What Is Meta Ads Manager and What Can It Do?

Ads Manager is where Meta ads are built, changed and measured: you view, edit and see results for all your campaigns, ad sets and ads in one place. If you’re new to it, the Account overview page guides you through the steps needed to set up your ad account.

What can you do in Ads Manager?

Meta lists four main jobs:

Job	What Meta says it covers
Create ad campaigns	A step-by-step flow where you choose the objective, audience, placements and ad format
Manage many ads at once	Edit settings such as audience, budget and placements across many ads, and duplicate ads
See performance	Up-to-date results at account level, breakdowns, and created or scheduled reports
Check opportunity score	A 0–100 score of how optimised your campaigns, ad sets and ads are, with recommendations

To start, go to Meta Ads Manager and click Create. Meta also offers the Ads Manager app for Android and iOS, but notes that not every feature is available on a mobile device.

How do you edit a campaign, ad set or ad?

Meta’s steps on a computer (Meta’s editing article describes this as a computer feature):

1. Go to Ads Manager and click Campaigns on the left.
2. Click Campaigns, Ad sets or Ads, depending on what you want to change.
3. Check the box next to the item you want to edit.
4. Click Edit above the reporting table.
5. Click Publish to update now, or Close to keep the changes as a draft.

Edits only go live when you publish. Drafts are highlighted in green in the main table, and Meta advises always confirming that you’ve published, because a toggle can look active while changes are still in draft.

What should you know before editing?

Once you change a published campaign, the new version replaces the old one. Meta says there’s no way to reverse changes and no way to separate the metrics from before and after the edit, so it suggests reviewing performance first.

Some edits may restart the learning phase or send the ad back through review, and edits can also change your opportunity score. A few settings can’t be edited at all after publishing: the campaign objective and the ad set’s conversion location. To change either, stop the item and create a new one.

How is Ads Manager different from boosting or Business Suite?

Meta lists four places to buy ads. Your Facebook Page is the simplest, with fewer options than Ads Manager. Your Instagram profile lets you boost existing posts. Meta Business Suite is a streamlined surface that creates a campaign, ad set and ad with standard settings. Ads Manager is the step-by-step flow with advanced options and customisation.

FAQ

Where should a new advertiser start in Ads Manager?

On the Account overview page. Meta says that if you’re new to Ads Manager, Account overview guides you through the steps needed to set up your ad account. It’s also one of the two places, with the Campaigns tab, where you can see your opportunity score.

Can I see boosted posts in Ads Manager?

Yes. Meta says you can view results for boosted posts in Ads Manager. What you can’t do is edit the text, images or video of a boosted post once it has been reviewed and published as an ad.

Can I change the Facebook Page an ad uses?

Usually. At the ad level, below Identity, you can pick a different Page from the dropdown. Meta’s exception is campaigns with the Awareness objective: there you duplicate the ad set, change the Page for the ad set and ad, then publish the copy.