How to Run Facebook Ads For Ecommerce? A Step-by-Step Guide

Are you thinking about running Facebook ads for your e-commerce store? If yes, then the good news is that these ads can actually be a smart and affordable way to get more sales. How and why? It’s because the CPC for Facebook ads is around $0.43 (as per Wecantrack), which is 31.75% lower than ads on other platforms like Google. 

This means that in case you decide to promote your ecommerce products with the help of Facebook ads, then you can reach millions of customers without overspending on your ads!

That’s amazing, isn’t it?

But now you might wonder how to run Facebook ads for your store.

Fret not. That’s where this blog will help. Through it, we will learn all the important details of running Facebook ads for ecommerce.

We will understand which types of Facebook ads can yield the best results (for ecommerce stores), how you can create these ads, and more. Once you finish reading this article, you will be equipped with all the required knowledge to run successful campaigns and get more sales from them.

Why Should You Run Facebook Ads for Your Ecommerce Store? 

Let’s quickly look into the benefits of running Facebook ads for ecommerce: 

1. Massive Reach: Do you know that Facebook has more than 3 billion monthly active users? This makes it one of the best social media platforms globally, where you can run ads for your ecommerce business and reach more customers. 

2. Full-funnel Advertising Approach: You can choose from different campaign objectives such as awareness, traffic, engagement, etc., when creating your Facebook ads. This helps to ensure that your ad reaches the right audience at different stages of the funnel. 

3. Advanced Targeting Capabilities: Facebook offers advanced ad targeting and audience tools that can help you create a hyper-focused targeting strategy and reach users who are most likely to purchase from your store.  

For example, with Core Audiences, you can define your target audience based on parameters like demographics, location, interests, behaviors, etc. 

With Customised Audiences, you can reconnect with those users who have already had an interaction with your business in the past, maybe by making a purchase or using your app, etc. 

You also have Facebook Lookalike Audiences where you can reach new users who are likely to show an interest in your business, as they are similar to your current customers. 

4. Facebook Ads Are Cost-Effective: Facebook ads are more cost-effective when you compare these ads to alternatives like Google Ads. And that’s not all. The conversion rate of Facebook ads for ecommerce is very high. The average Facebook ad conversion rate is 9.21% (Wordstream), while Google search ads convert at 3.75% and display ads at 0.77%.

5. Different Ad Formats To Cater to Different Needs: On Facebook, you can run different types of ads such as Meta Advantage+ Catalog Ads (for showing relevant products to users based on their interests, intents, etc.), Carousel Ads (that helps to show upto 10 images or video within a single ad), Collection Ads (where you can pair images or even videos with products to improve the conversion rates), etc. 

This versatile nature of Facebook ads for e-commerce stores means that you can market your products in multiple formats and stick to the ad type that best suits your audience’s preferences.  

6. AI-Powered Advertising: As you know, Meta (Facebook) has done an excellent job in terms of integrating AI into their advertising system. They call it Meta Advantage+, which improves targeting, placements, and budgets automatically. AI finds the right audience, adjusts spending, and personalizes ads. It reduces manual work and helps businesses run smarter, more efficient campaigns with better results.

7. Run Facebook Retargeting Ads: With retargeting ads, you can also reconnect with those users or visitors who have earlier shown interest in your products or services. 

Basically, the Meta (Facebook) pixel helps you track the activity of visitors on your website, like who viewed products, added an item to their cart, etc. With that data, you can create Custom Audiences, which can further be useful for running Retargeting Ads.

Bonus: Read our blog on Facebook Pixel Code Example to understand how Meta Pixels look like, how to setup them up, their use cases, and many other details.

What types of Facebook Ads are Most Helpful for E-Commerce? 

Now, we have established the fact that running Facebook ads for ecommerce businesses can be profitable. But then, not all types of ads are going to benefit you similarly, right? 

Let’s discuss which Facebook ad types will work best for an ecommerce brand: 

Photo or Image Ads

Photo ads can be a great option for driving traffic to your ecommerce store. These ads appear in a user’s feed and often appear next to the posts shared by that user’s connections. 

Did you know?  A Facebook study was conducted where as an experiment, different types of ads and ad sequences were run over 8 days. When the results came, it was noted that running a series of photo-only ads increased the chances of getting unique traffic by 75%!

Going by that logic, if you can design your ad where a person is using your product, then the user viewing it, will be more likely to relate to it, and take an action (such as purchasing the product.) 

Video Ads

Facebook video ads for ecommerce can also be beneficial for your brand. In comparison to static photo ads, video ads are more engaging and allow you to show your products in action. 

These appear in important positions across Facebook, such as in feeds, stories, etc., which ensures high visibility. 

You can use video ads to highlight important product features, even show customer testimonials, and make your ads more interactive. 

Carousel Ads

As these ads allow you to use and show up to 10 images or videos in a single ad, you get the benefit of showcasing multiple products to your audience. 

There are multiple ways these ads can benefit an ecommerce store like yours. 

• Firstly, you can show a different product on each card and add a link to its landing page. That will give customers more options to choose from and improve your click-through rate.
• You can also highlight the features of a single product and use cards to show your product and its highlights and details from different angles! The possibilities are endless. 

Collection Ads

These ads make it easier for e-commerce merchants to showcase and promote multiple products in a unique and engaging manner. 

• Collection ads include a main image or video supported by three small images, present in a grid-like layout. With this unique structure, these ads are very helpful in attracting a user’s attention when they first see a Collection Ad. 
• After that, whenever a user clicks on the primary image or video, a full-screen ‘Instant Experience’ opens, which further encourages a user to explore, browse, and purchase a product. And all this happens without leaving Facebook. 
• When someone clicks on one of the three small images in the grid-like layout, they are taken to product pages provided initially by the advertiser. And this process, encourages a user to make a purchase. 

So, these ads improve product discovery and increase conversions by providing a fluid mobile shopping experience. 

How to Set Up Facebook Ads for E-Commerce? 

Before we move into the prerequisites and process of creating Facebook ads for ecommerce, it’s important for you to understand that you can create different types of Facebook ads for your ecommerce store. 

These include Photo or video ads, Meta Advantage+ Catalog Ads, Collection Ads, etc. For your reference, in this section, we will be discussing how you can create a Facebook photo ad. 

Note: If you want to learn about other Facebook ad formats and how you can run these ads, then you can refer to this page.

Even if you are a beginner, a photo ad is easy to create and yields exceptional results.  

Prerequisites 

You will first have to ensure that all the prerequisites are in place. Those prerequisites will include: 

1. Meta Business Suite Account 

With a Meta Business Suite account, you can easily access other Business Tools from Meta, such as Business Manager, Ads Manager, etc.

Bonus: Read our blog on how to use Meta Business Suite.

2. Facebook Business Page 

You must also have a Facebook page for your business or organization. Remember, this is different from a personal account, and it will be important to run Facebook ads for e-commerce. 

3. Set up your Ads Manager Account

Your Ads Manager Account is like a control center that will be helpful in creating and managing ads from desktop and mobile devices. Ensure, it is properly set up. 

4. Set up your Commerce Manager Account 

Inside your Commerce Manager account, you will be adding your catalog, which will further be useful for creating Facebook photo ads for your ecommerce store. 

5. Add your Catalog 

You will also have to add your product catalog to Meta so that Meta can use your product information for the ecommerce ads that you are creating. 

We will add our product catalog using Shopify partner integration as we are creating ads for our Shopify store. It’s important to note that there are other methods as well, like adding your products manually, using a Meta Pixel, Catalogue Batch API, etc. 

Generally, merchants prefer to use the Facebook and Instagram sales channel app. But as it can have its own set of issues (such as inaccurate product sync or data discrepancies), we will go with a more reliable solution like AdNabu. 

It is a feed management app for Shopify merchants which helps you sync and market your Shopify products on other marketplaces like Google Shopping, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, X, Bing, and TikTok.

• Install Nabu for Google Shopping Feed from the Shopify app store. 
• Set up the app to sync your Shopify products to it. 

Note: You can check out AdNabu’s help center page for the Google Shopping feed app to get help articles related to setting up the app, generating URLs, or other details.

• Go to Marketplaces in the app. And select Facebook and Instagram. 

• Ensure that you have enabled Facebook and Instagram feeds. 

• Select a Target Country and Language. We have selected United States – English in our case. 
• If you wish to set up UTM parameters like source, medium, and campaign, you can do so.  
• As your feed is enabled, once you save the settings, a feed URL will be generated in the Data Feed URL part. 

• You can then click on ‘Copy to Clipboard’ to copy the link, as we will be taking it to Meta Commerce Manager. 
• Go to Meta Commerce Managers and Scroll down to Catalogues. 
• Click on Add Catalogue. 
• Select Product Category, Business Portfolio and also name your catalog. Press Next. 

• In the next steps, you can either set up the Meta Pixel then and there itself or skip it. We will skip it as we will be using another AdNabu app (For Meta Pixels) to seamlessly setup our pixels later. 
• Then, you need to Set Catalogue Permissions. 
• We will then add products by selecting the data feed option. 

• And in the last step, you will have an option of choosing how to upload your feed file. Just simply paste the feed URL that we copied to clipboard earlier, and press Next. 

• Confirm the settings, also add your preferences for data feed schedule in order to keep your catalogue updated automatically. And press Upload. 

And that’s it. You have uploaded your Shopify products to Meta Commerce Manager successfully. And now, in the step-by-step process, for example, step 22 of your Facebook ad creation process, Meta will automatically use this catalog to fetch your product information and use it in your ecommerce ads! 

6. Meta Pixel (Optional But Recommended) 

Meta Pixel will be helpful if you want to run retargeting ads. As we discussed earlier in the benefits section, these ads record website visitor activity, based on which you can create custom audiences for your retargeting ads. 

Also, Meta (Facebook) Pixel can be helpful for adding items to your catalog from your website. 

In case you decide to install the pixel, please ensure the following: 

• The pixel is installed on your website. Also, you must ensure that the PageView event is present in the pixel base code on each product page. 
• Add microdata tags to each of your website’s product pages. Basically, microdata tags help to indicate product information, such as price, description, etc., to the pixel, through which it adds or updates products in your catalog. 
• You need to ensure that the pixel is linked to the same business portfolio as your product catalog. If that’s not the case, then a business can add another business as a partner to share access to either the catalog or pixel. 
• You should have full control ‘catalog permission’ and ‘manage pixels’ permissions. 
• Lastly, ensure that the pixel has fired in the last seven days. If your website hasn’t received any traffic and none of the items have been viewed, you can view an item to trigger the Meta pixel.

Or you can test-run an event yourself in Events Manager to check if it fires correctly and counts as an event within the last seven days.

You can also install the Meta Pixel Helper extension to track and verify pixel activity.

7. Add a Payment Method

You will also have to add a payment method (as an advertiser) to your Ads Manager account, as without that, you will not be able to publish and run your ads. 

8. Learn how to structure your Meta (Facebook) ads for e-commerce. 

There are some guidelines for structuring your ecommerce Facebook ads. For example, don’t create more than 2-3 ad sets at the campaign level, as it can extend your ad’s learning phase. 

Read more about structuring your Facebook ads the right way in the section below.

Step-by-Step Process to Create A Facebook Photo Ad For Your Ecommerce Store 

The process to create a Facebook photo ad for your products will be: 

Step 1: Go to Meta Ads Manager

• Log in to your Meta Ads Manager account and from the left side menu, click on ‘Campaigns’. 

Step 2: Create a Campaign 

Once you are inside, click + Create. That will help you to start a new ad campaign.

Step 3: Choose a Buying Type

Buying type basically refers to how an advertiser pays for, targets, and measures ads in their campaign.

You can select from two options: Auction (Recommended) and Reservation. 

• Basically, in the Auction Buying type, your ads compete in real-time for placements. And this is with the help of dynamic bidding. 
• In the Reservation Buying Type, you pay a fixed price in advance for predictable performance goals as well as ad placements. 

Note: For more information on Auction vs. Reservation in Facebook Ads, you can read our article on this topic. In the article, we discuss how the delivery of ads, predictability, and ad sequencing differ between these two buying types.

Step 4: Select a Campaign Objective

Next up, you will have to choose a campaign objective. You get six options, which include: 

• Awareness
• Traffic
• Engagement
• Leads
• App Promotion
• Sales

Basically, this is to define what you wish to achieve from your Facebook ads campaign. As we are running ads to promote our ecommerce business, for our reference, we will go ahead and select ‘Sales’ as the objective. 

Now, we are moving to the Campaign Level Set Up.

Step 5: Choose a Campaign Setup

You will have to choose your campaign setup method. You will get two options: 

1. Advantage+ Shopping Campaign: Here, you will benefit from preset settings for ad placements, age, etc., from Meta’s side. These settings are AI-powered and offer a streamlined setup for creating Facebook ad campaigns. 
2. Manual Sales Campaign: As you can guess, here, you will have to create your sales campaign from scratch and without any preset settings. 

For your reference and better understanding, we will choose this ‘Manual Sales Campaign’ option for this process. 

Step 6: Add A Campaign Name

Then, you will have to add a campaign name. 

Note: You can also standardize your campaign names using the ‘Create Template’ option.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If your ads are related to financial products, services, employment, or other topics like politics, you will have to declare that in the next step in order to comply with Facebook’s advertising standards. As our ads don’t belong to these categories, we will skip this step.

Step 7: Review Campaign Details and Option To Turn On Advantage+ Catalog Ads

• Moving forward, you will see the option of reviewing your campaign details, such as your buying type and campaign objectives.
• At the same time, there is also an option of switching on Advantage+ Catalog Ads, through which you can use a catalog and advertise relevant products. We will skip that step as we wish to create a basic sales campaign manually. 

Step 8: Advantage Campaign Budget Option (Recommended) 

• Then, you will have the option of enabling Advantage Campaign Budget (formerly known as Campaign Budget Optimization.)

By turning on this Advantage Campaign Budget, you are ensuring that Meta’s advanced AI automatically manages and distributes your campaign budget across ad sets. And this is to get the best results. 

With this option, you can set one central campaign budget. And that budget will then keep on distributing to ad sets in real-time to yield the best results. 

Lifetime and Daily Budgets

Also, it is during these stages that you also select your budget duration from Lifetime budgets and Daily Budgets.  

• Lifetime Budget refers to the budget you are willing to spend over the complete runtime of your campaign or ad set. 

Setting lifetime budgets is useful when you don’t wish to exceed a certain amount of your overall ad spend. Also, selecting this budget setting ensures that you can flexibly decide how much you want to spend on each day. 

IMPORTANT: To get the best results, Facebook’s algorithms will try to spend more on days where they spot better opportunities for your ad to get results.  Similarly, if the algorithms feel that your ad won’t benefit much on a day where there are fewer opportunities, they spend less on that day.

• Daily Budget refers to the average amount you as an advertiser are willing to spend each day. 

When you define a daily budget, you are telling Facebook the average daily spend that you want to spend over the course of a week. And Facebook’s algorithm will try to get the daily budget’s worth results every day. 

IMPORTANT: There can be some days when Facebook’s algorithm recognizes that your ad can run for more duration, appear more, and simultaneously benefit more. On those days, the algorithm will spend 75% of your daily budget. This means if your daily budget is USD 50, they may spend up to USD 87.5 that day.  But your charges average over the next calendar week.

Campaign Bid Strategy 

Then you will have to select the campaign bid strategy, which basically means how you wish Facebook to bid your ad in ad auctions. This is done specifically to determine how much Facebook will pay to display your ad to your target audience: 

• Highest Volume gets you the maximum possible number of conversions for the budget you have set. 
• Highest Value helps you sell higher-priced products and get the highest value (of course, as the name suggests.), not just more items.
• Cost per Result Goal keeps your cost per conversion steady.
• ROAS Goal is useful if you wish to maintain a set return on ad spend.
• Bid Cap lets you set a limit on how much Facebook can bid.

For our campaign, we will go ahead with Highest Volume. 

Budget and Ad Scheduling

• Lastly, you have Budget Scheduling, which allows you to increase your budget on any specific day or time. 

We have enabled that and due to that, between a specific period, Meta will increase our budget for better performance. 

• And you have Ad scheduling to choose if your ads should run during a specific hour or days of any particular week. 

Step 9: Enable A/B Testing (Optional but Recommended)

A/B testing will allow you to improve your ad performance as with these tests, you can compare different versions of your ads and check which works the best. 

• Facebook provides you an option to test different elements like Creatives (to check which images, videos, etc., work well), Audience (to check how targeting a new audience segment can be helpful), etc. 
• You can also choose the test duration. 
• And also, which metric would you prefer to use to find a winning variation of your ad? 

Step 10: Reporting 

Meta also allows you to analyze your ad performance reports, based on audience segments. Basically, you can get a breakdown of your report between your new audience, engaged audience, and existing customers. 

For using this, you will have need to first create your ad account’s audience segments in Ad account settings. 

Now, we are moving to the Ad Set Level Setup.

Step 10: Name Your Ad Set

Give your Ad set a name, which can be based on your target audience or even strategy. 

Step 11: Select Conversion Location

Then, you will have to choose a conversion location for your Facebook ads. As we are running ads for your e-commerce store, we will select ‘Website’ for reference. 

Our goal is to send the audience to your website, where you are selling your ecommerce products, and increase sales. 

But please note that you also have other conversion locations, such as: 

• App
• Website and App (together) 
• Message destinations (this includes driving sales through Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp) 
• Calls 

Performance Goals 

Then, you will have to select a performance goal for your Facebook ads. This goal highlights what specific result you want to achieve from your campaign. 

IMPORTANT: Remember, while the ad objective defines the overall purpose (for e.g., sales or traffic) of your campaign, the Performance Goal informs Meta on how to optimize your ad’s delivery to get the best possible results.

Also, another important thing to note is that Performance Goals differ from the Campaign Objective that you selected earlier. This means performance goals for sales as an ad objective will differ from performance goals where awareness is an ad objective. 

You can choose a goal from: 

• Maximize Conversions – through this goal, those users will be targeted who are most likely to complete a purchase. 
• Maximize Conversion Value – this goal will help show ads to those users who are more likely to generate higher value for your ecommerce business. 
• Maximize Landing Page Views – Shows ads to people most likely to visit your website or Instant Experience.
• Maximize Link Clicks – with this goal, your ad will reach those users who are most likely to click on them. 

And so on. 

Note: There are other goals as well that you can choose, which include:  – Maximize Daily Unique Reach  – Maximize Impressions  – Maximize Conversations  – Maximize Calls  – Maximize App Events

Dataset

Then, you will have to set a Meta pixel as part of the dataset step. 

For that, if there is no pixel, you can create a new one and that can be used.

If you are a Shopify Merchant, you can use an app like AdNabu’s Facebook Pixel App to create and use those Meta pixels in your ads.  The app allows you to create Facebook pixels easily that are also visible in your Events Manager account (if you connect your Facebook Business Manager account during the installation of the app.)  Therefore, when you are creating a dataset, you can actually view the pixel that you created from AdNabu’s Facebook Pixel app in the dropdown menu. Shopify merchants can really benefit from the app, as it offers many other benefits, such as:  – 1-click installation of Meta pixels without any theme file changes.  – Support for important Facebook events such as purchase, add to cart, and begin checkout. – Server-side tracking using Conversions API And more. The best part? The app starts for free.

Then, choose a conversion action, which is nothing but what you would want a user to do when they see your ad. 

The different conversion actions that you can choose from include, Complete Registration, Initiate Checkout, Add to Cart, Purchase, etc. 

Again, as we are running these ads for an ecommerce store, we will choose Purchase action and move ahead. 

Step 12: Enable Dynamic Creative (Optional) 

This setting is helpful if you want Meta to create engaging combinations of your media and text that your audience might respond to. 

Note: Meta has already started sunsetting this feature. Its availability in your region may vary.

Step 13: Budget & Schedule 

Back in step 8, we have already added a daily Advantage campaign budget of $20.00 for our Facebook ads for ecommerce. 

Therefore, we just need to complete the ‘Schedule’ part. 

Select when you want the ad campaign to start running (Start Date) and when you want it to End (End date.)

Note: There is also an option of setting ad set spending limits. You can use that to set a daily minimum amount that should be spent on your ad and a daily maximum amount beyond which Meta won’t spend on your ad.  Due to performance fluctuations, Meta doesn’t recommend you to enable this. So, we will also skip this.

Step 14: Audience Controls and Locations 

Audience Controls 

Audience controls help you set some restrictions across all your campaigns so that your ads are in compliance with legal, brand, and business requirements. 

These can include: 

• Location Restrictions
• Age Restrictions
• Brand Protection, etc. 

We will skip this as we don’t want to add any adjustments. For your business, if there are any such restrictions, do add them. 

Locations 

• Select where you want to show your ads. 

Pro Tip: Meta itself recommends that you add a broad location instead of going with a narrow location such as a city.

You can browse the map provided in the interface, and select a whole country, for example, Asia, very easily. 

• Apart from that, you can also select the minimum age of a user to see your ads. Moreover, you can exclude any custom audience that you created earlier and also select specific Languages so that Meta only delivers your ads to those users who can easily understand the languages you select. 

Important Note: You also have the Advantage+ Audience option, where Meta, using its AI will find audiences that are most suitable for your ads. 

All you need to do is just add audience suggestions, and Meta’s AI will create an audience based on that. 

Step 15: Choose Ad Placements

Lastly, it will be about choosing ad placements. Where do you want Meta to show your Facebook ecommerce ads? It can be anywhere across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Audience Network. 

This is an important step as this decides whether your ads reach where your shoppers are active or not. 

There are two options you can select from for selecting ad placements: 

• Advantage+ Placements (Recommended) – With this, Meta’s AI will automatically distribute your ad budget across different placements. And you will get the best results. 

• Manual Placements – If you don’t want Meta’s AI to decide your placements you can do it manually from a ton of options such as Facebook feeds, Instagram reels, Facebook Search Results or Instagram Search Results. A plethora of ad placement options are available.   

Step 16: Click Next to Move to Ad Level

• Proceed to set up your actual ad content.

With that, we are now finally moving toward the ad-level setup. 

Step 17: Name Your Ad

Give your ad a clear name.

Step 18: Turn on ‘Partnership Ad’ (If applicable) 

If you are running these Facebook ads for your ecommerce business with a partner, then you need to enable this. 

Partnership ads basically mean that you are running ads with other creators, brands, etc. 

We can skip this option. 

Step 19: Select Your Business Identity

You will have to select your Facebook page here. This page is essential to run ads. This helps viewers find your brand and engage with it. 

Choose the Facebook Page your ad account is associated with.

Step 20: Ad Setup

Then, you need to select the option, Create Ad.

Media Setup 

How do you wish to provide the media for your ads? 

• Manually: Where you upload the images or videos. If you go ahead with this option, then you will have to work on the creatives and add those by scrolling down on the same page and clicking on ‘Set up Creative’ under ‘Ad Creative.’

• Advantage+ Catalog Ads: Meta’s AI will automatically use media from your catalog that gets detected if you have added a catalog earlier in Meta Commerce Manager. 

And well, if you were to ask for a recommendation between the manual media setup and trusting Meta’s AI, we would actually say that the AI does a great job. 

You can check the ad preview that Meta provides after creating media on its own based on your catalog’s images: 

Ad Format

Now, we need to select the ad’s format. As discussed, we will be creating a ‘Single Image or video’ ad. But you can choose other options as well. 

Important: You can also select the ‘Multi-advertiser ads’ option. It basically shows your ads alongside other similar ads. So, if you have a product ad, then your ad will appear alongside other product ads once you enable this option.  This is because Meta’s algorithm group similar and relevant businesses together. And because of this, your chances of reaching the right audience improve further.

Step 21: Add Ad Sources

Then you will have to add ‘Ad sources’. These will help display important business and product information in your e-commerce Facebook ads. And this is done using the metadata from your catalog, product set or even website URL. The information that ad sources display to a viewer are shown alongside the creative. 

Here’s what you can include: 

1. Catalog Items
2. Website URL
3. Site Links
4. Offer Details 

Step 22: Set Up Your Ad Creative

Now, it’s time to design how your ad will look and what it will say. This includes your text, images, videos, call-to-action (CTA), etc. 

• You can enable Dynamic media which will allow Meta to show images or videos of your catalog items based on what any user who sees your ad will most likely engage with. 

• Apart from that, you also have creative tools to customize the images in your catalog. 

Then comes the main text of your ad creatives. 

1. Primary Text: This appears in almost every placement of your ad. Meta recommends this should be 125 characters or less. 
2. Headline: This should be attention-grabbing. 
3. Description: Additional text that is useful for emphasizing why someone should visit your website. 
4. Call to Action: Helpful for adding any button or link on your ad to direct users. 

Then, you can also highlight promo codes on your Facebook ads for ecommerce in order to encourage more conversions. 

Note: You can also use Advantage+ Creative and allow Meta’s AI to optimize your ad creatives for your users.

Step 23: Set Your Ad Destination

Select where to send users when they click on your Facebook ad.

• Website (Recommended) – Sends users to your store or landing page. This is preferred for us as we are running Facebook ads for our ecommerce products.

Add your store’s URL to the ‘Website URL’ section. 

Beyond that, you can also add browser add-ons. These are additional contact methods that users will see in the browser and can use to connect with you. 

Step 24: Check Tracking & URL Parameters

You will be able to see if tracking is active for your ad based on the setup we completed earlier. 

You can also include URL parameters to track the source of user traffic and identify which ad performed most effectively.

Step 25: Publish Your Ad

We have finally reached here, haven’t we? Your ad is complete, and before you publish it, please review these guidelines as suggested by Meta: 

• Meta Terms of Service
• Commercial Terms
• Self-Serve Ad Terms
• Business Tools Terms and 
• Advertising Standards.

Preview your ad, click Publish, and your ad will be sent for Meta’s review before going live.

That’s it! We have successfully created a Facebook Ad for your ecommerce product(s)! 

How to Structure Facebook Ads for E-Commerce? 

Before we understand how to structure your ecommerce ads on Facebook, let’s understand how advertising levels work in Meta Ads Manager. 

Ad creation has three different levels: 

1. Campaign Level: As we saw in our process above, at the Campaign level, we set main objectives such as sales, awareness, etc. A campaign can have one or more ad sets. 
2. Ad set Level: Here, we define the audience targeting, budget, placements, etc. An ad set can contain one or more ad campaigns. 
3. Ad Level: This is where you create and test different ad creatives (images, videos, headlines, and text). 

Any great Facebook campaign should follow this hierarchy properly. 

Now, let’s understand the right structure for Facebook ads. We will also look at some tips that help you structure your ecommerce Facebook ads in the right manner. 

Focus On One Clear Goal At The Campaign-Level 

At the campaign level, whichever goal you select, from awareness, sales, traffic, engagement, etc., ensure that you prepare your ads according to that goal. 

This allows Meta’s system to optimize ad delivery and get you the best results. 

Where most advertisers go wrong is that they end up picking up a sales objective to increase their ecommerce store’s sales, and then their audiences are targeting people at the awareness stage. That way, your ad spend will not yield the right types of conversions. 

Bonus: Read our blog on how to increase ecommerce sales.

Don’t Create More Than 2-3 Ad Sets for Better Performance

Ad sets decide who sees your ads, where they appear, and how much you spend. Having too many ad sets confuses Meta’s system and extends the learning phase of each ad set. 

The Learning Phase is when Meta’s delivery system learns how your ad set may perform and deliver. During this phase, the delivery system also learns and explores the best way to deliver the ad set (whether newly created or recently edited).

Why is it like that? Well, because, as per Meta, when a campaign starts running, each ad set goes through an initial learning phase, where Meta’s algorithm is figuring out what might be the best way to deliver your ads. 

And if, during that phase, you run too many ad sets at the same time, each set will get fewer opportunities to learn and, therefore, fail to give you optimal results. This means that ad sets will stay in the learning phase for a prolonged period, and require more budget. 

This also results in wasted ad spend. Therefore, avoid creating too many ad sets, as it can result in a weak performance for all ads that are part of those sets. 

Best Ways to Set Up Ad Sets

• If you are targeting different audiences, with different ad sets, combine them into one ad set. Why? Because with Breakdowns (Meta’s feature that allows you to breakdown Ads reports as per your own customization) you can get the granular results you want.
• Use one ad set to combine multiple small locations instead of creating separate ones.
• If you are creating different ad sets for different placements, then you should combine ad sets and use Advantage+ placements. Meta’s smart AI will take of the rest.
• Use one ad set for different languages instead of making separate ad sets. Meta allows you to create one single ad in multiple languages.  

Don’t Use Too Many Ads in One Ad Set

Too many ads in an ad set spreads your budget too thin and slows down Facebook’s learning.

Best Ways to Manage Ads in an Ad Set

• Meta officially says that you must use six or fewer ads per ad set. Meta’s system works best when each ad gets enough chances to run and collect data. When an ad is shown more often, Facebook learns which people are most likely to take action, like clicking or buying.

If you add too many ads, each one gets fewer chances to show, making it harder for Facebook to predict which ad will perform best. After six ads, adding more doesn’t help much because the system struggles to collect enough data for each ad.

• Test different ads using split tests before scaling up.
• If you want to try different headlines or text, use “Multiple Text Optimization” instead of making separate ads.
• Use Dynamic Creative to let Meta (Facebook) mix and match headlines, images, and descriptions automatically.

As we discussed, Dynamic Creative is being phased out. Its availability may vary in your region.

• For online stores, use “Advantage+ Creative for Catalogue” to show different ad formats without creating extra ads.

Fewer ads help Facebook’s system learn quickly and make your ads more effective.

Use Facebook’s Special Ad Solutions for Your Business

Different industries need different ad setups to work well.

Best Facebook Ad Setups by Industry

• Online Stores & Retail: For ecommerce, as we have seen, Advantage+ Catalogue Ads are helpful in showing people products they are most likely to buy.
• Local Businesses: Use Shop Location Features to show store details based on where people live.
• Real Estate Ads: Property Ads can be a great advertising solution to show people the best property listings.
• Car Dealerships: Use Automotive Inventory Ads to advertise multiple cars with fewer ads.

Remove Ads That Are Not Working

Ads that don’t get impressions, clicks, or sales waste your budget. Facebook’s system works best when only strong ads are running.

How to Know When to Turn Off an Ad

• If your ads are not getting impressions you can turn them off. Such ads are less likely to win auctions later too.
• Ads that have the highest cost per result (you can check from Ads Manager using filters), are also not going to contribute toward profitable performance results for your ecommerce store. Use your budget for better ads.
• If an ad is “learning limited,” it is not generating great results to exit that learning phase. If this happens, it’s better to turn it off.

Facebook Ad Anatomy  

To better understand how you can design and structure your Facebook ads, let’s also look at one example. We will break down this Feroldi’s image ad, and try to learn how you can use it as your reference: 

To better understand how you can design and structure your Facebook ads, let’s also look at one example. We will break down this Feroldi’s image ad and try to learn how you can use it as your reference: 

1. Primary Text: “Check out our best quality locally sourced products.” (Character Count: 52)

• Short and clear – Easy to read and understand.
• Highlights product value – Words like “best quality” and “locally sourced” build trust.
• Could be stronger – Adding words like “long-lasting” or “highly pigmented” could make it more appealing.

2. Heading: “Limited time offer, ending this weekend!” (Character Count: 42)

• Creates urgency – Encourages quick action.
• Has a deadline – “Ending this weekend” pushes shoppers to buy now.
• Could be more specific – Mentioning “20% off” or “free shipping” could make it more tempting.

3. Destination URL: feroldisfashion.com

• Builds trust – A real website link makes the ad look reliable.
• Clear next step – Shoppers know exactly where they’ll land.
• Matches the CTA – “Shop Now” leads directly to the product page, making buying easier.

4. Image Choice: High-Quality and On-Brand

• Sharp and professional – The product looks premium and eye-catching.
• No distractions – The focus stays on the product.
• Consistent branding – The colors and design match the brand’s style.

5. Call-to-Action (CTA): “Shop Now”

• Simple and clear – Tells shoppers exactly what to do.
• Pushes instant action – Reduces extra steps in the buying process.
• Best for e-commerce – Works well when selling specific products.

This ad works well because it’s simple, clear, and visually appealing. It makes shopping easy and encourages fast action. As an e-commerce brand, your takeaway is to use high-quality images, strong CTAs, and urgency-driven messaging to increase sales.

What Should Be the Budget for Your Ecommerce Facebook Ads? 

Now, to answer this question, how much should your budget be for ecommerce ads on Facebook? Well, as we know, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this answer. Your budget will depend on many factors, like your business goals, size, etc. 

However, ideally, you should be spending around 5%–15% of your revenue on Facebook ads for ecommerce. Also, as we discussed above, there are two types of ad budgets: Lifetime Budget and Daily Budget. 

When we say 5-15% of revenue can be spent on Meta (Facebook) ads, we mean that, for a start, this can be your monthly or yearly goal. We are not referring to this number for a single campaign or ad set or even the amount that you should spend on a daily or lifetime basis. 

Is $1000 enough for Facebook ads? 

Another question that a lot of people have asked online and needs an answer: Is $1000 enough for Facebook ads that you run for your ecommerce store? 

Well, this needs to be understood properly. 

$1,000 lifetime or daily budget? $1,000 for a single campaign or for multiple campaigns? 

• But in most cases, $1,000 can work well if spent correctly. Be it a lifetime budget, where you deploy $1,000 throughout the campaign’s entire running time, or a daily budget of $1,000 (which, by the way, is very generous and can be lowered), in both cases, you should get decent results in terms of what will work and what won’t. 
• You can start with $30-$50 per day for an ad and give some to Meta’s system to deliver your ads and learn how your ads will get the best possible results. 

How to Manage Your Budget For Facebook Ads For Ecommerce? 

To manage your budget, there are two things you can do: 

1. When you are setting up your budget while creating your Facebook ad for your store, you can choose from two budget strategies: Advantage Campaign Budget (earlier known as Campaign Budget Optimization) or Ad Set Budget, where you manually set the budget. 

It’s advised you choose Advantage Campaign Budget. That will set an overarching campaign budget that keeps distributing to ad sets automatically, whenever the best opportunities are spotted by Meta’s system. That will get you the best results with the lowest possible costs. 

2. Apart from that, you should also set up an ad account spending limit. It is a lifetime limit on the amount that can be spent across all ads. Once that limit is reached, Facebook will automatically pause ads to prevent any extra charges. 

You can use this limit to always stay within your budget and not exceed it. 

Best Facebook Ads Strategies For Ecommerce

Talking about Meta (Facebook) ads strategy for ecommerce businesses, here are some of the best practices that you can follow when you create Facebook ads for your products: 

1. Go with High-Impact Visuals: Use clear, eye-catching photos that feel real. Show your product in action with real people to make it more relatable. 

• Keep the text short and engaging. For example if your image ad’s placement is Facebook Feed, then Meta recommends 50-150 characters for primary text, 27 characters at max for headlines.
• Use bold, easy-to-read fonts with good contrast. Going back to our image ad example for Facebook Feed placement, the best image sizes in that case will be: 1:1 (1440x1440px) or 4:5 (1440x1800px). 

Note: Check this Meta page for the Design, Text, and Technical requirements of creatives for every ad placement.

2. Target Cart Abandonment with Personalized Ads: 70% of shoppers abandon carts. But for cart abandoners, you can use Facebook retargeting ads that show them their abandoned item.

Add a reminder: “Forgot something?” Offer a small incentive (free shipping or 10% off). The sooner you retarget, the better—recent cart abandoners convert at higher rates.

3. Create Custom Audiences for Product Page Visitors: 98% (as per Neil Patel’s blog) of visitors won’t buy on the first visit. Retarget those who viewed your product page but didn’t purchase. Exclude existing buyers. Offer limited-time discounts (e.g., 10% off) to encourage conversions. This strategy keeps your brand fresh in their minds.

4. Use Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns: Meta’s AI will ensure that your ads are optimized better with Advantage+ Shopping Campaign. So, you will not have to set up your ecommerce ads manually and still get the best campaign performance. 

5. Use Advantage+ Audience: This lets Meta’s AI find the right shoppers for you. Why? It learns from past conversions, pixel data, and ad interactions to show ads to people most likely to buy. 

Plus, it helps lower the cost per product catalog sale by 13% (as per Facebook), cost per website conversion by 7%, and cost per click, lead, or landing page view by 28%. Works great for most campaigns, except remarketing.

6. Use Facebook Lookalike Audiences: A Lookalike audience can help you reach those users who are interested in your products, as these share very similar characteristics with your existing customers. 

Thus, selling your ecommerce products to them is easy. 

As Lookalike audiences use existing custom audiences as their source audience, it is important that your source audience is of high quality and large enough (ideally 1000-5000 people as per Meta) so that the conversions from your Facebook ecommerce ads are fine. 

Pro tip: When you create Lookalike Audience on Meta (Facebook), you can choose a percentage range and decide how closely do you want this Lookalike Audience to match your source audience.  Go with a smaller percentage. That will ensure that the audience matches closely to your source audience.

7. Use the 3-2-2 Method for Identifying the Most Effective Creatives for Facebook Ads: 

Meta provides you the option of Dynamic Creative, where you need to submit creatives for an ad and then the dynamic creative algorithm will try out different versions of your ads and decide which one is the best. 

For that, you need to submit: 

• 3 versions of your ad creatives
• 2 versions of primary text
• 2 different headlines 

This can be effective for you as you don’t have to worry about finalizing the creatives for your target audience, and Meta’s smart algorithm will do the hard yards for you. 

Note: Meta is currently sunsetting Dynamic creatives. So, soon, you will not have this feature, and you might have to rely on other options like Advantage+ Creative. 

8. Use Meta’s Measurement Solutions: Meta also provides advertisers with different solutions for measuring the performance and impact of their ad campaigns. These include experiments like Conversion Lift (which helps to understand the true value of your Facebook ads), etc.  

Use these solutions to understand where and how you can improve your ecommerce ads. 

9. Install the Meta Pixel: Right from the beginning, ensure that you have installed Meta (Facebook) pixel on your store. Be it a Shopify store, or a self-hosted website, a Meta pixel will track important visitor activities on your side, as well as the conversions that stem from your Facebook advertising efforts. 

10. Avoid Making Significant Edits To Your Ad Sets During the Learning Phase: 

Whenever you make a significant edit of your ad set during the learning phase, it causes the ad set to re-enter the learning phase. This can waste your ad budget, and also result in less stable performance. 

11. Focus on Improving Campaign Score: When you are creating Facebook ads for your products, you will see a campaign score at the top right. It reflects how many optimizations Meta recommended to you have been applied before you published the campaign. 

It’s a score from 0-100 and higher scores indicate that your ad setup is great which as you would guess, also increases the likelihood of strong performance. 

12. Leverage all Advantage Solutions Properly: Meta has made significant progress by introducing Advantage+ solutions throughout the ad creation process. With their smart AI, your ecommerce ads can benefit a lot. 

Advantage+ Creative, Advantage Destination, and the list goes on. If you feel you want to do Meta’s AI do the smart work and focus on other important tasks, you can turn on these features for your benefit! 

Examples of Facebook Ads for Ecommerce

Let’s also look at some great Facebook ads that brands or sellers have run in the past to promote their ecommerce businesses. And we will also try to understand what takeaways are there from these ads: 

1. Bolden USA – Skincare Guide Ad

In this Facebook video ad (from Bolden USA) you can see that they have offered face-washing tips. 

Along with that, they have also answered some common skincare questions that any viewer might have, such as ‘how much cleanser do you need’ etc. And at the end of the video ad, they have promoted their own cleanser, while guiding users to shop for that from their website. 

Takeaways

• Impart some sort of valuable knowledge to your viewers before you sell your products. Why? To build trust. 
• Use questions that make people curious and want to learn more.

2. Chubbies – Fun Shorts Ad

This Facebook carousel ad from Chubbies is very special. It uses humour and a casual tone to promote one of their best sellers – workout shorts. 

Quite smartly, they have included fun phrases, customer reviews, etc., to promote their products. 

Takeaways 

• Short, fun, and attention grabbing text in your Facebook ad copies will help make your ads more engaging. 
• Adding real customer reviews helps convince people to buy.

3. Boredwalk – Funny T-Shirt Ad

This Boredwalk Facebook ad promotes quirky t-shirts for those customers who have a knack for humorous thoughts. Their ad uses a relatable message, superb design, and lifestyle product photography. 

Takeaways

• Well obviously the first takeaway will be that clean, high-quality product photos will take your ecommerce Facebook ads a long way in terms of professionality.
• And humour can help your ads (and copies) stand out!  

Facebook Ads Agencies for E-Commerce

In case you need help creating or optimizing your Facebook ads for ecommerce, then you get also contact an agency that will help you with it: 

1. Adspace: They offer custom ad strategies that help you improve your Facebook ROAS and also cut wasted ad spend. As per their website, they have already helped brands generate over $50M in revenue. If you want help growing your e-commerce brand with Facebook ads, their strategies can drive more conversions and better ad efficiency
2. Upgrow: This digital marketing agency specializes in landing page optimization, Facebook audience targeting, etc. So, as an ecommerce brand, if you are struggling with any of these aspects, you can reach out to them.
3. Voy Media: Voy Media helps with creating high-converting Facebook ads, retargeting ads, and scaling your budgets. If your e-commerce store needs better ad performance and higher ROAS, you can get in touch with their team.

Conclusion

Facebook ads can help your e-commerce store get more sales. They are affordable, reach the right people, and offer many ad formats to fit your needs. If you set them up well and keep improving them, you can see great results. 

Good luck. 

FAQs 

1. Does Facebook advertising work for eCommerce?

Yes, Facebook ads help eCommerce brands reach the right audience, boost sales, and increase brand awareness. With advanced targeting and cost-effective campaigns, businesses can attract more customers and get better conversion rates than other platforms.

2. Is $1,000 enough for Facebook ads?

Yes, if spent wisely. Start with $30–$50 per day, test different ads, and optimize based on performance. With the right targeting and strategy, even a small budget can drive good sales and conversions.

3. What is the 3-2-2 method of Facebook ads?

The 3-2-2 method uses three images/videos, two primary text variations, and two headlines. Facebook tests different combinations to find the best-performing ad, improving engagement and conversions with minimal manual effort.

This strategy works with Facebook’s Dynamic Creative feature, which auto-generates ad creative variations. However, Meta has already started sunsetting this feature, so availability may vary by region.

4. How can I get results for eCommerce with Facebook ads?

Use strong visuals, test different ad formats, and target the right audience. Leverage Advantage+ AI tools for better placements. Monitor metrics like CTR and ROAS to optimize performance and maximize sales.

5. How do I run Facebook retargeting ads for eCommerce?

To run Facebook retargeting ads, go to Ads Manager and create a Custom Audience from website visitors, engaged users, or past customers. Use the Meta Pixel to track actions like cart abandonment. Exclude those who completed purchases to target only potential buyers who didn’t convert.

Set up a compelling ad with a strong CTA, such as a discount or reminder. Use Advantage+ Placements for broader reach and manual placements for more control. Monitor performance and, if successful, create a Lookalike Audience based on engaged users to find similar customers and scale your campaign properly. 

6. How do I target the right audience for my products?

Use Core Audiences (age, location, interests), Custom Audiences (past visitors or buyers), and Lookalike Audiences (similar to existing customers). Mixing these ensures better targeting and higher conversions.

7. How can I measure the success of my Facebook Ads?

Track click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and return on ad spend (ROAS) in Meta Ads Manager. Using Facebook Pixel helps measure purchases and user actions to optimize campaigns.

8. Can I run Facebook ads if I don’t have a website?

Yes, you can direct ads to Facebook Shops, Instagram Shops, Messenger, or WhatsApp Business. It’s a good way to sell products without a website, but having one gives better branding and customer control.

Check Out These Related Articles:

• How to Optimize Facebook Ads
• 10 Best Selling Items on Facebook Marketplace
• 6 Shopify Facebook Product Feed Apps
• How to Optimize Facebook Product Feeds
• Advantage+ Creative for Enhanced Ad Performance