Facebook and Instagram Ads for a Small Business

Start with a business portfolio

Meta's business portfolio (made in Meta Business Suite at business.facebook.com) brings a business's assets together in one place: the Facebook Page, the Instagram profile, the ad account, any app and the Meta Pixel. Each asset can belong to only one business portfolio, and you can add people from your own team and partners, such as an agency, and give each of them access to specific assets.

Meta asks that the portfolio name match the public name of the business, because it is visible across Meta. A person can create up to two business portfolios themselves. It is worth setting this up in the business's own name from the start, rather than letting a freelancer or agency own the ad account or pixel: when you change suppliers, you remove their access and keep your data and history.

Campaign, ad set and ad

Ads Manager organises every ad into three levels:

• Campaign: the objective (the overall result you want) and the buying type, which decides how Meta charges you and optimises delivery. A campaign contains one or more ad sets.
• Ad set: the audience, the placements (for example Facebook Feed, Instagram Stories or Messenger), the budget (daily or lifetime) and the schedule. Every ad in an ad set shares these settings.
• Ad: the format (single image or video, carousel or collection), the creative (images, video, text, headline and link) and the identity: which Facebook Page and Instagram account the ad runs as.

Choosing an objective

Meta currently offers six campaign objectives in Ads Manager:

• Awareness: reach the people most likely to remember the ad.
• Traffic: send people to a destination such as a website, an app or your Facebook Page.
• Engagement: messages, video views or other actions on the ad or Page.
• Leads: collect leads through messages, phone calls or sign-ups.
• App promotion: installs or a specific action inside an app.
• Sales: people likely to buy, with the option to optimise for other actions such as adding to cart.

Alongside the objective you choose a conversion location (where people take action, such as your website or a messaging app) and a performance goal (the specific outcome Ads Manager optimises delivery for). The ad goals offered in Meta Business Suite, Instagram and Facebook's Ad Center set these three for you in the background; in Ads Manager you set them yourself.

Pick the objective that matches the action you actually want. If the goal is enquiries from your website, the system can only optimise for them if it can see them, which is what the Pixel and the Conversions API are for. The page people land on matters just as much: our guide to landing pages covers what makes one work.

The Meta Pixel

The Meta Pixel is a piece of code on your website that logs actions people take there, called events, such as adding an item to a cart or making a purchase. You see these events in Events Manager, and in Ads Manager you can use them to build custom audiences, retarget visitors and measure the results of your ads.

Meta sets two rules for using it responsibly:

• No prohibited information may be sent to Meta. Meta names health, financial and children's data, plus anything not allowed under its terms, policies or the law, and tells advertisers to review event names, parameters and URLs regularly.
• The Pixel must not be placed on websites you do not own without permission.

The Pixel runs in the visitor's browser and sends data about the visit to Meta, so it falls under the cookie and consent rules for marketing tags. How consent should work, and what may load before a visitor chooses, is covered in our guide to cookie consent banners.

The Conversions API

The Conversions API sends events to Meta from your server, website platform, app or CRM instead of from the visitor's browser. Meta says its data is less affected than the Pixel by browser loading errors, connectivity problems and ad blockers, and that it can also carry events the Pixel cannot see, such as in-store or offline sales and later steps like a subscription. Meta suggests using it alongside the Pixel, and notes that many of its integrations do not need a developer.

If the same event, for example a purchase, is sent from both the Pixel and the Conversions API, Meta has to deduplicate it so it is counted once. That works when the event name matches and both copies carry the same event ID. If you send different events from each source, no deduplication is needed.

Sending data from your server does not remove the consent question, so we let the same choices the visitor made on the cookie banner decide what is sent. If you also run Google Ads, the approach is the same one described in our Google Ads basics guide: decide which action counts as a conversion first, then measure that.

Special Ad Categories

When you create a campaign, Meta requires you to say whether it promotes a Special Ad Category. These are:

• Financial products and services, including credit. Since 21 January 2025 this category is required for advertisers based in the United States or showing these ads to audiences in the US.
• Employment: jobs, internships, professional certification programmes, job boards and fairs, and ads about company perks.
• Housing: sale or rental listings, home and mortgage insurance, mortgage loans, housing repairs, home equity and appraisal services.
• Social issues, elections or politics, which need authorisation and a "Paid for by" disclaimer.

For the first three, Meta limits the audience selection tools to help protect people from unlawful discrimination, so expect fewer targeting options. Ads may be rejected if the right category is not chosen. A recruitment campaign for your own business counts: an ad for a vacancy is an employment ad.

Ad review and rejected ads

Before ads run on Facebook or Instagram, Meta reviews them against its Advertising Standards. Review starts automatically when you create or edit an ad, and the status shows in the Delivery column of Ads Manager. Meta says the system relies mainly on automated technology, with human reviewers in some cases, and that most ads are reviewed within 24 hours, though it can take longer.

Review can look at the images, video and text, the targeting, the destination the ad links to, the Special Ad Category and the advertiser's permissions. Ads can be reviewed again at any time, including after they are live, which is how an approved ad can later be rejected. Editing the targeting, creative, optimisation or billing event starts a new review; changing the bid, budget or ad set schedule does not.

If you believe an ad was rejected by mistake, you can request another review in Meta Business Support Home. Since the landing page is part of the review, a broken link or a page that does not match the ad is worth fixing before you resubmit.

Frequently asked questions

Should we boost a post or use Ads Manager?

Both create paid ads. Meta explains that the ad goals in Meta Business Suite, Instagram and Facebook's Ad Center set the objective, conversion location and performance goal for you, while Ads Manager lets you choose each of these yourself, along with the audience, placements, budget and schedule at ad set level.

Do we need the Conversions API if we already have the Pixel?

Not necessarily. Meta describes the Conversions API as a more reliable connection that is less affected by browser errors and ad blockers, and suggests using it alongside the Pixel. If you send the same event from both, give both copies the same event name and event ID so Meta counts it once.

Why was our job advert rejected?

Ads for employment opportunities fall into a Special Ad Category, which must be declared when the campaign is created and limits the audience options. Meta says ads may be rejected if the appropriate category is not chosen. If you think a rejection is a mistake, you can request another review in Meta Business Support Home.

How long does Meta take to approve an ad?

Meta says most ads are reviewed within 24 hours, although some take longer, and ads can be reviewed again after they go live. If an ad must start on a set date, you can schedule it in advance so it passes review before the start date. Advertising on TikTok as well? Our TikTok ads guide covers its equivalents: Business Center, the TikTok Pixel and the Events API.

Planning ads and need a landing page that converts and is measured from day one? We design and build landing pages and set up the tracking that shows what they produce, as part of our website development work. See all our services, or email [email protected].