Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram Advertising).

Meta Ads are set up in Ads Manager and can appear on Facebook, Instagram, in Messenger and in Meta's Audience Network. A campaign has three levels: the campaign with its objective (awareness, traffic, leads, sales), the ad set with audience, budget and placement, and the ad itself with image, video or carousel. Increasingly, Meta's automation takes over the choice of audience and placement, much like Performance Max at Google.

The fundamental difference from search ads lies in intent. Someone searching on Google has a problem and is looking for a solution. Someone scrolling through Instagram is not looking for anything. Meta Ads therefore create demand rather than capture it. That suits offers you see and understand immediately — restaurants, fashion, events, consumer goods — and suits services less well that are only needed once a specific problem arises.

Measurement runs through the Meta Pixel on the website and, increasingly, through the Conversions API, which passes events directly from the server to Meta. Since Apple introduced App Tracking Transparency in 2021 and many users decline cookies, the Pixel on its own misses large parts of the data. Without server-side transmission and clean cookie consent, Meta campaigns can today only be steered to a limited extent.

Creative design carries more weight at Meta than at Google. The ad has to stand out in the feed within a second, work on a phone and be understandable without sound. Campaigns also wear out: if the same audience sees the same ad too often, its effect drops. Anyone running Meta Ads therefore needs a plan for regularly refreshed creatives.