How to create and edit campaigns, ad sets and ads in the ads manager

Last updated June 10, 2026

The ads manager lets you build new structure on Meta and fine-tune one existing entity at a time — without leaving uplads. This guide covers creating a brand-new campaign or ad set, then opening the full edit panel for a single campaign, ad set or ad.

New to this screen? Start with How to view and navigate the ads manager. To change many rows at once, use bulk edit instead (see related articles below) — this guide is about creating and editing one entity at a time.

Create a new campaign or ad set

Everything you create here is written live to Meta.

In the ads manager, click the Create button in the top-right.
A dialog opens with Campaign and Ad set tabs at the top (the Ad tab is disabled — to create ads with creatives, use the bulk launch flow). It opens on whichever level your table is currently showing.
Fill in the fields for that level, then save.

For a campaign you set the Objective (Meta's outcome objectives — required and not editable later), a name, a Create as active toggle (off creates it paused), an optional Advantage+ campaign budget (CBO) with a daily or lifetime amount and bid strategy, an optional campaign spending limit, and Special ad categories. Clicking Create & continue to ad set saves the campaign and moves you straight into building its first ad set — just like Meta's campaign → ad set → ad flow.

For an ad set you pick the parent Campaign, name it, and set the Performance goal, Billing event, Conversion location, promoted object, attribution setting, Budget & schedule, and Audience targeting. The performance-goal, billing and conversion-location options adapt to the parent campaign's objective.

You can click Validate at any point to have Meta confirm the settings are accepted before you commit.

Edit a single existing entity

Editing happens one entity at a time so you always see exactly what you're changing.

Find the campaign, ad set or ad in the table and open its Edit action.
A panel slides in from the right with grouped sections. Its contents depend on the level: campaigns show Basics and Category & bidding; ad sets add Budget & schedule, Optimization & delivery, and Audience & placements; ads show Creative media, Ad copy, and Tracking.
Make your changes and click Save changes. Edits are written directly to Meta.

A campaign's objective is shown but can't be changed. For ads, the linked Pixel/Dataset is read-only here because Meta attaches it at the ad-set level — edit the parent ad set to change it.

Targeting, geo and placements

The ad set edit panel's Audience & placements section holds the structured targeting editor:

Locations — search and add countries, regions, cities (with a radius) and DMA markets.
Age min / Age max — any value from 13 to 65; leave blank to remove a bound.
Gender — All, Male or Female.
Custom audiences and Detailed targeting (interests & behaviors) — type-to-search pickers; tick Add as exclusion to exclude instead of include.
Devices — Mobile and/or Desktop (none = all).
Placement restrictions — Automatic (Meta decides) or Manual, which seeds all placements on and lets you uncheck platforms and positions in a category picker.

Need a field the structured controls don't surface? Use the Advanced (raw JSON) toggle in the editor header to edit the full targeting spec directly. The editor flags invalid JSON before you can save.

Special ad categories, dayparting and the promoted object

Special ad categories (credit, employment, housing, social issues/elections/politics, and more) are declared on the campaign. When one is set, Meta disables detailed interest and behavior targeting on the ad set, and the editor explains why.
Dayparting lives in Budget & schedule and requires a lifetime budget. Tick the days and set start/end times; uplads writes one schedule block per day and enables day-parting pacing for you.
The promoted object (Pixel/Dataset, page, app or catalog) is edited on the ad set. The pixel dropdown is populated from the connected account, sorted with the most recently active on top.