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Set up your Meta ads account

Meta ads (Facebook + Instagram) are still the most complete paid channel for small brands: enormous reach, creative-driven, and workable at modest budgets. The setup has three layers — get them right once and everything after is easier.

What you need

Your Facebook Page (see the Page guide) and your Instagram business account, plus a payment card.

1. Create the Business portfolio

  1. Go to business.facebook.com and create a Business portfolio (Meta Business Suite) with your business name and email.
  2. Add your Facebook Page and Instagram account under the portfolio's assets — the portfolio is the container that owns everything and lets you grant team access without sharing logins.

2. Create the ad account

  1. In Business settings, under Ad accounts, create a new ad account with your currency and timezone (both are permanent — check them).
  2. Add your payment method.
  3. Give yourself (and only people who need it) access to the account.

3. Install the pixel / dataset

The pixel is what makes ads measurable and optimizable:

  1. In Events Manager, create a dataset (pixel) for your website.
  2. Install it: shop platforms like Shopify connect it natively in their sales-channel settings; otherwise add the pixel snippet to your site.
  3. Verify purchase or lead events arrive (Events Manager shows a live test).

The discipline that makes it profitable

  • Broad targeting + strong creative beats narrow interest stacks — give the algorithm 3-5 creative variants per ad set and let it pick.
  • UGC-style native creative outperforms polished ads for small brands.
  • Judge nothing before ~50 conversions; kill losers weekly, never daily. Daily fiddling resets learning and burns money.

Connect it to Huuve

When the Meta Ads connector is enabled for your workspace, open Connections in Huuve and authorize the ad account. Huuve mirrors your campaigns, spend and results into its intelligence, so briefings can weigh paid results next to organic.

If something fails

  • Ad account disabled at creation: new accounts trip Meta's automated checks easily — verify your identity and business info in Business settings and appeal; it usually clears.
  • Pixel shows no events: the tag is missing on the site or blocked — use the test events tool in Events Manager to trace it.