Should I Run Facebook and Instagram Ads Together?
Facebook and Instagram run on the same Meta ad platform, which changes how you should think about running them. Here is the straight answer on whether to combine them.
Running Facebook and Instagram together as one system, managed in Meta Ads Manager.
Short answer: yes, almost always. Facebook and Instagram are both owned by Meta and run through the same Ads Manager, the same pixel, and the same audience engine. When you run them together, the system can place your ads wherever they perform best instead of locking your budget into one platform.
Running them separately is one of the most common ways businesses waste Meta budget. You end up with two campaigns competing in the same auction, overlapping audiences, and no clear picture of what is actually working. Combined, the algorithm optimizes across every placement, feed, Stories, Reels, Explore, and finds the cheapest conversions.
What does change between the two is the creative. Instagram rewards polished, visual, native-feeling content, especially Reels and Stories. Facebook handles a wider range of formats and reaches a broader, often older demographic. We build creative tuned for each placement while managing them as one campaign.
The other piece is audience. The real power of Meta is in custom audiences and lookalikes built from your own customer data. A one percent lookalike of your best customers consistently outperforms broad interest targeting, and that audience works across both platforms at once.
There are cases where one platform dominates. A B2B service business might find Facebook carries almost all the value. A visual product brand might lean heavily into Instagram. But you discover that by running them together and reading the data, not by guessing up front and splitting them from day one.
The bottom line: treat Facebook and Instagram as one system, because that is exactly how Meta built them. Separate creative, shared strategy, one budget that flows to what works.