Ad Brief Example: Simplified Campaign Construction

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Jon’s current approach based on recent content.

What Is Simplified Campaign Construction?

Simplified campaign construction is the philosophy of minimizing the number of campaigns, ad sets, and setting customizations in your Meta ad account. In a perfect scenario, this means one campaign with one ad set, optimizing for a conversion event like purchases or leads. The goal is to consolidate budget and reduce unnecessary moving parts.

Why It Matters

Every additional campaign or ad set fragments your budget, reducing the volume any single ad set receives. This creates a cascade of problems: difficulty exiting the learning phase, auction overlap where you compete against yourself, and audience segmentation that prevents Meta from optimizing freely. Consolidation gives your budget the best chance to produce meaningful, predictable results.

Common Mistakes

Jon identifies several ways advertisers overcomplicate things unnecessarily. Creating separate ad sets for different targeting segments — interests, lookalikes, remarketing — is outdated. These inputs are treated as suggestions when optimizing for conversions, so separating them likely reaches the same people anyway. (For more details, see Ad Brief: Detailed Targeting and Lookalike Audiences and Ad Brief: Remarketing.)

Creating separate campaigns or ad sets for creative testing is another common trap. Jon considers this counterproductive, especially for modest budgets. Success in an isolated test doesn’t guarantee success in your main ad set. He strongly recommends using Meta’s creative testing tool within the main ad set instead. (See Ad Brief: Creative Testing.)

Restricting placements, narrowing age/gender, or using manual bidding without a clear, data-driven reason also adds complexity that typically hurts performance. (See Ad Brief: Age and Gender Restrictions.)

Jon’s Approach

Jon recommends starting with the fewest campaigns, ad sets, and customizations possible. Optimize for the conversion you actually want — ideally purchases, otherwise leads. Avoid customizing Meta’s default settings unless you have a proven reason to do so.

When results aren’t working, Jon advises focusing on what’s actually in your control: the ads, the landing page, the offer, and the post-conversion process. No campaign construction strategy will fix weak creative or a bad offer. A simplified structure makes it far easier to isolate what’s working and what isn’t.

When Exceptions Are Warranted

Jon acknowledges that simplicity isn’t always possible. Legitimate reasons to add campaigns or ad sets include having multiple distinct business goals (e.g., leads and sales), needing dedicated budget for separate products or locations, or addressing a proven problem like Meta over-spending on remarketing. Even seasonal businesses may benefit from separate ad sets within a CBO campaign.

However, even in these cases, Jon stresses that you must have sufficient budget to sustain each campaign or ad set effectively. If not, you’re just making results worse. Every addition should be challenged: What problem does it solve? Is there a simpler way? (See Ad Brief: Advertising Philosophies.)

Key Takeaways

  • Default to one campaign, one ad set, optimizing for your most important conversion event — add complexity only when there’s a proven need.
  • Every extra campaign or ad set waters down budget, risks auction overlap, and fragments audience optimization.
  • Separate ad sets for targeting segments (interests, lookalikes, remarketing) are outdated — algorithmic targeting handles this automatically.
  • Use Meta’s creative testing tool within your main ad set instead of creating isolated testing campaigns.
  • When results are poor, focus on ads, offers, and landing pages — not campaign construction strategies.
  • Exceptions exist (multiple goals, locations, seasonal products), but always challenge whether the added complexity is truly justified and sufficiently funded.

Sources

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General Targeting Approach
Age and Gender Restrictions
Detailed Targeting and Lookalikes
Audience Segments
Placements
Value Rules
Attribution Optimization
Conversion Reporting
Conversion Tracking
Breakdowns
Breakdown Effect
Ad Creation
Meta Andromeda
Creative Testing
Lead Generation
Advertising Philosophies
Budget Management
Ads Manager Updates
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