Social media Ads: Meta campaigns, boosting posts, A/B tests and the spend cap

Social media → Ads shows the Meta ad accounts that came with your Facebook connection and lets you manage their campaigns, ad sets and ads. Meta stays the source of truth: SEOAsist keeps a copy that is refreshed daily and whenever you click Sync.

#Before you start

• Connect with Facebook and allow the ad account on Meta's consent screen: Meta and Instagram.
• Seeing results needs ads_read. Creating and changing ads also needs ads_management and pages_manage_ads (plus business_management), which Meta grants to people outside your app's roles only after App Review. Without them the page shows Read-only mode: you can see campaigns and results but not change them.
• Ad actions need the Owner or Admin role. The Assistant, MCP, API and automation can never create or start ads.

#Read the results

1. Pick the site and the ad account, and the date range.
2. The table lists campaigns, their ad sets and ads with Status and Budget, and Spend, Impressions, Reach, Clicks, CTR, CPC, Results, Cost/result and ROAS.
3. Click Sync to fetch the latest data from Meta.

#Create a campaign

1. Click New campaign. The wizard has six steps:
   • Objective: Traffic, Engagement, Messages, Leads or Sales. Leads and Sales need a Meta pixel to count conversions.
   • Audience: countries, cities and radius, age, gender, interests, and custom and lookalike audiences.
   • Budget & schedule: a daily or lifetime budget, start and end (an end date is required for a lifetime budget).
   • Placement: Automatic placements (recommended) or choose Facebook and Instagram positions by hand.
   • Creative: the Facebook page and Instagram account, then either an existing post or a new creative (image URL, primary text, headline and call-to-action button). Images made in the Studio can be used here.
   • Summary.
2. Click Create paused. The campaign, ad set and ad are created paused; nothing is spent yet.

#Boost a published post

On a published post in the Studio's result list, click Promote. The wizard opens as Boost post with that post as the creative; choose the objective, audience, budget and dates and create it paused.

#A/B test

On an ad set, use A/B test: copy the ad set, add a second creative. The ad set is copied paused with an ad using the new creative. Take both live together to compare them. You can also tick the A/B option in the wizard's creative step.

#Go live, pause and change budgets

• Go live starts spending on a campaign, ad set or ad. You confirm it first.
• Pause stops it.
• Edit budget changes the daily or lifetime budget.

#Monthly spend cap

Going live is only possible with a monthly spend cap.

1. On the Ads page, click Cap and enter the monthly amount in the ad account's currency.
2. Before anything goes live, SEOAsist adds this month's spend to what the live budgets can still spend until month end. If that would pass the cap, going live is blocked.

#FAQ

#Why can't I change anything on the Ads page?

The Meta login has no ads_management permission. Once Meta approves it in App Review, reconnect with Facebook on the Accounts page.

#"No access to ad data" appears. What now?

The login has no ads_read permission. Renew the Facebook connection on Accounts and allow the ad account.

#Can automation start ads?

No. Automation, the Assistant and MCP only create posts for review. Ads are always created paused and taken live by a person.