Your first Meta ads campaign, step by step.

What you need before you start

Set these up once. The ad account choices are the hard ones to undo.

• A Facebook Page for your brand. Every ad runs from a Page, including ads shown on Instagram.
• An Instagram professional account (recommended). Meta says your Facebook Page can run your Instagram ads without one, but connecting yours puts your Instagram name on them.
• A business portfolio, what used to be called Business Manager: one home for your Page, Instagram account, ad account and pixel. At business.facebook.com, open the drop-down below Home and choose Create a business portfolio, using your public business name (Meta's steps).
• An ad account in the portfolio. You pick its currency and time zone when you create it. Changing either later creates a new ad account and closes the old one, at most once every 60 days and only with nothing owing. Use your card's currency and your store's time zone.
• A payment method. With a card or PayPal, Meta usually sets up automatic billing: you're charged when spending reaches your payment threshold, and on your monthly bill date.
• Two-factor authentication or a passkey for everyone with access. Meta's security checklist also suggests two trusted people with full control of the portfolio, so you're never locked out.

Tracking sales: the Meta pixel and Conversions API

A sales campaign can only find buyers if Meta knows when a sale happens. Use both of these:

• The Meta pixel reports views, add-to-carts and purchases from the shopper's browser. Ad blockers can stop it.
• The Conversions API sends the same events from your store's server, out of ad blockers' reach. Meta removes the duplicates.

On Shopify

1. Install Meta's free Facebook & Instagram app and follow its setup to connect your Meta accounts.
2. Go to Sales channels > Facebook & Instagram > Settings > Data sharing settings and turn on customer data sharing.
3. Choose a level. Standard uses the pixel only. Enhanced and Maximum add the Conversions API and share customer details such as name, email and phone so Meta can match buyers (Shopify's guide). Mention it in your privacy policy.
4. Connect your pixel, or create one there.

Remove any pixel code pasted into your theme (usually theme.liquid), or sales may count twice.

On WooCommerce and other platforms

In Events Manager, open Data sources, select your pixel, go to Settings and find Choose a partner. WooCommerce uses Meta's official Meta for WooCommerce plugin; BigCommerce, Ecwid and others use Meta's partner integrations, which set up the pixel and Conversions API without code. Optionally, verify your domain in your portfolio too; it's free and stops others editing your link previews.

Check that purchases arrive

1. In Events Manager, go to Data sources, select your pixel or dataset and open Test events.
2. Enter your store's address and click Open website. Keep the Test events page open while you shop.
3. Add a product to the cart and place a real low-value order, then refund it.
4. Look for ViewContent, AddToCart, InitiateCheckout and Purchase. Reports can take 30 minutes or more to catch up (test events guide).

Don't launch until Purchase shows up.

Setting up your first sales campaign

Meta now builds sales campaigns in its Advantage+ campaign experience, where automation decides who sees your ads, where, and how the budget is spent. Advantage+ shopping campaigns are now Advantage+ sales campaigns, inside the normal Sales objective. For a first campaign, that's the sensible default.

1. Create. In Ads Manager, click + Create, choose Sales, then Continue. Advantage+ shows On at the top right; narrow the budget, audience or placements too far and it switches off (Meta's guide).
2. Name it clearly (for example Sales - Product - Hook test); it goes into your tracking links.
3. Budget. Keep Campaign budget (Advantage+ campaign budget) with one ad set and a daily amount.
4. Conversion. In the ad set, choose the conversion location Website, your pixel or dataset, the performance goal Maximise number of conversions and the event Purchase.
5. Audience. Leave Advantage+ audience on and set the audience controls that must hold: Locations (countries you ship to) and Minimum age if your product needs one. Meta stays inside your locations unless you tick Reach more people likely to respond to your ads. Age, gender and interests are only suggestions.
6. Placements. Leave Advantage+ placements on so ads can run across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads and Audience Network. Your two video shapes cover feeds, Stories and Reels.
7. Ads. Add one ad per hook, check the previews and publish. Every ad is reviewed before it runs.

How much to spend while Meta learns

Every new ad set starts in the learning phase while Meta works out who buys, and the Delivery column shows Learning. According to Meta, it usually ends after about 50 results in the week after the last significant edit. If that can't happen, the status becomes Learning limited.

Meta's performance goal guidance also suggests a daily budget of at least ten times the average cost of your goal. For purchases that adds up fast: at US$30 a sale, 50 sales a week is about US$1,500.

Most new stores start well below that. Learning limited isn't an error; Meta just has less data, so costs swing more. Instead:

1. Find your target cost per sale: average order value minus product cost, shipping, payment fees and discounts. That's the most you can pay for a sale and break even.
2. Give each hook room to spend two to three times that figure before you judge it.
3. Spread it over 7 to 14 days. Three hooks at a US$30 target need about US$180 to US$270 in week one, roughly US$25 to US$40 a day (or the same in your currency).

Spend only what you can leave running untouched. Results depend on your product, offer, price and store, so treat the first two weeks as a test.

Uploading your videos: one ad per hook

Your Savitar pack has each ad in three versions with different hooks (the first three seconds), each as a 4:5 file for feeds and a 9:16 file for Stories and Reels.

• One ad per hook, in the same ad set, with the same copy, link and button, so results show which opening works.
• Don't load everything at once. With many ads, Meta learns less about each. Start with one or two concepts (three to six ads) and keep the rest for later.
• Name each ad after its hook, such as Concept 1 - Hook A.

Put both shapes in one ad

Choose Create ad, a single video, and add your media. In the newer version of this step you can upload up to ten files per ad and review each shape: add both files and check the 9:16 one runs in Stories and Reels. In the original placement customisation flow, add the 4:5 file, then use Replace on the Stories and Reels group for the 9:16 file. For shapes you don't supply, Meta may pad, crop or expand your video, sometimes with AI, so check every preview.

Check the automatic enhancements

Some Advantage+ creative enhancements are on by default. They can add music or overlays, touch up video and rewrite text, several with generative AI. While testing, turn off any that change the video or copy.

Copy, button and link

• Paste the primary text, headline and description from your pack. Fill all three, or Meta may pull text from your website.
• Choose Shop now and link to the product page, not your home page.
• Under Tracking, add Meta's dynamic URL parameters: utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{ad.name}}. Your analytics then shows which hook brought each visit. Values are fixed when you first publish.

AI labels: what Meta does and what you can switch on

Every person and scene in your videos is AI-generated. Here's what Meta's AI info article says:

• Some ads are labelled automatically. Meta adds an AI info label when its own generative tools create or significantly edit an image or video, or when industry-standard metadata such as C2PA shows a third-party AI tool was used.
• You're told before you publish. Ads Manager shows a message when a label will appear. Viewers find it under About this ad in the three-dot menu, or beside the Ad label (Meta's new name for Sponsored).
• Self-disclosure exists only in some regions. Where local rules require AI transparency, Meta may let you declare that generative AI was used, and a label then shows on the ad. Meta lists the European region, California, New York, India and Taiwan. If you advertise there and Ads Manager offers it, switch it on for these videos.
• There's no general AI switch for ordinary product ads in Meta's documentation. Elsewhere, labelling is automatic when Meta detects the signals above.
• Political and social issue ads must disclose photorealistic AI content; don't use these videos for them.

Labelled or not, keep it honest: never present an AI-generated person as a real customer, in the video or the copy.

Getting through ad review

Every new or edited ad is reviewed against Meta's Advertising Standards, mostly within 24 hours, and live ads can be reviewed again. Budget and schedule changes don't trigger a new review; creative and targeting changes do.

What trips up product video ads

• Personal attributes. Ads mustn't assert or imply things about the viewer, such as health, age or finances. Meta's own example: "New diabetes treatment available" is fine; "Do you have diabetes?" isn't. So a hook like "Struggling with acne?" risks rejection; "Made for acne-prone skin" talks about the product instead.
• Health, beauty and weight. Under the Health and Wellness policy, ads for dietary, health and weight-loss products such as supplements, and cosmetic before-and-afters, must target people 18 and over (general wellbeing products are exempt). Ads can't put down people's looks, show close-ups of pinched fat, claim to cure incurable illnesses, or promise a specific result in a set time without qualifiers.
• Mismatched claims. Meta reviews the landing page too; prices, offers and claims should match it.

If an ad is rejected

1. Read the reason in the email or in Business Support Home.
2. If it's fair, edit the ad and it's reviewed again automatically. If a hook needs re-cutting, use your pack's free remake.
3. If Meta got it wrong, select the ad in Business Support Home and click Request review, then Submit. Meta aims to decide within 48 hours, and asking doesn't hurt your standing.

Don't delete an ad you want re-reviewed. Repeated violations can restrict your account, so fix the cause (Meta's rejection guide).

Testing hooks and reading the results

Leave it alone for the first week. New creative or targeting, an added ad, or a big budget change can restart learning (significant edits). Check daily, but don't tweak. Spend won't be equal; Meta often favours one ad early.

Columns to add

In Ads Manager, click Columns, then Customise columns. Add these at ad level and save them as a preset.

Add a hook rate

Hook rate shows how often your opening stops the scroll. In Customise columns, choose Create custom metric, build 3-second video plays / Impressions, set the format to percentage and name it Hook rate (custom metrics).

How to read it

• Low hook rate: the opening isn't stopping people.
• Good hook rate, low CTR: people watch but don't click. Rethink the offer, copy or ending.
• Good CTR, few sales: check the product page, price and shipping.

There's no universal good number; compare your hooks with each other.

When to switch a hook off

A practical rule, not Meta's: once a hook has spent two to three times your target cost per sale without a sale while others sell, pause it. Keep winners running. Meta's sales count won't match Shopify's exactly: Meta credits sales within a window after a click or view (its attribution setting).

When ads get tired, and how to scale

Even a winning hook wears out as the same people see it again. Watch for rising frequency and cost per result, and falling hook rate and CTR. Ads Manager may also show Creative limited (cost per result above your past ads) or Creative fatigue (at least double) in the Delivery column (creative fatigue).

Refresh with new hooks

Meta's advice is to add a new ad with materially different creative and keep the original running. Bring in your next concept or hooks, in one batch rather than one a day, because each added ad restarts learning. Inside a running campaign, a creative test compares 2 to 7 new ads on a slice of budget (Meta suggests up to 20%), and they keep running afterwards. It needs the Highest volume bid strategy.

Scale gradually

When a hook sells at a cost you're happy with, raise the budget gradually. Meta says going from US$100 to US$101 is unlikely to restart learning, while US$100 to US$1,000 may, but it doesn't publish an exact threshold. Small increases every few days, watching cost per result, are the safer route.

Your first-week checklist

1. Before launch: two-factor authentication on, payment method added, and a test Purchase seen in Events Manager.
2. Launch day: one sales campaign, one ad set, one ad per hook, enhancements checked, URL parameters added.
3. Days 1 to 2: every ad shows Active or Learning, not In review or Rejected.
4. Days 2 to 6: check spend daily. No edits.
5. Day 7: compare hook rate, CTR, cost per result and ROAS. Pause hooks that spent two to three times your target without a sale.
6. Week 2: keep winners running and add the next batch of hooks together. Stuck? Message Savitar Global.

Questions