What are the six Meta ad campaign objectives?
Meta Ads Manager offers six campaign objectives: Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App promotion and Sales. You pick one at campaign level to set the end goal for your ads. They replaced 11 older objectives, such as Conversions, Reach and Video views, some of which now survive as ad set settings.
The objective is the first choice you make in a new campaign. It tells Meta what outcome you want, and together with the conversion location it decides which performance goals you can choose when you build each ad set. Pick the objective that matches the action you most need from customers right now.
What does each objective do?
Meta describes six objectives and maps each to the older objectives it absorbed:
| Objective | Business goal, per Meta | Older objectives it replaced |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | Reach the most people who are likely to remember your ad | Brand awareness, Reach, Video views, Store traffic |
| Traffic | Send people to a destination such as your website, app, Facebook Page or shop | Traffic |
| Engagement | Find people likely to engage, message you or take actions on your ad or Page | Engagement, Video views, Messages, Conversions |
| Leads | Collect leads through messages, phone calls or sign-ups | Lead generation, Messages, Conversions |
| App promotion | Get people on mobile devices to install your app or act in it | App installs |
| Sales | Find people likely to buy, for example through an ecommerce site; can also optimize for actions like add to cart | Conversions, Catalog sales |
What happened to the old objectives?
Meta consolidated 11 objectives into these 6. Some old objectives became settings inside the new ones: Reach is now the Awareness objective with reach as the optimization setting, and Messages is now Engagement with messaging apps as the conversion location. From January 2024, Meta stopped letting advertisers duplicate or import campaigns built on the original objectives, or add new ad sets and ads to them. Meta said the original objectives would stop being available for new or existing campaigns later in 2024.
How do you rebuild an old campaign type?
| Old objective | Choose now | Extra setting Meta lists |
|---|---|---|
| Brand awareness | Awareness | Performance goal: ad recall lift |
| Reach | Awareness | Performance goal: reach or impressions |
| Video views | Awareness, or Engagement | ThruPlay or 2-second continuous video views; or conversion location On your ad with engagement type Video views |
| Conversions | Engagement, Leads or Sales | Conversion location website or app; Sales also allows Messenger or WhatsApp |
| Catalog sales | Sales | Choose your catalog during setup |
Can the objective and performance goal differ?
Yes. Meta says an ad set’s performance goal can differ from the campaign objective. Its example is a campaign with the Sales objective whose ad set optimizes for link clicks. The objective sets the overall aim; the performance goal tells delivery which single result to chase.
How do you choose the right objective?
- Decide which customer action matters most for your current business goal.
- Match that action to the objective whose business goal fits, using the first table above.
- Select a conversion location at the ad set level, which sets which performance goals you can use.
Meta notes that your goals may change as you grow, for example starting with awareness and new customers, then moving on to purchases or sign-ups.
FAQ
Where did the Conversions objective go?
Meta folded it into the six simplified objectives. To rebuild a conversions campaign, choose Engagement, Leads or Sales and set the conversion location to website or app; Sales also allows Messenger or WhatsApp. Meta said the original objectives would stop being available for new or existing campaigns later in 2024.
Why does my campaign show a dash in Results?
Meta says some current objectives produce different reporting metrics from the previous ones, so the Results column on the campaign tab can appear blank or as a dash, depending on the objective. Results on the ad set and ad tabs are not affected by this.
Which objective should an online store use for purchases?
Meta describes Sales as the objective for finding people likely to purchase your goods or services, such as through an ecommerce site. It notes that Sales can also optimize for other actions, such as adding an item to cart, when purchases are not the event you want.
Sources
- How to choose the right ad objective in Meta Ads Manager (Meta, checked 2 Oct 2026)
- An update and changes to ad objectives in Meta Ads Manager (Meta, checked 2 Oct 2026)
- What are campaigns, ad sets and ads in Meta Ads Manager? (Meta, checked 2 Oct 2026)
- About performance goals (Meta, checked 2 Oct 2026)
Drafted with AI and checked claim by claim against the pages linked under Sources. Found a mistake? Tell us via the corrections policy.