Why bother learning this yourself
A Meta ads account (Facebook and Instagram) is set up once, but two settings, currency and time zone, are locked in at creation and cannot be changed afterward. Getting them wrong on day one means closing the account and starting over a month in, history and all. Here is an order you can follow to set one up yourself in one sitting, no agency needed.
Step 1: understand the structure first
Before clicking "Create," it helps to know four different things. The business portfolio (formerly Business Manager) is the container that owns everything else: pages, ad accounts, Instagram accounts. The ad account is a separate asset inside the portfolio where campaigns and budget live. The Facebook page and the Instagram account are also separate assets, and to run ads through them fully, both need to be claimed by the business portfolio. A regular personal Instagram account will not work here, it needs to be a professional (Business or Creator) account.
What you will see: inside business.facebook.com, after creating a portfolio, three sections under settings: "Accounts," "People," "Ad Accounts," where assets get added one by one.
Step 2: create the business portfolio
Business Settings → Accounts → Ad Accounts → "Add" → "Create a new ad account." This same step asks for your company name, your role and a work email.
Common mistake: setting up the portfolio on a personal email, or on an employee's email who later leaves the company, taking control of all the ads with them.
Step 3: currency and time zone, lock them in on purpose
This is the single most important step in this guide. The time zone can never be changed later at all, the only fix is closing the account and opening a new one set to a Georgia-relevant zone. Currency, if invoicing is on, can never be changed; without invoicing, it can shift at most once every 60 days and only at a zero balance, and Meta effectively treats it as a new account ID rather than a setting flip.
No direct confirmation was found that the Georgian lari (GEL) is even available as an ad account currency, the official currency list did not load directly during this research. Practical advice: unless there is a specific reason to use GEL, pick USD, it lowers the risk that some payment methods will be unavailable.
What to click: during account creation, dropdown menus for "Currency" and "Time Zone" appear on the same screen, before the "Create" button. Common mistake: skipping this screen without reading it, leaving the default time zone (usually US Pacific) in place, which then shifts every daily report by 10-14 hours from real Tbilisi time.
Step 4: connect a payment method
Meta splits payment into two modes that cannot be switched into each other once chosen: automatic (a card or PayPal charges once a spend threshold is hit) and manual (you prepay a balance, ads run until it hits zero). PayPal only works with automatic payment.
Georgian bank cards sometimes get blocked by the bank itself as a "suspicious charge," especially the first one or a sudden budget increase. A sensible safeguard: before committing to a full budget, run a small test charge, around 10 dollars, to confirm the card actually goes through.
Step 5: connect the page, Instagram and the pixel
Claim the Facebook page and the professional Instagram account into the portfolio. If the site will run "Traffic" or "Sales" campaigns, create a pixel: Events Manager → Connect data → Web → Connect, name it, get the Pixel ID and add the base code to the site's head section. For a local service business (booking an appointment), set up a "Lead" event separately for a form submission or a click on the booking button.
Where possible, turn on Conversions API too, sending the same events from the site's server instead of only the browser. This matters especially for offline services, where part of the "conversion" happens off the website (a call, a message, a walk-in visit without an online booking).
Step 6: decide where the click lands
This needs deciding before launch, because Telegram is not among Meta's supported messaging destinations for ad clicks, only Messenger, Instagram Direct and WhatsApp are. If bookings run through a Telegram bot, the working setup is sending the click to a website that already has a link button into the bot, not trying to make the ad open Telegram directly, since that is not an option.
Common mistakes, in short
- Currency or time zone picked without thinking, and it does not match Tbilisi.
- The portfolio set up on a personal email instead of a company one.
- The card was never test-charged, and a large budget launched right away.
- The ad links straight to Telegram, which is not supported, instead of a website that bridges to the bot.
- The pixel is installed, but no "Lead" event is set up, so there is no data to optimize against.
Checklist before the first launch
- [ ] Business portfolio created on a company email
- [ ] Currency is USD (or a confirmed working currency), time zone set to Tbilisi GMT+4
- [ ] Payment method connected and a test charge went through
- [ ] Facebook page and professional Instagram account both claimed into the portfolio
- [ ] Pixel installed, "Lead" event configured
- [ ] The ad click lands somewhere a booking can actually happen (a site linking to the bot, a form, or messages)
What you can hand off to us
If questions remain after this checklist, setting up the account and the first campaign are part of the studio's ad management, AI videos included. You can also discuss setting up an account for your niche.