Facebook Ads FAQ

The standard review time for ads can take up to 24 hours.

For ads that have been in review for longer than 24 hours, we have an article outlining options on what to do here.

• Facebook has an article for troubleshooting a disabled ad account here.
• This article from Social Media Examiner may provide a useful reference for options.

We are not able to provide legal advice on this topic. GDPR has different potential implications for different organizations, depending on the way the organization may be utilizing data for advertising measurement and optimization.

Facebook has a dedicated GDPR microsite available here.

Facebook previously had an official policy that ads with more than 20% text in the image could not run on the platform.

While this “no more than 20% text policy” is no longer in place, Facebook generally recommends avoiding high levels of text.

Recommended specs/dimensions are available in Facebook’s Help Center here.

Ad policy information is available in Facebook’s Help Center here.

There are several options for managing frequency. This article on our site covers this topic in greater detail.

• Details on ad set scheduling are available from Facebook here.
• Context on how this works is available from Facebook here.

Unpublished/dark posts are created when you create an ad in Ads Manager without using an existing post from your page. This article on our site covers how to publish unpublished posts to a Facebook page.

Sure. Try out our Facebook Ads Quiz available here.

Direct one-on-one sessions are available from our team. More information is available here.

We have a program available for more advanced advertisers, which grants access to a community of other advertisers, regular updates on changes to Facebook/Instagram advertising, as well as access to more in-depth webinars (depending on the program level).

This program is called the Power Hitters Club. More information is available here.

If you’re just getting started, Facebook makes things easy for beginners with the Boost button. This is the easiest way to create a simple campaign, ad set, and ad without the intimidating interface of Ads Manager. But this should only be your initial exposure to advertising.

Jon also assembled a collection of links to get you started with some of the core foundations of Meta advertising. You can find that here.

Meta Blueprint is a free group of training modules covering a variety of topics related to Facebook and Instagram ads. The modules can be accessed here.

Most of Jon’s content is catered to intermediate and advanced advertisers.

The Blueprint Certification is a paid testing process that provides an official certification for different topics related to Facebook and Instagram ads. There are different certification levels and focal areas available.

More information on the program is available here.

An account spending limit is a lifetime limit on the amount your ad account can spend on all of the campaigns you run. This allows you better control over your costs. You can track how you’re progressing toward your Ad Account Spending Limit in your payment settings. All of your ads will pause once you hit this limit and Meta will send you a notification to let you know.

Learn how to change your Ad Account Spending Limit here.

Meta has a glossary of ad terms available here.

We also have a glossary of terms available on our own site here.

Performance in the ad auction on Meta-owned properties takes into account a variety of factors, including the Bid, Estimated Action Rate, and Relevance of the ad (building an acronym commonly referred to as BEAR).

A more detailed explanation is available here.

The Learning Phase describes a period when Meta’s systems are gathering sufficient data for effective ad optimization across targeting, timing, creative, and placement options. One of the most common topics involving the learning phase relates to making edits that reset learning.

• An overview of the learning phase with best practices is available here, with a one-sheeter guide available here.
• An article on our site related to the learning phase in general is available here.
• An article related to edits during the learning phase is available here.

Yes. Facebook requires that users have a personal Facebook page to access Ads Manager to create ads.

Ads Manager is a tool where advertisers can create ads, analyze ad performance, and create ad reports. Ads Manager can be used independently of Business Manager, but advertisers who have set up Business Manager normally access Ads Manager via their Business Manager interface.

A general reference resource for Ads Manager is available here.

Business Manager is a group of tools that enables advertisers to access a large variety of advertising options and capabilities, as well as share access to different advertising assets.

A general overview of Business Manager is available here. A downloadable PDF guide is available here, along with a getting started guide here.

Facebook has made “success stories” available here, filterable by different areas, such as Business Size, Objective, Industry, Ad Product, and Region.

• Basic best practice tips are available here.
• Creative best practice tips specific to Stories ads are available here.

There are many potential strategies for scaling. The common approach is increasing the budget on a currently running ad set. The potential danger in this approach is that it is likely to restart the learning phase, which may negatively impact results.

Another approach is to duplicate the ad set and increase the budget of the new ad set while keeping the original ad set running temporarily. This could lead to audience fragmentation or auction overlap.

A more strategic approach that Jon recommends is something he calls “Slow Burn.” This way, you are thinking about increasing the budget from the moment you launch the ad set, but that increase will happen slowly and automatically based on performance.

Read more about Slow Burn here:

Slow Burn: A Strategy for Scaling Facebook Ads

There is no single frequency appropriate for all situations, as it depends on a variety of factors.

• This article on our site covers this topic in greater detail.
• This article provides suggestions on how to manage it.

This article on our site covering how Jon’s evergreen campaign works provides a great overview of the possibilities for evergreen campaigns.

Setting the appropriate budget is highly subjective, as it depends on your advertising goals and the reality of your organization. However, this guide on our site might be a useful reference.

Dynamic creative enables an advertiser to upload multiple components of ads and allow Facebook’s systems to create various combinations and test them out accordingly.

• General information on dynamic creative is available here.
• Best practices for dynamic creative ads are available here.

Dynamic ads – also referred to as Meta Advantage+ catalog ads – feature product recommendations from an advertiser’s product catalog, adjusting what products are shown based on signals of user interest, intent, and action.

• General information on dynamic ads is available here.
• A Blueprint training class on Dynamic Ads is available here.

Split testing, also referred to as A/B Testing, involves creating two separate ad scenarios where a variable is changed between the two scenarios, allowing an advertiser to determine how the variable affects advertising outcomes.

• General information from Facebook on split testing is available here.
• Details on how to create an A/B test are available here.
• Best practices for A/B testing are available here.

You should expect that the following audiences will shrink as a result of iOS 14:

• Website custom audiences
• App activity custom audiences

If you target or exclude those who visit your website or those who engage with your app (if you have one), you should expect these audiences to be incomplete going forward.

The following audiences will remain unaffected:

• Facebook page engagement audiences
• Video view audiences
• Lead form audiences
• Customer list (email, phone number, address) custom audiences
• Offline activity audiences
• Instant Experience audiences
• Instagram account engagement audiences
• Facebook event (non-pixel) audiences
• Lookalike custom audiences
• Interests, demographics, behaviors

Why?

When users are shown the privacy prompt when they open the Facebook family of apps, they will determine whether they want to be tracked from that app to other apps and websites. If they choose not to be tracked, they will no longer be included in audiences based on the Facebook pixel or app ID going forward.

This has been the rumor, but it does not appear so. Conversions API is a great tool that you should investigate to help complement the pixel. But a recent statement from a Facebook engineer and a quote from Facebook documentation at least implies if not state strongly that it will not replace data lost from iOS 14.

Mobile app advertisers promoting iOS apps will lose access to demographic breakdowns and Lift Measurement. Additionally, new restrictions will go into place for iOS app advertising. Each iOS app will be limited to a single ad account, five active campaigns, and nine active ad sets using the same optimization.

SKADNetwork API is Apple’s protocol for handling mobile app conversion attribution. This will be used when running iOS mobile app install and activity ads. Aggregated Event Measurement applies to web conversions only.

No. Domain Verification is allows you to claim ownership of the links you share. Business Verification is related to your Business Manager. However, it would be a good idea to do both!

Read More:

• Facebook Domain Verification: Link Ownership Control
• How to Set Up Business Verification in Facebook Business Manager

There are a couple of ways to do it (you may still have three, but Meta-tag verification is being phased out). They are a bit technical but rather straight-forward.

Read More: Facebook Domain Verification: Link Ownership Control

Optimization, particularly for conversions, will be impacted quite a bit. Since Facebook is receiving less data and will be reporting fewer conversions, there is less volume to optimize for. Facebook needs 25-50 conversions per week per ad set to exit the learning phase, and that will become increasingly difficult.

Read More:

• Facebook Ads and the Impact of iOS 14
• ERROR: “This event hasn’t been set up on any of your domains”

All indications are that this shouldn’t impact interest targeting. Attribution, which is only related to ad reporting, also shouldn’t apply to website custom audiences. If a user opts not to be tracked, however, they should be expected to be removed from audiences.

Read More: Facebook Advertising Audiences and iOS 14

Once the prompt goes live, you will lose access to the old attribution windows. Until then, you can run reports on historical data for attribution windows including 28-day click and compare those numbers to 7-day click. You should export this data to have access to it later.

Read More: Facebook Ads Attribution and iOS 14

Facebook is making structural changes that will impact everyone. These changes apply to all web advertising, regardless of device used.

Read More:

• Facebook Ads and the Impact of iOS 14

The iOS 14 prompt will have a direct and indirect impact on ads. In short, it will impact optimization, conversion reporting, targeting, and some of your advertising tools. Facebook expects ads to be less effective as a result.

Read More:

• Facebook Advertising Audiences and iOS 14
• Facebook Ads Attribution and iOS 14
• Facebook Ads and the Impact of iOS 14

Beginning in early spring of 2021, Apple is enforcing an AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) Framework prompt that asks the users of iOS apps that track IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) whether they want to allow tracking. This impacts reporting, optimization, and targeting of Facebook ads.

Read More: Facebook Ads and the Impact of iOS 14

Jon wrote an article outlining the process of sharing a Facebook pixel or advertising audience here.

The pixel is an implementation of Meta-provided code on your website which enables tracking, optimization, and attribution within ads on Facebook-owned properties.

The Meta pixel is a common theme across many of the resources on our site. You can check out our pixel-related articles here.

We have articles on our site dedicated to different methods of reach calculations:

• Page Reach: Page-Level Reporting
• Post Reach: Post-Level Reporting
• Paid Reach: Why Your Reporting May Miss the Complete Picture

Jon wrote an article outlining the differences between different click metrics here.

You can use Ads Manager to analyze and compare audience sizes between these platforms, though it requires a bit of a manual approach. We have an article outlining how to do this here.

You can apply Breakdowns in Ads Manager to do this. More info from Facebook is available here.

Meta has an explanation of how attribution works on their platforms here. Jon also wrote an article about conversion attribution that you can read here.

It’s important to note that due to differences in attribution models and methods, Facebook’s reporting may not match other channels, such as Google Analytics. This article on Social Media Today explains more details on why

Ads Manager only reports conversions that are attributed to ads.

Generally speaking, there aren’t standard, publicly available benchmarks available for Facebook advertising. However, some publications track benchmarks for accounts they have access to, such as this resource from Wordstream.

Even with benchmarks such as these available, it’s important to consider the underlying context of any specific metric you may be evaluating. Given these challenges, it’s normally best to work on improving your own metrics as much as possible and to focus on those which are most reflective of your own success.

We have an article on ways to do this here.

We have an article on how to do this here.

The Audience Insights tool can be a great resource to analyze different potential audience groups in more detail. Meta has general information on this tool here.

Lookalike audiences update automatically every 3 to 7 days, as long as you’re still actively targeting ads to the audience.

Website custom audiences update automatically as people who fall within the specified rules navigate to your page.

Other custom audiences may require manual updates of the underlying source audience or may utilize third party update tools for more automated updates (such as Zapier).

A lookalike audience enables Facebook to find people on Facebook-owned properties (e.g. Facebook and Instagram) who are similar to a certain group. This group is referred to as a source audience and may be based on people who visit your website, for example.

• Facebook has general information on lookalike audiences here.
• You can check out our articles related to lookalike audiences here.

A custom audience enables an advertiser to define a source audience for targeting, such as website visitors or a list of users signed up to an email database.

• Facebook has general information on custom audiences here.
• You can check out our articles related to custom audiences here.