How to Set Up Facebook Ads for a Soccer Academy

A Facebook ads setup for a soccer academy is 6 pieces: a business portfolio, your Facebook Page, your Instagram, an ad account, one leads campaign and one ad set with 3 ads and an instant form. Start at about $20 a day, target 10 km around where you train, and text every parent back inside 5 minutes.

That’s the whole thing. Below is every step, in order.

Prefer to watch? The video above is the whole build on my screen, click by click. Tap it to play. Every setting is also written down in the free step-by-step Facebook ads setup guide. Prefer slides? Flick through the setup as a slide guide. Running a camp instead? Here’s how to market a soccer camp with Facebook ads.

What accounts does a soccer academy need for Facebook ads?

Four. Set them up before you touch an ad.

1. Business portfolio. Think of it as the master folder. It holds your Page, your Instagram and your ad account. Go to business.facebook.com and log in with Facebook.
2. Facebook Page. Your academy’s page, the one the ads run from. In the portfolio, go to Pages, then Add, then Add an existing Facebook Page.
3. Instagram account. Under Instagram accounts, click Add and log in to prove you own it.
4. Ad account. Under Ad accounts, click Add, then Create a new ad account. Then add a card under Billing and Payments.

Before you go further, open Settings, then Business info. Fill in your business details and turn on two-factor authentication. It shows Meta you’re a real business and lowers the risk of your account getting banned.

How do you set up the campaign?

Create a new campaign and pick Leads as the objective.

Name it something you’ll recognise later, like free-trial-north-sydney. Lowercase with hyphens keeps the ad account easy to read.

Leave the technical settings alone. You don’t need to touch value rules, delivery type or dynamic creative.

How do you set up the ad set?

The ad set is where the budget and the parents you reach live.

• Conversion location: Instant forms. Always, especially when you’re starting out.
• Performance goal: Maximise number of leads.
• Budget: Daily budget, about $20. A lifetime budget can spend half your money in one day.
• Schedule: Start today. No end date unless you have one.
• Location: Search where you train, or drop a pin. Set a 10 km radius. That’s about 6 miles.
• Age: Change the minimum to 25 if you like, since you’re reaching the parent, not the child.
• Audience suggestions: Age 30 to 65+, all genders. These are directions, not hard rules.
• Detailed targeting: Parents with kids in your age groups, friends of soccer fans, and people who engage with soccer content.
• Placements: Leave it on Advantage+.

One location per ad set. If you run a second location, give it its own ad set.

What ads should a soccer academy run?

Run at least 3 different ads. Not one perfect ad.

Different parents react to different things. Some want a testimonial. Some want the offer and the details. Some watch a video.

So mix it up:

• A simple image with the offer on it, like “free session, ages 6 to 10, North Sydney”. One of our best ads ever is literally one sentence.
• A video with the offer as text over it.
• Something different, like a notes app screenshot or a clipboard.

Turn off Advantage+ creative enhancements. They change your image randomly.

If you want ideas, here are 10 of our best performing soccer academy ads.

How do you build the instant form?

The instant form is what opens when a parent taps your ad. It lives inside Facebook and Instagram, so you don’t need a website.

1. Create a new form in the ad.
2. Ask for full name, email and phone number.
3. Add a multiple choice question: how old is your child? Use your own age groups.
4. If a child is outside your ages, send them to a separate ending for people you can’t take.
5. Add a second question, like your child’s name.
6. On the last screen, tell them what happens next: “We’ll text you from here.”

Keep the questions short. Each one you add is one more reason to quit.

What do you do when a parent fills in the form?

Text them back inside 5 minutes.

This is the part that decides whether the ads work. Set up a notification on your phone so you know the second a form comes in. If you can’t call straight away, set an automatic text to go out the moment they submit.

A parent who hears back in 5 minutes is still thinking about it. A parent who hears back tomorrow has moved on.

How do you read the numbers?

In Ads Manager, open Columns, then Customize columns, and add these:

Number	What it means
Amount spent	What you’ve paid
Results	Parents who filled in the form
Cost per result	What one parent who asked cost you
Link CTR	Out of 100 people who saw the ad, how many tapped. 1% is average, 1.5% is good
CPM	What 1,000 views cost. Higher in busy, competitive areas
Frequency	How often one person saw the ad. Keep it under 2

What does the setup look like when it works?

Here’s the same setup working for one of our clients, Loud Ballers in North London:

731local parents asked about training

17days to a full age group

£886of ads

Loud Ballers case study

See how it played out for Loud Ballers.

What’s your 10 minutes a week?

Once it’s live, the weekly work is small:

1. Keep a few different ads running. An image, a video, a testimonial.
2. Turn off the worst ones. At $20 a day, wait about 2 weeks first. An ad can look bad early just because it hasn’t had spend.
3. Make more of your best ones. Copy what’s working and try a twist on it.
4. Text every parent inside 5 minutes. Every week, every parent.

Want every setting written down? Grab the free step-by-step guide. If you’d rather we set it up and run it for you, book a call below.