Quickstart: launch your first ads with uplads

This walkthrough takes you from an empty workspace to live ads in a single sitting. The launch wizard has five steps — Creatives → Targeting → Text → Review → Launch — and your progress auto-saves as a draft, so you can stop and resume any time. If you want the bigger picture first, read What is uplads and how does it work? and Understanding the bulk launch wizard steps.

Before you start: connect your Meta account

Launching needs a connected Meta (Facebook & Instagram) account and at least one ad account selected in the top-of-page switcher. If you haven't done this yet, follow How to connect your Meta account. When no ad account is selected, the wizard shows "Select an ad account to start a launch" instead of the steps.

If your account won't link, see Why is my Meta account not connecting?.

Step 1 — Upload a creative to the media library

Open New Launch from the sidebar. The first step, Creatives, opens on the Media Library tab.

1. Drag an image or video into the drop-zone, or click it to browse your computer.
2. The file uploads directly to storage and appears as a tile once it finishes.
3. Click the tile to select it (a checkmark appears), then click Continue.

You only need one creative for your first launch. A few things worth knowing:

• Videos keep uploading in the background — if one finishes after you've moved past this step, uplads automatically adds it to your selection.
• You can also import from Dropbox or Google Drive, or pull existing library assets. See How to upload creatives to the media library.
• If an upload fails, check How to fix creative upload failures.

Step 2 — Pick a Page, campaign and ad set in Targeting

The Targeting step is where you tell Meta where the ad runs.

1. Choose the Facebook Page the ad will publish from (and optionally an Instagram account). If you've set account defaults, this is pre-filled for you.
2. Select an existing campaign, or create one inline.
3. Select one or more ad sets — each selected ad set receives a copy of your ad.

Need to build the structure as you go? See How to create a campaign or ad set during launch and How to select your Page, campaign and ad sets. When you're done, click Continue.

Step 3 — Add primary text, headline and a destination URL

The Text step is where you write the ad copy. At minimum, fill in:

• Primary text — the main body copy above your creative.
• Headline — the bold line under the creative.
• Destination URL — where people land when they click.
• Call to action — defaults to Learn More; change it if you like.

You can add multiple primary texts and headlines for variations, and let AI draft copy for you — see How to generate ad copy with AI and How to write ad copy, URLs and CTAs. Click Continue when your copy is ready.

Relaunching an existing ad or running a partnership/Spark ad? The Text step is skipped automatically, since that copy already exists.

Step 4 — Review the ad names

The Review step shows exactly what will be created and the final ad name for each unit, built from your naming convention. The name shown here is shipped to Meta byte-for-byte, so what you see is what you get.

• Edit any name inline if you want to tweak it.
• Open the naming-schema dialog to change the template just for this launch.

More detail: How to review and edit ad names before launch and How to set up a custom ad naming convention. Click Continue to reach the final step.

Step 5 — Launch and watch real-time progress

The Launch step opens with a summary like "1 ad × 1 ad set = 1 ad will be created" so you can confirm the math.

1. (Optional) Toggle Schedule activation to launch the ads paused now and have uplads flip them live at a chosen time, interpreted in the ad account's timezone.
2. Click Confirm & Launch.

uplads queues the work and shows a live Progress card. Each creative moves through states like Uploading…, Meta is processing the video…, and Creating ads…, polled every few seconds, until it reads live. When everything finishes you'll see "All ads launched successfully!" with the success/failed counts.

From the completion screen you can:

• View launch details to inspect each created ad.
• Open in Meta Ads Manager to confirm the ads went live (it deep-links straight to the launched ad sets).
• Start another launch to reset the wizard with a clean slate.

If any ad failed, a Retry failed button reruns just those. For help reading the results or diagnosing failures, see How to track launch progress and read results, Why did my launch fail and how do I fix it?, and Why don't my launched ads appear in Meta Ads Manager?.

That's a full launch end to end. Next, learn how drafts auto-save and resume your launch so you never lose progress, and explore setting ad status and scheduling a launch.