ShareA lot of people have misconceptions about the Facebook learning phase, but no matter what they say, the learning phase is beneficial towards campaigns.
To get the best results for your ads on Facebook it’s important to understand:
- How the learning phase works
- How the learning phase can help your ads
- How you should approach it
Read on to find out more.
What is the Facebook learning phase?
According to Facebook: “The learning phase is the period when the delivery system still has a lot to learn about an ad set. During the learning phase, the delivery system is exploring the best way to deliver your ad set – so the performance is less stable, and cost-per-action (CPA) is usually worse.”
In other words, Facebook’s delivery system learns more each time an ad is shown and it understands the best people and places to target. Therefore, the more your ad is shown the better it is for optimising your ads’ performance.
Machine learning is used to show your ad to the right people and put your ad in the right places to get the best results for your campaign, which is why the learning phase can help get the lowest cost-per-action possible. This process can be volatile and pricey at the beginning, but it’s worth it in the end.
How does the learning phase work?
The first few weeks are the most interesting because it takes time to settle down out of volatility. Once the learning phase ends you will still see some variation in pricing for conversions, but the cost will dramatically come down.
The learning phase normally lasts about 48 hours, but this depends on how much you spend. If you have a small budget then the learning phase could be extended, but if you have a massive budget it could only take a few hours.
Once Facebook figures out how to optimise your campaigns you will notice the costs will start to drop.
Adjusting your campaign and putting it back into the learning phase
To get the best results from your campaigns, it’s a good idea to test new audiences and/or creatives. However, a lot of people are afraid of making these changes because it will put the campaign back into the learning phase.
We would recommend not doing it too frequently, but don’t be afraid of the learning phase – make the adjustments and test new things out. Adjusting once a week is fine, but if you have multiple adjustments we suggest doing them all at once.
What is the learning limited phase?
When campaigns leave the learning phase, they can get stuck in something called the learning limited phase. This means that the ad set isn’t getting enough conversions, so we recommend double-checking to see if you’re getting conversions at good prices as sometimes the learning limited phase isn’t accurate.
Overall, we recommend not worrying about this phase too much because the optimisations you can make to get out of the learning limited phase can backfire and your costs can go up, if you significantly increase your budget.
Don’t be afraid of the learning phase
Let the learning phase do its thing and don’t be afraid of it! Facebook want you to get good results because they want you to spend more money – it’s a win-win for everyone.
Do you need some help with your Facebook ads? Get in touch with our friendly team of social media experts to find out how we can spice up your ads.
