Solved: Is Separating Facebook and Instagram Ads Better?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out. I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts on your question about Meta ads and whether to seperate Facebook and Instagram placements.

It’s a very common question, and it’s good that you're thinking about how to get the best results from your budget. The short answer is that for a sales objective, you are probably overthinking it and should let Meta's system do the work for you. However, the fact you're asking this question tells me you're likely focused on a tactic (placements) when the real gains in performance and sales come from getting the underlying strategy right. Focusing just on placements is a bit like worrying about the brand of tyres on a car that doesn't have an engine yet. You can get so much more performance by focusing on the fundamentals first.

So, I'm going to walk you through how I'd approach this. We'll start with how the algorithm actually works, then move onto the things that *really* move the needle: your audience, your message, and your numbers. By the end, you'll see why the placement question becomes a much smaller, and later, part of the puzzle.

We'll need to look at how the algorithm actually thinks...

The first thing to get your head around is what you're telling the Meta algorithim when you set up a campaign. You give it an instruction, and its only job is to follow that instruction as efficiently as possible. This is where so many people go wrong.

If you choose a campaign objective like "Brand Awareness" or "Reach," you are literally commanding the algorithm to: "Find me the largest number of eyeballs for the lowest possible cost." The algorithm, being very good at its job, goes out and finds all the users within your targeting who are cheap to show ads to. And why are they cheap? Because they have a history of not clicking, not engaging, and certainly not buying anything. They're not in demand, so their attention is sold at a discount. You're effectively paying to reach the worst possible audience for a sales goal. It's a trap lots of people fall into.

When your goal is sales, you must use the "Sales" objective (previously 'Conversions'). This changes the instruction completely. Now you're telling the algorithm: "I don't care about clicks or views. Go and find me people within my targeting who are most likely to complete a purchase on my website, and do it at the lowest possible cost."

This is a fundamental shift. The algorithm will now ignore the cheap, passive users and instead seek out people with a history of buying things from ads. It will then use its vast data to predict who is most likely to buy *your* specific product. This is its core strength. And to do this job well, it needs freedom. It needs access to all the data and all the potential places it can show your ad to find that next customer. This includes the Facebook feed, Instagram stories, Reels, Messenger, the Audience Network, and so on.

When you start a campaign and immediately restrict placements to just Instagram or just Facebook, you're tying one of its hands behind its back. You're telling it, "Only look for my customers in this one specific place." What if the cheapest, most effective place to find your next customer today is on Facebook Reels, but you've told it to only look on the Instagram feed? You've just forced it to find a more expensive conversion, driving your costs up. This is why, for almost all campaigns, I start with Automatic Placements. Let the machine do the heavy lifting. It has more data than you ever will, and it can make thousands of micro-decisions a second about where to best spend your next penny to get a sale. You can't compete with that, so it's best not to try, especialy at the start.

I'd say you need to focus on your audience first, not placements...

Okay, so we've established that we should trust the algorithm with a Sales objective and Automatic Placements. So what *should* you be focusing on? Your audience. This is the single most important lever you can pull in any ad campaign. Showing the perfect ad to the wrong person is a complete waste of money. Showing an average ad to the perfect person can still get you a sale.

The problem is, most people's definition of their audience is far too simplistic. I see it all the time. An eCommerce store selling women's apparel targets "women aged 25-45 who are interested in fashion." That's not an audience; it's half the population of the western world. You're boiling the ocean. To get real results, you need to stop thinking about sterile demographics and start thinking about the customer's *state of mind*. You need to become an expert in their problems, their desires, and their journey.

I structure all my accounts around a simple funnel: Top of Funnel (ToFu), Middle of Funnel (MoFu), and Bottom of Funnel (BoFu). This organises your audiences based on how familiar they are with you.

Top of Funnel (ToFu): The Strangers

These are people who have never heard of you before. This is your cold traffic. The goal here is to find potential new customers. This is where you test interests, behaviours, and lookalike audiences.

-> Detailed Targeting: Don't just target "fashion". Think deeper. Who are your real customers? What magazines do they read (Vogue, Elle)? What other brands do they buy from (Zara, & Other Stories, but also maybe smaller, more niche boutique brands)? What influencers do they follow? What software do they use? The key is to find interests that are far more likely to be held by your ideal customer than the general population. For example, if you sell high-end hiking gear, targeting "hiking" is too broad. Targeting fans of specific outdoor brands like Arc'teryx, followers of specific climbing publications, or members of certain hiking groups is much, much better. It's about finding the niche signals.

-> Lookalike Audiences: Once you have some data, this is where the magic happens. You can give Meta a list of your past customers, and it will go and find millions of other people who share similar characteristics. But don't just stop at a lookalike of "all website visitors". The quality of your source audience is everything. A lookalike of your best, highest-value customers will be infinitely more powerful than a lookalike of people who just viewed a video for 3 seconds.

Middle of Funnel (MoFu): The Visitors

These are people who have shown some interest but haven't bought yet. They've visited your website, watched a video, or engaged with an ad. They know who you are. The goal here is to bring them back and get them to take the next step.

-> Retargeting: You'll show different ads to these people. They don't need the big introduction. You can show them testimonials, user-generated content, or remind them of the specific products they looked at. This is where you retarget audiences like 'All Website Visitors (last 30 days)' or 'Video Viewers (50%)'.

Bottom of Funnel (BoFu): The Almost-Customers

These are the hottest prospects. They've added a product to their cart, initiated checkout, but didn't complete the purchase. They were *this close*. The goal is to overcome that final bit of friction or distraction.

-> Cart Abandoners: You can hit them with a specific ad, maybe reminding them of what's in their cart, or even offering a small discount or free shipping to nudge them over the line. These audiences are small but incredibly high-converting.

Here’s how I would prioritise testing these audiences for an eCommerce account. You start at the top and work your way down as you gather more data.

By structuring your account this way, you are creating a logical proccess that moves people from stranger to customer. It's a system, not a series of one-off campaigns. And getting this audience structure right will have a 10x greater impact on your sales than worrying about whether an ad shows on Facebook or Instagram.

You probably should rethink your message and offer...

Once you have the right audience, you need to hit them with the right message. Your ad needs to speak directly to them and give them a compelling reason to click and buy *now*. This is another area that has a far bigger impact than placements.

For eCommerce, I often use a framework called Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS). You're not just selling a product; you're selling a solution to a problem or the fulfillment of a desire.

-> Problem: You state the problem your customer is experiencing. "Tired of work blouses that are either stuffy and uncomfortable or too casual for the office?"

-> Agitate: You pour a little salt on the wound. You make them feel the pain of the problem more acutely. "You end up with a wardrobe full of clothes you never wear, feeling unconfident before that big meeting because nothing feels quite right."

-> Solve: You introduce your product as the perfect solution. "Our new line of performance-silk blouses are designed to be breathable, wrinkle-resistant, and effortlessly stylish, taking you from the boardroom to after-work drinks with confidence."

This kind of copywriting connects on an emotional level. It shows the customer you *understand* them. This is infinitely more effective than just saying "New blouses for sale. Click here."

Then there's your offer. The offer isn't just the price. It's the entire package. Is it a bundle deal? Do you offer free shipping over a certain amount? Is there a first-time buyer discount? Is there a limited-time sale? A weak offer will fail no matter how good your targeting or creative is. You need to give people a reason to stop scrolling and make a decision.

And of course, there's the creative itself. The images and videos. This is where the Facebook vs Instagram question can become a bit more relevant, but as a creative choice, not a technical one. I remember one campaign we ran for a women's apparel brand that drove a 691% return on ad spend. A huge part of that success was having incredible, high-quality product photography that looked amazing in visual-first placements like the Instagram feed and Pinterest. The creative was *designed* for the platform. It didn't just happen to show up there.

So before you split placements, ask yourself: have you tested different ad copy angles? Have you tested static images vs. carousel ads vs. short video clips (like Reels)? Have you tested user-generated content (photos from real customers)? Optimising your creative will give you a much bigger uplift in sales than simply restricting placements.

You'll need a strategic way to test placements (if you must)...

Okay, so let's say you've done all of the above. You have a solid sales campaign, a well-structured set of audiences, and you're testing compelling creative and offers. Now, and only now, does it make sense to look at placements with a critical eye.

But you don't do it by creating seperate campaigns from day one. You do it by analysing the data. In your Ads Manager, while a campaign is running with Automatic Placements, you can use the "Breakdown" feature. Select `By Delivery > Placement`. This will show you exactly where your money is going and where your sales are coming from.

You might see something like this:

-> Instagram Feed: £500 spent, 10 sales (£50 cost per sale)
-> Facebook Feed: £400 spent, 8 sales (£50 cost per sale)
-> Instagram Stories: £100 spent, 0 sales
-> Facebook Marketplace: £50 spent, 0 sales

In this (very common) scenario, you can see that Stories and Marketplace aren't performing. The algorithm will likely start spending less there on its own over time, but you could decide to exclude those placements to force the budget towards the proven winners (the Feeds). You're making a data-driven decision, not just guessing.

The only time I'd proactively create a separate ad set for a specific placement is if I have creative that is *only* suitable for that placement. For example, a 9:16 vertical video is perfect for Instagram Reels and Stories, but looks terrible in a 4:5 Facebook feed placement. In that case, the structure might look like this:

Campaign: Sales Objective
-> Ad Set 1: Automatic Placements (with square or 4:5 images/videos)
-> Ad Set 2: IG Stories & Reels Placements Only (with 9:16 vertical video ads)

This gives the algorithm two distinct sets of creative to work with and allows it to allocate budget between the ad sets to see which one delivers cheaper sales overall. You're still letting the system optimise, but you're giving it tailored tools for specific jobs. This is a far more advanced and effective strategy than simply making one ad set for Facebook and one for Instagram.

Finally, you'll need to know your numbers to scale...

The final peice of the puzzle is understanding the economics of your own business. Chasing "higher sales" is fine, but what really matters is *profitable* sales. The key question isn't "How low can I get my cost per sale?" but "How much can I afford to pay to aquire a customer and still be profitable?"

To answer this, you need to know your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). This is the total profit you can expect to make from a single customer over the entire time they buy from you. The calculation is simpler than it sounds:

1. Average Order Value (AOV): How much does a customer spend in a typical transaction? (e.g., £70)
2. Purchase Frequency: How many times does a customer buy from you per year? (e.g., 3 times)
3. Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on each sale? (e.g., 60%)
4. Customer Lifetime: How many years does a customer typically stay with you? (e.g., 2 years)

LTV = (AOV * Purchase Frequency * Gross Margin %) * Customer Lifetime
LTV = (£70 * 3 * 0.60) * 2
LTV = (£126) * 2 = £252

In this example, each new customer you aquire is worth £252 in pure profit to your business. Now you have your North Star. A common rule of thumb is to aim for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means for a customer worth £252, you can afford to spend up to £84 (£252 / 3) to acquire them and still have a very healthy, scalable business.

Suddenly, seeing a £50 Cost Per Purchase in your ads manager doesn't look so scary, does it? It looks like a profitable investment. Knowing this number frees you from the tyranny of chasing cheap but low-quality clicks and allows you to invest confidently in acquiring valuable customers through the right audiences and compelling ads. This is how you realy scale.

I know this is a lot to take in, and it's a big shift from just thinking about which platform to show your ads on. But this strategic approach is what separates the campaigns that limp along from the ones that drive serious, profitable growth. It's about building a proper marketing engine, not just pulling random levers.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below based on everything we've covered:

As you can see, getting consistent, high sales from Meta ads is a bit more involved than just ticking a few boxes in the ad setup. It's a process of strategic thinking, rigorous testing, and understanding your own business numbers inside and out. It requires a deep understanding of audience psychology, creative strategy, and the mechanics of the ad platform.

Navigating all these elements can be a full-time job. This is often where working with an expert can make a huge difference. We've spent years in the trenches, running campaigns for businesses from eCommerce stores to B2B software, learning what works and what doesn't. We bring that experience to bear on every new account, helping to avoid costly mistakes and accelerate the path to profitability.

If you'd like to chat further and have us take a look at your specific situation, we offer a free, no-obligation initial strategy session where we can review your ad account and provide some more tailored guidance. It might be helpful to have a second pair of expert eyes on it.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh