Solved: Campaign, Ad Set, and Ad Status Confusion

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

That's a really common question and honestly, it's one of those things that trips a lot of people up when they're starting out. It’s easy to look at the dashboard and feel a bit paranoid that you're about to press a button that'll empty your bank account. The good news is, no, you won't be charged double. The system isn't designed to trick you like that.

Let's clear that up first, and then I'm happy to give you some more thoughts on how to actually use that structure to your advantage. It’s actually the foundation for running ads that genuinely work, rather than just throwing money at the wall.

Let's clear this up first: You won't be charged double...

Think of the structure – Campaign > Ad Set > Ad – like a set of switches wired in a series. For the light bulb (your ad) to turn on, all the switches in the line have to be flipped 'on'.

• If you switch the Campaign OFF, everything inside it (all ad sets and all ads) stops running. It’s the master switch.
• If you leave the Campaign ON but switch an Ad Set OFF, all the ads within that specific ad set will stop running. Other ad sets in the same campaign will continue to run, though.
• If you leave the Campaign and Ad Set ON, you can switch individual Ads ON or OFF. This lets you test different images or copy against each other within the same audience.

You are only ever billed for the ads that are actually active and being shown to people (impressions) or being clicked on. The structure is purely for organisation and control. So, rest easy on that front. You're not going to get a surprise bill because you left all the switches on. In fact, you *need* them all on for anything to happen.

So why does this structure even exist? It's all about control...

Now that the budget fear is out of the way, the real question is why bother with this structure at all? The answer is that each level gives you a different lever to pull to control and optimise your advertising. This is how you go from just 'boosting posts' to running a proper advertising system that gets results.

At the Campaign Level: You set your ONE objective.

This is probably the single most important choice you'll make, and where most people get it wrong. You're telling Meta's algorithm what you want it to find for you. If you choose 'Brand Awareness' or 'Reach', you are literally telling the system: "Please find me the cheapest people to show my ad to, regardless of whether they ever click, buy, or do anything at all."

The algorithm is brilliant at doing exactly what you ask. It will go and find people who are scrolling passively, who never engage with ads, and who are not in 'buying mode'. Why? Because their attention is cheap. No one else is bidding for them. I've seen so many accounts burning cash on awareness campaigns and wondering why they aren't getting any sales. You are paying to find non-customers.

For almost any business, especially smaller ones, you should choose a conversion-focused objective from the start. That means 'Sales' (if you're eCommerce) or 'Leads' (if you're a service). This commands the algorithm to: "Go and find people inside my target audience who are most similar to people who have previously bought from me or filled out a lead form." It's a completely different instruction and leads to a completely different outcome. Awareness is a byproduct of making sales, not the other way around.

At the Ad Set Level: You decide WHO and HOW MUCH.

This is your testing ground. For each ad set, you define four key things:

1. Audience: This is who you want to see your ads. You could create one ad set for people interested in 'Yoga', another for people who follow a specific yoga influencer, and a third for people who have visited your website in the past 30 days (retargeting).
2. Budget: You decide how much you want to spend per day or over the lifetime of the ad set. This lets you allocate more money to audiences that are performing well and less to those that aren't.
3. Schedule: When you want your ads to run.
4. Placements: Where your ads appear (e.g., Facebook Feed, Instagram Stories, etc.). I'd recomend leaving this on automatic to start with, the algorithm is usually better at finding the cheapest placements than we are.

By splitting your audiences into different ad sets, you can see clearly which groups of people are responding best to your ads. Maybe the people interested in 'Yoga' in general don't convert, but the followers of that specific influencer are buying like crazy. Without separate ad sets, you'd never know. It would all just be jumbled together.

You probably should be thinking about strategy, not just switches...

Okay, so we've established the structure gives you control. But control for what? The goal is to implement a proper marketing strategy. The simplest and most effective one is based on a sales funnel.

Think about your customers. They don't all know you. Some have never heard of you, some have visited your site but got distracted, and some are on the verge of buying. You can't speak to all of them with the same message. The campaign structure lets you segment them.

A basic, but very effective, setup we use for many clients is to have two main campaigns:

1. Prospecting Campaign (Top of Funnel - ToFu)
This campaign's job is to find new people who have never heard of you but who are likely to be interested in what you offer.

• Objective: Conversions (Leads/Sales). Always.
• Ad Sets: Here you'd test your 'cold' audiences. For instance:
  • Ad Set 1: People with 'Interest A' (e.g., Shopify)
  • Ad Set 2: People with 'Interest B' (e.g., WooCommerce)
  • Ad Set 3: A 'Lookalike Audience' of your past customers (this is where you upload a list of your customers and Meta finds millions of people who share similar characteristics. It's incredibly powerful).
• Ads: The ads here need to grab attention and introduce the problem you solve. They shouldn't be too salesy. The goal is to get a click through to your website so they can learn more.

2. Retargeting Campaign (Bottom of Funnel - BoFu)
This campaign's job is to bring back people who have already shown some interest but haven't converted yet. These are your warmest, most valuable prospects.

• Objective: Conversions (Leads/Sales).
• Ad Set: Here, your audience is much simpler.
  • Ad Set 1: 'All Website Visitors - Last 30 Days' (but you must exclude people who have already purchased or become a lead).
• Ads: The ads here can be more direct. You could show a testimonial, overcome a common objection, or present a special offer. They've already visited your site, so they know who you are. Now you just need to give them a reason to come back and finish what they started.

This two-campaign structure is simple, organised, and allows you to guide people from being a complete stranger to a happy customer. It's miles ahead of just boosting a post and hoping for the best.

I'd say you need to get your targeting right first...

The best campaign structure in the world won't save you if you're showing your ads to the wrong people. This is another area where a bit of deep thinking goes a long way. Most people just type a few broad interests into the audience box and call it a day. This is a recipe for wasted spend.

Forget demographics. "Women aged 25-40 in London" tells you nothing useful. Your ideal customer isn't defined by their age or location; they're defined by their *problems* and *aspirations*. What is the specific, urgent, expensive nightmare that your product or service solves?

Let's say you sell high-quality, ergonomic office chairs. Your ICP isn't "office workers." It's a 35-year-old freelance graphic designer who's starting to get persistent back pain after 10-hour days, is terrified it'll affect their ability to work, and has just lost a day of income because they couldn't sit at their desk comfortably. That's a pain point. That's a nightmare.

Once you understand that, your targeting options become much clearer. Instead of targeting the broad interest "Working from home", you could try:

• Targeting people who follow magazines like 'Creative Review' or 'Communication Arts'.
• Targeting members of Facebook Groups like 'Freelance Heroes'.
• Targeting people with job titles like 'Graphic Designer' or 'Art Director'.
• Targeting interests in software they use daily, like 'Adobe Photoshop' or 'Figma'.

See how much more specific that is? You're layering interests to find the person behind the screen, not just a demographic bucket. This is the work that has to be done *before* you spend a single pound. If your message speaks directly to their pain, and you put it in front of the right people, the results can be transformative.

We'll need to look at your budget and what to expect...

This brings us back to budget. Your original fear was about spending too much. The real goal is to spend your budget as efficiently as possible. When you're testing, it's often best to set the budget at the Ad Set level (this is called Ad Set Budget Optimisation, or ABO).

This lets you assign a specific daily budget to each audience you're testing. For example, £10/day on Ad Set 1, £10/day on Ad Set 2, and £10/day on Ad Set 3. After a few days, you can clearly see which audience is giving you the best results for your money. You can then turn off the losers and move their budget to the winners.

But what should you expect to pay for a result? This is the million-dollar question. The answer varies wildly by industry, country, and the quality of your ads and landing page. But we can make some educated estimates.

A typical sales process online involves getting someone to click your ad (Cost Per Click - CPC) and then a certain percentage of those people taking action on your website (Conversion Rate). Your Cost Per Lead or Sale (CPA) is a function of these two metrics.

For example, in the UK, a CPC might be around £1. A decent landing page might convert 10% of visitors into leads.
Calculation: £1 CPC / 10% Conversion Rate = £10 Cost Per Lead.

If your landing page is poor and only converts at 2%, your Cost Per Lead shoots up to £50 (£1 / 2%). This shows how vital a good website experience is. I've built a little calculator for you below so you can play around with these numbers yourself.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

Putting it all together, here is the exact approach I would recommend for someone starting out, moving from being worried about the switches to using the structure strategically. This is the main advice I have for you:

I know this is a lot to take in, especially when your original question was a simple one about billing. But the truth is, the structure of your campaigns is inextricably linked to the results you'll get. Understanding how to use it properly is the difference between advertising being a frustrating cost and it being a predictable engine for growth.

Executing this flawlessly – finding those 'nightmare' pain points, writing copy that connects, diagnosing underperforming campaigns, and knowing when to scale – is where experience really comes into play. I remember one campaign we worked on where simple structural changes and audience refinement took the cost per lead down by over 80%. One SaaS client we worked with went from a £100 cost per user down to just £7 by applying these very principles.

If you'd like an expert to help you lay these foundations correctly from the start, or to take a look at what you're already running, we offer a completely free, no-pressure strategy call. We can share our screen, go through your specific situation, and give you some actionable advice you can implement right away. It's often the quickest way to get clarity and confidence.

Hope this helps clear things up for you!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh