The BEST Facebook Ads Guide For Ecommerce in 2026 | GRX Consulting Agency

This video provides a comprehensive, step-by-step walkthrough for setting up Facebook ads specifically optimized for e-commerce businesses. It covers everything from campaign creation, ad set configuration, to ad creative setup, emphasizing best practices that differ from common recommendations. The process is proven across over 100 e-commerce brands of varying sizes and niches, suitable for both beginners and advanced advertisers.Ad Account Structure Setup:

• Create four primary campaigns to organize ad spend and targeting effectively.
• First campaign: Prospecting CBO (Campaign Budget Optimization) aimed at acquiring net new customers.
• Campaign type: Sales-based, auction buying type, with campaign budget set (no spending limit).
• Budget allocation: Typically around 80% of total budget (e.g., $800 of $1,000).
• Bid strategy: Set to “highest volume or value” to maximize purchase value from budget.
• No changes to budget scheduling or additional settings at this stage.

[02:07]
Audience Segment Reporting Setup:

• Critical to configure at advertiser level under Audience Segments in advertiser settings.
• Define:
  • Engaged audiences: Visitors or add-to-cart users in last 30 days (extend to 90 days if just starting or small audience).
  • Existing customers: Anyone who has purchased at any time, using pixel data and CRM uploads (e.g., Klaviyo).
• These segments automatically populate and become usable for campaign exclusions and targeting.

[02:57]
Ad Set Configuration for Prospecting CBO:

• Ad set name example: “pack number one”.
• Conversion location: Usually website and shop (sometimes website only if Instagram shop not optimized).
• Performance goal: Maximize number of conversions preferred over maximize value.
• Data set: Use active data set with Conversions API integration to improve tracking accuracy.
• Conversion event: Always set to purchase — using initiate checkout or add to cart reduces performance.
• Attribution window: Use 7-day click, 1-day view standard setting.
• Budget and schedule: Left blank (default).

[04:33]
Audience Setup for Prospecting CBO Ad Set:

• Use 100% broad audience but implement “further limit the reach of your ads” feature.
• Switch from recommended to manual setup to enable exclusions of retargeting and existing customer audiences.
• Exclude:
  • Purchasers in last 180 days.
  • Site visitors in last 90 days.
• Purpose: Create “swim lanes” to clearly segment prospecting, retargeting, and existing customers for better budget allocation and clarity.
• Placement settings: Keep default placements unless specific creative limitations exist.

[07:33]
Ad Setup Fundamentals:

• Naming: Include type (image/video) and creative description for clarity.
• Use manual ad creation with single image, video, or carousel format.
• No ad scheduling.
• Upload creatives ensuring the website URL is correct and visible.
• Enable promotions code if applicable to activate promotion flagging.
• Use site links with at least four links, typically homepage, bestsellers, sales page, and relevant collection or product page to enhance ad performance.

[09:32]
Creative Formatting:

• Prepare creatives in three formats: square, vertical, and horizontal to match Facebook placement requirements.
• Turn off flexible media to avoid automatic cropping that could cut off important image areas or text.
• Upload pre-cropped images for each format (1080×1920 for vertical, 1:1 for square, horizontal if possible).
• Horizontal format less critical as it appears only 2-3% of the time.

[11:07]
Text and Headlines Setup:

• Use multiple primary texts (up to five) – Facebook’s algorithm can test and optimize which text performs best.
• Use Facebook’s “generate variations” AI tool to create additional text options.
• Example provided using ChatGPT to generate persuasive copy for a clothing brand (Talentless).
• Headlines should be 30-60 characters, aligned with primary texts, and crafted to be engaging and concise.
• Include promotion or sale information in primary text when applicable to increase click-through rates.
• Description field is optional and often unnecessary if primary texts are sufficiently detailed.
• Call to action: Use Shop.

[14:48]
Ad Enhancements:

• Avoid enhancements that interfere with creative integrity like translate text, 3D animation, overlays, image animation, or visual touch-ups.
• Enable show products, text improvements, and enhanced CTA for better performance.
• Confirm URL destination matches product shown in creative; keep display link clean and relevant.
• Do not use add-ons that encourage DMs or calls; focus on driving traffic to website for purchase.
• Enable website events tracking but app or offline events are optional.
• UTM parameters: Use automatic tracking or set up generic UTM tracking for analytics.

[16:52]
Retargeting Campaign Creation:

• Create a sales campaign named “retargeting” with similar settings to prospecting CBO.
• Use campaign budget initially, with option to switch to ad set budget after accumulating sufficient data.
• Budget set low initially (e.g., $25/day) and managed by monitoring frequency metric:
  • Keep frequency between 5-7 over 14 days.
  • Increase budget if frequency <5; decrease if frequency >7-10.

[18:08]
Retargeting Ad Sets:

• First ad set: Add to Cart + Initiate Checkout (ATC+IC) 90 days.
• Conversion event: purchase, attribution window same as prospecting.
• Audience setup:
  • Create custom audiences from pixel data for add to cart and initiate checkout events in last 90 days.
  • Include both events as a fail-safe to cover tracking gaps.
  • Disable “use as suggestion” to narrow audience, not broad.
• Placements: Use all available placements unless technical restrictions.
• Include multiple ads for creative variety to avoid audience fatigue.

[20:38]

• Second retargeting ad set: Site Visitors 30 days.
• Duplicate ATC+IC 90 ad set with audience changed to 30-day site visitors.
• Exclude ATC+IC 90 audience for hierarchy clarity.
• Typically, do not exclude existing purchasers unless spending very high budgets.
• This maintains balance and avoids over-segmentation for smaller budgets.

[22:18]
Catalog Retargeting Campaign:

• Campaign named catalog retargeting, uses Advantage Plus catalog ads with campaign budget.
• Budget managed by frequency, start low and scale gradually.
• Ad set settings: website and shop, maximize conversions, purchase event.
• Product selection:
  • Include all products if catalog is small; if large, focus on best sellers.
  • Example: 6,800 products included in catalog.
• Audience:
  • Create catalog custom audience for people who viewed or added to cart products in last 14 days.
  • Exclude purchasers in last 14 days.
  • Disable “use as suggestion” for narrow audience.
• Ads: Use carousel format with multiple product creatives.
• Ad creative:
  • Create two variations: single image and slideshow.
  • Use 5 primary text options and varied headlines.
  • Call to action: Shop.
• Advantage Plus creative settings enabled with:
  • Expand image, dynamic description, enhanced CTA, hide price (predictive), standard labels.
• Destination URLs: Ensure correct product and homepage fallback.

[26:23]
Retention Campaign (Existing Customers):

• Created only if you have 1000+ existing customers.
• Campaign setup: sales campaign, campaign budget, low starting budget adjusted by frequency.
• Bid strategy: highest volume or value.
• Ad sets:
  1. Purchasers 180 days (website/shop, maximize conversions, purchase event).
  2. Purchasers all time (exclude purchasers 180 days).
• Audience creation:
  • Custom audiences for purchase events in 180 days and all time, from pixel and CRM (e.g., Klaviyo).
  • Disable “use as suggestion” for narrow targeting.
• Focus on curated ad creative to existing customers to avoid irrelevant ads or oversaturation.
• Importance: Retain customers to prevent churn to competitors.

[29:53]
Scale Campaign:

• Purpose: Graduate top-performing ads into higher budget scaling.
• Campaign type: sales, but with ad set budget optimization (ABO), differing from earlier CBO setups.
• Budget: Start around 10% of total account spend (e.g., $100 if total is $1,000).
• Audience: Broad with exclusions of retargeting and retention swim lanes (ATC+IC 90 days, purchasers 180 days).
• Advantage Plus enabled for algorithmic optimization.
• Ads: Only proven top ads are duplicated here, not new ads.
• Graduation system:
  • High performing ads from prospecting CBO hard duplicated into scale campaign (do not pause original ads).
  • Also create interest-based ad sets within prospecting CBO to extend reach via interest targeting (e.g., Reebok Sporting Goods).
  • Interest ad sets follow same exclusion rules and use narrow audience targeting.
• Interest targeting allows discovery of new audience pockets and complements broad targeting.

[36:10]
Advanced Scaling with Cost Caps:

• Additional scale ad sets use cost cap bidding strategy with strict cost per result goals.
• Ads grouped by product average order value (AOV) for precise budgeting and ROAS targeting.
• Example naming: “premium T AOV: $100”.
• Cost per result goal calculated as AOV divided by target ROAS (e.g., $100 AOV / 2x ROAS = $50 cost cap).
• Budget set high initially (e.g., $500/day) for big spenders to allow Facebook to spend only if cost targets are achievable.
• Audience setup same as scale campaign (broad with retargeting exclusions).
• This structure allows multiple cost cap ad sets for fine-tuned scaling and efficiency control.

[39:26]
Final Notes:

• The strategy emphasizes frequent monitoring and adjustment based on frequency metrics and performance.
• Creative variety, clean audience swim lanes, and clear campaign roles are critical to prevent audience fatigue and maximize ROI.
• The setup balances automation (advantage plus, AI text variations) with manual precision (custom audiences, exclusions, cost caps).
• The presenter encourages engagement on Instagram for updates and answers to questions.

Summary Table of Campaigns and Key Settings

Key Insights

• Always optimize for the purchase event rather than add to cart or initiate checkout for best Facebook algorithm performance.
• Use swim lanes via exclusions to separate prospecting, retargeting, and retention audiences clearly.
• Leverage Advantage Plus and Facebook’s AI tools for creative variations and catalog ads for efficiency and scale.
• Creative formats must be pre-cropped for placements—turn off Facebook’s flexible cropping to avoid losing important visual elements.
• Multiple primary texts and headlines improve ad performance through Facebook’s optimization.
• Frequency control is crucial in retargeting to avoid oversaturation and wasted spend.
• The graduation system for scaling ensures top ads get adequate budget without stifling new creatives.
• For high spender accounts, cost cap bidding with product-based ad grouping enables precision scaling and ROAS management.

This video is a detailed, actionable guide providing a modern, data-driven Facebook ads structure tailored for e-commerce brands looking to optimize acquisition, retargeting, retention, and scaling campaigns with precision and efficiency.