Facebook (Meta) Ads Manager For Beginners

Written by Luke Glassford

December 12, 2022

With more than 2.7 billion users or nearly 37% of the world’s population, spending on average around two hours each day scrolling through their feeds, Facebook still holds a lot of untapped potential for start-ups and small businesses.

Almost 20% of all digital advertising currently goes through Facebook ads, with only Google ahead of the social network in terms of market share. This makes it a great channel to help you reach potential new customers.

But how can your start-up or small business make the most of Facebook ads?

The starting point is to familiarise yourself with Facebook Ads Manager – which is now known as Meta Ads Manager.

What is a Facebook/Meta Ads Manager?

Meta Ads Manager is a tool that helps you create and manage ads on both Facebook and Instagram. It is a platform that allows you to create ads, run A/B tests, review ongoing campaign performance and see analytics from all your campaigns in one place.

Suitable for beginners, Meta Ads Manager has a step by step guide to creating ad campaigns. Their guide takes you through your objectives for the campaign, the demographic and interests of your desired audience, and the desired placements for your ad across all formats on Meta platforms.

You can also preview these potential campaigns across multiple devices or send them to other team members for feedback. You also receive an overview of competing ads to see how yours compares to other ads targeting the same audience.

Once you gain confidence with Meta Ads Manager, you can edit your settings, alter your budget, and review where your adverts are placed. Should you choose, you can run multiple ads all at once while keeping track of how they are performing, breaking down the metrics to see what works best for your brand.

Why you should use Meta Ads Manager

For several years now, Facebook has consistently outperformed other digital marketing channels and is well-known to be one of the best-performing platforms for eCommerce. Facebook has multiple ad options with Facebook Feed, Facebook Stories, Messenger, and Marketplace ads, making it a multiple-use platform for business users.

Signing up for Meta Ads Manager will give you access to a full Business Suite for both Facebook and Instagram, which is helpful if you wish to promote your brand to new audiences. You will also be able to save your audience preferences, create customer lists and upload email subscription data which is vital. Not only do you want to attract new customers, but you need to stay connected to existing ones, so you must ensure that those customers also see your promotions.

You will also get access to Meta Pixel, which helps match Facebook users to the activity on your website. For example, you could target your next campaign at those who have visited your website over the last month or quarter, or set up an ad that focuses on targeting those who have added a product to their online shopping trolley across a specific period of time.

You can then track how many people visit your online shop or website after seeing the ad you have created. This is a sure way to give you insight on what is and is not working for your business and audience, so that any future ads can be tailored to help drive more traffic.

How to get started with Meta Ads Manager

To set up Meta Ads Manager, begin by setting up a Business Manager Account. Through Business Manager, you can access your pages and ads and grant others access to manage your account.

How to set up your account

It couldn’t be easier. Visit business.facebook.com and click on ‘create an account.’ From there, enter the name of your business and the primary Facebook page you will be promoting on. You will be asked to add your name and a work email address.

Click on ‘People and Assets’ on this application and then ‘Ad Accounts’. It is from this section that you can add new ad accounts. Once you have added your account and set up your payment method, you can begin navigating Ads Manager and creating your first paid campaign.

Once you are up and running, you can set up ad campaigns, including the objectives for the upcoming promotion, set target audiences, and assign budgets for paid ads.

You can also modify campaigns, monitor the metrics, and experiment with ad layouts and imagery to decide what might work best for your audience.

How to create your first campaign with Meta Ads Manager

While the dashboard may appear confusing at first glance, the process is relatively straightforward.

After clicking on ‘Create,’ you will be asked to set some objectives for the upcoming campaign. These options include brand awareness, traffic, engagement, lead generation, App promotions, or ‘catalog’ sales.

Next, you need to:

Define and customise your audience or use a ‘lookalike audience’ that will match closest to your current customer base
Decide where you want to place your ad and in what format across Facebook and Instagram
The budget and whether you would prefer to set a daily budget or one for the lifetime of the ad
Create the ad, what it will look like and what format you would like it in
How long you would like it to run for

Meta Ads Manager will take you through each step, making it a seamless process.
Once you are happy and publish your advert, Facebook can take up to 24 hours to review and accept it for publication. You will be notified as soon as it appears and can go back and hit the publish button.

How to use Facebook Ads Report Data

You can use the built-in analytics to monitor how your ad is performing. You will be able to search overall performance by looking at how much you have spent versus the reach of your ad, the engagement levels, click-throughs, conversions, and even what device people are viewing the advertisement on (e.g., laptop, mobile phone, tablet).

If this isn’t enough, there is also the option to customise your results, so you can genuinely drill down on the metrics that are most important to you so that next time you run an ad, you can be even more specific for your needs.

Want to know more about how Gambit Partners can help your business develop and implement an effective social media strategy? Book a complimentary consultation call today:

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