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I’ve talked a lot about the types of advertising you can do online. From Google ads to social platforms, advertising online is where more and more business owners are focusing their marketing dollars.

Once you decide what platform you’re going to use, it’s time to start researching the different strategies.

Facebook has always been a fun place to experiment with your advertising. There are great tools for audiences, you get to be really creative – and you can make changes in real time (with really amazing reporting).

But what does a Facebook campaign even look like? And why do you need to know every level of the campaign?

Because it will help you make more advertising decisions moving forward.

As a marketer, it’s really important to know the breakdown of a Facebook campaign so you know where to make changes that will make the most impact. I’m always trying to save money for my clients. And if you make some minor adjustments, you can lower the cost per click and raise the return on investment.

Today, I’m going to discuss the anatomy of a Facebook campaign and what the different sections actually mean to you as the business owner. I’m going to give you some questions to ask your current marketer as well. Or if you’re a marketer, great – you will have some homework.

This structure is simple to understand and keep organized. Once you know what part of the ad you’re talking about, you immediately know what adjustments you can make. The Facebook ad structure will allow you to create amazing ads that convert into clients and revenue for you. And you will be able to use the templates of these ads over and over.

There are three levels within Facebook advertising:

Defining your ad campaign

This is where you decide on your main objective. This is the basis of your ad. The first level where you choose the action you want people to take on your ad.

You need to know what the goal for your Facebook campaign is. Do you want people to click on your website and buy something? Do you want people to register right on Facebook for your webinar?

Maybe it’s brand awareness and you know that the direct return on investment will be hard to calculate. What’s the main objective of your campaign?

Establishing your ad set

Ad sets are groups of ads that share certain settings for how, where and when to run as the advertisement. This is where you decide on audience, budget, location, placement of your ads and delivery of those ads.

When you make an adjustment to an ad set, it makes the adjustment to all of the ads inside of that ad set. This is the audience portion of your Facebook campaign. What is your audience, how much are you willing to pay for that audience and where is that audience located?

This is really breaking it down but it does make things seem simple. If I asked who you were going to advertise to, you could tell me. So that’s what this is – just add in the budget.

Creating your ad

This is the fun, creative part of your Facebook ad. It includes a photo (or video), headlines, description text, your URL destination and your call to action. A typical Facebook ad, such as a link ad, is basically made up of those five elements.

Creating ads that convert is really fun. I’m always looking at other Facebook pages ads to see what’s trending and what’s working for other people.

You can look at other ads by going to Page Transparency on the left hand side, then click Go To Ad Library. Use the filter option and look at what kind of ads others are running.

So to break a Facebook ad campaign down, there are three simple things you need to have:

  • Goal
  • Audience 
  • Creative for the ad

Good luck creating those first Facebook campaigns.

Donita Fowler is an online marketer who supports entrepreneurs in their quest to be the boss of their online platforms.

Donita is a Troy Media contributor. Why aren’t you?

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