1. Facebook Campaigns vs. Ads

Welcome to the first lesson of Section 2: Creating a Campaign and Ad! Before we actually start creating these things, it’s important to understand the difference between a campaign and an ad.

Ready? Let’s go!

What You Are Going to Learn Today

Today’s lesson is Facebook Campaigns vs. Ads. We’re going to focus on the following:

  • What is a Campaign?
  • What is an Ad?
  • How Budgets Work
  • Number of Ads Within a Campaign

The Lesson

The problem is that the words “campaign” and “ad” are often used interchangeably. They are not the same thing. So let’s break it down…

What is a Campaign?

A campaign is the structure that holds everything together. This is where you determine things like budget and start/end dates.

You do not worry about things like targeting, placement or bidding when creating a campaign. Those things come later.

A campaign is made up of at least one ad.

What is an Ad?

An ad is where all of the magic happens.

An ad is where you determine the following:

  • How you advertise (Sponsored Story, Promoted Post, Promote a Website, etc.)
  • Where you advertise (News Feed, Sidebar, Mobile, etc.)
  • Whom you advertise to (Fans, non-Fans, friends of Fans; based on gender, location, age, etc.)
  • Bidding (how much you’re willing to pay per click, impression or action)

When these ads run is determined by the framework of your Campaign. So if you create a campaign that runs from August 1-6, all of the ads within it will have a start date of August 1 and end date of August 6.

How Budgets Work

The budget is controlled by the campaign.

When you create a campaign, you may set up a $10 lifetime or daily budget. You could then set up five different ads within it that have various bidding models.

Facebook will run those ads, but only until you reach that $10 daily or lifetime budget set by your campaign.

Number of Ads Within a Campaign

You need to have at least one ad within a campaign. We’ll get to split testing later, but it often helps to have multiple ads within the same campaign.

Keep in mind, though, that if you have multiple ads within the same campaign they should all be very closely related. For example, you can create five different Page Like Sponsored Stories within the same campaign. But each ad would have a slight variation (placement, targeting, bidding, etc.).

If you are going to create different ad types or ads that have varying purposes, you should place those ads within different campaigns.

Depending on how detailed you want to get in your split testing, you could end up with dozens of ads within the same campaign. That said, unless you have a large advertising budget Facebook will ultimately only run a small number of those ads (those Facebook believes are most successful).

Additionally, you can limit the number of ads for split testing purposes (especially for placement and basic targeting) thanks to the new Facebook ad reports. More on that in a later section!

Recap

What did you learn today?

1. The difference between a campaign and an ad

2. How budgets and start/end dates are controlled within a campaign

3. The role of ads and split testing

Your Assignment

Action Items:

  1. Review the differences between campaigns and ads
  2. Start mapping out a campaign with four ads that you’d like to test out later

Related Reading

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