Solved: Ads and Ad Sets - Should Both Be Switched On?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on this. It's a really common question for people just starting out with Meta ads, so don't worry, you're not alone in being a bit paranoid about the budget. The structure can feel a bit counter-intuitive at first.

The short answer is no, you won't be charged double. But the long answer is that understanding *why* it's structured that way is the first step to actually getting results instead of just burning cash. I'll walk you through how it works, how we structure campaigns for our clients to get results, and how you should be thinking about it from a strategic point of view.

Let's clear up the Campaign > Ad Set > Ad structure...

Right, first things first. Let's get this budget worry out of the way. You are absolutely right to be carefull with your money. I've seen clients come to us after accidentally leaving duplicate campaigns running and spending way more then they intended. But your specific worry here isn't something that'll happen.

The structure is a hierarchy, like a family tree. It goes from broad to specific:

• Campaign: This is the top-level container. It's where you set your main objective. Are you trying to get sales? Leads? Traffic? You tell Meta what your goal is here. Think of it as the filing cabinet for a specific project, like 'January Sales Promotion'.
• Ad Set: This sits inside the Campaign. This is where the important stuff happens for targeting and budget. You define *who* you want to see your ads (your audience), *where* you want them to see them (placements like Facebook Feed, Instagram Stories), and you set the budget (unless you're using Campaign Budget Optimisation, but we'll get to that). You can have multiple Ad Sets in one Campaign, each targeting a different group of people. For instance, one Ad Set could target 'women aged 25-34 who like yoga', and another could target 'men aged 40-50 who like golf'.
• Ad: This is inside an Ad Set. This is the actual creative—the image, video, and text that people see. You can have multiple Ads inside one Ad Set. This lets you test which picture or headline gets more clicks from the same audience.

All three levels need to be switched 'on' for anything to run. If you switch off the Campaign, everything inside it stops. If you switch off an Ad Set, the Ads inside that specific set stop, but other Ad Sets in the same campaign might keep running. It's a cascade system. You only spend the budget you've allocated at either the Ad Set level or the Campaign level. Never both. It's one or the other.

You'll want to think about *why* this structure exists...

So now you know it won't double your spend, the next question is why on earth is it so complicated? It's all about one thing: testing.

You can't just throw an ad up and hope for the best. Paid advertising is a science, not an art. You need to systematically figure out what works. This structure is built to help you do just that.

• You use Ad Sets to test audiences. Is it young people or old people who buy your product? Men or women? People who like your competitor's page? You create a different ad set for each hypothesis and let them run against each other. Meta will show you which audience is giving you cheaper results.
• You use Ads to test creative. Does a video work better than a picture? Does a short, punchy headline beat a longer, more descriptive one? You put different ads inside one ad set to see what that specific audience responds to best.

When we take on a new client, this is the first thing we build out. A rigourous testing framework. We don't guess. We build campaigns that give us data, and then we make decisions based on that data. I remember one campaign we worked on for an eCommerce client selling outdoor gear. Inside their main campaign, we had one ad set targeting people interested in 'hiking' and another targeting people interested in 'camping'. Inside the 'hiking' ad set, we tested an ad with a picture of boots, an ad with a video of someone on a mountain, and an ad with a carousel of different products. After a few days, we could see that the 'hiking' audience was responding better than 'camping', and the video ad was getting the most sales. So, we turned off the bad performers and put more budget behind the winners. That's optimisation. That's the whole game.

I'd say you need to get your audience targeting right from the start...

This brings me to the most important part of the whole process. You can have the best ad creative in the world, but if you show it to the wrong people, you'll get nothing. Your targeting is everything.

Most beginners make a huge mistake here. They target massive, broad interests like "fashion" or "business". One client we audited was selling high-end accounting software but was targeting the interest "Small Business". That includes everyone from the person selling knitted hats on Etsy to a 100-person tech company. It's useless. You're paying to show your ads to millions of people who will never, ever buy from you.

You need to stop thinking in terms of demographics and start thinking in terms of pain. Your ideal customer isn't "a man aged 30-50". Your ideal customer is "a project manager who is terrified of his project going over budget because he's using messy spreadsheets to track everything." See the difference? One is a datapoint, the other is a nightmare you can solve.

Once you know their nightmare, you can find them. What podcasts do they listen to? What industry newsletters do they read? What tools do they already use? Those are your interests. Target people who like 'Asana' or 'Monday.com', not 'Business'.

We structure our campaigns around a funnel. You can't just ask a total stranger to marry you on the first date, and you can't ask them to buy from you the first time they see your ad. You need to build a relationship. Here's how we typically prioritise audiences for, say, an eCommerce store:

You need a "Prospecting" campaign (ToFu) to find new people. Then you need a "Retargeting" campaign (MoFu/BoFu) to bring back the people who visited your site but didn't buy. The retargeting audiences are almost always your most profitable. This is where most of the money is made, but you can't have a retargeting audience without first doing the prospecting to get people to your site.

We'll need to look at what you're actually offering them...

Let's say you get the structure right. You've got your testing framework. You've nailed the targeting and you're showing your ads to the perfect audience. You can still fail. Why? Because your offer is rubbish, or your ad copy doesn't connect.

Your ad needs to speak directly to the 'nightmare' we talked about earlier. We use a few simple copywriting formulas for this.

• Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS): You state the problem, you poke the bruise to make them feel the pain, then you present your product as the solution. For instance, for a SaaS client selling a reporting tool, we didn't say "Buy our dashboard software". We said: "Still copy-pasting data into spreadsheets at 10 PM? (Problem) Worried you'll make a mistake that gets you grilled by your boss in the morning meeting? (Agitate) Automate your reporting in 5 minutes and get your evenings back. (Solve)".
• Before-After-Bridge (BAB): You paint a picture of their world now (the before state), show them the amazing world where their problem is solved (the after state), and position your product as the bridge to get there. "Before: Your ad budget feels like a black hole. You pour money in, but have no idea what's working. After: You know exactly which ads are making you money and you confidently scale your spend. Our ads management service is the bridge."

And your offer itself has to be compelling. Especially in B2B, the worst thing you can ask for is "Request a Demo". It's a massive commitment. You're asking a busy person to give up 30 minutes of their time to be sold to. It's arrogant. You need a lower friction offer that provides instant value. A free trial. A free automated audit tool. A helpful checklist. A short, valuable video course. We offer a free ad account audit. We solve a small part of their problem for free to earn the right to solve the whole thing.

You probably should understand the numbers behind the ads...

This all comes back to budget in the end. Your initial fear was about spending too much. The real question isn't how to spend less, it's "how much can I *afford* to spend to get a customer?". If you don't know this number, you're flying blind.

The two most importent acronyms you need to learn are LTV (Lifetime Value) and CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost). LTV is the total profit you'll make from an average customer over the entire time they stay with you. CAC is what you pay to get that customer (your ad spend).

A healthy business aims for an LTV:CAC ratio of at least 3:1. This means for every £1 you spend on ads, you get £3 back in profit over the customer's lifetime. Here’s how you can roughly calculate your LTV:

1. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): How much does a customer pay you per month?
2. Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue?
3. Monthly Churn Rate %: What percentage of customers do you lose each month?

The formula is: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

Once you know your LTV, you know what you can afford to pay for a customer. If your LTV is £3,000, you can comfortably spend up to £1,000 to acquire a customer and still have a healthy business. This changes everything. Suddenly, a £50 cost per lead doesn't seem so scary if you know it converts into a £3,000 customer.

I've built a little calculator for you here so you can play with the numbers yourself. Adjust the sliders to see how small changes in churn or revenue can massively impact your LTV.

You'll need a solid plan to put this all together...

Okay, that was a lot of information, I know. We've gone from a simple question about campaign structure to business finance. But that's because it's all connected. Running paid ads isn't just a marketing task; it's a core business growth activity. Doing it properly requires a strategic approach, not just flicking some switches on and hoping for the best.

You came here worried about double spending. I hope you now see that the bigger risk is 'dumb' spending – spending money without a proper testing structure, on the wrong audience, with a weak offer, and with no idea what a customer is actually worth to you. That's how 90% of businesses lose money on Facebook ads.

To give you a clear path forward, I've broken down the key steps you should take. This is the process we follow, and it's built to minimise waste and maximise the chances of finding a profitable formula for your ads.

This is the main advice I have for you:

As you can see, it's a process. It takes time, a bit of budget for testing, and a methodical approach. It's very easy to get lost in all the buttons and options inside Ads Manager and miss the bigger strategic picture.

Getting it right from the start can save you thousands in wasted ad spend and months of frustration. This is often where working with an expert can make a huge differance. We've made the mistakes, we've run hundreds of campaigns like this for clients in many niches, from generating over 4,600 registrations for a B2B software company at just $2.38 per registration, to helping an eCommerce subscription box achieve a 1000% return on ad spend. We can shortcut the process for you by applying a proven framework to your business.

I hope this detailed breakdown has been genuinely helpful and has cleared things up for you. If you've read through this and feel it's a bit overwhelming and you'd rather have an expert take a look, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can jump on a call, have a look at your business and what you're trying to achieve, and give you a clear, actionable plan. No hard sell, just honest advice.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh