When you promote a post on Facebook, you have minimal control over your bid type, budget, promotion period and interest targeting. It’s a cookie cutter solution that only allows you to bid with Optimized CPM, giving you a handful of budget options for a campaign that will run for up to three days. As great as these ads are, I want more control. I want to create multiple targeting options of my ad to see what is most efficient. Sometimes the audience I want to reach with my organic post isn’t the same as the audience I’m willing to pay to reach. I often have people ask me how to edit Facebook Promoted Posts. You can’t. The purpose of this post is to step you through exactly how you’d recreate a Promoted Post in Power Editor to give you the control that you need.

1. Power Editor: An Alternative to Facebook Promoted
Posts [Tutorial]
April 1, 2013 By Jon Loomer 9 Comments and 59 Reactions
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Facebook Promoted Posts make reaching a larger audience — or more of your
current audience — painless and simple.
But that simplicity comes at a cost: Control.
When you promote a post on Facebook, you have minimal control over your bid
type, budget, promotion period and interest targeting. It’s a cookie cutter solution that
only allows you to bid with Optimized CPM, giving you a handful of budget options
for a campaign that will run for up to three days.
As great as these ads are, I want more control. I want to create multiple targeting
options of my ad to see what is most efficient. Sometimes the audience I want to
reach with my organic post isn’t the same as the audience I’m willing to pay to reach.
I often have people ask me how to edit Facebook Promoted Posts. You can’t.
The purpose of this post is to step you through exactly how you’d recreate a
Promoted Post in Power Editor to give you the control that you need.
Understanding a Promoted Post
Before I explain how to do this, you need to understand why it’s possible. When you
click the “Promote” button, Facebook generates two (or three, if you target friends of
Fans) ads:
 Page Post Ad targeted at Fans that goes into desktop and mobile News Feed
 Page Post Ad targeted at friends of Fans that goes into desktop and mobile News
Feed*
 Sponsored Story targeted at friends of Fans that goes into desktop and mobile
News Feed
* Only if you target friends of Fans
Most marketers don’t understand that this happens when you promote a post. But if
yougo into your self serve Facebook ad tool, you’ll see this campaign created.

2. Use Power Editor
I’ll say this until I’m blue in the face: If you want optimal control over your Facebook
ads, you must use Power Editor.
Simply go here to use Power Editor. It’s free. If you need help, read this tutorial.
1. Create a Campaign
While in the Campaign view, click Create Campaign. Then do the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Name your campaign
Pick Auction or Fixed Price (usually stick with Auction)
Set your Daily or Lifetime budget
Set the campaign’s start and end date

3. 2. Create Page Post Ad targeted at Fans
Next you want to create the ad that will appear in the News Feeds of Fans.
While the campaign you just created is highlighted on the left, click Ads and then
Create Ad.
Within “Creative & Placements” make sure that you do the following:
1. Select Type: Ad
2. Choose “For a Facebook Page using a Page post”
3. Select the post you want to promote
4. Select placement of News Feed (Desktop and Mobile)

4. Within “Audience” make sure to enter all of the countries you want to target.
Further down, make sure to enter the name of your Page under “Connections:
Target users who are connected to…” This will make sure that your ad only targets
your Fans.

5. That’s it for this ad. From here, you can customize however you want. I’ll get to that
later.

6. 3. Create Page Post Ad targeted at Friends of Fans
I don’t target friends of Fans in News Feed ads, but if you wanted to replicate this
portion of the Promoted Post here’s how you’d do it…
Everything you did in #2 is exactly the same except for the “Connections” step. Enter
the name of your Page within these two boxes:
 Target users who are not already connected to
 Target users whose friends are connected to
This will then promote your post in the News Feeds (mobile and desktop) of friends
of Fans.
As in step #2, feel free to split test!

7. 4. Create the News Feed Sponsored Story
Finally, we need to create the Sponsored Story that goes into the News Feeds of
friends of Fans.
When you create a new ad for this campaign, this time you’ll want to do the
following:
1. Select Type: Sponsored Story
2. Choose “About a Page post”
3. Choose “People liking a specific Page post”
4. Select the post you want to promote
5. Select placement of News Feed (Desktop and Mobile)
You could also create ads that leverage people commenting on or sharing your Page
post.

8. 5. Customize and Split Test
Up until now, all you’ve done is replicate what is done when you click the “Promote”
button. You spent a few minutes doing what you could have done in one second.
Of course, that’s not helpful to you. What you want is to now have more control over
your campaign.
Within Power Editor, you can now customize just about anything. Here are a few
ideas for variations and split testing:
 News Feed: Desktop, Mobile or Both







Track Conversions: Use for posts that drive users to your website
Countries: One country at a time or your main countries
Age: Your target demo
Sex: Your target demo
Precise Interests: Focus only on those with certain interests
Custom Audiences: Target Fans who are also on your email list
Language: Target only users who speak your language
 Pricing & Status: Options of Optimized CPM, CPM and CPC
The possibilities are endless. Knock yourself out!