Campaigns, explained: The brains behind every ad strategy

Behind every winning ad strategy, there’s a rock solid campaign.

You’ve probably heard the word a thousand times before, but what does it really mean in the world of digital marketing? 🤔

Most marketers (or business owners who have already dived into the world of ads) will already know its importance, but you might be scratching your head when it comes to the details.

Let’s fix that! 💪

Campaigns: Your ad strategy HQ

Think of your campaign as the command center of your ad strategy. It’s where you lock in the big, front and center goal like:

👉 “We want a lot more website traffic”

👉 “We need to boost conversions, fast”

👉 “Let’s get our brand seen, everywhere”

Whatever your mission, this is where it all starts - your campaign is the foundation that holds everything else together.

Without a clear campaign goal, you’re basically launching ads into the digital void, and nobody wants that.

Your campaign sets the why behind every impression, click, and conversion. Once that’s locked in, the rest (like your budget, audience targeting and performance tracking), slots into place like well placed puzzle pieces.

💡An example: If conversions are your north star, your website, ad creatives, and even your chosen platforms should be honed in to capture qualified leads. However, if brand awareness is your game plan, your ads should be built to reach as many eyes as possible, in all the right places.

Cracking the ad hierarchy code

So here’s where some advertisers hit a wall…campaign structure 🧱

Platforms like Google & Meta organise ads into different levels:

1. Campaign = Your ultimate goal ✅
2. Ad set = This is where you define your audience, set your budget and manage your ad placement 💰
3. Ad = The creative part (what your viewers actually see) 🎨

Let’s put it into everyday terms:

Your campaign is the blueprint.

Your ad sets are the building blocks.

And your ads? They're the finished product, out there in the world (hopefully) doing their job.

If you get the blueprint wrong, the whole thing wobbles. Get it right though? Boom! You’ve got a potentially finely tuned engine that runs smoothly and scales easily.

This is also where keywords, CPC (or cost-per-click) and audience insights come into play, as your ad sets decide who sees your message and what it’ll cost you to get it in front of them.

When should you create a new campaign vs just a new ad set?

Here’s a common question:

Do I need to start a brand new campaign, or can I just create a new ad set?

It’s a good question, but it all comes down to one thing…intent.

Here’s our guide:

👉 If your goal changes, create a new campaign.

👉 Same goal, different audience or budget? Spin up that new ad set!

👉 Same goal and setup, just testing a new creative? Fire up a new ad.

Let’s put that into some real-world context:

You’re running a campaign with the goal of driving conversions, but you want to test two different audiences: create two ad sets - same mission, just different routes.

But lets say your mission focus shifts from driving conversions to boosting brand awareness - that’s a whole new campaign with an entirely different focus.

Why does this matter you ask? Well, if your campaign tells the ad platform what success should look like but you’re setting confusing goals, all you’re doing is muddying the waters.

Our tip...keep it clean and keep it laser-focused 🎯

The campaign level

When you’re setting up your campaign, you’re not just filling out a few fields of a form and pressing go, you’re making decisions that steer the whole ship.

Here’s what you’ll need to choose:

• Your objective: What’s your campaign here to do? Generate clicks, obtain leads, convert to sales? The platforms you choose will help you optimize everything based on this decision.
• Your budget: This is your campaign’s fuel tank. Too little and you stall out. Too much without a plan? You’ll burn through cash with nothing to show 💸
• Your bidding strategy: Are you going to pay for volume or efficiency? Your chosen bidding strategy will tell the platform how aggressively (or smart) you want to bid in the ad auction.

If you want to learn how to squeeze more from your spend, check out our ROI and ROAS articles for some next-level tips 💥

Why campaigns matter more than you think

Here’s the thing: your campaign goal decides what the platform optimizes for, and in turn what shows in your reports and analytics.

If your goal doesn’t match your business's main objective, you’re only going to be optimizing in the wrong direction 🔙

Lets say you choose traffic, when you actually want sales - the platform will happily bombard you with click-happy users who bounce before buying.

Maybe you choose engagement, but you really care about leads. You might end up with likes and comments, but conversions? Doubtful 🤷

Wrong campaign goal = wasted budget, misleading data and importantly, a very confused strategy.

This is why campaigns matter. They are your starting point for everything your ad platform does and the results you get back (such as the way your budget gets spent or even how ‘success’ is measured) all traces back to this one, super important decision.

But that’s where Hitprobe comes in.

We show you what happens after the all important ad click, tracking events and conversions so you can see if those campaigns are actually driving results, rather than just giving you vanity metrics that only look good on paper.

But remember, it all starts with a campaign that’s set up with the right intent.

Final takeaway: Campaigns = strategy mode enabled

A well built campaign is the starting point of everything that follows. Your goals, your budget and your bidding…it all flows from there 👈

If you get this right, your ad strategy becomes both trackable and scaleable.

So next time you’re launching ads, sweat the small stuff a little more on the campaign setup and ask yourself:

Nail the campaign, and the rest follows.

Hitprobe helps make it measurable, meaningful and money-making 💸‍