Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts on how to structure your Facebook campaigns. It's a common question, and getting the structure right from the start can save you a lot of headache and wasted ad spend down the line. The good news is, the most effective approach is often far simpler than most people think.
Your situation, relying on messages for orders, is quite specific, but the principles of good campaign structure still apply. Let's get this sorted for you.
TLDR;
- Stop thinking about seperate campaigns for each dress. It's a recipe for disaster. Use a single campaign with Campaign Budget Optimisation (CBO) and let Meta's algorithm do the hard work of finding your winning dresses.
- Structure your ad sets by dress style, not individual colours. This keeps things organised and gives the algorithm enough data to work with for each style.
- Use Carousel or simple Video ads to showcase all the different colours of a dress within a single ad. This gives customers options and reduces ad fatigue. Don't create seperate posts for each colour.
- Your broad targeting approach is likely working because it gives the algorithm maximum freedom. Stick with it, but consider adding a small retargeting ad set for people who have messaged you before.
- This letter includes an interactive calculator to help you figure out your true Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) when you're only tracking messages, not website sales.
We'll need to look at... The Myth of the "Perfect" Campaign Structure
First, let's tackle your main question: should you use one campaign with multiple ad sets, or a separate campaign for each of your 12 dress styles? The temptation to create a seperate, perfectly controlled campaign for each product is strong. It feels organised. It feels like you're in control. It's also almost always the wrong move, especially for a business like yours.
Think about it from Meta's perspective. The algorithm's job is to find the cheapest, most effective way to get you the result you want (in your case, messages). To do this, it needs two things: a clear goal and as much data as possible. When you create 12 different campaigns, you're splitting your budget into 12 tiny pieces. You're forcing each campaign to go through its own "learning phase" with very little data. It's like trying to train 12 different people to do the same job by only giving them one page of the training manual each. It’s incredibly inefficient and you'll end up with unstable results and higher costs.
Instead of fighting the algorithm, you need to work with it. The solution is to consolidate everything into a single campaign that uses Campaign Budget Optimisation (CBO). With CBO, you set one budget at the campaign level, and Meta's algorithm will automatically distribute that budget across all your ad sets (your different dress styles) in real-time. It will push more money towards the dresses that are getting you the most messages for the lowest cost, and pull back from the ones that aren't performing. It's an automated testing machine.
This approach frees you from having to guess which dress will be the bestseller this week. The algorithm will figure it out for you, based on actual user behaviour. It’s more stable, more efficient, and it scales far better. You're effectively letting one of the most powerful machine learning systems in the world manage your portfolio of products.
This isn't just theory. I remember one client we worked with, a women's apparel brand, was struggling with a complex, multi-campaign setup. By consolidating their budget into a single CBO campaign, similar to what I'm suggesting for you, we let the algorithm find the winning products and audiences automatically. This simplification was a key factor in helping them achieve a 691% return on their ad spend on Meta Ads.
Here’s a simple visualisation of why this structure is so much more effective:
Inefficient Structure (Multiple Campaigns)
(£10 Budget)
(£10 Budget)
Budget is fragmented. No automated optimisation between dresses. High management effort.
Recommended CBO Structure
(£20 Budget)
(Gets £5)
(Gets £15)
Budget automatically shifts to the best performer (Dress B). Lower costs, better results, less work.
I'd say you... should simplify your ad sets and get creative with your ads
Now that we've settled on one CBO campaign, let's talk about what goes inside it: the ad sets and the ads themselves. You have 12 dress styles, each in multiple colours. The structure should be simple:
-> One ad set for each of your 12 dress styles.
Don't create ad sets for each individual colour. Just like with the campaigns, this would fragment your data too much. The ad set's job is to test a specific product concept (in this case, a dress style) against your target audience.
This brings us to your second question: how to showcase the different colours. Creating separate posts or ads for each colour is a common mistake. It clutters your campaign, creates a ton of extra work, and can actually annoy customers who might see an ad for a blue dress, click to message, and only then find out it comes in red, which they would have preferred.
You need to show the variety within a single ad. There are two brilliant ways to do this:
1. Carousel Ads: This is probably the best option for you. A carousel ad lets you have multiple images or videos in one swipeable unit. Each card in the carousel can be a different colour of the same dress. You can show professional photos, customer photos, or even short video clips of someone wearing the dress in each colour. The headline for each card could even be the name of the colour, e.g., "Classic Black" or "Summer Red". It’s interactive, visually appealing, and gives the customer all the information upfront.
2. Video Ads: Don't be intimidated by video. It doesn't need to be a high-budget production. A simple, clean slideshow video that cycles through high-quality photos of the dress in every colour can work wonders. Or, even better, a short video of a model (or even you!) wearing the dress and doing a simple turn. This shows how the fabric moves and how it fits, which is something a static image can't do. You can add text overlays that say "Available in 5 Colours!" to make it obvious.
By using one of these formats, you create a much richer, more engaging ad experience. You're answering the customer's next question ("Does it come in other colours?") before they even have to ask it. This leads to more qualified messages because the people who contact you already know the options and are closer to making a purchase decision.
You probably should... stick with your broad targeting approach
You mentioned that you leave the 'interests' section empty and have found this to be the most effective strategy. A lot of so-called 'experts' would tell you this is wrong and that you need to layer on dozens of interests like "Fashion," "Dresses," and "Online Shopping."
I'm here to tell you that for your business model and location, your approach is likely the correct one. Here's why. In many markets, especially where online shopping behaviour is different, Meta's interest data can be unreliable or incomplete. By going broad (targeting only by age, gender, and location), you are giving the algorithm the largest possible pool of people to work with. You're essentially telling it, "Here are 2.5 million women in my country. You're the smart one, you figure out who is most likely to message me about buying a dress."
When combined with a CBO campaign and a clear objective like 'Messages', the algorithm becomes incredibly good at this. It analyses the characteristics of people who have messaged you in the past and actively seeks out similar people. Going broad isn't lazy; it's an act of trust in the algorithm, and it often outperforms manual interest targeting, which is often just guesswork.
However, there is one layer you should definately add: Retargeting.
Within your single CBO campaign, you should create one additional ad set dedicated to retargeting. This ad set will target a "Custom Audience" of people who have already interacted with your business. For you, the most valuable audiences would be:
- People who have messaged your Facebook Page: These are your warmest leads. They've already shown interest.
- People who have engaged with your Page/Ads: Anyone who has liked, commented on, or saved one of your posts or ads.
Your retargeting ad set can show them new dress arrivals, special offers, or just remind them of a style they might have looked at before. Because this audience is much smaller and more engaged, your cost per message will often be significantly lower. I'd recomend allocating about 10-20% of your total budget to this retargeting ad set to start.
Finding new customers
Re-engaging past visitors
You'll need... to measure what actually matters
Because you're not using a website with a pixel, you can't track standard e-commerce metrics like Add to Carts or Purchases directly in Ads Manager. This is fine, but it means you need to be disciplined about tracking the metrics that *do* matter for your business. In your case, there are three:
1. Cost per Message Started: This is the main metric Ads Manager will show you. It's a good top-level indicator of how well your ads are performing. You want to see this number go down over time as the algorithm optimises.
2. Message-to-Order Rate: This is a metric you have to track manually. For every 100 messages you receive, how many actually turn into a confirmed order? Is it 10%? 20%? 50%? Knowing this number is absolutly vital. If your ads are generating lots of cheap messages but none of them are from serious buyers, then something is wrong with your ad creative or targeting.
3. Cost per Order (CPO): This is your true acquisition cost. You can calculate it with a simple formula: Cost per Message / Message-to-Order Rate = Cost per Order. For example, if your Cost per Message is £1.00 and your Message-to-Order rate is 20% (1 in 5 messages leads to an order), your true Cost per Order is £1.00 / 0.20 = £5.00.
Once you know your Cost per Order, you can calculate your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). If your average dress sells for £25 and it costs you £5 to acquire that customer, your ROAS is 5x (£25 revenue / £5 ad cost). This is the ultimate measure of success. To make this easier, I’ve built a simple calculator for you below. Play around with the sliders to see how small changes in your conversion rate can have a massive impact on your profitability.
This is the main advice I have for you:
To pull this all together, here is a clear, actionable plan for you to implement. This structure is designed to be simple to manage, highly effective, and scalable as your business grows.
| Component | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Campaign Structure | Use ONE Campaign with Campaign Budget Optimisation (CBO) enabled. Set your entire daily or lifetime budget at the campaign level. |
| Campaign Objective | Set your objective to Messages to optimise for conversations with potential buyers. |
| Ad Set Structure | Create one Ad Set for each dress STYLE. If you have 12 styles, you will have 12 ad sets in your campaign. Do not create ad sets for colours. |
| Targeting (Prospecting) | Continue with your Broad Targeting strategy (Age, Gender, Location only). Do not add interest targeting. |
| Targeting (Retargeting) | Add one dedicated Retargeting Ad Set. Target a custom audience of people who have messaged your page in the past 180 days. |
| Ad Creative | Use Carousel Ads or Video Ads to showcase all available colours of a dress within a single ad unit. |
| Key Metrics to Track | Focus on Cost per Message in Ads Manager. Manually track your Message-to-Order Rate and calculate your true Cost per Order and ROAS. |
I understand this might seem like a lot to take in, but the core idea is simple: simplify your account structure, trust the algorithm, focus on great creative, and measure what really drives your business forward. The world of paid advertising is always changing, and what worked last year might not work today. Keeping up with these changes and knowing how to adapt your strategy is a full-time job.
This is where working with an expert can make a significant difference. We spend all day, every day, inside ad accounts, testing what works and what doesn't. We could help you not only implement this structure correctly but also continuously test and optimise your creative and targeting to drive down your costs and increase your sales.
If you’d like to have a chat about how we could help you grow your business, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can go through your specific situation in more detail.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
