Your First Facebook and Instagram Campaign: Meta Ads Step by Step

The “Boost post” button is the most expensive way to learn Meta advertising. I show how to set up your first campaign in Ads Manager – from objective and audience to creative and tracking.

Most small businesses start advertising on Facebook by clicking “Boost” under a post. It's easy, but you have very little control over who sees the ad and what gets measured. You'll get better results with Meta Ads Manager.

Before you start

• A Meta Business account (Business Manager) with your Facebook page and Instagram account connected.
• Meta Pixel on your website, ideally with the Conversions API too, plus cookie consent. Without tracking, the algorithm doesn't know who to look for. More in Conversion tracking with GA4 and Meta Pixel.
• A page to send people to – fast, with a clear offer and a form.

Step 1: Campaign objective

Meta offers several objectives. For a small business, the most important are:

• Leads – enquiries through a form on your website or directly on Facebook.
• Sales – for online stores that track purchases.
• Traffic – only if you have no conversion tracking; the algorithm then looks for people who click, not people who buy.

Step 2: Budget

To start, €10–20 a day per campaign is enough. Let it run for at least 7 days without major changes – the algorithm needs to learn. Frequent changes send it back to the start.

Step 3: Audience

• Location: only the area you actually serve.
• Age and gender: restrict them only when it really makes sense.
• Interests: with good tracking, a broad audience with Advantage+ often works better today – the algorithm finds customers itself.
• Remarketing: a separate campaign for people who visited your website or engaged with your posts.

Step 4: Creative

The creative – an image or video with text – is now the most important part of a campaign, because the algorithm uses it to find people.

• prepare 3–5 different variants (photo, short video, carousel)
• name the customer's problem in the first sentence, not your company name
• show real people, results, examples of your work
• vertical video (9:16) for Reels and Stories
• a clear call to action: “Book an appointment”, “Get a quote”

Step 5: Tracking and evaluation

After a week, look at the cost per result (enquiry, purchase), not likes and reach. Switch off creative variants that don't work and add new ones. Watch frequency – if the same person sees the ad more than 3–4 times a week, it's time for new creative.

The most common mistakes

• the “Engagement” or “Traffic” objective instead of leads
• too narrow an audience and too many ad sets for a small budget
• one creative for months on end
• switching a campaign off after two days while it's still learning

Whether Meta or Google pays off better for you is covered in Meta Ads or Google Ads?

Want me to set up your first campaign or check your existing one? Get in touch through a free audit.