How to Use Facebook Ads Manager

Facebook Ads Manager is a free public service for managing, viewing, analyzing and improving advertising campaigns on the social networks Facebook and Instagram. This tool is great for small businesses and other entrepreneurs working on the same advertising project, if there are more projects, then you should use Business Manager.

Next, we’ll look at how to use Facebook Ads Manager to launch ad campaigns from scratch. Our guide is designed for those who have no experience with this site, and consists of the following steps:

1. Account settings and launch Ads Manager.


2. The main elements of the platform interface.


3. Creation and launch of the first advertising campaign.


4. Setting a realistic advertising budget.


5. Ideas for optimizing advertising campaigns.

Note: you don’t need to register an advertising account to work with Ads Manager, because it is automatically issued when you create a business page. If you don’t have a business page yet, you can create it now using the “How to create a Facebook business page?” Guide. It takes just a couple of minutes.

Step 1. Account Settings and Launch

Ad Account Settings. Before you go directly to working with Ads Manager, you need to go to your advertising account and, if necessary, change some parameters there. For quick access to it, use this link (only available if you have a business page).



Make sure the time zone, currency, address, and other business information are correct. Keep in mind that when you change the time zone or currency, you will automatically create a new advertising account. The old account will be closed, but it will still be visible when you click on the ID at the top of the screen, and all ads created in it will stop showing.

Select and configure payment methods. Launching ads on Facebook costs money, which will be withdrawn from the deposit on the site. To replenish it, go to "Payment Settings" and click on the icon "Add Payment Method".



A window will open where you need to select the payment method available in your area. The country is determined automatically, but this can be changed at the top of the window. Pay at least $ 5 to your account, this will be enough to figure out what's what and start the first advertising campaign.



Sign in to Ads Manager. To enter the account of the advertising manager, use this link or go to your business page, click “Create” and then “Ad”. At the first login, you will be asked to agree to the terms of use of the service and disable anti-advertising applications.

Step 2. The main elements of the platform interface

At first, the service interface may seem cumbersome and incomprehensible, but it will pass quite quickly if you read our article to the end and launch the first advertising campaign. It's like getting to know the first smartphone: at first it’s not clear what is responsible for and where to poke your finger, but now we are all professionals.

Here is a brief overview of the main elements of the platform interface:

Top navigation. To go to it, click "Ads Manager" in the upper left of the screen. A series of links will open, with the help of which you can go both to the settings of the advertising manager and to other Facebook products.



Your account overview. A summary of the advertising campaigns that are currently showing, as well as those that have ended, will be displayed here. You can also create new campaigns in this menu. If you have several, you can choose which one to view.



Delivery Column. Displays the status of your campaigns, sets, or individual ads depending on which navigation tab you have selected.



Delivery can have several statuses:

1. Active - displaying ads is on and working fine.


2. Inactive — Disabling the campaign or ad set.


3. Not delivering - ads are not showing due to completion or disconnection.


4. Recently completed - Campaign ad sets have been completed.


5. In draft — The draft is saved in a draft.


6. In review - project under review.

Search and filter. Campaigns can be sorted by filters.



Time interval. Search ad campaigns by time frame.



«Create» Icon. Launches the process of creating ads on Facebook, which can take place in one of two scenarios: “Quick creation” for experienced users and “Guided creation” for beginners.


Click on this icon to continue.

Step 3. Creation and launch of the first advertising campaign

Since our article on how to use Facebook Ads Manager, that is, it is for beginners, we will follow the Guided creation scenario. If you chose another option after clicking the “Create” icon, then you can go to the walkthrough using the “Switch to Guided Creation” button.



At the first stage of creating an advertising campaign through the "Guided creation" you will be asked to choose its purpose. For example, if you are launching an online store, then most likely you need to choose Traffic or Conversions, or “Catalog sales” to sell individual items. We will choose Traffic.



At the bottom of the screen, you will be able to enter the name of the advertising campaign (the name in the example is “Online store 1”) and the daily budget with a bid strategy when you enable “Campaign Budget Optimization”. It is still possible to enable A / B testing (this function needs a separate conversation). After that, click "Set Up Ad Account".



Now you need to check whether the system has correctly determined the country, currency and time zone. If necessary, change the parameters and click "Continue".



We give a name to the ad group and choose where to direct traffic: website, application, messenger like WhatsApp. In the example, we selected a site. If you wish, you can enable the “Offer” function to make users an offer in the form of a discount, promotion or bonus.



Next, you need to decide on the target audience. In particular, choose the region or regions whose residents will see your ad, their gender, age and language. You can select a country, city, or location with a radius of 50 miles as a region.



In the detailed targeting, you can identify the socio-demographic parameters that your target audience must meet. For example, interests, positions, behavior, parenthood and more. Just indicate the keyword in the line and select the correct option / options.



The Connections item allows you to highlight people who have already interacted with your website, event, or application. This can be used to, for example, exclude people who already like your business page.



When you finish setting the parameters, save the result to use this template in further advertising campaigns.



In the "Placements" block, you can choose which platforms and where your ad will be displayed. Browse through all the options and choose the ones where your target audience happens. The more accurately you specify the place of display, the cheaper and more effective the advertising campaign will be.



In the next block of settings, you can set additional conditions for displaying ads.



And also indicate the start and end dates of impressions. Make sure everything is correct and click Continue.



In a new window, you will be asked to indicate the name of your advertisement, for example, “Test Company | 20% off this December”.



Below the system will ask you to indicate how your business will be presented in the announcement. You need to select your Facebook business page or Instagram account.



Then you will be asked to choose an advertising format: carousel, single video or photo, photo or video gallery. Online stores usually choose a carousel to display multiple products or a single photo or video to advertise a site or individual product. Since we only get acquainted with Facebook Ads Manager, we make the choice in favor of the simplest option: a single photo or video.



The Instant Experience tool lets you demonstrate the full-screen features of something on mobile devices. Usually this is a full-screen video viewing or demonstration of content with little interactive features. This tool will only work on mobile device users.



In the "Media" block, select and then click "Add Image".

A context window will open where you can add a product photo using several methods: Facebook business page gallery, Instagram photo, download from the photo stock or device memory. After adding the desired photo, just double-click on it in the gallery.



The photo should be large and fairly high quality (optimal - 1,080 x 1,080 pixels) and have a square shape (cropping 1: 1). File type: .jpg or .png. If necessary, photos can be cropped in Facebook Ads Manager manually or using the “Select a placement to customize” function templates.







Next you need to print a short description for the ad. Usually these are the characteristics or advantages of a product and a call to action.



Still need to come up with a clickable ad title, up to 40 characters.



And since we collect traffic for the online store site, we also need to add a link to it.



The preview of your ad will be displayed on the right in the block - the way users will see it. If everything is fine, click "Continue".



In case of any problems, the system will tell you at what stage something was done wrong.



That's all! Your ads are published, and now everything else depends on the Facebook algorithms and the effectiveness of your ad. Then you should wait a while until you have enough data to decide whether to continue publishing your ads, increase advertising costs (more on this below) or continue their work.

To see how your ad works, click “Ads Manager” in the upper left corner, and then go to “Ads Reporting”.

Step 4. Calculation of a realistic advertising budget

It may take some time to get the most out of Facebook ads, which will take you to find an effective ad, optimize the targeting and settings of Ads Manager. For beginners, this can create a problem with calculating the budget of an advertising campaign.

Those who are familiar with advertising on Facebook quickly solve this problem based on the ultimate marketing goal.

Suppose you want to sell 10 units of goods at 1000 per piece and thus receive $ 10,000. In this case, you need users to take 10 targeted actions (buy the product), and if you take the minimum conversion at 1%, it turns out that you need 1000 impressions, because:

1. 100 displays give you 1 item.


2. If you need to sell 10 products, then you need 100 displays × 10.

If the target action is not a product purchase, but a transition, for example, to the product card page on your website, then here you need to take into account one more conversion: how many product card views are needed for one sale. If, for example, you need 20 impressions, then 1000 impressions on Facebook turn into 20,000 impressions.

Next, we look at how much a single impression costs, and multiply this number by the desired number of impressions. The amount received must be used to set the budget in Facebook Ads Manager. This option is available when creating an advertising campaign immediately after you select a campaign target (in the example above, we selected Traffic).



From the settings available, there are two options for spending your money:

1. Daily Budget. You choose how much the system will spend on advertising per day (if you are a beginner, then your maximum is $ 50 for all campaigns).


2. Lifetime Budget. You choose the amount that the system will spend more or less evenly throughout your entire advertising campaign.

Typically, marketers first start the campaign for 3-5 days with the Daily Budget settings and look at the statistics of the campaign. Then, based on the received data, the total and daily budget of the campaign are determined.



In the settings, you can choose one of three betting strategies (Lowest Costs, Cost Cap, and more). If you have chosen Lifetime Budget above, then you can also choose a schedule for showing ads: constantly or according to a schedule (set separately for each ad).

The last budget setting is the choice of how the system will spend the advertising budget:

1. Standard. The system will spend the budget more or less evenly throughout the planned campaign.