Quick answer: Open Meta Ads Manager, click Create, choose an objective, configure your ad set audience and placements, set your budget, upload creative, and publish. Each step builds on the last. Follow this guide and you'll have a live campaign in under 30 minutes.
---
What You'll Need Before Starting
Get these four things ready before you open Ads Manager. Missing any one of them stalls the process.
Meta Business Account and Ads Manager access
Go to business.facebook.com and create a Business Manager account if you don't have one. Then access Ads Manager inside Meta Business Suite. Both tools are free to use.
A Facebook Page or Instagram business profile
Your ad runs from a Page or business profile. Personal profiles don't qualify. Set one up first if you haven't already. It takes about five minutes.
Your ad creative (image, video, or both)
This is the most common bottleneck. You need at least one image or video that meets Meta's format requirements. More on creative specs in Step 5. Plan this ahead of time so it doesn't slow down your campaign launch.
Campaign budget
Decide upfront how much you want to spend. Daily budgets and lifetime budgets both work. The key detail: Meta recommends at least 7 days of run time for the system to optimize properly. Budget for that window.
---
Step 1: Open Meta Ads Manager and Choose Your Campaign Objective
Your campaign objective tells Meta what result to optimize for. Pick the right one and the algorithm works in your favor.
What is a campaign objective?
A campaign objective is the primary goal you want your ad to drive. Meta uses it to find the right people and serve your ad at the right moment. Pick the wrong objective and you'll optimize for an action you don't actually want.
Available objectives (sales, leads, awareness, traffic, etc.)
Per Meta's official get-started guide, the available objectives are:
- Sales — drive purchases or conversions on your site or app
- Leads — collect form fills, calls, or sign-ups
- Traffic — send people to a website, app, or Messenger conversation
- Awareness — reach people most likely to remember your brand
- Engagement — generate comments, shares, and reactions
- App installs — drive downloads of your mobile app
How to pick the right objective for your goal
Selling a product? Choose Sales. Building an email list? Choose Leads. Driving traffic to a blog post? Choose Traffic. Match the objective to the real action you want. Don't choose Awareness when you want clicks.
---
Step 2: Set Up Your Ad Set and Define Your Audience
The ad set sits inside your campaign. It controls who sees your ad and under what conditions.
What's an ad set?
One campaign can contain multiple ad sets. Each ad set has its own audience, placement settings, budget, and schedule. Think of each ad set as one targeting experiment running inside the same campaign.
Build your target audience (age, location, interests, behaviors)
Use age ranges, locations, interests, and behaviors to define who you want to reach. Be specific, but leave enough room for the algorithm to work. Overly narrow audiences limit delivery and drive up costs.
Recommended audience size (2-10 million)
Per Meta's advertising documentation, an audience of 2 to 10 million gives their system enough scale to optimize. Too narrow and delivery stalls. Too broad and relevance suffers. Aim for that range on most standard campaigns, especially when starting out.
---
Step 3: Choose Your Placements
Placements decide where across Meta's network your ad actually appears.
Placement options (Feed, Stories, Reels, Messenger, Audience Network)
Your ad can appear in Facebook Feed, Instagram Feed, Stories, Reels, Messenger, and the Audience Network. Each placement has different creative requirements. Vertical formats perform best in Stories and Reels. Horizontal or square works better in desktop Feed.
Advantage+ Placements explained
Meta Ads Manager documentation recommends Advantage+ Placements as the default option. This setting lets Meta automatically distribute your ad across all available placements. Their system finds where your ad performs best and allocates more delivery there. For most advertisers, it's the right starting point.
Why vertical formats matter
Stories and Reels are full-screen and vertical. A square or horizontal creative gets letterboxed in those placements. That wastes screen real estate and hurts attention. Build vertical assets at a 9:16 ratio if you want full-screen coverage in mobile placements.
---
Step 4: Set Your Budget and Schedule
Budget and schedule work together. Give the system enough time and spend to learn.
Daily vs. lifetime budget
A daily budget caps what Meta spends per day. A lifetime budget sets the total spend across the full campaign run. Lifetime budgets let Meta spend more on high-performing days and pull back on slow ones. Both approaches work. Daily budgets are easier to monitor closely.
Minimum 7-day recommendation for optimization
Meta's ad system goes through a learning phase after launch. The Meta Ads documentation recommends running campaigns for at least 7 days before making major changes or drawing conclusions. Pausing or editing during the learning phase resets the optimization clock.
Schedule your ad run dates
Set a start date and, if you have a hard deadline, an end date. Promotions tied to events or sales need an end date. Evergreen campaigns can run open-ended and be paused manually when needed.
---
Step 5: Pick Your Ad Format and Upload Creative
This is where most advertisers lose time. Choose the format that fits your assets and goal.
Ad format options (Single Image, Video, Slideshow, Carousel)
Meta supports several ad formats:
- Single Image — one image, fast to build, reliable for most goals
- Video — stronger for storytelling, product demos, and brand recall
- Slideshow — 3 to 10 images combined into a video-like ad. Per the Meta Business Help Center, slideshow ads work well on slower connections and older devices. They support text and sound.
- Carousel — multiple images or videos in a swipeable format, good for showing multiple products or features
Image dimensions and aspect ratios by placement
Requirements vary by placement. Feed ads commonly use 1:1 (square) or 4:5. Stories and Reels use 9:16 (vertical). Per Meta's Ads Guide, always confirm exact pixel specs per placement before uploading. Using the wrong dimensions causes cropping or rejection.
How to upload or generate your creative
In Ads Manager, navigate to the ad level and click Add Media. Upload your image or video file directly. If you're generating creative with an external tool, export the file first, then upload it into Ads Manager.
Best practices for image quality (eye-catching, vertical)
Per Meta's advertising documentation, ads should use eye-catching imagery that grabs attention in a fast-scrolling feed. For video, Meta recommends keeping clips under 15 seconds with an attention-grabbing first 3 seconds. Vertical formats consistently outperform horizontal in mobile placements.
---
Step 6: Review and Publish Your Ad
You're one step away. A quick final check avoids wasted spend on a flawed ad.
Preview your ad across placements
Ads Manager shows a preview of how your ad looks in each selected placement. Check every one. Confirm text isn't cut off. Make sure your image fills the frame. Look at it the way a real user scrolling their feed would.
Final checks before publishing
Review your headline, body copy, and destination URL. Confirm your budget and schedule match your plan. Check that your creative and copy comply with Meta's ad policies. Non-compliant ads get rejected during review, and that delays your launch.
What happens after you publish (ad auction)
After publishing, your ad enters Meta's ad auction. Meta matches it to people in your target audience based on your bid, estimated action rates, and ad relevance. You don't manage the auction directly. Monitor performance in Ads Manager after the first few days and adjust based on real data.
---
Faster Way: Use AI to Generate Your Ad Creative
The Ads Manager steps above are straightforward. The real time sink is creating the actual ad image before you even open Ads Manager.
Why creating ad images from scratch takes time
Good ad creative takes either design skills, a designer on payroll, or hours in editing software. Most small teams have none of those on demand. That delay kills momentum.
How Coinis Image Ads speeds up the process
Coinis Image Ads generates professional ad images from a product URL. Paste your URL and set up your Brand Profile. The Brand Profile stores your colors, voice, and style once. Every creative generated after that reflects your brand automatically. No design skills required. Your images are ready in minutes, not hours.
Generate multiple variations for A/B testing
One product URL produces multiple creative variations. Test different visuals, headlines, and hooks against each other inside Meta Ads Manager. Keep what works. Cut what doesn't. More variations mean more data and faster optimization.
---
Or let Coinis do it.
From a product URL to a live Meta campaign. AI-generated creatives. On-brand copy. Direct publish to Facebook and Instagram. Real performance reporting. All in one platform.
Start free. Upgrade when you're ready.
15 AI tokens a month. No credit card.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to create a Facebook ad?
Creating a Facebook ad in Meta Ads Manager is free. You only pay when your ad runs. There is no minimum spend requirement to get started, but Meta recommends running campaigns for at least 7 days to allow the system time to optimize.
How long does Facebook ad review take?
Most ads are reviewed within 24 hours. Some reviews take longer depending on the content. You'll receive a notification in Ads Manager and by email once your ad is approved or if it's rejected for policy reasons.
Can I create a Facebook ad without a website?
Yes. You can run ads that drive people to your Facebook Page, a Messenger conversation, a WhatsApp chat, or a lead form hosted directly on Meta. A website is helpful but not required for every campaign objective.
What's the best ad format for a beginner?
Single Image ads are the easiest starting point. They require one image, a headline, and body copy. Once you're comfortable with the setup process, test Video or Carousel formats to see what resonates with your audience.