By bracing and optimizing for Meta’s “Learning Phase,” you can avoid a negative impact on your ad campaigns.
In this blog, the Associate Director of Paid Media here at Ignite Visibility, Jenna Long, will explain more about the Meta learning process and how you can optimize your ad campaigns throughout.
What You’ll Learn:
- Understanding the Meta Learning Phase
- What Resets the Meta Learning Phase?
- Strategies to Optimize Ad Spend in the Meta Learning Phase
- Common Misconceptions About Making Changes to Ads
- What’s the Right Approach to Sustain Ad Campaigns?
- When Should You Make Changes to Ads?
Our Expert Insights on Meta’s Learning Phase
As Meta works to optimize the ad experience for end users, it engages in a ‘Learning Phase’ to better understand ad sets. By carefully optimizing and editing your ads, you can ensure your ads successfully make it out of the Meta learning process to connect with your audiences.
Action Item: Only make any necessary edits to your Meta advertising campaigns, and be sure to wait until your ads have exited the learning phase before making additional changes. You should also test new ads from time to time, which can eventually perfect your campaigns.
Understanding the Meta Learning Phase
It’s important to know what the “Learning Phase” is and how it works to plan ahead for it.
So, what is the Learning Phase, exactly? Platforms like Meta (i.e., Facebook and Instagram) and other social media sites engage in something called a learning phase to serve high-quality ads to their audiences. Specifically, this process involves an algorithm collecting and understanding performance data to serve the right ads to the right audiences with the appropriate placements and delivery methods.
Whenever advertisers create or edit an ad set, the Meta learning process begins. After gathering data about 50 different Facebook ad conversion events within seven days of an edit or launch, ad sets exit this phase and transition into the Active Phase, which could go by another name on other platforms, such as the Post Learning Phase on TikTok.
However, if Meta’s algorithm doesn’t have enough data to inform ad targeting and placement, it will give your ad sets the “Learning Limited” stamp. While this doesn’t necessarily hurt your ad sets, it will let you know that you’re not giving the algorithm enough to work with to get the most from your ads.
Why the FB Ads Learning Phase Is Essential for Optimization
Whenever you develop or change your ads, the Meta Ads Learning Phase is crucial for ensuring your ads reach the right people at the right time.
Following this phase, results will begin to stabilize as the platform delivers your ads to your target audiences. Over time, with any future changes, the algorithm will learn more about your ad sets to further improve results.
In turn, you benefit from increased brand awareness and, eventually, more conversions.
What Resets the Meta Learning Phase?
When the Meta learning process completes, certain actions can reset the Facebook algorithm and cause your ads to re-enter the Learning Phase.
More specifically, the Meta Learning Phase will repeat if you make any significant edits to your ad campaigns, including any changes around audience targeting, your ad budget, or creatives like visuals and copy.
For instance, you might reset the Facebook algorithm if you change audience demographics or add more to your daily budget.
Just remember: While some changes may be integral to improving your ad campaigns as you engage in continual optimization, whenever a reset occurs, the platform will need to relearn your ads, which can lead to increased costs and inconsistent ad performance.
Strategies to Optimize Ad Spend in the Meta Learning Phase
To avoid potential issues with your ad campaigns during the Meta Ads Learning Phase, there are some best practices to implement, including:
- Avoid frequent edits. Try to avoid making any changes to your ad sets that could cause them to re-enter the Learning Phase, as this can cause your campaigns’ performance to suffer. On the other hand, you might want to make occasional edits that can boost performance, in which case it might be worth it to reset the Facebook algorithm.
- Streamline ad set volume. The more ads the algorithm needs to “learn,” the less it will likely learn about each ad to facilitate effective delivery. If possible, try to minimize volume by combining ad sets with similar properties, such as targeting demographics or creatives.
- Optimize conversion volume. Ensure your ads have the ability to provide the algorithm with sufficient data through conversion events. Generally, you’ll want to set a sufficient budget and other parameters to generate around 50 conversion events within a week, as this can avoid ads landing in the “Learning Limited” spot.
- Set an appropriate ad set budget. You should also set a sufficient budget for ad sets to keep progress efficient when entering the Learning Phase. For example, if your cost-per-acquisition (CPA) is around $50, consider setting a budget that would accommodate 50 conversion events ($2,500+) within a seven-day period.
Common Misconceptions About Making Changes to Ads
In many cases, advertisers tend to make frequent changes to their ad campaigns, sometimes as often as daily. These changes tend to come from a knee-jerk reaction as they make edits based on short-term insights when they really don’t need to do so. In the process, they begin the FB ads learning process all over again, which often subsequently hinders performance rather than helping it.
The biggest downside here is the inability to stabilize ad campaigns. Constantly resetting the Meta Ads Learning Phase will keep your ads from reaching their targets effectively. As a result, you’ll wind up spending more on your ads with reduced overall ROI with every reset.
What’s the Right Approach to Sustain Ad Campaigns?
Want to keep your ads performing the way they should once they enter and exit the Learning Phase? The best way to do so is to practice patience.
Don’t make any sudden changes to campaigns in reaction to short-term trends. Instead, only modify ads and ad sets when you have reason to believe doing so will have a meaningful impact on long-term performance.
In addition, here are a few other critical tips for setting up and maintaining Meta ad campaigns:
- Analyze long-term data. While daily metrics may tempt you to make changes regularly, opt to look at long-term trends instead. This data could tell you how your ads are likely to perform over longer periods to help you make more informed decisions.
- Establish performance thresholds. Based on your goals, set some thresholds to dictate when it’s best to make changes to your campaigns. For example, you might have a goal of a certain number of conversions over a set period of time; if your campaigns fail to meet this goal, you may benefit from making some changes.
- Make gradual changes over time. If you do need to make some significant changes, try not to implement them all at once. Make incremental changes over time to ease the learning process and avoid performance issues.
So, When Should You Make Changes to Ads?
There are a couple of key times when you’re better off making changes to ads and resetting the Meta learning process.
One of these instances is if your ads see a significant decrease in performance or the failure to cross specific performance thresholds.
Another condition is when you have collected enough valuable data to inspire a change, ideally after a longer period of several days vs. several hours.
Ultimately, the best times to adjust campaigns are when you believe those changes will have a meaningful long-term impact on ad performance.
Get the Most from Your Meta Ads With Ignite Visibility
If you want to succeed with your Meta Ads campaigns and other social media efforts, you’ll be able to build winning campaigns with the help of Ignite Visibility. Our experts have plenty of experience with social media marketing, with the ability to optimize your Meta ad campaigns for sustained peak performance.
When building Meta campaigns with Ignite Visibility, you’ll be able to:
- Successfully create high-value ad campaigns with high ROI
- Ensure your ads smoothly progress through the Meta Learning Phase
- Measure your campaigns’ data for informed decisions
- Continually optimize your campaigns with carefully implemented changes
- And more!
Contact us today to discover how our solutions can help you reach your audiences on Meta and nearly any other platform.
