A Primer For The Facebook Ad Platform Newbie

I’ve been studying Facebook Ads fairly intensely for the past 3 years. If you weren’t aware all ads on Instagram actually run through the Facebook Ads platform since Facebook is Instagram’s parent company.

My background is in direct sales and back when I was learning about the platform, no one was running ads at the time.

I realized this was an opportunity for me to generate new business and I began experimenting with different ad setups. It took some trial and error but after a year I had created some strong results. I was still in college at this point and I had the realization that since I was making money running ads I could turn that into my whole business.

What I do now is I help digital businesses massively generate leads and close sales through Facebook live streams and ads.

It’s important to understand that the Instagram ads platform is always evolving. It’s key to stay current with changes to the platform and best practices as things change. Fortunately, the basics stay the same and you’ll hopefully be able to apply this information for many years to come.

https://youtu.be/oEWE-LUikEM

 

The 1-2-3 Guide To FB Ad Manager (For Instagram Ads)

The Facebook ad manager is simple to use once you have your bearings. Its layout is unfortunately unnecessarily complex and can actually trip you up if you’re not careful.

Right when you open Ads Manager select the button that says “Create Ad”.

Here you can easily manage multiple campaigns all in the same window.

There are lots of extra features for power users, but all you really need to understand is Campaigns, Ad Sets, and Ads.

Campaigns are where you tell Facebook what you want to do with your ads.

Do you want video views, website conversions, or purchases from your online store? There’s a range of conversion types Facebook offers.

If you’re trying to send traffic to a landing page then Website Conversions is your best bet. Yes, you can optimize for engagement or video views but when you’re just starting out conversions is a good catch-all.

Ad sets allow you to set your budget per ad and their placements.

This is where you can select for Instagram only or some combination of Facebook and Instagram together. Up to you!

Since we’re talking about Instagram today, we’ll stick to that. Each ad set contains at least one ad. You can have multiple ads per ad set but then they’ll be splitting the budget you’ve allotted.

My personal philosophy is when you’re first starting out keep it simple with one ad per ad set. Rather than allowing Facebook to decide where to spend your money, run a 24-hour test at $5 per ad set and then pick your winning ads to move forward with.

That’s enough to get you started and some fast data to work with.

 

Action Steps

  1. Go onto the Facebook Ad Manager and select “Create ad”.
  2. Set your ad objective, choose Website Conversions if you’re sending traffic to a landing page. If you’re a more advanced user choose any objective that fits.
  3. Create your ad sets, and set the budget and placement for your ad. Instagram allows for ads in the feed and ads in stories.
  4. Create one ad per ad set and allow them to run for 24 hours with a $5 budget. After 24 hours, decide which ads performed the best and keep testing them to improve.

 

Result You Will Achieve

Your first ad optimized on Instagram via the Facebook Ad Manager.

Mentor: Zach Spuckler

Online business strategist at Heart Soul Hustle. Zach Spuckler teaches online business owners how to get seen, be heard, and become profitable leveraging advertising on Facebook and Instagram.

 
This article is based on an EHQ interview with the mentor.