Facebook Business SDK: cannot create an Ad

I've solved the problem a long time ago, and since that time my server app successfully created lots of Facebook ads of both types, for websites and mobile apps. The first step to solve the problem was to understand that these ads types are completely different on Facebook, they need different settings for Campaign, AdSet & Ad. Here is my code for mobile ads creation.

1) Create Campaign object. account_id must be the ID of your Ad Account.

campaign = Campaign()
campaign['_parent_id'] = account_id
campaign[Campaign.Field.name] = 'Some Campaign Name'
campaign[Campaign.Field.objective] = 'APP_INSTALLS'
campaign.remote_create()
campaign_id = str(campaign[Campaign.Field.id])

2) Create AdSet object.

adset = AdSet()
adset['_parent_id'] = account_id
adset.update({
    AdSet.Field.name: 'Some AdSet Name',
    AdSet.Field.campaign_id: campaign_id,
    AdSet.Field.lifetime_budget: budget * 100,
    AdSet.Field.bid_strategy: 'LOWEST_COST_WITHOUT_CAP',
    AdSet.Field.billing_event: AdSet.BillingEvent.link_clicks,
    AdSet.Field.optimization_goal: AdSet.OptimizationGoal.link_clicks,
    AdSet.Field.promoted_object: {
        'object_store_url': app_store_url,
        'application_id': ad_app_id,
    },
    AdSet.Field.targeting: targeting_object,
    AdSet.Field.start_time: '2018-12-01 00:00:00',
    AdSet.Field.end_time: '2018-12-30 23:59:00',
})
adset.remote_create()
adset_id = str(adset[AdSet.Field.id])

Note that to create mobile ad, you initially need to register your mobile app as a Facebook app (here you will get ad_app_id) and specify links to Apple App Store and Google Play Market. So, the value of app_store_url must be equal to one of those links in your Facebook app settings. Unfortunately, app can be registered only manually (if you know how to do it programmatically – write a comment, please).

Also note that billing_event and optimization_goal are connected with ads type (mobile/web) and with each other, you cannot just choose another one. (But if you know that this is possible, or there are some docs on this topics – let me know.)

budget is a money amount in the currency of your Ad Account. You can specify either lifetime_budget or something like day_budget, read the docs about it.

3) Then, you have to create AdCreative object with some other sub objects. Note that some of these lines of code are necessary for FB ad only, others for IG, others for both of them, but together they work well for everything. You can find description for all the formats here.

link_data = AdCreativeLinkData()
link_data[AdCreativeLinkData.Field.name] = main_text
link_data[AdCreativeLinkData.Field.message] = title
link_data[AdCreativeLinkData.Field.link] = app_store_url
link_data[AdCreativeLinkData.Field.image_hash] = image_hash
link_data[AdCreativeLinkData.Field.call_to_action] = {
    'type': 'INSTALL_MOBILE_APP',
    'value': {
        'application': ad_app_id,
        'link': app_store_url,
    },
}

object_story_spec = AdCreativeObjectStorySpec()
object_story_spec[AdCreativeObjectStorySpec.Field.page_id] = page_id
object_story_spec[AdCreativeObjectStorySpec.Field.link_data] = link_data

creative = AdCreative()
creative['_parent_id'] = account_id
creative[AdCreative.Field.object_story_spec] = object_story_spec
creative[AdCreative.Field.title] = main_text
creative[AdCreative.Field.body] = title
creative[AdCreative.Field.actor_id] = page_id
creative[AdCreative.Field.link_url] = app_store_url
creative[AdCreative.Field.image_hash] = image_hash

To upload an image and get image_hash, check out this doc. The page_id must be an ID of the page which name and logo will be shown as the author of the ad.

You must note that the user, who creates the ad, must have an access to this page, to the mobile app registered on FB (ad_app_id), and to the Ad Account (account_id). In my server application I use Facebook system users for all the work with API.

4) And finally, create the Ad object itself:

ad = Ad()
ad['_parent_id'] = account_id
ad[Ad.Field.name] = 'Some Ad Name'
ad[Ad.Field.adset_id] = adset_id
ad[Ad.Field.creative] = creative
ad.remote_create(params={
    'status': Ad.Status.active,
})
ad_id = str(ad[Ad.Field.id])

That's all!