Let’s get your first Facebook and Instagram online education ads up and running! 

We’ll guide you through the Ads Manager, making it easy for you to start. This step will have a significant impact on your online education brand, and we’re here to help every step of the way.

MORE ON THE TOPIC: 100 Ads Q&A

3 Campaigns to Launch Your Online Education Ads

We’ll walk you through your launch plan with 3 powerful campaigns. We’ll discuss each one of them and then go through an example of a setup together to make everything clear to understand.

The Lead Generation Campaign

This campaign focuses on getting email leads using free lead magnets. Your primary objective here is to drive traffic to your free opt-in page. That’s it.

Mix Up Your Freebies 

Don’t just stick to one lead magnet. Try a few different options like eBooks, cheat sheets, webinars, or mini-courses. People love variety, and different offers will grab the attention of different people.

Tweak Your Opt-In Page

Small changes like a better headline, fewer form fields, or a more eye-catching CTA can make a big difference in how many sign-ups you get. Test what works best!

Automated Follow-Ups

Once you’ve got someone’s email, make sure to hit them with a series of welcome emails that add value before asking for anything. Let them get to know you a bit, and build some trust before you ask them to buy.

The Top of the Funnel (TOF) Conversion Campaign

This campaign focuses on bringing in new customers through cold traffic. You should be aiming to drive traffic to the sales page directly. It’s a way to reach out to those who may not know about your brand yet. 

The goal is to bring in fresh faces and introduce them to your offers. 

This campaign is where online education ads have the most impact in terms of scalability because it helps you reach beyond the limits of your current audience. 

Make It All About Value

Since you’re targeting people who don’t know you yet, lead with value. Use videos or carousels in your ads to educate or offer a quick win related to your course topic. Show them why you’re worth their time.

Try Different Formats

Test different types of ads like videos, carousels, or simple text/image combos to see what grabs cold traffic best. Videos are often super effective for education because they build a quick connection.

Focus on Solutions, Not Features

Instead of diving into the nitty-gritty of your course, focus on how it solves problems. Cold traffic needs to understand what’s in it for them, so sell them on the benefits and outcomes.

While organic content can only take you so far, this type of campaign brings in new audiences and expands your reach. 

Aren’t you excited to bring in more people to your community?

The Bottom of the Funnel (BOF) Conversion Campaign

This is a campaign that aims at converting sales from your existing audience. Similar to the TOF Conversion Campaign, it directs traffic straight to your sales page. 

Here, however, you’re meant to be targeting those who already have familiarity with your brand. They’ve engaged with your content in some way, and now we’re strategically retargeting them to drive purchases for your course.

Note the various traffic sources like social media, SEO, ads shown in the graphic. And typically you’re going to direct it to 2 main areas:

1. The course sales page, where visitors can explore the course and make a purchase.

2. Free resources like webinars, checklists, guides which require an opt-in. It’s important to mention here that once users opt in, they should be redirected to a Thank You page. From there, they should enter a nurture email sequence and receive newsletter broadcasts. 

The single objective of this is to nurture these leads and guide them to the course sales page, ultimately leading to a purchase. 

Retarget Like a Pro

For BOF, it’s all about retargeting people who already know your brand. Whether they watched your videos, downloaded something, or visited your course page, you can hit them with ads that bring them back to make the purchase.

Handle Their Objections

Warm leads might be holding back because they’re unsure about something, maybe it’s price, time commitment, or course difficulty. Your BOF ads should address those concerns directly and show them why now’s the time to jump in.

Sweeten the Deal

Offering limited-time bonuses or discounts for your warm audience can help nudge them to convert. Think along the lines of an extra coaching call, bonus modules, or a discount that’s only available for a few days.

Misunderstanding Ad Spend & Returns

Many online educators believe that if they spend $1,000 on ads and only make $1,000 in sales, they’ve simply “broken even,” or worse, they’ve failed because there’s no immediate profit. 

The truth is breaking even is actually a win in the context of building an audience and a long-term, profitable business.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking too short-term, focusing solely on immediate cash returns rather than considering the long-term value of each new lead or customer.

Incomplete View of Value

Entrepreneurs often overlook the lifetime value (LTV) of a customer. 

If your ads bring in a customer who pays $1,000 today, that’s great. But what if that customer buys another course from you in six months? Or recommends you to a friend? 

That same $1,000 in ad spend could potentially bring in thousands more down the line through repeat purchases, referrals, or upsells.

Focusing solely on the immediate return (ROAS) and ignoring the bigger picture of what each customer is worth over time.

Over-Focus on Immediate Gains

Because you may feel like “breaking even” isn’t good enough, you may start obsessing over quick gains. You may try to tweak your ads for instant, short-term profit instead of seeing the broader impact of your marketing efforts. 

This leads to a cycle of impatience, trying to get every campaign to directly make money, without giving time for leads to nurture and convert.

What you end up doing is shifting your ad strategy too frequently, chasing instant wins instead of optimizing long-term growth, funnel refinement, and brand-building.

Prematurely Cutting Ad Spend

Once you feel like their campaigns aren’t delivering immediate profits, you may start pulling back their ad spend prematurely. 

Instead of optimizing your funnel or retargeting strategies to make the most out of your audience, you cut your budget altogether, losing the opportunity to let your ads build momentum.

The result? The ad campaigns never get the time to fully scale or convert, and they lose out on the potential to nurture new leads, leaving money on the table.

Missed Long-Term Growth Opportunities

By cutting your ad spend too early and fixating on short-term metrics, you miss out on long-term growth. In reality, ad campaigns often gain more traction over time, especially when combined with effective lead nurturing strategies. 

See that the leads brought in during the “break-even” phase are actually prime candidates for higher-value sales later on, whether through upsells, memberships, or recurring purchases.

The Vicious Cycle

• Spend $1,000 on ads →
• Generate $1,000 in immediate sales →
• Feel like you’re “just breaking even” →
• Panic or grow impatient, thinking the ads aren’t delivering →
• Pull ad spend prematurely →
• Miss out on lifetime customer value and long-term sales →
• Rinse and repeat with frustration over short-term returns.

To avoid this cycle, you need to shift your mindset and focus on long-term returns, rather than seeing a 1:1 return on ad spend as a loss. 

Know Your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

Understand the long-term value of each new customer. If they buy from you again, that $1,000 spend could turn into much more over time. This should influence how you think about ad results, and a break-even result can be seen as the gateway to long-term profit.

Nurture Your Leads

Just because someone doesn’t convert instantly doesn’t mean they’re not valuable. Build a funnel that nurtures these leads, whether through email sequences, retargeting ads, or other engagement strategies. 

The real value often comes after the initial ad campaign has done its work by building trust and familiarity.

Measure ROAS AND LTV

Evaluate both the immediate return on ad spend (ROAS) and the potential for lifetime value (LTV). If you’re breaking even on the first sale, you’re still winning if you know that customer will likely buy again.

Embrace the Long Game

The best results from ads aren’t always immediate. Allow your campaigns to evolve, test different creatives and audiences, and remember that ads are also building brand awareness. 

The more touchpoints a lead has with your brand, the more likely they are to convert later.

Ad Campaign Setup in Ads Manager Example

Now let’s cover some key setup points for a lead generation campaign. If you offer free lead magnets, pay special attention to this.

Go into your Ads Manager, under the campaign tab and create a campaign that’s optimized for leads.

❗Also, just as a quick aside, be sure that going forward you use a consistent naming convention to make result tracking easier.

Choose Lead for the conversion event. 

This means that when people opt-in and reach the thank-you page, it triggers that Facebook Lead event in your Ads Manager, indicating that someone has opted in as a lead.

You can refine your targeting by considering your audience’s interests. For example, if you’re a street photography brand, simply type in street photography to see relevant interests. 

This targets anyone who has shown interest in or liked pages related to street photography. Keep it simple – choose one main interest related to your brand.

Since this is a top of the funnel campaign, exclude your bottom of the funnel audience. So that’s anyone already on your list.

Now go ahead and choose where you want your ad to appear.

Now that the campaign structure is set, let’s move on to the ad level.

Upload your creatives for your lead magnet.

Next, enter your ad copy.

Also, try out different headlines as well.

Leave it to Meta’s algorithm to track which combinations (copy and creatives) perform the best.

Check your previews if you haven’t already.

Doublecheck all your settings to ensure everything looks correct, including your budget. Once you’re satisfied, you can publish your ad.

After that, your ad will undergo review by Meta. Once they’ve reviewed it and as long as you haven’t violated any of their policies, they will approve the ad.

Conclusion

Running online education ads on Facebook and Instagram isn’t something you do just to get some quick results, but to build long-term visibility and success for your brand. 

They help you reach more people, engage them better and grow steadily. Use your ads to win not just once, but over and over and over again.