LongCut logo

Facebook Ads Tutorial 2025 (how to run ads on Meta, Facebook & Instagram)

By Santrel Media

Summary

## Key takeaways - **Start with Meta Business Suite & Ads Manager**: To run ads on Facebook and Instagram, begin by setting up a Meta Business Suite and then navigate to Ads Manager. This is where you'll manage your campaigns, ad sets, and individual ads. [00:15] - **Understand the Ad Hierarchy: Campaign, Ad Set, Ad**: Facebook ads operate on a three-tier structure: Campaigns define the overall objective, Ad Sets target specific audiences and budgets, and Ads are the actual creatives (images, videos, copy) you test. [02:27] - **Meta Pixel Tracks Website Actions for Optimization**: The Meta Pixel is a code snippet on your website that tracks user behavior, such as add-to-carts or purchases. This data is crucial for Meta's algorithm to optimize ad delivery and report on your return on ad spend (ROAS). [04:04] - **Iterate and Test: Data is Your Best Friend**: Success on Meta ads hinges on iteration and testing. Use the data Meta provides to identify what works, and be patient. Consider your initial ad spend as an investment in learning to find the perfect ad. [02:53] - **Manual Campaign Setup for More Control**: While Meta offers Advantage+ for automated campaign management, opting for a manual sales campaign provides more control and helps you build intuition for what resonates with your audience. [11:34] - **Budget for Learning, Not Just Sales**: Set a budget you're comfortable running for 20-30 days, even if it means making no sales initially. The primary goal during this period should be learning and iterating to find effective ad variations. [03:22]

Topics Covered

  • Buy the Perfect Ad: Master Meta's Iterative Testing Process
  • Why the Meta Pixel Is Critical for Ad Optimization
  • Understand Meta's Ad Hierarchy: Campaigns, Ad Sets, and Ads
  • Maximize ROAS: Continuously Test and Cull Underperforming Ads

Full Transcript

all right so this is a full tutorial on

how to make ads on Facebook whether

you're running them on Instagram

Facebook whatever the whole meta

umbrella of ads this is going to be a

comprehensive tutorial for beginners

that doesn't jump into the later parts

of making the ad I'm going to start off

by setting up a meta business Suite

talking about the ads manager talking

about the pixel putting it on your

website and then of course how to

actually make the ads all have

timestamps down below and of course on

top of that I will have links to kind of

organize things in the description of

them are affiliate Links of course uh

these are all just links to make it a

little bit easier for you so this is not

a sponsored video this is just free

information to help you and your

business succeed online now with that

being said the first thing we want to do

is go over to your laptop hopefully you

already have a Facebook account if not

you're going to have to set up a

personal Facebook account first Facebook

allows one account per person and then

your personal account has to control

your business it's kind of just the way

they do things so assuming you already

have a personal Facebook account uh

you're going to go to link number one in

the description down below which is

business. face.com now mine looks a

little bit different from yours because

I have a lot of meta business Suites

already set up I have a lot of profiles

on here uh in essence you're going to

have to click through this and create

your first business you're going to

choose a name for your business you are

going to of course have it connected to

your personal account and ultimately it

is going to bring you to a page that

looks something like this and this

business doesn't have to necessarily be

an LLC this could be just what you're

calling your business that you're

running whether you're a sole proprietor

a partnership whatever uh this is going

to be the business essentially the

umbrella that everything is operated

under within the meta business Suite now

once we have that the second step is to

set up your ads manager so link number

two down below is going to be you can

navigate there from this page right here

but it's a lot easier if you just go

through link number two and I'll bring

you to ads ads manager.

facebook.com and again you are going to

have to click setup this is where we do

basically everything in this video is

going to be in this ads manager and the

first time you do it you're going to

have to select a business that you're

connecting this to uh or it could just

be under your personal profile if you

wanted that as well and maybe one or two

other clicks and you'll end up on this

page right here so not a whole lot of a

gap there but like I said Facebook

doesn't allow users to create a second

profile so I'm just showing you on my

own account here so from here you'll see

we have three tabs uh essentially the

way this works on Facebook is you have

campaigns that is the top of this little

hierarchy here one campaign will have

multiple ad sets in it and each ad set

could be for example different audiences

you're targeting different budgets

different things like that and then ads

individually are going to be a different

copy that you're trying out maybe

different images you want to try

different videos you want to try the

name of the game with running ads

especially on meta is going to be

iterating and testing and using data

that is your best friend here and

because meta is such a gigantic platform

with so many users it's actually quite

easy to get a lot of data for a

relatively low amount of money and

iterate quickly and easily find better

and better ads until you find something

that really converts well so I really

encourage you throughout this video it

may be exciting to just make an ad and

just put a ton of money behind it hoping

that you find massive massive success

but I would really recommend being

patient set a budget that you can run

with for 20 to 30 days and in those 30

days be completely okay with losing all

of that money and making no sales your

goal for the next 30 days should be to

learn and to iterate and find the

perfect ad think of it more as buying

the perfect ad that will then convert

very well and then after that you can

start putting more money behind it and

of course still iterate and test but in

30 days you should have a good ad that's

ready to go and really start earning you

a lot more money now before we actually

make this ad of course your ad is going

to have to do something right what are

you trying to optimize for in many

situations you're going to be optimizing

for sales on something like Shopify or

woocommerce or whatever it is your

online store is hosted on and the way

that meta actually knows how successful

something is essentially which audience

does it show it to is going to be based

on what's called a meta pixel sometimes

called a Facebook pixel and this is a

small piece of code that goes in your

website and it's just a tracking cookie

it whenever somebody goes to your

website from the ad this will track what

they do on your website maybe they just

go to it and they close right away maybe

they go there they add to their cart

maybe they go and they actually purchase

and met is going to say all right these

people came from that ad they made

purchases people from this other AD

didn't make purchases and not only is it

going to make decisions but it is also

going to report that data back to you

and ultimately tell you how much money

you're making on each ad in essence the

return on ad spend roas a really

important metric that we'll be talking

about throughout this video so to set up

your metapixelatron

you want to go to link number three and

uh this is going to be the events

manager which is business. facebook.com/

eventsmanager it'll look something like

this meta changes this from time to time

you'll see some buttons there that just

say set it up right and you have a

couple options on how you can set it up

what I really recommend doing is

actually setting it up uh through

partner Integrations for example Shopify

so if we go over to Shopify here I have

a Shopify a little test account that

I'll demonstrate this on all right so on

Shopify on the left side you'll see

something that says apps if we click on

apps we can type in meta and that will

show you Facebook and Instagram it's an

app that you can get installed on

Shopify and they basically do all the

backend coding for you to insert your

pixel you could manually do this uh and

for some other platforms that are less

common you may want to manually do this

but I'm going to install again with

Shopify you could do this woo Commerce

you could do this on WordPress uh you

know big Commerce a lot of the main ones

there is going to be an app that does it

very easily so I'm going to click on

install and then it should show up on

the left side I highly recommend just

pinning it click the little pin button

that way it's much easier to find in the

future and uh so I'll say connect

account now this is going to connect to

my Facebook account I will say continue

and just like that it's connected so

from the events manager it should look

something like this you'll see a a blue

button that says connect data we are

going to click on that uh we have some

options for what we're actually

connecting so this is going to be a

website that we're connecting if you

have like an app or a CRM you want to

connect or messaging you can totally do

that obviously that's a slightly

different objective of your ads than

what I'm going to be showing then we can

name this so this is Karate Island Time

Shares I'm going to deselect that I

don't want the 90-day demo and I'm going

to say create and this is going to

create the new data set uh this is then

going to be connected through my Shopify

I'll show that in just a second and uh

we're going to have our pixel connected

here so there's three main ways we could

do this you can set it up uh with the

API Gateway you could set up with a

partner integration which is going to be

like Shopify for example quite easy to

do or you could set it up manually where

you're copying the code and pasting it

into uh you know if you're using

something that is less common you might

have to do this but for most there's

either a nice partner integration or you

could use the API Gateway so I'm going

to go with the partner integration we'll

say next we're going to find Shopify

that's what I'm demonstrating here but

just you can see this list like Wix and

Squarespace like there's pretty much all

the main ones are going to be right here

I'm going to say next it's going to ask

us to go to Shopify and make sure that's

connected I'm going to choose my store

now because because we already have the

Facebook app installed this is very easy

to do it's going to ask us how much uh

what our preference is for how much data

is being shared I'm going to go to

maximum so we have total control over

this then we can view details make sure

everything looks good to you and we can

then say save so we now have karate

Island Time Shares pixel you can see the

ID right there I'm going to blur it out

for this video of course and uh that is

going to be connected to our Shopify and

now when things happen on Shopify it is

tracked over on the events manager on on

Facebook so I'm going to go to next we

can verify the pixel is working

correctly so let's go back and find our

domain so I'm going to go to online

store click on the little I icon it'll

bring me into a new tab I don't have

like a proper domain on this right now

it's just a little test demo store I'm

using but I'll use this domain I'm going

to paste it in there we'll send some

test traffic see how it works there we

go sending some test traffic I can add

to cart I can do some things um and I

can go let's say let's say check out

just kind of play around with it a

little bit get some action some activi

that will be tracked uh right now it is

testing to see if anything is being

tracked there and it may take several

minutes so we're going to wait a little

bit until that turns green and shows us

that it's tracking we'll say confirm

we'll submit for review all right once

you see active on there we can go back

to this other tab we'll say next we're

going to copy and paste our website link

so I don't want to do this too fast on

Shopify click on the little eyeball icon

it'll bring you to your website and I

can copy the link here back to this tab

paste it in you should have your own UR

URL you can paste and of course we'll

send test traffic we'll send some test

traffic uh you can click around just

make sure you know the pixels it's just

testing to see the pixels on here and

then going back here it should say

active that should happen fairly quickly

if it doesn't you might want to go back

a step and make sure that you fully

completed this and it says active make

sure the pixel's actually working is

what I'm saying now we can go to again

the events manager we're going to say

next for the final confirmation and uh

setup is complete we're good now I can

just say uh finish and we're pretty

pretty much good on this now remember I

said we're going to go back to the ads

manager that's where most of this video

is going to take place so on the ads

manager again link number two down below

ads manager. facebook.com it should look

something like this now that we're all

set up so I can now create our first

campaign and remember we have three

tiers campaigns at the top typically

you'll have one campaign for a specific

product or a specific store um and so

for this one I'm going to so I'll click

on create I'm going to go to account

overview need a couple extra uh details

before we can actually start doing this

one is going to be of course a payment

method so we can run this ad the second

one is connecting to a Facebook business

page again so you can run an ad on

something so I'm going to look for my

page Karate Island Time Shares we'll say

next we own that page so I can say next

again I can agree and I can claim that

page that way it's under this business

that's something you may have already

done when you made your page or when you

made your meta business Suite I'll say

done and back in the ads manager we now

have the email email address verified we

have the business page selected uh I

could skip the payment for now we can

add that later if we wanted to and we

should be ready to actually run the ads

so I'm just going to add the payment

method right now so all right so back to

the ads manager we now have everything

set up we have all the additional

information we have our payment set up

we have our page connected we have our

email verified we're finally ready to

actually make the ads here and so you

can see this is the same structure I

talked about before we're going to start

off with campaigns and I'm going to

click on create of course make sure one

last you want to make sure that you are

connected to the right business right

here uh if you have multiple just click

on that and make sure it's the right one

so the pixel's actually connected uh

since we already did that work so let's

click on Create and this first one again

we're going to go by auction we want

this to be there's a lot of different

ways you can run ads if you are looking

for leads generated if you have a new

app you're trying to do anything with uh

awareness if you're doing maybe

political campaigns I'm going to be

optimizing for sales that's my main

objective here with this Shopify store

so I'll say continue and we're going to

have a manual sales campaign Advantage

Plus is like uh meta or Facebook's uh

kind of like AI that does a lot of

thinking for you you'll see that term

throughout the rest of this video um

generally I like manual whenever I can I

just to have more control and and

ultimately it's going to help you build

an intuition for what works and what

doesn't work when you have a little bit

more of a finger on the pulse here

although Advantage Plus can do some

thinking for you which can be nice I'm

going to say continue with the manual

sales campaign and you can see on the

left side it's set up that little

hierarchy one campaign one ad set one ad

we'll have a bunch more in there in a

second but we have to start off with one

of each so this sales campaign I'm just

going to name it the products I'm going

to call it

perfect putt kit

campaign campaign one in case we ever

set up another campaign if we have any

special ad categories you will select

them here that's going to be like real

estate or credit or anything like that

uh I don't have that just a regular

product so I don't need to declare

anything there uh we can leave

everything else down here the same

except the catalog ads I am not going to

be doing that I will enable the uh

Advantage campaign budget so this is

going to be a CBO essentially campaign

budget optimization which is going to

have one budget for the top and then

everything within this all the different

ads uh they will be run based on this

budget it's going to allocate budget

according to what is essentially working

the best and actually converting the

best so it's a good way to uh kind of

not spend too much money on ads that

don't work and ultimately spend more on

ads that do work so again you're going

to choose your budget here for something

that you're okay to run for about a

month or even longer um hopefully you

can find some good ads within a couple

weeks but really you want to have this

you want to think of this as money that

you're investing into finding the right

ad so I'm going to say $50 a day for a

month something that I'm totally fine

with doing uh to get the right ad to

eventually scale up after that patience

is absolutely key right here we can

schedule our budget if we know that hey

you know during the day this is going to

convert better or at night it's going to

convert better depending on what the

product is I'm going to leave that off

I'm fine with any time period and meta

can decide that for me you can do AB

testing here we will be doing our own

testing later so I'm just going to click

on next and that brings us down to the

new sales ad set so for this one I'm

going to name it so the ads sets are

really going to be focused more so on

like the audiences uh so for this one

I'm just going to call this add adet

adset one and we can choose uh where the

conversion location is this is going to

be on our website so we will have our

pixel you can see the data set right

there is connecting that pixel uh we're

maximizing the number of conversions

that is our goal unless you're trying to

maximize you know link clicks or or

reach or page views but for a store for

an online store it's almost definitely

going to be conversions that's really

what your goal is the conversion event

is going to be let's say we want an

actual purchase but you could have as

you see there many other things like uh

adding to your cart for the actual pixel

what is it tracking well if we click on

setup conversions um I would recommend

just you know standard events if you

click on that you can choose what are

you really selling so e-commerce and

Retail that's going to make a lot of

sense

if you're doing education or whatever

they might have some different uh events

that are being tracked but again this is

going to make sense for most of the

online stores out there purchase like I

said is what we're really really trying

to do here and we could say go to test

events just to make sure it's actually

working and I'm just going to say done

scrolling down we can choose our budget

and our schedule we already have that

set at the campaign level so I'm not

going to do a whole lot down here uh the

audience controls if you want to change

anything you could have you know some

restrictions right there I think the

location United States is really all I'm

targeting right here that's the only

place I'm shipping at least and then the

audience the Advantage Plus audience uh

this is going to essentially try to find

the best audience for our ads meta

already kind of does this anyway uh but

if you want to like if you just want to

say hey figure it out Do Your Own Thing

uh you know of course met is going to do

that you could switch to original

audience options and if you click on use

original you'll see some options show up

here like if you want to choose the age

group or the gender uh or the languages

or you know interests and behaviors you

can create all of that and so that's

something that you totally can set up if

you have audiences that are saved from

past campaigns you could also use those

right here and that's going to be a

little bit different than the Advantage

Plus audience I don't think it really

matters that much which one you're doing

a lot of beginners might find great

success with just Advantage Plus

audience unless you really know uh who

you're going for in which case you might

want to select this down here the

placements I think that looks fine I can

see more options uh any other brand

safety stuff looks good and we can say

next now we this now the third tier is

going to be the ad we will have multiple

ads of course but this first ad I'm just

going to call a video ad one this one

I'm going to use a video you could use

you know a carousel of images or you

know a couple other things like that so

the identity you want to make sure you

choose the right page you want to choose

an Instagram account as well I didn't

connect one uh on this page so I don't

have one set up but yours should appear

right here if you properly connected a

professional Instagram account to your

Facebook business page and your meta

business twet uh going down here create

ad we want to manually upload this I

don't recommend the catalog ads I think

you know AI is pretty good but it's not

quite there yet I think it's better to

make your own ads and manually upload

them uh we have several different

formats like I said a single image or

video a carousel of you know multiple

different images that you swipe through

or a collection I'm going to go with

flexible and down here we can uh upload

the actual ad so let's add some media

I'm going to say add videos I have some

I have some ads from my Tik ads tutorial

I'm going to use here I'm just going to

click and drag this one over generally

for meta ads you don't want them to be

this aspect ratio a lot of them you

probably prefer a square ad so it shows

up better on Facebook uh if you're

actually running it there or on

Instagram as well a lot of times it will

perform better like that but hey you

know what this is what I have available

this is what I'm going to do for this

video um but right now it is uploading

and processing so I can select it I can

say continue now we have our video we're

going to choose our primary text so you

can add your primary text your headline

your description and this is something

you're going iterate on and really test

some different variations of you could

use chat gbt to help come up with what

the text is what the best copy is here

then we can choose the destination so

you want to copy the URL to your actual

product so going back to Shopify for

example if we were using Shopify we can

go to products you'll see I should have

one product on here I can select that I

can actually click on that product

rather and we should have a link on the

right side we should have a link on the

bottom so let me just copy and paste

that to a new tab make sure so I'm just

going to paste the product page URL the

display link is going to be order now

you can choose your call to action could

just be order now for

example and then double check everything

looks good down here here you'll see the

ad preview in Instagram and in your

Facebook feed and we can then say

publish so now that we have that set up

I want to make a couple copies of this

within this ad set here so I can really

test out the different ads so I'm going

to click on the three dots here just do

a little quick duplicate here uh it'll

be over here so we're going to call this

video ad video ad 2 video ad 2 and we

can change anything you want about this

I would recommend having a slightly

different video maybe a different

character by the way I have a full video

on how I made these ads that's just like

made with AI so it's not even like uh

it's not a real person even talking I

mean it's a real person that's got

voiced over by AI so it's really kind of

impressive I think um but you could film

them yourself many different ways to

make the ads so for this one let's just

say I'm going to change the copy and we

going publish this one I think you get

the idea of how you can go about

changing all of these and making

different ads and once once you're done

we can just click the little X on the

top left and you'll come back to the

dashboard so if we have these both

running uh right now they're both

processing so they're not actually

delivering just yet but you will

eventually see uh so let's go back to

ads reporting on the left side and

you'll see some metrics about the

different ads that we are running so

you'll see an account you'll see the

reach for each of them uh which is going

to be how many people uh individually

actually got to see the ads the

impressions are how many total views

there are so if some people got view

shown the ad twice you'll have two

impressions and one view for them the

frequency is going to be that ratio

there so how often on average is

somebody seeing your ad so are they

seeing it like two times 1.5 times I'd

recommend you want to be closer to one

so you're not you know sending the same

ad to too many people over and over

again and kind of just wasting money

you'll see the amount spent uh the

attribution setting and you can

customize what this is actually showing

as well so on the right side you can

customize this table I would recommend

including include some other metrics

like your cost per link click your cost

per click all or your cost per click all

your cost per thousand Impressions I

think video views at at least 75% would

be very valuable and you can scroll

through and see if there's anything else

that is relevant to you uh maybe anytime

there's like an offline application

submitted or whatever if anything else

is something that you think could be

valuable of course select that over here

and that'll show up in your report

reporting uh you know once Those ads

actually start running for one day 2

days 3 days and uh you know going back

to campaigns here if we look at those

ads so we'll go down to ads you'll see

these are both going to be running so if

you find that you know you're running

four to five different ads you know I'd

recommend three to five ads at a time

you should be running uh with this

budget and then every you know every

maybe three four or five days go back

and see which ones are really

underperforming which ones are

outperforming and just turn off the ones

that are underperforming and come up

with a new variation to put in there so

you're constantly iterating you want to

have you know one or two ads that are

your top performing and then the other

two or three that you're comparing

against uh just keep changing those out

to see if they're able to kind of

replace the king of the ads and become

your new standard ads uh that is going

to be like your control group that

everything else is trying to beat in

terms of especially your return on ads

SP that's your main metric that you're

probably going to be caring about so

that's a quick summary of how to set up

Facebook or meta ads in general I hope

you found this video helpful if you did

consider liking and subscribing and if

you have any other questions about how

to set up like a Facebook business page

and Instagram business page I have links

to those videos down in the description

below thanks for watching I'll see you

you in those videos

Loading...

Loading video analysis...