jump in? Follow these seven easy steps to create a targeted Facebook campaign.

[Read more: How to Create a Successful Direct Mail Campaign]

Make an account with Meta Ads Manager

To run ads within the Facebook and Instagram marketplace, you must first make an account with Meta Ads Manager. Each Facebook account is assigned an ad account ID upon creation, located on the Meta Ads Manager ad accounts page.

Once you’ve secured your account ID, navigate to the business page where you’re either an owner, administrator, advertiser, or editor of, then prepare your valid payment method. From there, you can start building your ads account and first campaign.

Choose an objective

Your objective will guide the rest of your campaign, so take special care in choosing the right one. Options for ad objectives include awareness, traffic, engagement, leads, app promotion, and sales.

Based on what you want your campaign to achieve for you, choose the objective that fits best. For example, you should choose awareness over traffic if you’ve undergone a rebrand and want to get the new name of your store out. Conversely, you should choose traffic over awareness if you’re hosting a special event and want to maximize the number of potential customers who see the event info.

[Read more: 5 New Social Media Tactics to Try in 2023]

Set a budget

Budgeting your Facebook ad campaign takes a bit of nuance. Remember that the number you choose to spend on your ad campaign represents the maximum amount you’d like to spend — whether you choose the number for a daily spend or a total spend. For example, you can indicate you’d like to spend no more than $50 a day for the length of your campaign or choose a cap of $2,500 total for the length of the campaign.

Awareness-objective campaigns tend to give advertisers the most “bang for their buck,” but they will not provide the same results as a campaign with an objective of app promotion or sales.

Determine your audience

While you’ve probably already done primary research on your service or product’s demographics, setting up a targeted Facebook ad campaign provides an opportunity to revisit who your audience is.

Advertisers can target their audience through location, gender, age, interests, and more. You can create a hyper-relevant ad campaign for niche audiences with Facebook ads, thanks to the information users provide about themselves and their behaviors online.

While you are in the process of creating the ad, Facebook will indicate the estimated daily reach you have out of the entire population of Facebook users. Not only does this set expectations, but it also allows you to shift demographics and selections to ensure you’re hitting the population to which you want to advertise.

[Read more: Understanding Facebook Stats and How to Measure Success]

Choose your ad placements

Facebook will allow you to choose ad placements based on the objective you’ve chosen. You can choose to advertise on different platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. While Meta suggests choosing auto-placements, you can choose where you want your ad campaign to live, including feeds, stories, searches, and messages.

Create your ad

Finally, create the advertising asset your customers will see. You can choose between a carousel or a single video/image. Some advertisers may have the ability to even create an Instant Experience ad.

Creating your ad is straightforward, as Facebook walks you through each step of the process. Best practices for creating ads that convert based on your goal include having a strong call to action, showing customers interacting with or using your product in the ad, choosing relevant text and visuals, and using emotion to hook your audience early.

Place your order

The last step of the process is the easiest: placing the order for your ad. Simply hit “Publish” and wait for Facebook’s internal ad review team to confirm that your campaign meets its community guidelines. If for some reason it does not, you’ll discover why and will have the chance to fix the mistake or appeal the decision.

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Published June 16, 2023