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Facebook Ads vs. Instagram Ads: Which One Works Best?
How Facebook and Instagram advertising differ in audience, format and intent, and how to decide where a given campaign belongs.
✶ WebGlobals · 5 min read · July 2025
Same budget, two feeds
Where the leads come from
Facebook ads against Instagram ads
Ash Pahil
You are not really choosing between them
Facebook ads and Instagram ads are the same product. Both run through Meta Ads Manager on one campaign, one budget and one pixel. What you are actually choosing is placements, and Meta can distribute across both for you.
Let results decide the split, not preference
Run both placements, give the campaign enough budget and time to learn, then read the placement breakdown. Separating them into two campaigns too early usually costs more than it reveals.
It is one of the most common questions an Australian business asks before spending on social advertising: should the money go to Facebook or to Instagram? The honest answer is that the question is framed wrongly, and understanding why will save you both budget and argument.
They are the same platform
Facebook and Instagram are both owned by Meta and both advertised through the same tool, Meta Ads Manager. You build one campaign, set one budget, use one tracking pixel and choose from the same objectives, audiences and reporting.
Instagram is not a separate advertising channel with its own account, its own billing or its own audience list. It is a set of placements inside the same system: the Instagram feed, Stories, Reels and Explore, sitting alongside the Facebook feed, Marketplace, Facebook Stories and the rest.
This matters because it changes the decision. You are not picking a platform. You are deciding which placements your ads are eligible to appear in, and whether you let Meta distribute across all of them or restrict it to some.
Where the audiences genuinely differ
The platforms do attract different habits, and this is the part worth paying attention to.
Facebook skews older and broader. It is where community groups, Marketplace and local pages live, and it still reaches an audience that Instagram does not, particularly outside the capital cities. For a business selling to people over forty, or to a whole household, Facebook usually carries more of the reach.
Instagram skews younger and far more visual. It rewards good photography, short video and anything with a sense of style. Reels in particular can put a small business in front of people who have never heard of it, which is harder to achieve on Facebook.
Neither is a search channel. Nobody on either platform is looking for you. That is the important difference from Google Ads, and it is why the creative matters more here than the targeting does.
Where the formats differ
Facebook tolerates more words. Longer copy, link previews with a headline and description, and posts that make an argument all work there. If what you sell needs explaining, Facebook gives you room.
Instagram wants the image or the video to do the work. Captions are read after the visual has already earned the pause, not before. A text-heavy ad that performs on Facebook will often fall flat in an Instagram feed without being rebuilt.
Stories and Reels on both platforms are full-screen and vertical. An ad made for a square feed placement, then stretched into a Story, looks like what it is. If you intend to use those placements, make the vertical version properly.
AI search visitors converted 23 times better than organic on Ahrefs' own site, from just 0.5% of its traffic.
Source: Ahrefs Web Analytics, June 2025.
So which one works best?
For most Australian small businesses, the answer is both, in one campaign, with Meta deciding the split. That is not a fence-sitting answer. It is how the system is built to work: Meta moves budget towards whichever placement is producing your chosen result most cheaply, and it can make that decision far faster than you can by reading a report each week.
There are cases where leaning one way is sensible.
When to favour Facebook
When your customer is older, when you sell to households rather than individuals, when the offer needs explaining in a paragraph rather than a picture, and when you are advertising a local service where Marketplace and community groups carry real weight. Trades, aged care, home services and most professional services sit here.
When to favour Instagram
When the product photographs well, when the audience is younger, and when the purchase is partly about how something looks. Hospitality, fitness, beauty, retail, property styling and anything where the result is visible all belong here.
When to split them, and when not to
Splitting into separate campaigns sounds like control, but it divides your budget in two, and each one then has to learn separately. Meta’s own guidance is that an ad set needs roughly fifty optimisation events a week to get out of its learning phase and perform predictably. Two half-funded campaigns often means neither gets there.
Split only when you have a real reason: genuinely different creative for each platform, a budget large enough that both halves still clear that bar, or a result that has been consistent for long enough to trust.
How to read the result
Everything you need is in the placement breakdown inside Ads Manager. Look at cost per result by placement, not at impressions or clicks, and give it enough time that the numbers mean something. A placement with twelve conversions is not yet telling you anything.
Be careful with the obvious conclusion. A placement can look expensive because the creative made for it was poor, not because the audience was wrong. Before cutting Instagram because it cost more, check whether anyone made a vertical video for it.
What actually decides it
After years of running these campaigns, the platform is rarely the deciding factor. The creative is. A clear offer, a first second that earns attention, and a landing page that continues the same story will outperform any placement decision you make in the settings.
Choose both, feed the campaign properly, make creative that suits each placement, and let the numbers tell you where the money should go.
Are Facebook ads and Instagram ads the same thing?
Yes. Both are bought through Meta Ads Manager using the same campaign structure, the same targeting options, the same pixel and the same reporting. Instagram is a set of placements within a Meta campaign, not a separate advertising platform with its own account.
Should I run Facebook and Instagram ads in the same campaign?
Usually yes. One campaign with both placements enabled lets Meta shift budget to whichever is performing, and keeps all your results feeding a single learning process. Two separate campaigns divide the budget and make each one slower to settle.
Which is cheaper, Facebook ads or Instagram ads?
Neither is reliably cheaper. Cost per result depends on your audience, your objective, the season and, above all, your creative. A well-made vertical video on Instagram can undercut a tired image ad on Facebook, and the reverse is just as common.
Which is better for a local service business in Australia?
For most local service businesses in Australia, Facebook carries more of the reach, particularly for customers over forty and in regional areas. That said, Instagram Reels can introduce a local business to people who have never heard of it, so it is worth keeping enabled rather than switching off.
How long before I know which placement works?
Give it enough conversions to be meaningful rather than enough days. Meta suggests around fifty optimisation events a week per ad set before performance settles. Until you are near that, differences between placements are noise, not signal.
[ Frequently Asked ]
Questions,
answered.
The questions we get asked most about this. Still unsure? Ask us directly.
No — the question is framed wrongly. Both run through Meta Ads Manager on one campaign, one budget and one pixel. You are choosing placements within one system, not between two platforms.
Facebook skews older and broader, and still reaches people Instagram does not, particularly outside the capital cities. Instagram skews younger and far more visual, and Reels can reach people who have never heard of you.
Often not. Facebook tolerates longer copy and arguments that need explaining; Instagram expects the image or video to earn the pause before the caption is read. A text-heavy ad that works on one usually needs rebuilding for the other.
Let the results decide. Run both placements, give the campaign enough budget and time to learn, then read the placement breakdown. Splitting them into separate campaigns too early usually costs more than it reveals.
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