The short version: Yes, when you build an ad through Meta Ads Manager, it defaults to running across Facebook and Instagram together unless you change the placement setting. But “runs on Instagram” and “gets a fair share of your budget on Instagram” are two very different things, and most advertisers never check which one they’re getting.
The setup that catches almost everyone out
When you create a campaign in Meta Ads Manager, you’re not choosing “Facebook” or “Instagram” as separate platforms. You’re choosing an objective (sales, leads, traffic, awareness) and then, further down the ad set, a placement option. Since Meta merged both platforms into one buying system years ago, the default is called Advantage+ placements, and it’s ticked on by default. That single tick box is why so many people believe their Facebook ad is “automatically” on Instagram.
It is, technically. Meta will show your ad in the Facebook feed, Instagram feed, Instagram Stories, Instagram Reels, Facebook Marketplace, the Audience Network, and Messenger, all from one ad, one budget, one set of creative. You don’t tick separate boxes for each one unless you switch to manual placements.
What I saw with a client’s actual numbers
Last year I ran a lead generation campaign for a coaching client with a fairly typical setup: single image ad, Advantage+ placements left on, £30 a day budget over three weeks. When the campaign ended I pulled the placement breakdown report (Ads Manager lets you do this under Breakdown, then Platform). Of the £630 spent, £579 had gone to Facebook and £51 to Instagram. That’s 92% Facebook, 8% Instagram, from an ad the client believed was “running on both equally.”
Nothing was broken. Meta’s delivery system had simply worked out that, for this particular audience and creative, Facebook was cheaper per result, so it quietly shifted spend there. Instagram wasn’t ignored on purpose, it just lost the bidding contest inside Meta’s own auction, ad by ad, thousands of times a day. If the client’s goal had specifically been Instagram visibility (say, to build a following ahead of a product launch), that campaign would have failed at its actual purpose while technically hitting its lead target.
The uncomfortable bit nobody explains on this topic
Here’s what most guides skip: Meta’s automatic placement system is optimising for cost per result, not for platform balance, and it has zero obligation to spread your money evenly. If you assume “automatic” means “roughly 50/50” you’ll misread your own results for months. I’ve had business owners tell me their “Instagram ads aren’t working” when the truth was their ads barely ran on Instagram at all, because the algorithm decided Facebook Marketplace was cheaper that week and quietly diverted 70% of spend there instead.
This matters more if you’re trying to build an Instagram-specific asset, like growing comments and saves on a post so you can later study your Instagram posts with the most comments for content ideas. A paid post that never really landed on Instagram in any volume won’t give you that data, even though Ads Manager will happily tell you the campaign “ran on Instagram.”
How to check where your money went
This takes about 90 seconds and almost nobody does it:
- Open Ads Manager and click into the campaign or ad set
- Click the Breakdown dropdown above the results table
- Choose Delivery, then Platform
- Look at the spend split between Facebook and Instagram
- Click again and choose Placement to see feed versus Stories versus Reels versus Audience Network
Do this on every live campaign once. You will very likely find the split isn’t close to 50/50, and on some campaigns it’s 90/10 or worse in one direction.
How to force it onto Instagram
If you have a real reason to want Instagram specifically (building a following, testing Reels creative, feeding a Story reshare strategy), you need to turn off Advantage+ placements and go manual:
- In the ad set, find Placements and select Manual instead of Advantage+
- Untick Facebook entirely, or untick the Audience Network and Messenger placements that tend to eat budget cheaply and add little value
- Keep Instagram feed, Stories and Reels ticked
- Watch your cost per result rise, sometimes by 20 to 40%, because you’ve removed Meta’s cheapest inventory from the mix
That cost rise is the trade-off nobody likes to say out loud: Instagram-only placement almost always costs more per result than letting Meta choose freely. You’re paying a premium for platform control. Whether that’s worth it depends entirely on whether the platform itself matters to your goal, or whether you just want the cheapest lead or sale possible, which is a fair question worth answering honestly with a wider read on whether paid Facebook ads are even worth it over organic reach for your specific business.
The creative doesn’t transfer perfectly either
Even when your ad does run on Instagram, it doesn’t always look the way you designed it. A square 1080×1080 image built for the Facebook feed gets squeezed and cropped awkwardly when it lands in an Instagram Story or Reel placement, because those are vertical 9:16 formats. I’ve seen ads where a client’s face or logo got cut clean off the side because the creative wasn’t built for that ratio. This is the same underlying issue covered in my piece on why Instagram crops photos automatically, and it applies just as much to paid placements as organic posts.
The fix is simple but skipped constantly: upload separate image or video assets for each aspect ratio inside the same ad, rather than one image and hoping Meta stretches it sensibly. Ads Manager lets you add a 1:1, a 9:16, and a 4:5 version of the same creative in one ad card. Takes an extra five minutes per ad and stops your Instagram Story placement looking like an afterthought.
Automatic placement also mixes your metrics
Because one ad can run across both platforms with combined reporting, your engagement numbers blur together unless you separate them. A like on Facebook and a like on Instagram get counted differently, and Instagram’s engagement math (which factors in saves, shares and reach quite differently to Facebook) means a “5% engagement rate” quoted at the top level of your campaign report can hide wildly different performance underneath. If engagement rate matters to how you judge a campaign, it’s worth understanding how Instagram measures engagement before you compare it directly to a Facebook number sitting in the same dashboard.
What I’d tell you to do this week
Pull up your last three active or recent campaigns right now and check the platform breakdown. If you find one that’s 85% or more weighted to a single platform and that platform isn’t the one you care about, don’t panic and don’t pause everything. Just decide, on purpose, whether you want manual placement control on the next campaign or whether cheap results matter more than platform choice. Most small businesses I work with, once they see the real split, choose to run two separate ad sets instead of one blended one: one manual, Instagram-only, for brand and following goals, and one Advantage+ for pure lead or sale volume. It costs a bit more admin time and it’s the difference between guessing and knowing where your money went.
Related reading: how to play shared videos on instagram story.
More on Facebook: the complete Facebook guide groups all of these by problem.
This is one of 81 Instagram guides; the full index is Instagram: every guide in one place.
Frequently asked questions
Does Instagram automatically get a Facebook ad even if I never open Instagram Ads Manager?
Yes, because there’s no separate Instagram Ads Manager. Every ad you build in Meta Ads Manager can run on Instagram by default through Advantage+ placements, whether or not you’ve ever logged into the Instagram app on that business account.
Why did my Facebook ad show almost entirely on Facebook and barely on Instagram?
Meta’s automatic placement system optimises purely for cheapest cost per result, and in many auctions Facebook or the Audience Network turns out cheaper than Instagram for that specific audience and creative, so the delivery system shifts spend there instead of splitting it evenly.
Can I make a Facebook ad run on Instagram only?
Yes. In the ad set, switch Placements from Advantage+ to Manual, then untick Facebook, Audience Network and Messenger, leaving only Instagram feed, Stories and Reels ticked. Expect your cost per result to rise since you’ve removed cheaper inventory from the bidding mix.
Do I need a separate Instagram account connected to run ads there?
You need an Instagram professional account connected to your Facebook Page or Meta Business Suite for Instagram placements to work, including Instagram-specific formats like Stories and Reels ads. Without that connection, some placements simply won’t be available to select.
