Improve efficiency with “Bulk Import & Export” in Facebook

Did you know that you could save more than 50% of your time on Facebook Ads Manager? Whether it is for creating new campaigns, using the structure of old campaigns or make adjustments to existing campaigns, you can simply use this powerful feature. Discover what “Bulk Import & Export” can mean for you.

What is “Bulk Import & Export”?

“Bulk Import & Export” is a feature on Facebook that allows you to create/to make changes in bulk to campaigns, ad groups and ads by using an Excel file. This way of working is similar to Google Sheets on Editor / Google Ads and SDF (structured data files) on DV360, as you export, make changes and upload the adapted content back on the platform. 

Why is it useful?

“Bulk Import & Export” can help you to:

1. Quickly create many ad sets or ads.
   You can create new campaigns, ad sets and ads directly in excel or you can add ads to preexisting ad sets. 
2. Bulk edit across multiple campaigns, ad sets or ads at the same time.
3. Transfer campaigns from one account to another
4. Set-up campaigns that are complex, similar to others or done on a regular basis
5. Quickly export campaigns to check the settings in detail

Especially when you want to create/edit a large number of ads, this feature can be very useful. Before this feature was available through Power Editor, a spin-off of Facebook Ads Manager that was more advanced in terms of choice of placements, objectives, audiences and where it was possible to edit in bulk. As it did not make sense to have two different platforms, the Power Editor was merged into Facebook Ads Manager. This allows a more efficient management of all your campaigns directly in the platform.

Similarly to Google Editor and DV360 when uploading the changes you will see directly in the platform whether the import was successful or not. If there are errors, Facebook will give information about what the issue is and where the error occurred.

How to proceed concretely?

If you want to create a new campaign(s), it is always recommended to start creating your campaign(s) first, then your ad set(s) and finally your ad(s).

The way of working is always the same: you export a selection of campaigns from Facebook Ads Manager, you adapt it based on your needs and you import it back to Facebook Ads Manager.

There are two different ways to create a campaign:

• Download an existing campaign with similar strategy and targeting, and adapt it. Delete all the existing IDs so that a new campaign can be created.
• Create a new campaign from scratch in Ads Manager, with the right targeting and settings, download it, and add more rows for the different ad sets or ads. For the newly created ad sets and ads do not forget to delete the existing IDs.

It is important to keep in mind that uploading a campaign/ad set/ad without an ID will create a new one, while uploading it with the existing ID will modify the existing campaign/ad set/ad.

Here below are some examples when “Bulk Import & Export” could save you some time:

• Create new campaigns - If you have an always-on campaign and there is a new Business Manager. You can transfer the campaign to the new account. In this case you don’t have to start from scratch, you just need to export, delete the existing IDs, optionally change the conversion pixel ID and then import it in the new account.
• Edit existing ads - If you need to modify text and/or URLs of +500 ads, which would take you hours if you do it manually.

Some limitations:

• There can still be some bugs, such as when changing the objective. As each objective (traffic, reach, …) has different columns, there will be errors when you change the campaign objective and there are columns from another objective. 
• Also, with a split test it is not yet possible to duplicate it via “Bulk Import & Export”, because the split test is not specified within Excel via a column so it will just be a normal campaign without the 50% split of budget. In case you gave the ad sets the same name it will put the creatives that you want to A/B test within the same ad set instead of splitting it.

Step by step guide

1. Select the campaign you want to adjust or duplicate

2. Click on Export > Selected

3. Open the excel and make adaptations

4. Select all fields & press copy 

5. Click on Import > Ads

6. Either select “Text or Excel file” or “Copy and paste”. The most straightforward option is “Copy and paste”. 

7. Receive message from Facebook Ads Manager: either Successful or Errors: 

8. Adapt the file to erase the errors

Conclusion

Facebook “Bulk Import & Export” is definitely a time saver when it comes to setting up or editing large amount of campaigns, ad sets or ads.

The tool can be very powerful for transferring existing campaigns to another / new account or making edits in bulk (e.g. URLs in carousel ads), but there can still be some limitations. 

We’re excited to find out more about what “Bulk Import & Export” has to offer and about the next features and improvements in the future!

Some interesting resources when you want to implement it: 

1. Differences in naming between the naming in Ads Manager vs. Import & Export Excel columns: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1462433740708893
2. Import Template
   
   
   When opening, a blank sheet appears with pre-filled column names. The blank template includes fewer columns than with an export of existing ads or campaigns, as it will be used to create new ads that haven't run yet.

AUTHOR

Jiawen Chen

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Tags:

• Facebook