How to Run Facebook Ads in 2026

The short version

Set up the basics before you spend: a business portfolio, an ad account with a payment method that works, a Facebook Page, and the Meta pixel with Conversions API, or a WhatsApp number connected to your Page if you sell in chat.
Choose the objective that matches the result you actually want, keep audience controls tight but targeting broad, leave Advantage+ placements on, and supply both 4:5 and 9:16 creative.
Give each test enough budget and time to leave the learning phase, stop editing it daily, and judge it on paid orders or qualified leads, not likes, clicks or the ROAS figure in Ads Manager alone.

Starting Facebook ads is easy. The hard part is setting them up so the money buys customers rather than likes. This guide follows the process in Meta Ads Manager as it works in 2026, in the order you would do it.

Ads built in Ads Manager can run across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Threads and Meta's Audience Network. If Instagram is your main channel, use this guide for the shared setup and then read how to run Instagram ads for Reels, Stories and the Instagram-specific steps.

What you need before you start

A Facebook Page and a business portfolio

Ads run from a Facebook Page, so you need one, or an admin, editor or advertiser role on it. Then create a business portfolio (what used to be called Business Manager) at business.facebook.com: open the drop-down under Home, choose Create a business portfolio and use your business's public name. It holds your Page, Instagram account, ad accounts and pixel in one place, and lets staff or an agency work without sharing anyone's login.

Each business asset can belong to only one portfolio. If a former freelancer set up your ad account inside their own portfolio, sort it out now, not on the day you need something changed urgently.

An ad account and a payment method

Create an ad account inside the portfolio, check the time zone and currency, and add a payment method under Billing and payments. Business Support Home shows which features a new account can use.

Paying from Pakistan. Meta lists cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express) and PayPal as the accepted options for Pakistan. Use a card your bank has enabled for international online payments, because a failed payment can get an ad account disabled until it is settled. Ask your bank about charges or taxes on foreign-currency payments.

The Meta pixel and Conversions API

If you sell or collect leads on a website, install the Meta pixel and set up the Conversions API. The pixel is code on your site that logs actions such as add to basket and purchase. The Conversions API sends events from your server, website platform or CRM, and Meta says it is less affected than the pixel by browser errors, connectivity issues and ad blockers (Meta Business Help Center). Use both. Shopify and similar platforms have integrations that need no developer. Then check in Events Manager that purchases or leads are actually arriving before you spend anything.

Somewhere useful to land

A fast page that matches the ad, or a WhatsApp Business number connected to your Page if conversations are where you sell.

Step 1: Choose the objective

In Ads Manager, click + Create and choose one of six objectives: Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App promotion or Sales (Meta Business Help Center). The objective tells the system what to look for. Ask for clicks and it finds people who click. Ask for purchases and it finds people who buy.

Sales: online purchases, once purchase tracking works. Catalogue ads also sit here.
Leads: enquiries through instant forms, your website, calls or messages.
Engagement: messages, video views and interactions.
Traffic: visits. Rarely right if you can track something more valuable.
Awareness: reach and ad recall, for launches where being remembered matters most.
App promotion: installs and in-app actions.

You then choose a conversion location (website, app, message destinations, instant forms or calls) and a performance goal. For Sales, Leads and App promotion, Meta offers Advantage+ campaigns, which automate audience, placements and budget together, and it is rolling out a similar recommended setup for the other objectives. Both are fine starting points, as long as you know which switches are on.

Click-to-WhatsApp. If your sales close in chat, as they do for many businesses in Pakistan, connect your WhatsApp Business number to your Page or portfolio, choose Traffic or Engagement, set the conversion location to Message destinations and tick WhatsApp. Add a greeting and suggested questions so the chat opens with something better than "price?".

Step 2: Set up the audience

Targeting no longer means stacking ten interests. With Advantage+ audience, often switched on by default, you give Meta two kinds of input:

Audience controls are hard limits: locations, minimum age, custom audiences to exclude and languages.
Audience suggestions are hints: age, gender, detailed targeting and custom audiences. Meta may go beyond them if it expects better results.

So be exact with controls. A Lahore bakery that only delivers in the city should set the location tightly. A brand shipping to the UK and Pakistan should split campaigns by country.

Build custom audiences from what you have: website visitors, people who messaged you, video viewers and customer lists, and exclude recent buyers from ads aimed at new customers. If your ads relate to credit, employment, housing, or social issues, elections and politics, you must declare a special ad category, which limits targeting. The rules vary by country, so check before running property or recruitment ads; see real estate marketing in Pakistan.

Step 3: Placements

Placements are where the ad appears: Facebook Feed, Stories, Reels, Marketplace and search, Instagram Feed, Stories, Reels and Explore, Messenger, WhatsApp status, Threads and Audience Network. Meta recommends Advantage+ placements and says adding placements does not increase the cost of your ad (Meta Business Help Center). The system looks for the cheapest results across all of them, so one placement with a higher cost per result is not, alone, a reason to switch it off.

Choose placements manually only with a clear reason, such as a placement producing obvious junk like accidental taps on a lead form.

Step 4: Make the creative

Formats and specs

The main formats are single image, video, carousel and collection, plus catalogue ads for stores with a product feed. Meta recommends 4:5 for Facebook Feed and 9:16 for Stories and Reels, for both images and video (Meta Business Help Center). Upload both shapes so each placement gets a proper fit, and keep text away from the top and bottom of vertical video, where the interface covers it. If Advantage+ creative is on, check which automatic enhancements it will apply and preview the result.

What tends to work

A hook in the first seconds. Show the product in use or the result, or name who it is for.
Vertical video shot on a phone, with captions, because plenty of people watch on mute.
User-generated content. Customers, staff or creators talking to camera usually beat a polished brand film. Partnership ads let you run a creator's video from their handle, with their permission.
One offer, one action. Price if it is competitive, how delivery works, and whether you take cash on delivery.
Different ideas, not variations. Three distinct concepts teach more than ten versions of one image.

Fresh creative is what most small advertisers run out of first, and a large part of our content production work.

Step 5: Set the budget and bidding

No budget guarantees results, and fixed figures you read online ignore your margins. Work from your own numbers.

Know what a result is worth: your margin on an order, or a qualified lead's value after your close rate. That caps what you can pay.
Feed the learning phase. Meta says an ad set usually leaves it after about 50 results in the week after its last significant edit (Meta Business Help Center). If your budget cannot buy anything like that many purchases, optimise for a more frequent event, such as add to basket, leads or conversations, and still judge on sales.
Fix a test budget and period you are willing to spend to learn whether the offer works, and give it at least a couple of weeks.
Keep it simple. A few ad sets learn faster than many small ones splitting the same money.

A daily budget is an average over the week, not a hard cap; a lifetime budget is a cap. For bidding, start with the default Highest volume, or Highest value if you send purchase values. Cost per result and ROAS goals give more control but need a steady flow of conversions. For where ad spend fits in a wider budget, see how much digital marketing costs in 2026.

Step 6: Publish and get through review

Every new or edited ad is checked against Meta's Advertising Standards, including creative, targeting and landing page. Meta says most ads are reviewed within 24 hours, though some take longer, and ads can be reviewed again once live (Meta Business Help Center). Editing targeting, creative or optimisation starts a new review; budget and schedule changes do not.

Avoid copy that asserts or implies personal attributes ("Struggling with your weight?"), check the rules for restricted goods and services, and make sure the landing page sells what the ad promises. If you think a rejection is wrong, request another review in Business Support Home.

Tracking and measuring: conversions, not likes

Before launch, decide the one result that matters (a paid order, a qualified lead, a WhatsApp chat that became a sale) and build your Ads Manager columns around it. Likes, reach and clicks are context, not results, as we explain in which numbers actually matter. Ads Manager uses its own attribution, so compare it with your real sales every week.

Cash on delivery. Ads Manager counts an order when it is placed, not when the parcel is accepted. On COD, work out cost per delivered, paid order from your own records. Because the Conversions API accepts events from a CRM or offline source, a developer can also send delivered orders back to Meta, so the system learns from people who pay. Our clothing brand guide covers cutting refusals. For WhatsApp sales, note on every chat whether it came from an ad and whether it became an order.

Common mistakes

Boosting posts and calling it a strategy. Boosting is quick, but offers far fewer options than Ads Manager.
Choosing Traffic or Engagement when the goal is sales.
Editing every day, which keeps resetting the learning phase.
Launching without checking the pixel and Conversions API record the right events.
Running one creative for months after it has stopped working.
Letting someone else own your ad account or portfolio.

When to hire help

Run a few campaigns yourself first if you can. Bring in help when:

Your spend is large enough that a modest drop in cost per sale would cover the cost of management.
Tracking is complicated: Conversions API, COD, WhatsApp sales, or several countries.
You cannot produce new creative every few weeks.
Your account keeps hitting rejections or restrictions.

If you want this set up properly, or a second look at what you are already running, that is what our Meta Ads team does.

How to Run Facebook Ads in 2026: A Step-by-Step Guide for Small Businesses