What are Facebook Ads objectives?

The first step in creating advertising on Facebook Ads is choosing the campaign objective. Since 2022, Facebook offers 6 types of objectives to choose from: awareness, traffic, engagement, app promotion, leads, and sales. To make advertising more effective, it is important to choose the right objective. The chosen objective will also determine the further parameters for setting up the advertising campaign.

How to choose the ad objective

In 2022, Facebook introduced a new campaign objective structure called ODAX. ODAX stands for outcome-driven ad experiences, meaning advertising aimed at results. The goal of the new structure is to simplify ad setup for advertisers and create opportunities for cross-channel campaigns. This means that now you can create ads for both Facebook and Instagram, and algorithms will automatically optimize them for optimal reach on each platform. Let's take a closer look at which objectives to choose for different campaigns.

Awareness

Campaigns with this objective will not lead to direct sales. Such campaigns are aimed at shaping a specific brand image among the target audience and are shown to as many users as possible. You can tell the whole brand story in one ad or create an intriguing ad that will redirect users to more detailed posts and blogs.

Among the optimization settings available to you are:

Traffic

We use this objective to direct users to the desired destination. This can be a website, mobile application, Facebook event, or messenger. Algorithms will work in such a way as to get the maximum number of clicks within the budget. Further optimization settings will depend on the type of resource to which you redirect your audience.

Engagement

Engagement means active interaction with users. Choose this objective if you need to receive messages in messengers from your audience, likes, shares, comments, or new followers.

Before setting up optimization, you will need to choose the conversion event location, i.e., where the customer should take action:

Depending on the chosen location, optimization and display settings will vary.

Add Promotion

This objective is set when you are promoting a mobile application. For example, you need to increase the number of users who have installed the app or have them perform specific actions within it. You can run automated advertising or set it up manually.

In the first option, you work with minimal settings, upload various creatives, and the system automatically selects placements, tests different creative and headline variations, and targets the audience.

In the second option, you manually adjust all parameters.

Leads

Campaigns with this objective are created in order to receive leads from the audience. Typically, this audience consists of users who are already familiar with the brand and who show interest in your offerings. For example, use this objective if you want to test interest in a new brand offering or collect leads for a consultation on your product.

Before setting up optimization, you will also be offered to choose the location of the conversion event:

Sales

This objective is applied when you need to increase sales. It is best used for hot leads who are familiar with your brand and ready to make a purchase. This works most effectively with users at the bottom of the sales funnel who just need a reminder to make a purchase.

When setting up advertising, you will need to specify where to direct traffic, choose a pixel, and set up a conversion event.

When you choose the "sales" objective, you can activate the "catalogue" option. If you have your own online store, the algorithms will automatically show product cards from your catalogue.

How to change the ad objective in Ads Manager

You can change the campaign objective before it is launched. Once the ad has been launched, it is impossible to change the campaign objective. However, you can set a different objective in a copy of the campaign - to do this, you need to duplicate the existing campaign.

Since the choice of objective directly affects the effectiveness of the campaign, approach this stage responsibly. Carefully plan the entire advertising campaign and its settings before launching in Facebook Ads. The campaign objective should align with your business goals, but it may change as your business evolves.