Facebook just announced recently on their developers website that On March 4, 2014, they will be launching a new three level Facebook Advertising campaign structure, which affects all of their existing Facebook Advertising client facing interfaces, including: Facebook Ads Creator, Ads Manager, and Power Editor; as well as third- party interfaces built by PMD’s, FBX and mobile measurement partners. The primary purpose of the new Facebook Advertising campaign structure is to make it easier for advertisers to organize and scale their Facebook advertising campaigns, which will be illustrated in greater depth below.

Current Facebook Advertising Campaign Structure

Current Facebook Ad campaigns have two levels to allow advertisers and businesses to reach multiple audience segments with different objectives; as well as split test multiple ads and run several schedules or flights.

1.  Facebook Ad

• define creative, bidding and audience for each ad
• create multiple ads so our system can optimize creative
• ability to activate or pause ads

2.  Facebook Campaign

• consists of more than one ad
• can control budget and campaign schedule
• ability to activate or pause ads

New Facebook Advertising Campaign Structure

In contrast, the new Facebook Ads campaign structure consists of three different levels, including: ads, campaigns and ad sets. However, the main difference between the current and new Facebook advertising campaign structures is that there are now ad sets, which allow you to group ads from your Facebook campaigns into one or more ad sets, so that you can control the spend, budget and campaign time frame for these ads within the ad set and also turn on or off these ad sets within your advertising campaigns.

Facebook Ads New Campaign Structure

                            Image Source: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/ads-api/new-campaign-structure-migration/

1.   Ads– will continue to define creative, audience and bidding.

• Create multiple ads so our system can optimize creative
• Turn on or off ads

2.   Campaign– more powerful consisting of one or more ad sets

• setup a campaign for each of your marketing objectives
• get reporting on aggregate stats for multiple ad sets and ads
• turn off ads and it will apply to all ads and ad sets

3.   Ad Sets– will have the same features campaigns had in the old Facebook Ads campaign structure.

• contain one or more ad
• ability to control budget and schedule for each ad set
• turn on or off ad sets and it will apply to all ads

Key Benefits of New Facebook Ads Campaign Structure

1.   Organize Your Campaigns Into Objectives

• Can now set an objective (i.e. clicks to website) for a campaign and group the ads that target the same audience into ad sets.
• You can then use ad sets to schedule flights with specific budgets for each of your audience segments.

2. Optimize Audiences

• Can compare the audiences within your current ad campaign; as well as the performance of your campaigns. You can now also set the ad campaign budget and schedule at the ad set level and utilize on and off controls at any level to control delivery.

3.  Measure Performance With Aggregate Stats

• Obtain reports of your performance, such as total reach for all levels: including ad sets, campaigns and ads. You can also use the Facebook Ads reporting tool to break down ad performance by demographics, geography and placement, so that you can further optimize your audiences.

Existing FB Ads Will Not Be Affected

Moreover, when the new ad campaign system is rolled out on March 4, 2014 it will be migrated to all of your current Facebook Ads campaigns in your Ad Manager account. Thus, your existing Facebook Ads campaigns will not be affected by these new changes in the structure of Facebook Ads. And neither will the delivery, spend, or performance in your existing Facebook advertising campaigns. The only two key differences of the new Facebook Ads system, following the migration are: you will be able to group your current related ads and ad campaigns into ad sets and you will also be able to generate detailed reports at all levels of the Facebook advertising system, including: ads, campaigns and ad sets. However, Facebook recommends that you should modify your custom report settings as necessary. Moreover, make sure you take note of the structural changes to the Facebook Ads system before you create any new ads or ad campaigns after the new system is completely rolled out on March 4.

New FB Ad Campaigns Will Leverage The New Structure

1.  Campaigns will be based on the objectives you specify and all its ad sets and ads will match that objective.

2.  Campaigns must have one or more ad sets.

3.  Ad sets must have one or more ads.

4.  Reporting will be available for all campaigns, ad sets, and ads.

New FB Ads Campaign Structure Best Practices

Campaign= Objective

Decide on your objectives and then create one objective per campaign (i.e. Clicks to website, Page Likes, etc.) so you can optimize delivery, manage your spend, get the right reports, and maximize results for each objective.

Ad Set= Audience

An ad set should contain ads targeting the same campaign audience segment (i.e. Males; 18-24 on iOS devices) so you can easily compare and optimize audiences by adjusting schedules, budgets, or turning on or off ad sets.

Ad= Creative

Multiple ads should be created in each ad set so the Facebook Ads system can optimize for variations in placement (i.e. News Feed vs. Right Hand Side (RHS) ); images; video; text; or destination.

Clearly Facebook has made some fairly significant structural changes to the current two level Facebook Ads system, which are meant to help advertisers and business owners organize and scale their ad campaigns in a more efficient way via ad sets and increased reporting features at all levels of the Facebook Ads system. Thus, if these structural changes to the current Facebook Advertising system are tested and implemented in an extensive and thorough manner, than these changes will likely be welcomed with open arms by all Facebook Ads users globally. Nonetheless, although Facebook Ads new structural campaign changes might be a little difficult for some less experienced Facebook Ads users to pick up at first; in the long run they will make the Facebook Advertising system much more robust, efficient and cost effective.