Edit a live campaign
Change a campaign that is already live and publish your changes.
You can change a live campaign in the same builder you built it in. Edit what the ad platform allows, review the changes and publish them together.
Open the campaign
In Ads Manager, click a live campaign. It opens in the builder. If Koast doesn't have it as a campaign yet, it imports it first and shows Importing campaign... with progress while it does.
Edit and publish
Open the settings of the campaign, ad set or ad you want to change.
Edit the fields that are open. Fields the ad platform won't let you change on a live campaign stay locked. Hover one to see why.
A banner appears: "This batch has unpublished changes to …", with the number of campaigns, ad sets and ads you've touched. Select Review changes to check them, or Discard to throw them away.
Select Publish changes. Review & Launch lists What will be changed, with each old and new value, and Will not be applied, with the reason.
Select Launch to Meta. New ad sets or ads you added go out in the same publish.
The banner still says "batch": that's the app's older word for a campaign in the builder.
Unpublished edits stay saved if you leave the page. The banner tells you who last edited and when. Discarding asks you to confirm ("Discard unpublished changes?") and puts every field back to what's live. Nothing is sent to the ad platform.
What you can change
| What you change | Can change it live |
|---|---|
| Names and on/off status | Yes |
| Campaign and ad set budgets | Yes |
| Ad set start and end dates | Yes |
| Locations and excluded locations | Yes |
| Age, gender, languages, interests | Yes |
| Custom audiences and exclusions | Yes |
| Placements | Yes |
| Devices | Yes |
| Primary text, headline, description | No |
| Call to action, destination URL, URL parameters | No |
Everything else is locked once the campaign is live, for example the objective, the bid strategy, the attribution setting and the campaign and ad naming formats. An ad set's Ad Set Name Format stays open, and the new name goes out when you publish. When every field in a section is locked, the section shows a Locked badge.
Changing copy on a live Meta ad
Meta doesn't allow ad copy to be changed after an ad goes live. Duplicate the ad, change the copy on the copy, and publish it.
Change a budget or a name in one step
Two shortcuts in the table view skip the publish step:
- Budget. Select the pencil next to a live campaign's or ad set's budget (Edit budget).
- Ad set name. Select the pencil next to a live ad set's name (Edit name). In Rename Ad Set, change the Ad Set Name Format and select Rename. "The format is resolved into the live ad set name and published right away."
Delete something live
You can delete a live campaign, ad set or ad from the builder. It's deleted on Meta and from Koast right away, without waiting for a publish, and it can't be undone.
Open the row's menu and select Delete Campaign, Delete Ad Set or Delete Ad. To delete several ad sets or ads, tick them in the table view and select Bulk Actions, then Delete Selected.
Check the confirmation. It warns you when the item is still delivering ("This ad set is live and delivering right now.") and says what goes with it: an ad set takes its ads, and a campaign takes its ad sets and ads.
Select Delete.
To stop spending without deleting anything, switch it off instead. A campaign launched into another ad account can only be deleted from that ad account: switch to it first. You can also delete live campaigns from Ads Manager.
Good to know
- The Koast Agent can change budgets on live campaigns and ad sets, swap the creatives on a live ad set while keeping each ad's copy, and publish the changes waiting in the builder. Each time it shows you an approval card first, and nothing changes until you approve. See What the agent does on its own, and what it asks first.
- Adding ad sets or ads to a live campaign works the same way as building: use + Add Ad Set or + Add Ad. See Add ads.