Replace a message ad campaign with a conversation ad campaign

Last updated: 3 months ago

Replace an existing message ad campaign with a conversation ad campaign to drive high-quality conversations and deepen engagement with your audience. For example, with a conversation ad campaign, you can set up multiple call-to-action (CTA) buttons in the message that link to your landing pages, open a Lead Gen Form, or drive engagement using CTAs that provide links to case studies and more information.

You must complete all three stages of the process to successfully replace a message ad campaign. The three stages are: 

  1. Duplicate the message ad campaign to retain your current audience.
  2. Create ads and launch the conversation ad campaign.
  3. Pause the existing message ad campaign after you’ve launched the new conversation ad campaign.

Important to know

Replacing an existing message ad campaign with a conversation ad campaign is a manual process that can only be performed for one message ad campaign at a time.

Prerequisites

  • Sign in to Campaign Manager and select the required account from the accounts dropdown in the upper-left corner of the page.
  • Select the Campaigns tab and confirm that the message ad campaign you want to replace is listed.
  • Ensure that any ad creatives required for the conversation ad campaign are available on your desktop. For example, a banner creative.
  • If you want to reuse the existing message ad copy and CTA, copy the details to a format that you can easily access. For example, a Word document.

Stage one: To duplicate an existing message ad campaign:

  1. Click the More  icon to the right of the required message ad campaign name and select Duplicate from the dropdown. The Duplicate campaign page opens. 

  2. Enter the campaign name, confirm or change the Destination account and Destination campaign group, and click Next

    • If you duplicate a website conversions campaign, the account can’t be changed from your current ad account. 
    • When duplicating Sponsored Messaging ads into a different account, confirm that you have the correct sender permissions.
  3. The Select creatives step is optional as message ad campaigns don’t always contain ad creatives. Select the checkbox next to the creative if you want to duplicate it to the new campaign.

  4. Click Duplicate campaign. The Set up Campaign page opens, and a message appears confirming that your campaign has been successfully duplicated and saved as a draft.

    • The campaign objective and target audience are the same as the original message ad campaign. However, all other campaign attributes are reset.
  5. In the Ad format section, click Change. From the Change Ad format dialog, click Confirm to keep the current audience. Clear the Keep current audience checkbox to remove the current audience. The Set up Campaign page opens.

    • The campaign budget and minimum bid amount aren't retained from the original campaign but are recalculated and displayed once you enter the new campaign attributes.
    • Account assets, such as Matched Audiences, aren’t copied over to the new campaign. You can reapply the assets if you duplicated the campaign into the same account. If you duplicated the campaign into a different account, you might need to copy assets to the new account. 
  6. Click Edit in the top left of the page and enter the name of the conversation ad campaign.

  7. Select the campaign objective. If you chose to keep the current audience, the details are available under the Audience section.

  8. In the Ad format section, select Conversation ad.

  9. Select the Placements, Budget & schedule, Bidding, and Conversion tracking attributes for your conversation ad campaign.

  10. Click Next and Save. The Ads in this campaign page opens.

    • Your objective and ad format cannot be changed once you save.

Stage two: To create ads and launch the conversation ad campaign:

  1. Click Create new ad from the Ads in this campaign page.

    1. Enter a name in the Name this ad field.
    2. Select the Sender of the ad or add a new sender.
    3. Optional: Upload the banner creative and copy and paste the original message ad details into the Custom footer & terms of conditions field.
    4. Click Next step.
  2. From the Templates section, choose a template that best fits your messaging goal, or choose the Blank template if you want to customize your messaging goal. Click Next step.

  3. In the Intro message field, copy and paste the ad copy from the original message ad campaign.

    • Use up to 8,000 characters, including spaces, emojis, and punctuation. You can use up to 10 emojis in the Intro message field.
    • Rich text options like bulleting, italics, and bolding are available, although we recommend keeping the formatting simple and conversational since you're in a conversation space.
  4. Optional: Select the Add an image checkbox to upload an image. Click Upload and select the required image.

  5. In the Call-to-action buttons section, use up to 25 characters to create the first call-to-action (CTA) button text that you want your members to select.

    1. If you are reusing the existing message ad campaign CTA, copy and paste the details. You can use a minimum of one CTA for a conversation ad campaign.
    2. From the Action dropdown, select the action that you want your members to take when they click the CTA. At least one of your CTA buttons must send members to your website.
  6. Click Edit response to enter the response your members will see after they click your CTA button.

    1. If you are reusing the existing message ad campaign CTA, copy and paste the details.
    2. Click Add another button to include up to five CTA buttons with corresponding actions and response messages. 
  7. Click Create in the lower-right corner of the page. The Ads in this campaign page opens.

    1. Click the Status icon to change the status of the ad from Draft to Active. The status must be changed before the ad can be shown to members in your target audience.
    2. Click Next.
  8. The Review & Launch page opens, and a message appears confirming that your ad has been created. Confirm that your campaign settings are correct.

    1. To make edits to any section, click the Previous button in the lower-left corner of the page.
    2. Click Launch campaign

Results: A confirmation message confirms that you’ve successfully launched your new conversation ad campaign. New ads are under review and will serve pending approval. 

Stage three: To pause the existing message ad campaign:

Important to know

We recommend that you don't pause your existing message ad campaign until after you've launched your new conversation ad campaign.

  1. Select the Campaigns tab and click the Status icon to the right of the message ad campaign that you want to pause.

  2. Select Paused from the dropdown menu. The Status changes to Paused.

    • You can only pause campaigns that are active or archived.

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