How to run Facebook ads

Short answer: You run Facebook ads from Meta Ads Manager. First you need a Facebook Page, an ad account and a payment method. Then click + Create, choose the Auction buying type and one of six objectives, set the audience, placements, budget and schedule, build the ad and click Publish. Meta says most ads are reviewed within 24 hours.

Ads Manager organizes everything in three levels. The campaign holds the objective, the ad set decides who sees the ads, where and for how much, and the ad is what people see. One campaign can hold several ad sets, and each ad set several ads.

What you need first

• A Facebook Page. Meta asks for a Page of your own, or an admin, editor or advertiser role on someone else’s. If you don’t have one yet, follow our guide to creating a Facebook business page.
• An ad account. Every Facebook account comes with one, and Ads Manager selects it for you if it’s the only one. Meta limits every advertiser to one ad account until a payment goes through. To run several, you create them inside a business portfolio.
• A payment method. Ads Manager won’t publish your first ad without one. Go to Billing & payments, click Payment settings (or pick the account first if you have several), then Add payment method. You need full control of the ad account, or admin permissions, to edit it.
• The Meta Pixel and the Conversions API, if your ads send people to your website. Meta describes the pixel as “a piece of code that you put on your website” to measure what visitors do after an ad. The Conversions API sends the same kind of events from your server or CRM, and Meta suggests using both together.

An Instagram account is optional. Meta says your Facebook Page can be the voice of your ads on Instagram. If you want one anyway, see how to set up an Instagram business account.

Sources: Meta Business Help Center (create an ad account; add a payment method; about Meta Pixel; about Conversions API; choose ad placements). Read October 26, 2026.

Boost a post or use Ads Manager

Meta draws the line this way: boosted posts are ads made from posts already on your Page, while new ads need creative you haven’t published before.

You boost from the Page itself. Switch into the Page, click Ads center, then Advertise, Boost Facebook content and Boost post on the post you want. Facebook takes the images and text from the post, and you choose the goal, audience, duration, daily budget and placements.

In Ad Center and Meta Business Suite, a goal such as Get more messages is a package. It sets the campaign objective, the conversion location and the performance goal for you. In Ads Manager you set those three yourself, you can run several ads side by side, and you can still promote an existing post with Use existing post.

If you boost in the Facebook app on an iPhone or iPad, Meta warns that Apple may keep a 30% service fee on your ad payment. Meta’s steps for boosting start on a computer.

Sources: Meta Business Help Center (about boosted posts; boost a post; choosing an ad objective; creating an ad). Read October 26, 2026.

Create the campaign

1. Open Ads Manager on a computer and click + Create in the top left.
2. Choose a buying type. Auction is what Meta says most advertisers use. Reservation lets you book reach in advance with more predictable results, on Facebook and Instagram only.
3. Choose an objective and click Continue. The objective changes which settings you get later.
4. Name the campaign so you can find it again, for example by offer and month.
5. Choose where the budget lives. Campaign budget (Advantage+ campaign budget) lets Meta move money between ad sets. Ad set budget gives each ad set its own amount.
6. Turn on A/B test only if you want to compare versions. You configure the test after publishing.
7. Answer the Special Ad Categories question and click Next.

Meta’s six objectives:

• Awareness: reach the most people likely to remember your ad. Meta suggests it for a new business or a new name.
• Traffic: send people to a destination such as your website, your Page or an app.
• Engagement: find people likely to message you or interact with your ad or Page.
• Leads: collect contact details through messages, calls or sign-ups.
• App promotion: get people to install your app or act inside it.
• Sales: find people likely to buy, for example on an online store.

Sources: Meta Business Help Center (creating a campaign; advertising levels; buying types; ad objectives; budgets). Read October 26, 2026.

Set up the ad set

The ad set holds the audience, the placements, the budget and the schedule. Every ad inside it shares them.

Where the result happens. Depending on the objective, Ads Manager asks for a conversion location, where you want people to act, such as your website or a messaging app. It also asks for a performance goal, the specific result its delivery aims for.

Audience. With Advantage+ audience, Meta’s AI looks for your audience instead of you defining it. Meta says it learns from signals like past conversions, Meta Pixel data and interactions with earlier ads. Meta doesn’t recommend it for retargeting, when you only want to reach people who already know you.

Placements. Advantage+ placements comes selected by default and spreads the ads across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Threads and Meta Audience Network. To pick them yourself, hover over it, click Edit and choose Manual placements.

With the Leads, App promotion or Sales objectives, click Show more settings instead. Meta recommends leaving it on, so its delivery system can make the most of your budget across every placement.

Budget and schedule. A daily budget is an average over the week, not a hard cap. A lifetime budget is the total for the whole run and works as a hard cap. The schedule sets the start date, the end date and, if you need it, the times of day.

You also set the way Meta charges. In When you get charged you choose the event that takes money from your budget, such as impressions or link clicks, depending on the objective. A new ad account has to spend at least $10.00 charged by impressions before it can switch to anything else.

What a campaign costs to run, and what a lead costs by industry, is in our article on how much Facebook ads cost.

Sources: Meta Business Help Center (choosing an ad objective; Advantage+ audience; Advantage+ placements; choose ad placements; budgets; getting charged). Read October 26, 2026.

Build the ad

1. Name the ad after its creative, so you can tell ads apart in the reports.
2. In Identity, pick the Facebook Page and the Instagram account that will appear as the advertiser.
3. In Ad setup, choose Create ad for a new one, Use existing post to promote a post you already published, or Use Creative Hub mockup.
4. Pick a format: Single image or video, Carousel (two cards or more, each with its own image, headline and link) or Collection, which needs a product catalog.
5. Write the creative: upload the image or video, then add the primary text, headline, description and the destination URL.
6. Check the Advantage+ creative enhancements. Meta can adjust brightness, crop for each placement or animate a still image. Some are on by default, and you can turn them off.
7. Turn on Ad preview, and open Advanced preview to see the ad in every placement before you publish.

Sources: Meta Business Help Center (how do I create an ad in Meta Ads Manager; about Advantage+ creative). Read October 26, 2026.

Publish and get through review

Go back through the breadcrumb tabs, check the objective, audience, budget and ad, and click Publish in the bottom right. Publishing means you accept Meta’s terms and its Advertising Standards. If you close the flow instead, Ads Manager keeps your work as a draft.

Every ad is then reviewed, mostly by automated systems. Meta says most ads are reviewed within 24 hours, though some take longer, and any ad can be reviewed again after it goes live. A scheduled ad is reviewed when you submit it and starts delivering on its start date. The Delivery column shows the status: In review, Active or Rejected.

Edits can restart the review. Changing the targeting, the creative, the optimization or the billing event sends the ad back to review. Changing the budget, the bid or the ad set schedule doesn’t.

If an ad is rejected, Meta tells you which standard it broke. You can fix the ad and publish it again, or, if you think the decision was wrong, request another review in Meta Business Support Home.

Sources: Meta Business Help Center (how do I publish an ad in Meta Ads Manager; about ads in review); Meta Transparency Center (Advertising Standards). Read October 26, 2026.

Special Ad Categories and ad rules

Every campaign asks whether it belongs to a Special Ad Category. Meta’s current list is housing, employment, financial products and services, and social issues, elections or politics. The financial category replaced the old credit category and has been required since January 21, 2025 for advertisers in the US or reaching US audiences.

For housing, employment and financial ads from advertisers based in or reaching the US, Meta limits or removes audience options: age, gender, ZIP code, exclusions, lookalike audiences and saved audiences. Some interests disappear, and cities or pinned locations come with a wider radius.

If your business sells homes, rentals, insurance or loans in South Florida, see what that does to an audience in Meta Ads in Miami.

Ads about social issues, elections or politics may need authorization in the country and a “Paid for by” disclaimer, and they stay in the public Ad Library for seven years. Skip the category on one of those campaigns and Meta disapproves it. For the other categories, Meta says ads may be rejected without the right one.

The Advertising Standards add limits for every advertiser. Ads must also follow the Community Standards and can’t discriminate. Some products have extra rules:

• Ads for cosmetic products, procedures or surgeries, and for diet or weight loss products, must target people 18 or older.
• Ads for credit cards, loans or insurance must target people 18 or older and can’t ask directly for personal or certain financial information in the ad.
• Alcohol ads must follow local law and target 18 or older at the very least. Dating services need Meta’s written permission first.
• Tobacco and nicotine products can’t be promoted, approved cessation products aside, and neither can weapons, ammunition or explosives.

Meta’s Ad Library also shows every ad currently running, so anyone can look up the ads your Page has live.

Sources: Meta Business Help Center (how to choose a Special Ad Category; how do I create a campaign in Meta Ads Manager); Meta Transparency Center (Advertising Standards). Read October 26, 2026.

Read the results

In Ads Manager, open the Campaigns, Ad sets or Ads tab and click View charts on the row you want. The side panel shows:

• Performance: people reached, clicks and what you’ve spent, day by day. Customize metrics changes what the chart shows.
• Demographics: results by age and gender.
• Platform: results by placement, such as Facebook or Instagram, and by mobile or desktop.

Numbers arrive with a short delay, and Meta calls that normal. For a report you can filter, export or have emailed every week, use Meta Ads Reporting. Ads Manager also shows an opportunity score from 0 to 100, with recommendations, at the top of the Campaigns tab.

A boosted post reports somewhere else. Open Ad Center from your Page, find the post under Recent Ads and click View results.

RememberFacebook ads run from Meta Ads Manager. You need a Page, an ad account and a payment method, a campaign with one objective, an ad set with the audience, placements, budget and schedule, and the ad itself. Pick a Special Ad Category if your ad needs one, and leave time for the review: Meta reviews most ads within 24 hours.

Before you click Publish, check:

• The objective matches the result you want: messages, leads, visits or sales.
• The Special Ad Category is set if the ad is about housing, jobs, finance or politics.
• The location covers the area you serve.
• The budget is daily or lifetime on purpose.
• The preview looks right in every placement.
• The destination URL opens the right page, on a phone too.

Sources: Meta Business Help Center (ad results; Ads Reporting; Ads Manager; boosted post results). Read October 26, 2026.

Quick answers

Why can my new ad account only pay for impressions?

Meta asks every new ad account to spend at least $10.00 charged by impressions before it lets you choose another charge event, such as link clicks. The other reason is the objective: some objectives only allow impressions. Once the account passes the minimum, the When you get charged setting shows the other options your objective allows.

Does changing the budget send my ad back to review?

No. Meta says changes to the bid amount, the budget or the ad set schedule don’t trigger a new review. Changes to the targeting, the creative (images, text, links or videos), the optimization or the billing event do, and that applies to ads already running or scheduled. Your ad goes through the review process again.

When does Meta charge my card for Facebook ads?

Not when you publish. With PayPal or most cards, Meta charges you each time your ad costs reach your payment threshold, and again on your monthly bill date for whatever is left. The threshold starts low and can rise as payments go through, so you may see several charges in one month.

Is there an extra fee for boosting from an iPhone?

There can be. Since February 2024, Meta says, boosting in the Facebook iOS app on an iPhone or iPad may carry an Apple service fee. It’s 30% of your total ad payment, before taxes and local fees. Apple keeps that fee, not Facebook or Meta. Meta’s help has a page on avoiding it.

Can I run Facebook ads from my phone?

Yes. Meta has an Ads Manager app for Android and iOS, and you can boost posts from the Facebook app. Meta warns that not every Ads Manager feature is available on a mobile device. A full campaign, with its ad sets, placements and previews, is easier to set up on a computer.

Want help with your Facebook ads?

With our Meta Ads service, we plan, make and run your Facebook and Instagram ads in English and Spanish, with tracking set up before the first ad. Weighing Facebook against Google first? Read Google Ads vs Facebook Ads.

Sources

• “What are the advertising levels in Meta Ads Manager?”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “How do I create a campaign in Meta Ads Manager?”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “How do I create an ad in Meta Ads Manager?”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “How do I publish an ad in Meta Ads Manager?”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “How to choose the right ad objective in Meta Ads Manager”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “Choose the right buying type for your brand campaign”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “About boosted posts”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “Boost a post from your Facebook Page”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “How to create an ad account in Meta Ads Manager”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “Add a payment method to a Meta ad account”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “About Meta Pixel”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “About Conversions API”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “About Advantage+ audience”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “About Advantage+ placements”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “Choose ad placements in Meta Ads Manager”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “About budgets”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “About getting charged”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “About Advantage+ creative”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “About ads in review”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “How to choose a Special Ad Category”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “Introduction to the Advertising Standards”, Meta Transparency Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “View and analyze ads results in Meta Ads Manager”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “About Meta Ads Reporting”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “About Meta Ads Manager”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “View results for boosted posts”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “When Meta charges you for ads”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.
• “About payment thresholds for Meta ads”, Meta Business Help Center, read October 26, 2026.