Open the show from AdminEvents and click Promote & social posts. On the Publish Event page (AdminEvents[event]Promote) the Facebook & Instagram ads panel creates a paid ad for this show.

Before you start

• Connect your Meta business and pick an ad account and a Facebook Page — see Connect your Meta (Facebook) ad account. Pick a pixel too if you have one: the ad is then optimised for ticket purchases; without one it is optimised for clicks to the event page.
• You need the Meta ads permission (the owner always has it). Without it the panel does not appear.
• The venue needs a map location (its address in venue settings), because the ad is shown to people near the venue.

Create the ad

1. 1Enter a Daily budget in dollars. The panel shows the most you may set ("Up to $… a day").
2. 2Choose the Media: keep the Event image (or paste the address of another image), Upload image (JPG or PNG — crop it square for feeds, and optionally add a tall 9:16 crop for Stories and Reels), Upload video (MP4 or MOV), or Carousel.
3. 3Write the Primary text (the words above the picture) and check the Headline (the show's title by default). Add an optional Description line, and pick the Button: Buy Tickets (default), Learn More, Get Offer or Sign Up.
4. 4Pick the Placements: Automatic (recommended) lets Meta choose, or Choose any of Facebook Feed, Instagram Feed, Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels.
5. 5Check the Preview of the ad in the Facebook feed, the Instagram feed and an Instagram Story.
6. 6Click Create ad (paused).

Writing the ad

• Write it for me drafts three versions of the primary text, headline and description from the show's details (act, date, time, venue, genre, prices and description). Click Use this to fill the fields, then change anything you like. Drafts only mention facts from the show's details, and nothing is sent to Meta until you click Create ad (paused).
• Under each field a counter shows its length. Meta cuts off primary text after about 125 characters ("… See more"), headlines after about 40 and descriptions after about 30. These are warnings: you can still write more.
• If an uploaded image looks like it has a lot of text, you see a warning — Meta may show such images to fewer people. You can still use it.

Videos

Noctern checks the video before it uploads anything: it must be an MP4 or MOV file, at most 4 GB, from 1 second to 241 minutes long, and between tall 9:16 and wide 16:9. The panel shows Uploading… and then Processing… while Meta prepares it; you can create the ad when it says Video ready. The thumbnail is Meta's default frame unless you pause the video and click Use the frame shown, or Upload a thumbnail. If Meta cannot process the video, its own message is shown and no ad is created.

Carousels

A carousel shows 2 to 5 cards that people swipe through. It starts with the show's images (the event image first); you can add or remove cards. Each card has its own Headline and optional description, and its picture is an image address, an uploaded image (cropped square) or an uploaded video. Every card links to the show's page with the same button.

Placements

Automatic is recommended: Meta puts the ad where it gets the most from your budget. With Choose, the ad only runs where you tick. Stories and Reels are full-screen (9:16): without a 9:16 image, Meta crops your image automatically. You can change the placements later under Edit.

Preview

The preview is Meta's own when Meta can draw it. If it cannot, Noctern shows a close approximation and says so — you can still create the ad.

Noctern creates the campaign, ad set and ad in your ad account, all paused. Nothing is shown and nothing is spent yet. The ad is shown to adults (18+) within 25 miles of the venue, from now until the show starts, and links to the show's page with tracking tags (utm_source=facebook, utm_medium=paid) so its sales appear in your marketing reports.

If Meta refuses, its own message is shown — for example Payment method missing on your ad account. Fix it in Meta Ads Manager and click Create ad (paused) again; Noctern never retries on its own and leaves nothing half-made behind.

Activate and pause

• Activate asks you to confirm, then turns the ad on at Meta. From then on Meta can charge your ad account up to the daily budget.
• Pause stops it at once. You can activate it again later.

Every create, activate, pause and delete is written to your venue's activity log with who did it.

When the show sells out or is cancelled

Noctern pauses the show's running ads for you when it sells out (including when you click Mark as sold out) or when it is cancelled, so you stop paying for ads that can no longer sell tickets. You get one email ("We paused your Facebook/Instagram ad for …"), and the activity log shows it was paused by Noctern.

Noctern never turns an ad back on by itself. If tickets go on sale again, the ad shows Paused because it sold out - Activate again? — click Activate when you want it running again. If Meta cannot be reached at that moment, Noctern tries the pause again the next time you open the panel.

Meta's review

Meta reviews every ad. The badge next to each ad shows what Meta says: In review, Rejected (with Meta's reason), With issues (with Meta's reason), Active, Paused or Not delivering. When an ad is rejected or has issues, the people with the Meta ads permission get one email with Meta's reason. Fix the ad in Meta Ads Manager, or delete it and create a new one.

Change the budget or end date

Click Edit on an ad to change its Daily budget, when it Ends, or its Placements. The budget is still limited by the cap below, and the ad can never run past the start of the show. Changes are sent to Meta at once and written to the activity log.

Change what the ad says or shows

Click Edit content on an ad to change its media, text, description or button with the same builder, then Save content. Noctern gives the ad the new content at Meta (Meta reviews it again) and keeps the ad's status and budget. If Meta refuses, its message is shown and the ad keeps its old content. The change is written to the activity log.

Delete

Delete asks you to confirm, then deletes the campaign at Meta for good. Ads you delete (or archive) in Meta Ads Manager disappear from Noctern's list automatically the next time you open the panel and move to Removed ads, and a pause or activation you make in Ads Manager shows up here too.

Results

Each ad shows Spend, Impressions, Reach, Clicks, Purchases and Purchase value, read from Meta. Results refresh at most every 15 minutes and can take a few hours to appear after you activate.

Test two versions

Tick Test two versions when you create the ad and change at least one of the primary text, the headline or the image address for version B. Noctern makes one campaign with one ad set and two ads (both paused), and the daily budget is shared by the two versions, so the limit is checked once. Meta shows the better one more often by itself.

The ad's results then show Version A and Version B side by side: spend, clicks, CTR, purchases and cost per result. Once each version has 1,000 impressions, the better one is marked Leading and Pause the other version stops only the other one; it is written to the activity log. Activating the ad again does not turn the paused version back on.

Boost a post you already published

Under Boost a post you already published you see the posts Noctern published for this event on your own Facebook Page or Instagram. Click Boost on one, pick the daily budget, audience and end (and the button, for an Instagram post), then Boost post (paused). The ad is the post itself, so its likes and comments carry over. It is created paused with the same daily limit as any other ad; activate, pause, change the budget and read the results the same way. What a boosted ad says can't be changed here, because it is the post.

If Meta won't boost a post (for example it isn't eligible, or your Meta login can't advertise for that Page or Instagram account), Meta's reason is shown and nothing is created.

Advertising to past buyers

You can show an ad to people who have bought tickets from you before, or to people like them.

1. 1Open MarketingMeta ads and, under Past buyers audience, click Sync now. Noctern creates an audience called "Noctern - [your venue] past buyers" in your ad account.
2. 2Optionally click Create 1% US lookalike for an audience of people in the US who resemble your past buyers. Meta needs about 100 matched people before it can make one.
3. 3When you create an ad, choose the Audience: everyone within 25 miles, Past buyers (who opted in), or People like your past buyers. Both audiences are still limited to 25 miles of the venue.

Who is included:

• Only people who bought from your venue and opted in to marketing emails.
• Never anyone who unsubscribed from your emails, whose email you suppressed, or who declined marketing when they checked out.
• Never people who were only imported from another system without an opt-in.

Email addresses and phone numbers are scrambled (hashed) before they leave Noctern, so Meta can match them to its users but never receives them as text. Noctern keeps only the audience's name and how many people were in it — not the list.

Click Sync now again whenever you like: each sync replaces the list, so new opt-ins are added and anyone who has opted out or asked to be deleted is removed. Nobody appears twice.

Skipping people who already bought this show

Don't show this ad to people who already bought tickets to this show is ticked by default when you create an ad. Noctern puts this show's buyers in an audience called "Noctern - [event] buyers" and tells Meta to leave them out, so you don't pay to show the ad to people who already have tickets.

• The same rules as past buyers apply: only buyers who opted in to marketing are shared, hashed. Anyone else who bought may still see the ad.
• The list is kept up to date as tickets sell (at most every 15 minutes) and refunds drop people out of it.
• If nobody who opted in has bought yet, there is nothing to leave out; the audience is added to the ad on the first such sale.

People who looked at this event but didn't buy

With a pixel picked in MarketingMeta ads, the Audience list has People who viewed this event's page (last 30 days) but didn't buy. Meta builds it from your pixel: everyone who visited this event's page in the last 30 days, minus anyone your pixel saw buy. Without a pixel the option is greyed out with "Connect a pixel first".

If Meta answers that you have not accepted its Custom Audience terms, nothing is created; the message shows a link to accept them in your ad account. Accept, then create the ad again.

Limits

• Noctern caps the daily budget (normally $100 a day). Noctern can set a lower cap for your venue. A budget above the cap is refused before anything is sent to Meta, and an ad whose budget is above a lowered cap cannot be activated again.
• If Noctern switches Meta ads off for your venue, the panel disappears. Ads already running keep running until you pause them in Meta Ads Manager.