My Facebook Ad Frustrations

1. Campaign
2. Ad Set
3. Ad

In the past you were able to define an Advertising Campaign’s targeting, placement and bid settings by the Ad Level. In addition, you were able to set the budget by the Ad Set Level.

Here’s the major change: Moving forward, the targeting, placement, budget, and bid settings can only be determined at the Ad Set level.

According to Facebook, the update is meant to help advertisers make better optimization decisions:

“Facebook’s campaign structure is organized into three levels: campaign, ad set and ad. We’re updating the campaign structure so that the audiences, bidding and placement for any campaign are now determined at the ad set level (these settings were previously housed at the ad level). This is a subtle but important change that helps businesses follow best practices for advertising on Facebook. Moving audiences, bidding and placement to the ad set level helps advertisers keep these settings consistent across all of the ads within an ad set. This makes it easier to test different ad creative (links, imagery, copy, video, etc.) against the same budget, audience and placement. That way advertisers can see which ad creative works best for each ad set they create, and make more informed decisions about the specific ads they use in their campaigns.”

(Image via Facebook)

I would like to begin my rant with the fact that I do agree with Facebook. In previous campaigns, I would give each target audience its own Ad Set, however, the targeting was determined within the Ad level. I found this approach easier to make optimizations and shift budgets towards the best performing audiences. This approach dramatically improved my conversion rates and cost per acquisition. I even used this approach before the days of Power Editor. (Back then I would place each target audience within its own Campaign.)

Unfortunately, some advertisers may feel as if the new Ad Campaign structure limits their options. While I have no doubt the update was made with good intentions, for some, it may result in more time spent on set up and management.

Think of this potential scenario: You are a local restaurant chain looking to increase awareness and reservations. Lets say you have five different locations in five different towns and social media advertising is just one of many things on your to-do list. With the former Ad Campaign structure, each Ad could have been individually geo-targeted towards each individual restaurant’s location. Since the Ad Set had mixed-targeting, Facebook would have then automatically optimized towards the best performing Ad/location with the most clicks. With this data, you could have easily determined which one of your restaurants is most popular on social media. Therefore, you could have shifted budgets and made optimizations accordingly.

Under the new Ad Campaign structure, Facebook forces you to set everything within the Ad Set level. As a result, Facebook won’t be able to automatically optimize towards the best performing audience, leaving it up to the advertiser to devote more time to ad management.

In the end, do the pros of Facbeook’s latest changes outweigh the cons? It’s really a case by case basis and ultimately depends on your campaign goals. This new structure may be extremely beneficial for some, but could be equally frustrating and time consuming for others.