Create a Facebook or Instagram ad campaign

Facebook ad campaigns get your brand in front of people you might not reach through other channels. Meta gives you powerful targeting options so you can create campaigns that are designed for your ideal customers and get better results. Meta can also decide where to place your ads for the best return on investment (ROI).

Create your campaign, define your target audience, set a budget, choose how long you want it to run, build your ad creative, and publish the campaign to Facebook, all in Hootsuite. Use OwlyWriter AI to enhance your ad copy and create multiple variations of your ad so you can see what resonates most with your audience.

Tip: You can select Save as draft at any step of the campaign creation process and return to it later. All of your draft ad campaigns are available in Ads for 90 days.

Before you begin

Before you can create a Facebook ad campaign in Hootsuite, make sure that the ad account associated with the Facebook Page you’re using for your ads is connected to Hootsuite. See Manage ad accounts and advertising permissions for more information.

Facebook and Instagram ad campaign creation workflow

When you create a Facebook ad campaign in Hootsuite, you complete a series of tasks in the campaign workflow to put all of your ad campaign elements in place.

The following sections describe the steps you need to complete for each part of the campaign creation workflow. Complete the tasks in the order they appear.

Step 1: Set up your ad campaign

Step 2: Choose your target audience and set your budget

When you set up the target audience for your ad campaign, you have a few options to choose from: you can build your own audience, based on specific characteristics like location, age, and interests; or you can use a saved audience or custom audience, imported from Facebook. For more information on Facebook saved and custom audiences see the following:

• How to Use a Saved Audience
• About Custom Audiences

1. Choose your audience from one of the following options:
   • Build your own audience - If you want to build your own audience, select Edit and specify which attributes to target, like location, gender, age, and interests.
     
     Tip: Refine your audience by demographics, interests, or behaviors. Enter a keyword in the detailed targeting box, and select one or more options from the list of suggested categories.
     
   • Use saved audience - Select a saved audience you already created on Facebook.
   • Use custom or lookalike audiences - Select custom or lookalike audiences you already created on Facebook to reach people who have already engaged with your brand or to reach new people who are similar to the audiences you've already targeted.
     Note: You create custom and saved audiences in Meta Business Manager. Hootsuite retrieves the audiences associated with the ad account you’re using to boost your posts.
2. Select Yes, my ads target audiences in the EU, if your ad targets audiences worldwide or in EU countries or associated territories (this is a requirement of the EU Digital Services Act).
3. Meta will automatically choose ad placements for you based on your objectives. If you'd like to choose your own placements, check I want to manually choose the placements. Learn more about Meta's placements.
   
   Note: When you choose an Instagram placement for your ad, Hootsuite tries to find the Instagram account associated with the Facebook Page you’re using for your campaign. If no Instagram account is found, Hootsuite uses the Facebook Page as a Page-backed Instagram account to place the ad. Learn more about Instagram account requirements.
4. Set your budget and the length of your promotion. You can set a daily or total budget for your ad campaign. Meta allocates your ad spend until the campaign ends or the budget runs out. If you select the Total option, Meta requires a minimum spend of roughly 1 USD or EUR per day, but the amount varies depending on the ad account currency.
5. Select Next: Create ad.

Step 3: Build your ad

The creative elements you need for your ad depend on your campaign objective. Keep the following restrictions in mind when adding an image or video to your ad:

• Facebook: images must be larger than 262px by 262px.
• Instagram: images must have an aspect ratio between 0.565 and 7.8, and be at least 500 px by 500 px. Videos must be larger than 500px by 262px and have an aspect ratio between 4:5 and 16:9; must be 120 seconds or shorter.

As you build your ad, Hootsuite displays a preview of what your ad will look like on mobile, desktop, and Instagram.

Tip: Create multiple ads for your campaign so you can test different headlines and creative elements. Facebook optimizes delivery for the ads that perform best with your audience. You can include up to 50 ads in your campaign.

1. Enter a description to tell people what you’re promoting (up to 2200 characters).
2. (Optional) Let AI help you refine your ad - Select Enhance with Wisdom, and then select one of the following options to enhance your ad copy:
   • Fix spelling/grammar
   • Optimize length
   • Adjust tone
   • Inspire engagement
3. Add an image or video. Drag a media file into the box, add a media library asset, or upload a file from your computer. You can also use Canva to design an image for your ad.
4. Enter a headline to get your audience’s attention.
5. Enter the URL for a website or landing page (required when the campaign objective is traffic).
   If you're creating a campaign to generate leads and using an instant form, you must select an instant form from the list. If you want to create a new form, select Create a new form in Facebook.
6. For Messages campaigns, enter a welcome message to trigger a conversation in Facebook Messenger or Instagram DM when someone engages with your ad.
7. Select a call to action. This is your button text.
8. For leads campaigns, if you're conversion location is an instant form, you must select an instant form from the list. If you want to create a new form, select Create a new form in Facebook and create the form in Meta Ads Manager.
9. (Optional) Create more ads for your campaign so you can see which one performs best. You have several options for creating additional ads:
   
   • Select Create variations with AI to get OwlyWriter AI to generate three different versions of your existing ad. You can make any changes you want to each variation.
   • Select Copy details to new ad to use your existing ad as a baseline, and then make any necessary changes.
   • Select Create an ad to build a new ad from scratch.

Step 4: Publish your ad campaign

Once you've built your ads and checked the ad preview for all platforms to make sure you're happy with how they look, you're ready to publish your ad campaign.

1. Select Summary to review your campaign details. You can return to previous screens to make any changes you need to.
   
2. Select Publish campaign.
   

Hootsuite sends the campaign to Facebook for approval. Facebook typically approves the campaign within 24 hours.

Once your campaign is published, you can view your ads in your content calendar, and manage your campaign in Ads .

Note: The multi-advertiser ads option is disabled by default in Hootsuite Social Advertising. If you want to enable this feature for your ad campaign, you need to change the setting in the Meta Ads Manager. For more information, see Meta’s About multi-advertiser ads article.