Advertise allows you to view, create, and manage ads for your Facebook and Instagram channels. Once you've successfully connected your Facebook ad account and set up a campaign and an ad set, you can follow the steps below to get started building your ads.
Tip: Trying to promote an existing Facebook or Instagram post? Head over to our guide on boosting posts as ads in Publish.
Note: It's not yet possible to create LinkedIn ads in Advertise. However, you can use Advertise to create LinkedIn campaigns/campaign groups and view your existing LinkedIn ads. You can also boost your organic LinkedIn posts in Publish.
What Types of Ads Can I Create?
In Advertise, you can create the following types of Facebook ads, including Facebook ads with Instagram placements:
Image posts
Video posts
Link posts
Carousel (multi-link) posts
Note: The type of ads you can create may be limited by your campaign objective. For example, if your campaign has the Video Views objective, you may only create ads containing a video. Similarly, if your campaign has the Traffic objective, your ad must contain a link.
Warning: Advertise supports the latest optimizations and campaign objectives offered by Meta's Outcome-Driven Ad Experiences (ODAX). As a result, ads may no longer be created in Advertise under ad sets that were set up with a legacy campaign objective from Facebook. Visit Meta's help center to learn more about ODAX and see what campaign objectives are currently supported by Advertise.
Creating an Ad
In Advertise, click Ads in the left-hand navigation menu.
In the top right of the Ads menu, click Create New Ad.
Select an existing ad set to create your ad in, then click Continue. You can filter your ad sets by campaign or campaign objective. (If you have no existing ad sets, you will be asked to create a new ad set.)
In the Ad setup screen, enter a name for your ad, select the applicable Facebook channel and Instagram channel (linked to the selected Facebook Page) to publish your ad to, and select your ad format. Your choice of ad formats will depend on your campaign objective. When ready, click Continue.
In the Creative setup screen, enter your ad text, upload your ad media (e.g. image or video files), and enter in any applicable properties for your ad such as a website URL, headline, etc. (See the Ad Properties section below for full details on each field). You will see a preview of your ad generated on the right-hand side of the menu as you add content. When ready, click Continue.
Tip: You will see a recommended text length as you enter your ad text and headline and description. The recommended text length for ad text is 125 characters, 1024 characters maximum. The recommended text length for headlines is 27 characters, 255 characters maximum.
Tip: Iris AI features such as the writing assistant and headline and description generator are available to help you produce content quickly and easily for your ad. Click on the Iris wand icon in the lower-right corner of the Ad text box to access AI features for your text such as grammar and spelling correction, text rephrasing, and more.
After entering in your main ad text, click Generate Headline and Description above the Headline text box and Iris will automatically use your ad text to create a relevant headline and description for your ad.
In the Schedule and tracking screen, select the start time for your ad. You can select a date in the future if you would like to schedule your ad. The ad expiration date will automatically be pulled from the ad set the ad is associated with if the ad set has a default ad duration or if you select Run ad until the ad set expires. You can also select to delete the ad when it expires. Lastly, you can choose to add URL tags and a Tracking pixel and Conversion domain if you have selected the Conversions, Sales, Leads, or Engagement objective with some destination types (see the Ad Properties section below for full details on each field). When finished, click Create Ad.
Tip: We recommend standardizing your Advertise asset naming conventions. By default, Advertise will name your video ad “BW-*ad format*-*Facebook Page or Instagram channel name*". It will automatically add a preview of the post text, or state, "No post text," if the ad text field is left blank.
Ad Properties
Note: The ad properties that are available to you when you create your ad will depend on your campaign objective and ad placement. For example, ad text and a description will not be available for the Facebook Right Column placement.
In addition, sometimes an ad property will pre-populate from your campaign or ad set. For example, your Call to Action button will automatically be a "thumbs up" button if you selected the Page Likes campaign objective.
Managing Ads
You can view any ads you have created in the Ads menu within Advertise.
Viewing ad statistics
The statistics section in the Ads menu will give you an overview of the performance of your ads. You can apply various filters, search for labels, and change the date range in order to customize your view.
Editing ads
To edit an ad, click on the ellipsis (three dots) icon to the right of an ad, then select Edit.
When editing your ad, you can change its name, add or edit labels, set a custom duration, and more. When finished, click Save Ad to save your changes.
Creating Ads in Publish
If you've already been using Publish to create your Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn posts, did you know that you can boost your existing posts as ads and monitor ad insights directly from Publish?
To learn more, visit our articles on Creating Facebook and Instagram Ads in Publish, Creating LinkedIn Ads in Publish, and Viewing Ad Insights in Publish.