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How to structure a Meta ads account in 2025–2026

The campaign layouts practitioners actually run — Dara Denney's testing campaign + Advantage+ (ASC) core, Smart Marketer's one-campaign-per-objective "Andromeda portfolio", CTC's evergreen (acquisition/retention ad sets filled to 150 ads) + marketing-moment campaigns, Ben Heath and Jon Loomer's one-campaign-one-ad-set start, Mars Men's 40 pillar campaigns — plus multiple products, countries, retargeting and the 2020 baseline.

Updated 2026-10-24·13 sources·meta-adsaccount-structureadvantage-pluscampaign-structureecommerce

Meta account structure (2025–2026)

TL;DR

  • Default ecommerce core (Dara Denney, 2025): 1 creative-testing campaign (manual Sales objective) + 1 Advantage+ shopping/sales campaign (ASC) as the scaling home for winners. Works from ~$5K to $500K+/month.12
  • Multiple products: add a separate ASC for catalog/DPA ads (otherwise catalog can soak up all spend). Forcing spend into per-product campaigns usually costs efficiency.34
  • Meta’s recommended Andromeda layout (Smart Marketer, Jan 2026): one campaign per business objective; campaign budget; one ad set, broad, exclude existing customers, automatic placements; 15–20 genuinely different ads.567
  • Split top-of-funnel campaigns by avatar (moms vs gift buyers) when each has its own creative/landing page; add one simple win-back retargeting campaign.89
  • Countries: creative-test only in your biggest market (often the US); run an ASC per additional country with localised versions of proven formats.1011
  • CTC canon (Jul 2026): evergreen campaigns split into acquisition and retention, ad sets filled sequentially up to Meta’s current 150-ad limit, plus a DABA ad set in acquisition; separate marketing-moment campaigns for anything time-bound (sales, launches).12
  • New/small accounts (Ben Heath, Jon Loomer): start with one campaign, one ad set and add complexity only for a proven, data-backed problem.1314

Details

Dara’s core. Winners from testing get duplicated into ASC; she’s now liberal about what goes into ASC — including historical top performers from months or years ago and ads that underperformed in testing but might suit warmer audiences.2 Separating testing from scaling throttles a little cash to new creative without muddying the winners.15 She runs no retargeting on most brands, even at $500K–$1M/month, and no reach/awareness/engagement campaigns — Meta lift tests show they can work only for brands spending multiple seven figures a month, with months-long payback.1516 Per-product ASCs are sometimes justified by inventory, perishables or retail spillover, but aren’t optimal.4 Her later take (Dec 2025): after Andromeda/GEM, account structure matters far less than creative.17

Alternatives that also work. Her partner Miguel runs a one-campaign setup for brands above $1M/month; Seed launches 4–5 creative tests a month, each in its own ASC, scaling within those and occasionally combining top performers into a “super ASC”.1819

Smart Marketer’s version. Campaign 1: new-customer acquisition (TOF); campaign 2: a second TOF campaign for another avatar; campaign 3: win-back retargeting. Some of their accounts run exactly 3–5 campaigns this way; others still need 10+.89 Excluding existing customers matters: consolidated setups can look great on ROAS/CPA while Meta mostly retargets warm users, and the share of new customers quietly falls.6 For catalogues with distinct product lines/outcomes/avatars, they mostly separate campaigns by product; even closely related products (e.g. vehicle accessories) get their own campaigns first.2021

Campaign-heavy alternative (Zach Stuck, Mars Men). ~40 active campaigns, one per creative pillar — mostly CBO with a minimum spend per ad set, each ad set a concept or concept + new landing page — chosen for reporting clarity. Starting out, he agrees one campaign is enough until you have direction.2223

CTC’s evergreen/marketing-moment split. Tony Chopp: sales objective in ~95% of cases, value-optimised with minimum ROAS on ASC or CBO with inflated budgets, 7-day click, broad with acquisition/retention exclusions; new creative flows into the current acquisition ad set until it hits 150 ads, then ad set 2. Never turn off ads; fix underspend with the 4-phase framework in Fixing Meta underspend — CTC's four phases, and why they never turn off ads.1224

Simplest-first (Ben Heath, Jon Loomer). A new account: one campaign, one ad set, one offer (the bestseller), multiple ads.13 Loomer audits struggling accounts for unnecessary complexity — multiple ad sets for different targeting groups reach the same people anyway because lookalikes and detailed targeting are only suggestions, so they compete with each other and water down budget.25 At ~$100K/month Ben does run multiple campaigns — per product range, offer or funnel stage (e.g. lead-magnet TOF + retargeting opt-ins to book a call) — plus 10–30% in testing campaigns.26 Never scale by running identical duplicate campaigns (auction overlap).27

2020 baseline (Savannah Sanchez). For contrast, her “advanced default” ecommerce structure (June 2020): CBO everywhere, 70% prospecting / 30% lower funnel; prospecting split into a dynamic-creative testing campaign (5 creatives × 3 texts × 3 headlines, on a 1% purchaser lookalike + broad interest) and a “super ads” campaign (winning combinations rebuilt as normal ads via post ID to keep social proof, scaled across ~5 audiences: 5% LAL, interest stacks ≥2M, always with interest expansion and automatic placements)28; re-engagement (~10%: 365-day FB/IG engagers, 75% video viewers, email list); remarketing (30-day site visitors, 180-day purchasers, high-AOV/repeat lists); DPA catalog campaign (14-day view content/add-to-cart; 30–180-day purchasers), each excluding the next funnel stage.29303132

Ready Set’s guardrails (Ignacio Manchi, mid-2026). Fewer, simpler campaigns, and split only with a purpose. Valid purposes: testing vs scaling, validated personas, products with different AOVs and CACs, and sometimes prospecting vs retargeting. Test audience segments first, since a consolidated campaign can still serve retargeting assets.3334 Use CBO to scale (optionally with ad-spend thresholds) and ABO as a guardrail for testing. Ad sets may split by persona or product. Never split ad sets by format (statics vs videos) — that’s “the old playbook”.35 Run ~15–20 ads per ad set, optimise for the event that matches the business outcome (purchases, not page views), and follow “variety, velocity, volume” at the ad level.36

Persona ad sets (Josh Brampton, Motion). Some customers run an evergreen and a testing campaign, each with one ad set per persona (9 personas → 9 ad sets); winners move to the same persona ad set in the evergreen campaign.37

Disagreements / caveats

  • Retargeting: Dara runs none; Smart Marketer (relaying Meta) keeps a win-back campaign.159
  • One vs many TOF campaigns: Meta says one per objective; Molly’s gut and results favour one per avatar; Zach runs 40.822
  • Separate testing campaigns: Dara and Ben (at high spend) use them; Loomer and Ben (at low volume) avoid them and test inside the ad set with Meta’s tools; CTC uses no testing campaign but adds an “underspend” ASC.2625
  • The 2020 structure relies on interest/lookalike splits and separate retargeting tiers that 2025–2026 practitioners consider obsolete — useful only to understand legacy accounts.
  • Dara’s structure video is from June 2025, before the Advantage+ sales rollout completed (July 2025) — “ASC” now means an Advantage+ sales campaign.

See also

Footnotes

  1. How to Structure Your Meta Ads Account in 2026 (the right way) @ 00:00 — Dara Denney ↩

  2. How to Structure Your Meta Ads Account in 2026 (the right way) @ 01:33 — Dara Denney ↩ ↩2

  3. How to Structure Your Meta Ads Account in 2026 (the right way) @ 06:12 — Dara Denney ↩

  4. How to Structure Your Meta Ads Account in 2026 (the right way) @ 07:13 — Dara Denney ↩ ↩2

  5. How Smart Brands Are Buying Meta Media in 2026 | Smart Marketer Show Ep 11 FULL EPISODE @ 27:07 — Molly Pittman ↩

  6. How Smart Brands Are Buying Meta Media in 2026 | Smart Marketer Show Ep 11 FULL EPISODE @ 27:58 — Molly Pittman ↩ ↩2

  7. How Smart Brands Are Buying Meta Media in 2026 | Smart Marketer Show Ep 11 FULL EPISODE @ 29:02 — Molly Pittman ↩

  8. How Smart Brands Are Buying Meta Media in 2026 | Smart Marketer Show Ep 11 FULL EPISODE @ 21:30 — Molly Pittman ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  9. How Smart Brands Are Buying Meta Media in 2026 | Smart Marketer Show Ep 11 FULL EPISODE @ 22:18 — Molly Pittman ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. How to Structure Your Meta Ads Account in 2026 (the right way) @ 08:46 — Dara Denney ↩

  11. How to Structure Your Meta Ads Account in 2026 (the right way) @ 07:13 — Dara Denney ↩

  12. How Meta Actually Works in 2026 @ 11:23 — Tony Chopp ↩ ↩2

  13. How To Succeed With A NEW Meta Ad Account in 2026 @ 11:37 — Ben Heath ↩ ↩2

  14. The Foundational Elements of Meta Advertising Today @ 01:33 — Jon Loomer ↩

  15. How to Structure Your Meta Ads Account in 2026 (the right way) @ 01:33 — Dara Denney ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  16. How to Structure Your Meta Ads Account in 2026 (the right way) @ 03:04 — Dara Denney ↩

  17. Meta's Andromeda & GEM: Clearly Explained @ 00:50 — Dara Denney ↩

  18. How to Structure Your Meta Ads Account in 2026 (the right way) @ 10:09 — Dara Denney ↩

  19. How to Structure Your Meta Ads Account in 2026 (the right way) @ 11:16 — Dara Denney ↩

  20. How Smart Brands Are Buying Meta Media in 2026 | Smart Marketer Show Ep 11 FULL EPISODE @ 1:02:33 — Molly Pittman ↩

  21. How Smart Brands Are Buying Meta Media in 2026 | Smart Marketer Show Ep 11 FULL EPISODE @ 1:10:21 — Molly Pittman ↩

  22. Meta Ads Creative Testing Framework Every DTC Brand Needs in 2026 ft. Zach Stuck @ 49:25 — Zach Stuck ↩ ↩2

  23. Meta Ads Creative Testing Framework Every DTC Brand Needs in 2026 ft. Zach Stuck @ 50:11 — Zach Stuck ↩

  24. How Meta Actually Works in 2026 @ 06:37 — Tony Chopp ↩

  25. The Mistakes I See in Almost Every Ad Account @ 05:35 — Jon Loomer ↩ ↩2

  26. $100 vs $100,000 Facebook Ads Strategy @ 00:48 — Ben Heath ↩ ↩2

  27. The BEST Way To Scale Meta Ads (from $300M ad spend) @ 16:46 — Ben Heath ↩

  28. Advanced Facebook Ad Account Structure For eCommerce @ 04:44 — Savannah Sanchez ↩

  29. Advanced Facebook Ad Account Structure For eCommerce @ 00:47 — Savannah Sanchez ↩

  30. Advanced Facebook Ad Account Structure For eCommerce @ 02:18 — Savannah Sanchez ↩

  31. Advanced Facebook Ad Account Structure For eCommerce @ 07:14 — Savannah Sanchez ↩

  32. Advanced Facebook Ad Account Structure For eCommerce @ 11:23 — Savannah Sanchez ↩

  33. Andromeda 2.0 Explained: How Meta's Algorithm Actually Picks Your Winning Ads @ 48:24 — Ignacio Manchi ↩

  34. Andromeda 2.0 Explained: How Meta's Algorithm Actually Picks Your Winning Ads @ 49:21 — Ignacio Manchi ↩

  35. Andromeda 2.0 Explained: How Meta's Algorithm Actually Picks Your Winning Ads @ 50:09 — Ignacio Manchi ↩

  36. Andromeda 2.0 Explained: How Meta's Algorithm Actually Picks Your Winning Ads @ 51:06 — Ignacio Manchi ↩

  37. Andromeda demands this new ad structure | Do it easily with Motion @ 47:00 — Josh Brampton ↩