Running Facebook & Instagram Ads Together: Unified Approach

For your e-commerce store, use a unified approach to running Facebook and Instagram ads together: share a campaign objective and budget, and tailor copy by placement (ad location) for single-image or video ads. Meta describes Advantage+ placements as automatically selecting the most effective placements to simplify ad creation. Assess results against your store’s goal.

Running Facebook and Instagram ads together: a unified approach

When you set up ads in Meta Ads Manager, a unified approach keeps a shared store goal at campaign level and delivery choices at ad set level. Meta organizes ad creation into three levels: campaign, ad set and ad.

Use the campaign level for your objective and buying type. A campaign contains one or more ad sets, and each ad set contains one or more ads.

Use the ad set for audience, placements, budget and schedule. Meta says all ads in an ad set share these settings.

Use the ad level for images, videos, text, headlines, links and identity, meaning the Facebook Page and Instagram account representing the business. This gives your campaign brief a clear home for each decision.

For a canvas-tote store, a sample planning line is: “Goal: sell canvas totes; audience: everyday shoppers; placements: Facebook and Instagram; message: show carrying capacity; destination: tote product page.”

To run Meta ads on Facebook and Instagram, select Facebook and Instagram as placements in Meta Ads Manager. Meta says, “If you select Facebook and Instagram, we can get your ads to people at the lowest cost.”

You can run ads without an Instagram account. Meta says that at the Ad level, the Facebook Page connected in the Identity section is automatically selected below Instagram account to be the voice of your ads on Instagram.

Keep your written campaign brief beside the campaign creation walkthrough.

To run ads on Instagram without Facebook placements, select Instagram as a placement in Meta Ads Manager, as Meta instructs, using manual placement settings if you do not want Advantage+ placements.

To run ads on Instagram with your Facebook Page, follow Meta's steps:

1. Go to Ad creation.
2. At the Campaign level, choose an objective for your ad that supports Instagram.
3. At the Ad set level, complete the Audience and Budget & schedule sections. Then, click Next.
4. At the Ad level, you'll first need to connect a Facebook Page in the Identity section. Below Instagram account, you'll see that the Page that you've connected has automatically been selected to be the voice of your ads on Instagram. If you'd like to add an Instagram account, click Connect account.
5. Before you place your order, make sure your Instagram Ad preview appears. This will ensure your ad will be eligible to run on Instagram.

Advantage+ placements and manual placement settings

Advantage+ placements is broader than Facebook and Instagram; Meta recommends remaining opted into all placements across both platforms, Messenger, Threads and Audience Network.

With Meta’s Advantage+ placements, also called Placements with Advantage+ on, automatic placement selection can help simplify ad creation and find cost-effective opportunities across Meta technologies and placements.

Meta recommends Advantage+ placements (or Placements with Advantage+ on) if you use the highest volume bid strategy because its ad delivery system is designed to get you the most optimization events (the number of times your ads achieved the outcome your ad set is currently optimized for) at the lowest average cost overall, not the lowest average cost for each placement. It looks at all available opportunities across all placements and selects the least expensive ones without regard for the average cost per optimization event for each placement.

Compare that finding with your own campaign results before changing placement choices.

Keep Advantage+ placements if you want broader placement availability under this recommendation. If delivery must stay on Facebook and Instagram, choose ad placements in Ads Manager and in Advertising settings, including Facebook and Instagram for the shared ad set. Choose manual restrictions only when you can name the business requirement they protect.

Creative for Facebook Feed, Instagram Stories and Reels

Facebook and Instagram can use different copy in a shared campaign through Meta’s placement asset customization when the ad uses a single image or video. This feature lets you tailor ad copy to placements on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp and Meta Audience Network.

When tailoring ad creative for different placements and formats, LeadEnforce advises adapting your tactics to the format. Keep the product benefit and offer consistent, but review how much copy each placement can display. Put the essential product information early enough that the message still makes sense if later text is cut off.

For most placements, use Meta’s recommended text lengths: 125 characters for Primary text, 40 for Headline and 25 for Description. Text may be further truncated across placements and devices.

For layout, follow Meta’s safe-zone guidance: the safe zone is the area where important elements, such as text overlays and logos, will not be cropped out or covered by the user interface. For 9:16 ads in Stories, Reels, Feed and Facebook in-stream reels, keep the top, bottom and side edges free of key creative elements, text and logos. Some of these features are being introduced gradually. You may not see them yet.

Creative specifications and review preparation

If you use generative artificial intelligence (AI) features, check their availability before relying on them for production.

Prepare the copy and layout for each intended placement before committing budget.

Budget allocation and pacing across both platforms

One unified campaign does not require a separate budget for each platform. Advantage+ campaign budget distributes money across ad sets, while Advantage+ placements selects delivery opportunities across placements.

Meta offers a campaign budget through Advantage+ campaign budget, also called Campaign budget or Budget with Advantage+ on, or individual ad set budgets.

This lets you set one overarching campaign budget that continuously distributes in real time to ad sets with the best opportunities. Campaign budgets can help you get the most results possible from your campaign at the lowest cost and work best if you are flexible with how budget is spent across ad sets.

Ad set budgets give manual control over how much each ad set spends. Do not treat a shared budget as a promise of equal Facebook and Instagram spending.

Budget periods include Daily budget, a daily spending amount, and Lifetime budget, a total spread across the campaign’s schedule. As of October 2026, Meta says greater daily budget flexibility is being introduced to some Meta Ads Manager accounts.

Hypothetical pacing check: suppose your promotion has a $120 budget over 6 days. The planning average is $120 ÷ 6 = $20 per day. If it has spent $50, the remaining amount is $120 - $50 = $70.

Compare your remaining budget with the remaining promotion period before increasing spending. Keep flexible placement delivery separate from the amount you are willing to commit overall.

Choose the budget level according to whether you need flexible allocation or tighter ad set control. Use the campaign versus ad set budgeting guide to document why you chose that budget level.

Planning performance comparisons for a unified campaign

Record the campaign goal before planning a comparison. For a purchase-focused campaign, plan to compare purchases and cost per purchase over the same reporting period. Keep that goal visible when assessing changes to your ads.

Before restricting a placement, write down the business requirement you want the restriction to serve. Assess the change against the overall campaign goal.

For the A/B test described in Meta’s campaign-creation instructions, plan which image, audience or placement variation you want to compare before publishing; configure the test afterward.

Use purchases and cost per purchase to judge a purchase-focused test. If the purchase results do not give you a clear basis for choosing a version, treat the comparison as inconclusive and avoid scaling a version on that comparison alone.

Change the element the comparison addresses, and keep a note of what was changed.

When separate campaigns make sense

Consider separating campaigns when you need different campaign objectives; separate ad sets suit different delivery settings under a shared objective. Use your store’s requirement to choose the level of separation.

Use Meta’s campaign hierarchy, budget-level choices and single-image or video copy customization to choose a structure:

A Facebook vs. Instagram ads comparison should answer a business question, such as whether each platform needs its own spending commitment. Avoid duplicating campaigns merely to make the account look more organized.

Different copy alone is not a reason to duplicate campaigns when placement asset customization covers your needs for ads that use a single image or video. Before splitting the campaign, write the requirement that a shared structure cannot meet.

Crush, our ad platform, creates ad creatives and copy for your store and launches campaigns in your own Meta ad account. Automate your Facebook ads.