1) Decide Where to Run Your Ads
Choose where you want to run your ad—whether that’s on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Audience Network, or across them all. You can also choose to run ads on specific mobile devices. The places where you can run your ads are called Placements. Depending on the objective you choose when you create your campaign, your ads can appear on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and Meta Audience Network. 
Available placements are determined by your ad type and settings. Not all placements are available for every ad. Multiple placements increase the number of people who can see your ad and can improve ad results. Adding more placements does not increase the cost of your ad. These are the placements available across Meta technologies.
2) Set Your Budget & Schedule
A common question I hear often is “How much do Facebook ads cost?” Facebook allows you to enter your daily or lifetime budget and the time period during which you want your ads to run. These limits mean that you’ll never spend more than you’re comfortable with. You can run ads on Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network on any budget. Some people spend more on coffee each day than they do on their ad campaigns. The exact cost associated with your ad being shown to someone is determined in Facebook’s ad auction.
You set your ad budget—a total amount you want to spend daily or over the course of the campaign—and can edit it at anytime. You also set a bid—the maximum amount you’re willing to pay when someone sees your ad or takes your desired action.
3) Select Your Audience – Find the people who will love your business
When selecting your audience, first start with using what you know about the people you want to reach—like age, location and other details including the demographics, detailed targeted interests and behaviors that best represent your audience. You can reach everyone, or you can reach just a few. Facebook will automatically show your ads to people who are most likely to find your ads relevant.
You can further target your ad delivery with three audience selection tools:
- Core Audiences – You set the rules for where your ads are delivered. For smarter ad targeting, you are can adjust your target audience to be as broad or well-defined as you like based on criteria like age, gender, education, interests, geography, behaviors, connections and more. Add interests and hobbies of the people you want your ad to reach—from organic food to action movies—and make your targeted ads more relevant.
- Custom Audiences – Get back in touch with people who already know your business that have engaged with your business, online or off. Custom Audiences allow you to connect with people who have already shown interest in your business, whether they’re loyal customers or people who have used your app or visited your website. Learn how to set up your Custom Audience with the Facebook pixel.
- Lookalike Audiences – Reach new people whose interests are similar to those of your best customers. Fast and effective way to connect with people likely to respond to your ads. All you need to do is create a source audience of people you know. Your ads will then reach people with common interests and traits. Learn how to create a Lookalike Audience in the Facebook Advertiser Help Center.
Not sure where to start? Explore the demographics, interests and behaviors of people on Facebook and people connected to your Page with Audience Insights. You can even save an audience you create and use it in Ads Manager.
4) Choosing the Right Facebook Creative
The image or video in an ad is the first thing that a potential customer will see. The visual you create or choose for an ad can be what convinces them to learn more about a business, make a purchase—or keep scrolling instead. All of the ad formats available in Meta Ads Manager (image, video, carousel, Instant Experience and collection) use images and videos.
You decide how you want your ad to look. You can use text, images and videos to capture people’s attention. Once you create your ad, it goes to the ad auction, where it will start being shown to people.
Create captivating visuals for your ads by using the following creative asset options:
- Single Image/ Video / Animated Gif
- Stories – Stories are a customizable, edge-to-edge experience that lets you immerse people in your content. Learn more about Stories Ads.
- Carousel (up to 10 slides)
- Use existing post (can’t make any changes to ad)
I would highly recommend taking advantage of Facebook’s Creative Hub Mockup tool when building ads. The creative hub is where great ideas become great ads! Supercharge your creative process and save valuable time with Facebook’s Creative Hub—your one-stop destination for learning about, mocking up, previewing and testing Facebook and Instagram ads. The Creative Hub is an incredible tool designed to help you create better Facebook Ads. At its core, it’s an ad mock-up generator making it easy for you to create, test, review, and share ads before you hit “Publish.
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