In this instructional video, Shauna Thoresen, founder of Social Waves Media, explains how insurance agents and other licensed professionals should set up lead‑generation campaigns on Meta within the Special Ad Category. She begins by warning against two common pitfalls—using boosted posts and third‑party ad managers like GoHighLevel—because they limit control and optimization. Shauna then walks through the three‑level hierarchy of Meta Ads Manager (Campaign, Ad Set, Ads) using a tree metaphor, detailing what decisions belong at each level: campaign‑level settings (budget type, Special Ad Category toggle), ad‑set‑level targeting (state licensing, product focus, placement choices), and ad‑level creative (lead‑form features, SMS verification, chat, lead magnets). She compares Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) with Ad‑Set Budget Optimization (ASBO), showing when each is appropriate based on product value and audience overlap. The video also covers audience segmentation by state and product (e.g., Medicare, T65, final expense), the importance of tailored ad copy for each segment, and the risk of creating duplicate campaigns that cause audience overlap. Throughout, Shauna emphasizes that mastering this structure enables lower cost‑per‑lead, higher‑quality leads, and long‑term compounding benefits. She concludes by encouraging viewers to subscribe, ask questions, and explore her Insurance Click to Close course for deeper, visual step‑by‑step guidance.
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If you are running Meta lead generation ads or you plan to in the future, and especially if you're going to be running them in the Meta special ad category, so you're an insurance agent, you're a financial advisor or other licensed professional, there are essential foundational elements that are crucial for you to understand so that way you can get optimal results and especially optimize your account over time. Now, in today's video, we're gonna be diving into the campaign structure, and this is one of those things that So many agents will launch ads without fully understanding, and then they'll wonder, why am I not getting good results? When you don't understand the structure, you're also more likely to take a shortcut like running a boosted post or worse, running ads out of your GoHighLevel CRM Ads Manager, which limits you in the long run. So after you understand the foundational structure to a campaign, you'll be able to know how to structure your campaigns to get optimal results that only compounds over time. So if you're ready, Let's dive in. In case we haven't met yet, my name is Shauna. I am the founder of Social Waves Media, and I've been specializing in paid ads and lead generation and optimizing the customer journey since 2016. And in 2022 is when I started working very closely with insurance agents. And I'm proud to say that through speaking at conferences and especially through my course Insurance Click to Close and its accompanying membership, I've helped thousands of insurance agents break free from lead vendors and begin generating their own exclusive leads. Now, I have seen the Meta platform over my decade in this industry change drastically over time, but one thing that has not changed, and this is especially true now that we are in the Meta Special Ad category, is that the very foundational basics of an ad campaign have not changed, and they're still essential for you to know because they're going to help you avoid making some really big mistakes that increase that cost per lead. They're gonna remove the opportunity of you actually making optimizations in your account and working closely with the Meta algorithm, and they're gonna hold you back from creating what should be a very foundational piece of your business that will compound over time and slowly decrease that cost per lead and constantly bring in higher quality leads that your ad account absolutely should be for you. So in today's video, we are going to be diving into the campaign structure. Now, before we dive into the campaign structure, there are 2 critical mistakes that I don't want you to make because they actually prevent you from being in control of your campaign structure. The first one is, running a boosted post. Now, we do not want to run a boosted post. Meta makes it very easy for you to push a few buttons, spend some money, and get your content out there. But the reality is a boosted post holds you back from being able to set up the proper campaign structure and really be in full control of your ads. And the other big mistake that I don't want you to make is using a third-party ads manager like GoHighLevel. I see so many that use the GoHighLevel CRM to run their ads. And while GoHighLevel is wonderful for so many different reasons, it is not wonderful to use to run your ads from, especially in the Meta special ad category, because it limits you from actually having access to being able to see the data, like break down the age. It limits you from using different little optimizations that Meta gives you, like SMS verification, opening up a chat in Messenger, adding an additional welcome message, and so on. So while it seems like it is helpful, it is essentially giving you a bike with training wheels. And as long as you ride that bike with training wheels, you're always going to be limited in where you're able to go. So running your ads here is going to hold you back from not only building the type of structure that we are going to talk about that is optimal, especially if you're running things like Medicare and T65 or Medicare T65 and final expense, or if you're doing under 65, or if you're wanting to focus on annuities and maybe another life product, or maybe a different type of retirement planning. GoHighLevel is definitely going to hold you back. So we need to make sure that you're actually inside the Meta Ads Manager. So once you are actually inside of the Ads Manager, you are going to see something that looks like this at the very top of your screen, and you're going to see 3 different tabs. You're gonna see a tab that is named Campaign. You're gonna see one that is named Ad Set, and you're going to see one that is named ads. Now these are essentially the 3 different levels of an ad campaign. Now when I am teaching this to insurance agents, I like to teach it to them as though we are building a beautiful tree. So the campaign level inside of your entire campaign that you're building is essentially the roots of the operation. So everything that we put right here at the campaign level is going to affect the rest of the tree. So this is where we decide some very important optimizations like budget, which is another one that we're going to get into. You decide if you're gonna put the budget at the campaign level or the ad set level. That will make sense here in a second. And right here is where you turn on— that is a special ad category. You're going to turn that on there, and then it's going to affect what happens in the rest of the tree. Now, the ad set level is where our audience targeting is. So that is where our audience is. That is where we dictate where our ads are going to be served. So location. So we're gonna decide that we only want them to be served in states that you're licensed in, or maybe we decide that this ad set is only going to be to one state for Texas. This is also where we will control the budget if we decide to put it at the ad set level. This will make sense in just a second. This is also where we decide where we want our ads to be served. Now, what I mean by that is on Meta, there are many different locations that your ads can show up on, right? So there's the newsfeed when people are scrolling through, there's the Instagram newsfeed, there are the Reels when people are watching videos, there's the Stories, there's also little reward videos. There's something that's called Audience Network, which means that your ads are not going to be showing up on Meta. They're actually going to be showing up on Meta's Audience Network and so on. One of the things that we definitely wanna take control of whenever we are setting up our ads is we want to control where they are served at, the location, because there are certain locations and there are certain optimizations that make sense for someone that's in e-commerce but absolutely do not make sense whenever we are trying to generate leads. And then last but not least is the ads. And this is the actual creative that people are going to be seeing. So anyone that is in this ad set right here is going to be seeing the leaves or the ads that are right here. Now recently Meta has added quite a few different optimizations whenever it comes to the creative. So if we are using a landing page, obviously you're gonna be running traffic to your own website or to a CRM landing page. And there's a few other tech setup elements that we can talk about. But if you are using their lead forms, you have access to so many different tools. Like you've got access to the SMS verification. You've got access to after someone converts into a lead that it opens up a chat. You've got access for things about how the creative is going to show up. For example, different enhancements and so on. So here's kind of our very basic setup of where we've got the campaign, the roots of the operation. We've got our audience that we're actually going to be serving ads to. To, and then we've got the actual ads that are our creative that they're going to be seeing. So now that you understand the structure, you understand the campaign, the roots of the operation controls everything that happens in the tree. The ad sets are our actual branches or the audience that we're serving our ads to, and the leaves, the ads or the creatives that that specific audience is going to see. Let's talk about another element that really influences our campaign structure, and that is where we put our budget. So there's 2 different places that we can put our budget. The first one is called CBO, campaign budget optimization. And what this means is we tell Meta that we want to put our money at the very roots of the operation. So if I'm using this tree over here for an example, let's say that we have right now, let's say that this campaign right here is a Medicare campaign. We're only focusing on Medicare. This is direct-to-consult. Okay, so we are running Medicare, right? And then let's say that we decide to put in our ad sets here, we decide to put Texas here, we put Florida here, we put Arizona here. And where else do we want to say that we're licensed in? Let's say we're licensed in Nevada, right? So we decided to separate all of our different states. States that we're licensed in. Now, why would we decide to do that? Why wouldn't we just run them all together? Well, this gives us the ability to put very personalized ads in front of people. So this one right here can say, Texas seniors, there are new plan changes that are happening in whatever year it is. You may be eligible for them. Let me review them. I'm a local Texas agent who specializes in only Texas residents. Then let's say this one right here is Florida. If you're in the Sunshine State, there are changes happening to your Medicare plan. You don't have to be confused or overwhelmed. I can help you. We can make the ads very custom instead of just running one very generic ad, which people are going to be more likely to click on. So if we decide that we're running to the different states, now we need to decide if we want to use CBO, which is campaign budget optimization. So if I decide that I'm gonna put my money right here, I'm gonna say we are gonna spend the money from the tree roots level of the operation. Now this tells Meta, I don't care where you get me a lead from, just get me the cheapest lead. I don't care if they're from Texas, Arizona, whatever, and Meta will optimize and do its thing. Now if we wanted to, we could choose to put the budget at the actual branch level, and that is called ASBO— ad set budget optimization. So I instead say I want to control how much is because for whatever reason, leads in Texas, they're more valuable to me. So I want to spend $20 a day here, but only $10 a day here in the different branches. Now in this scenario, if we're running Medicare and it's all the same consult ads, then we probably wouldn't do that. We want to be in control of our structure. We probably would put the budget at the campaign level. But let's say that we decided to set it up For example, we had 2 tree branches, so I'm going to use this guy right here. And let's say that we decided that this right here, this ad set is going to be for Medicare over 65, right? And this right here is going to be our T65 specific ads. Now in the actual ad set, in the special ad category, our targeting is still going to be the same. So these ad sets are essentially going to be duplicates. But it is smart for you to group your ads together that are all kind of having a similar message. So Facebook will optimize this one for T65. So our messaging here is choosing the right Medicare plan doesn't have to be overwhelming, or if you're about to turn 65, there are 3 crucial deadlines you need to be aware of. If you're about to turn 65, there are 3 essential mistakes that you need to avoid making, and so on. So we're speaking specifically to T65. And in running the Medispecial ad category where I'm getting the best results, and I'm talking like I have an agent right now, it's her first AEP running ads and she's generating just regular Medicare leads and T65 leads for $3.56. But for T65 specifically, we're using a lead magnet. So this is a lead magnet ad. And then let's say this over here is our Medicare side and it is for a free plan audit for a review to answer questions for a consult. Now we might decide that we want to put the budget at the campaign level and say, don't care, cheapest cost per lead, that's what I want. Or we might decide that we want to control it. T65 is more valuable to us, so I want to spend $40 a day here, but on this ad set I only want to spend $20 a day. So it gives me a little bit more control. So understanding the actual structure of the campaign allows you to build it based on your goals, especially if you are running ads that have a large audience overlap. So let's say you are running final expense ads, you are running Medicare ads, and you are running T65, right? This is all very similar audiences. So in most cases, it's going to make sense for us to build out the campaign structure, and we would have another ad set here, and we would have this ad set focus on T65. 65. This one would focus on final expense, and this one would focus on Medicare. And then depending on our goals, we would make the decision of where we want to put the budget. The other really big advantage of this is the original example that I showed you. Separating your ad sets into the actual states allows you to be super specific. And I will tell you, the secret to having special ad category ads that convert is truly having an ad creative that speaks to the right individual. There's lots of other strategies that I teach, like conditional logic form, SMS verification, and all of these other different things. But at the end of the day, your ad's messaging is what's going to be the most impactful. And when we set up our ads in the actual Meta Ad Manager instead of using a third-party one, it gives us the ability to set up our ads and be in complete control over how we're going to be running them. One mistake that I don't want you to make is for you to have 2 different trees that are essentially doing the same thing. So if I have a tree right here and this tree is running to T65, right, this one is, and then this one right here is running to Medicare. In most cases, it's not gonna make sense to have 2 separate campaigns because they're very similar audiences. So now we have some audience overlap. So it gives you the ability to make the decision of what's going to be the best decision for you to be able to accomplish your goals. And that is why building it in the actual Ads Manager is key. But understanding this kind of setup is the very first step in setting up the right structure. And then once you're running your ads, the fun part starts because you get to actually analyze the data. And that right there is the campaign structure foundational elements. So now you can truly understand when I'm talking about the structure and I start breaking down more elements that go into creating a successful special ad category campaign, you understand what I mean by the importance of having the right campaign structure. I know it can be overwhelming. I promise it does not have to be. That's why my course Insurance Click to Close, I break things down in such a very step-by-step manner. I'm very visual. And so for that reason, my course is filled with visuals. To really break things down for people that don't consider themselves tech savvy, but might actually be surprised once you start diving in how fun it can be to truly be in control of your lead generation. Now, I hope that you enjoyed this video. If you did, please consider subscribing. And if you have any questions at all, or there's a specific video that you want to see me make, or a specific term you want to see me break down, let me know in the comments because I read every single one. And I'll see you in the next video.
