As a head of digital marketing and an experienced Facebook media buyer for e-commerce businesses, I know that a successful ad campaign on Facebook requires understanding the Facebook learning phase essential for optimizing your campaigns. This crucial process helps Facebook determine the most effective way to deliver your ads to your target audience, ensuring the best results possible.
This article contains everything you need to know to understand the learning phase. I’ll delve into the inner workings of the learning phase, its duration, and its impact on your ad campaign performance.
I’ll also provide helpful tips on how to get the most out of this optimization process.
What is Facebook learning phase?
The Learning Phase is a period in which Facebook gathers data about your new ad or new ad set to understand your audience better. Facebook uses this data to optimize the delivery of your ads for better performance. Facebook requires at least 50 events before it can exit the learning phase and deliver your ads to the right audience.
During the learning phase, making significant edits to your ad campaign can disrupt the learning process and lead to poor performance. Any changes to your ad can reset the learning phase. But there are different “levels” of change. Some can restart the learning phase, but others extend Facebook’s learning phase.
Not all adjustments to your ad set or its ads will go back into the learning phase. Minor changes like tweaking your budget or setting a bid cap won’t affect the learning phase. However, significant edits, like changes to targeting, ad creative, optimization event, or pausing your ad set for over a week, will likely restart the process.
When does Facebook AD exit the learning phase?
When you create an ad set with a specific objective, Facebook strives to optimize your campaign by showing your ads to the users most likely to take your desired action. To achieve this, Facebook collects all data on the AD Set level.
When the AD Set isn’t getting enough data, you will get a “learning limited” notification.
Typically, the learning phase concludes once you’ve accumulated 50 optimization events, which depend on your chosen objective. For instance, 50 optimization events for a lead ad campaign would equate to 50 leads, while a conversions campaign would require 50 conversions.
If you don’t understand how to choose a campaign objective, check my article: Test Results: Add To Cart vs Initiate Checkout vs Purchase Facebook Events.
If you’re optimizing for conversions, these events must occur within your conversion window. You should aim for at least 50 conversions per week to optimize effectively.
It’s essential to note that Facebook continues to gather data and optimize your ad sets even after the learning phase has ended. The longer your ad sets are active, the more optimization events you generate, and the more efficiently Facebook can optimize your campaigns, reducing costs and creating more stable results.
The learning phase has three stages – the initial learning phase, the optimization phase, and the stabilization phase.
- The Initial Learning Phase. During the initial learning phase, Facebook shows the ad to a small portion of the audience to gather data about the ad’s performance. The data collected during this phase helps Facebook to understand the ad’s potential and decide how to optimize the ad delivery.
- The Optimization Phase. In the optimization phase, Facebook uses the data collected during the initial learning phase to optimize the ad delivery. During this phase, Facebook may increase or decrease the ad delivery based on the ad’s performance.
- The Stabilization Phase. The stabilization phase is the final phase of the learning phase. During this phase, Facebook delivers the ad to the target audience, and the ad’s performance becomes more stable.
Common Mistakes to learning limited
Facebook recently introduced the “learning limited” warning, which may appear if your ad set isn’t generating enough leads to exit the learning phase. This issue typically arises when your ad set is limited by audience size, cost control, budget, or other settings.
If you’re achieving great results despite the warning, feel free to ignore it. Otherwise, consider making adjustments to your campaign to improve performance and potentially remove the learning limited warning.
While it may take time, Facebook’s optimization process can significantly impact your cost per optimization event. Avoid making major adjustments to your ad sets during the learning phase, as doing so could reset the process before generating meaningful data.
Here are some common mistakes that advertisers make:
- Pausing or Deleting Ads too early. Pausing or deleting ads in AD Manager too early during the learning phase can disrupt the learning process and lead to poor optimization. It is essential to give Facebook enough time to gather data and optimize the ad delivery.
- Changing too many variables at once. Changing too many variables at once can make it challenging for Facebook to understand the ad’s performance and optimize the ad delivery. It is recommended to make changes gradually and monitor the ad’s performance closely.
- Set up a too-low campaign budget. If you add too many ads, it can get stuck in the learning limited phase because you don’t have enough budget to test all ad performance.
- Making significant budget changes too quickly. Making significant budget changes too quickly can disrupt the learning process and lead to poor optimization. It is recommended to increase the budget gradually and monitor the ad’s performance closely.
How to monitor my ad performance during the learning phase on Facebook?
To monitor ad performance during the learning phase on Facebook, regularly check the main metrics in your dashboard, such as reach, impressions, frequency, click-through rate, or cost per result. Be sure to also monitor engagement metrics such as likes, comments, and shares.
Adjust targeting and creative elements as needed to optimize performance. It’s important to be patient during the learning phase and avoid making drastic changes too quickly.
Facebook Learning Phase Best Practices Tips & Tricks
You must understand that exiting the learning phase does not mean good results for your advertising campaigns. You can achieve great results even in a limited learning phase. But of course, if your ad set reaches 50 events, it will help to exit the phase faster.
Here are some best practices to get out of the learning phase faster
Try to launch an ad set with less than six ads, and it helps you exit the phase faster. Do not make significant changes or decisions before reaching at least 8000 impressions.
Also, use an appropriate budget. Using a suitable budget that allows Facebook to deliver your ad to a large enough audience to gather data and optimize the ad delivery is recommended.
TL;DR: Facebook ads learning phase
The Facebook learning phase involves Facebook gathering data on your new ad or ad set to optimize ad delivery for better performance. It requires at least 50 events to exit the learning phase, and significant edits to your ad campaign during this time can disrupt the process and lead to poor performance.
The “learning limited” warning may appear if your ad set isn’t generating enough leads to exit the learning phase. If you’re achieving excellent results despite the warning, you can ignore it; otherwise, consider adjusting your campaign.
Remember, exiting the learning phase does not guarantee good results, and achieving great results is possible even in a limited learning phase.
