Understanding the Facebook Ads Campaign Structure: Campaign vs. Ad Set vs. Ad

When you open Ads Manager, you see three tabs at the top: Campaigns, Ad Sets, and Ads. It can be confusing. Why are there three?

Think of them like a Russian nesting doll. Each one fits inside the other.

1. The Campaign (The Big Shell)

This is the highest level. Here, you choose your Objective. You are answering the question: "What do I want?"

Example: "I want to sell T-shirts (Sales Objective)."
You cannot mix objectives. You can't have one campaign trying to get Likes AND Sales at the same time.

2. The Ad Set (The Middle Doll)

This sits inside the campaign. Here, you choose your Audience and Budget. You are answering: "Who sees it and how much do I pay?"

Example: "I want to target men in New York, and I want to spend $20 a day."

Why split it here?

This allows you to test audiences. You can have one Campaign, but create two Ad Sets (one targeting Men, one targeting Women) to see which group buys more.

3. The Ad (The Baby Doll)

This sits inside the Ad Set. This is what the customer actually sees on their phone.

Example: A photo of a blue T-shirt with the text "Buy Now."

Filing Up the "Ad" Level

You should never just have one ad. You should have 3 or 4 ads inside every Ad Set. Maybe one is a video, one is a photo, and one is a carousel. Facebook will test them and see which one people like best.

Stirling makes filling the Ad level easy. Creating 4 different ads manually takes hours. With Stirling, you can generate 10 different ad variations in minutes. This fills up your campaign structure with high-quality options automatically.

Fill your campaigns with winning ads using Stirling at TryStirling.com