Meta's ad sets are smaller groups of ads within a larger ad campaign. All ads in an ad set will use the same budget and schedule, will target the same audiences, and can be delivered to the same placements across Facebook, Instagram, and other Meta Platforms. 

Understanding and mastering how to build strategic ad sets can help you get your content in front of very specific and often motivated segments of your audience. Follow the steps below to create your own ad sets in Advertise for your Facebook and Instagram ads.  

Creating Ad Sets

You can create ad sets by clicking the action (...) button while viewing your campaigns, or by clicking the Create New Ad Set button from the top right of the Ad Sets section in Advertise. While creating a new ad set, you can choose to add it to an existing campaign, or to create a new campaign.

Below, we've listed all the available options for customizing the ad set to your advertising goals. 

Create ad set

Ad set name

Name your ad set. To make it easy for yourself and your colleagues, we suggest naming it in accordance with your target audience and/or your time period.

Ad set labels

Assign labels specific to your ad set. Labels already assigned to your campaign will automatically appear here.

Auto promote

Set up Smart Labels, which will automatically enable advanced promotions for organic posts without requiring you or your team to be ads specialists.

WhatsApp

If you chose WhatsApp for the Traffic option (available for the Conversions and Traffic campaign Objectives), you can choose a Facebook page that is connected to a WhatsApp number. Ads created from the ad set let users open a conversation with your customers through WhatsApp.

Schedule and budget

Ad set budget

Set the budget for your ad set, either on daily bases or as a lifetime budget. If you have set the budget on the campaign level, you are able to define specific spending limits for the ad set, so that you are always on track with your spending.

Schedule ad set

Define the start and end date of your ad set. You can also use the default ad duration feature, which automatically sets a specific duration to all ads created in Social Media Management. By setting a default ad duration, you will not need to set the duration of each ad individually.

Please note that, for now, it's not possible to schedule nonconsecutive days within your selected date range – for example, building an ad set that only runs ads on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (also known as "dayparting"). 

UTM tracking

Define the UTM tracking parameters you want to be applied to your ads. We will add them automatically to all ads in this ad set for you.

Pricing

Depending on the chosen Campaign Objective, there are various options available in the Pricing section.

Optimization Goal

This tells Facebook what you want to achieve with your promotion. Their algorithms will optimize the delivery to get you the best result for the lowest cost. For example, if you optimize for Link Clicks, Facebook will target those users that are most likely to click the link in your ad.

Frequency

The frequency cap allows you to set a maximum number of times a user can be shown your ad within a set period of time. This is available for campaigns with an Awareness objective.

Bid Strategy

There's three options to choose from:

Lowest cost

Aims to get you the lowest cost per Optimization Goal event, while spending within your set daily or lifetime budget.

Lowest cost with cap

In addition to the above, you can add a maximum amount to spend per Optimization Goal event.

Cost cap

Maximizes efficiency by getting you the most results while staying below your set maximum cost per Optimization Goal event.

Learn more about bid strategies in Facebook.

When You Get Charged

This determines when you pay for your ad. For many Optimization Goals, you'll pay each time your ad is served to a user (i.e. per Impression). Some optimization goals allow you choose other events, such as Link Clicks or 10-second Video Views.

Conversion Window

If you choose Offsite Conversions as the Optimization Goal, you can set the Conversion Window. This will tell Facebook if you expect users to complete the conversion cycle within a day, or if they rather tend to complete it within a week.

Targeting

Age and Gender

Set targeting parameters for a specific age range.

Geography

Set targeting parameters for specific geo-locations, such as countries, regions, and cities. For cities, you can choose a radius of 17-70 km or 10-80 mi.

Designated Market Area (DMA) can be also used for targeting by typing the name of the market into the text box. All available DMAs can be found in Facebook's documentation.

Custom Audience

If you have created custom audiences, you can include or exclude them from your targeting.

Languages

Define the languages that your audience uses on Facebook.

Detailed targeting

Further specify your target audience by their demographics, interests, and behavior.

Exclude from targeting

Exclude users with specific demographics, interests, and behavior.

Placements

Define the places where your ads to be visible. You can choose between Automatic placements and Manual placements. With Automatic placements, Facebook automatically chooses the best performing placements depending on your budget. With Manual placements you are the one in charge of where your ads to appear.

Devices

Choose if your ad should be displayed on desktop, mobile, or both.

Platforms

Choose if your ad should be displayed on Facebook, Instagram, the Audience Network, or Facebook Messenger.

Placements

Choose on which channels you would like to run your ads:

Feeds

Your ad appears to people scrolling through their desktop or mobile news feeds or message inboxes.

Facebook News Feed

Your ads appear in the News Feed when people access either the Facebook mobile app, the mobile website, or the desktop website.

Instagram Feed

Your ads appear in the Instagram feed when people use the mobile app. Instagram Feed ads do not appear to people browsing the Instagram website.

Facebook Marketplace

Your ads appear in the Marketplace home page or when someone browses Marketplace in the Facebook app.

Facebook Video Feeds

Your video ads appear between organic videos in video-only environments on Facebook Watch and Facebook News Feed.

Facebook Right Column

Your ads appear in the right columns on Facebook. Right column ads only appear to people browsing the Facebook desktop website.

Instagram Explore

Your ads appear in the browsing experience when someone taps on a photo or video.

Messenger Inbox

Your ads appear in the Chats tab of Messenger.

Instagram Shop

These ads will appear as tiles on the Instagram Shop tab home page.

Stories and Reels

Your fullscreen vertical ad appears in people's stories.

Facebook Stories

Your ads appear in stories on Facebook.

Instagram Stories

Your ads appear in stories on Instagram.

Instagram Reels

Your ads appear in the reels tab on Instagram.

Messenger Stories

Your ads appear in stories on Messenger.

Facebook Reels

Your ads appear in between reels on Facebook.

Facebook Overlay Ads in Reels

Your ads appear transparently over reels content on Facebook.

In-Stream

Your ads appear before, during, or after video content.

Facebook In-Stream Videos

Your ads appear in Video on Demand and in a select group of approved partner live streams on Facebook. 

Facebook Search Results

Your ads appear next to relevant Facebook and Marketplace search results.

Facebook Instant Articles

Your ads appear in Instant Articles within the Facebook mobile app.

Apps

Your ads appear in external apps.

Audience Network Native, Banner, and Interstitial

Your ads appear in apps that integrate with Audience Network.

Audience Network Rewarded Videos

Your ads appear as videos people can watch in exchange for a reward in an app (such as in-app currency or items).

Audience Network In-Stream Videos

Your ads will appear before and during videos on the Audience Network.

Mobile devices

Choose if your ad should be displayed on specific mobile device operating systems.

OS versions

You can specify the specific range of operating system versions that you want to target.

Connections

Choose if your ad should appear for all mobile users, or only for those connected to Wi-Fi.

Managing Ad Sets

The table below the Statistics graph lists all of your ad sets. Use the Actions button to the right of an ad set you are working with in order to:

Create ad

Easily create ads in the chosen ad set.

Duplicate

You can quickly create new ad set by duplicating an existing one and simply modifying its settings.

Play / Pause

Set the ad set live by selecting Play or stop it by selecting Pause.

Filter by this

Quickly jump into the ads in this ad set.

Open in Ads Manager

View the ad set natively on Facebook's Ad Manager.

Edit Ad Set

Change the options that define the Ad Set parameters. This is where you can edit and add labels for the ad set.

Delete

Remove the ad set and all assets under it.

Statistics

The Statistics section will give you an overview of the performance of your ad sets. You can apply various filters, search for labels, and change the date range in order to customize your view.