‼ Disclaimer: Meta is, simply put, a pain in the ass. The following guide should serve as a baseline and used to set the foundation of your account. There are exceptions to every rule, and I often recommend things outside of these parameters upon doing account audits. Every market, audience, and account performs differently, so treat this as a place to begin, then let your own results steer future decisions.

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Table of Contents

1. How Meta ads are structured
2. When to create a new campaign vs. a new ad set
3. Creative content ideas
4. Example structure: a full walk-through
5. Campaign structure examples
6. Frequently Asked Questions </aside>

🆕 What changed: the Andromeda update

Meta rebuilt how ads get delivered. It used to match your ad to the audience you selected. Now its AI reads your creative (your photos, videos, and copy) and decides who to show it to. The practical takeaway: spend your energy making strong, varied creative. That is the lever now, not audience settings. You can view the Andromeda update guide I built here.

How Meta ads are structured

Every Meta campaign is built in three stacked layers. You build top-down: campaign first, then ad sets inside it, then ads inside those.

1. Campaign: the overall goal

The highest level of your ad structure. This is where you set the objective: what you want Meta to go get for you. For most painting companies, that objective is leads (homeowners raising their hand to request an estimate).

You build one campaign per goal. Audience, budget specifics, and creative do not go here. The campaign is just the container and the objective.

2. Ad sets: who sees it and how much $$ to spend

Ad sets are groups of ads inside a campaign. This is where every targeting and budget decision gets made. One campaign can hold several ad sets, and each can target a different audience.

What you set here:

• Audience: who sees the ads. For a painting company, usually homeowners within a set distance of your service area.
  • Tip: one ad set = one audience. To test two audiences, build two ad sets, not one.
  • Tip: keep targeting broad. Specifying your service area via zip code(s) is usually enough. Under the Andromeda update, narrow interest-stacked audiences tend to underperform because your creative does the targeting now.
• Budget and schedule: how much you spend per day or week and when ads run.
• Placements: where your ads show across Meta (Facebook feed, Instagram, Reels, Stories).
  • Tip: leave placements on Advantage+ unless you have a clear reason not to. It lets Meta find the cheapest spots for you.
• Optimization: the action Meta chases (instant form submissions, landing page form submissions, etc.).

3. Ads: what the homeowner actually sees

The bottom level, and the only part your customers ever see. Each ad lives inside an ad set. An ad set can hold several ads, and Meta tends to push more budget toward whichever ad performs best.

What you set here:

• Creative: the video or image (before/after photos, job site footage, you talking to camera).