Understanding and Reducing Facebook Ads Learning Phase Budget Spend

The Facebook Ads learning phase is a period during which the delivery system learns about an ad set. During this time, it explores the best way to deliver your ad set, which can result in less stable performance and generally worse cost per result. The learning phase is essential when launching new ads or making significant changes, but it's also important to move beyond this phase to avoid being stuck in 'learning limited' status.

There are several common reasons why a higher percentage of your Facebook Ads budget might be spent in the learning phase:

• New Ads or Changes: If you've recently started running many new ads or made significant changes, the system needs time to learn. Monitor the percentage after a 7-day period.
• Creative Effectiveness: If your creatives aren't engaging or prompting action, you need to improve the offer and message. Experiment with different creatives, ad types, and dynamic creative options.
• Attribution Window: A short attribution window may not give the system enough signals to learn from. Optimize for longer attribution settings.
• Budget Constraints: A budget that's too low can lead to a 'learning limited' status because the system can't generate the desired results. Increase your budget to aim for a minimum of 50 conversions per week.
• Audience Targeting: Overly strict audience targeting can limit the system's ability to find relevant audiences. Use Advantage+ Audience targeting and audience expansion options.
• Placement Selection: Limiting ad placements can restrict where your ads appear. Allowing more placements gives the system more opportunities to find your ideal audience, especially in conversion-based campaigns.
• Conversion Event Optimization: If you're optimizing for a conversion event too low in the funnel, consider optimizing for higher-funnel events to provide more learning signals.

To reduce the percentage of your Facebook Ads budget spent in the learning phase, consider the following strategies:

• Allow Time: After starting new ads or making changes, give the system time to learn before evaluating performance.
• Improve Creatives: Enhance your ad creatives to better capture attention and action. Test different creatives and leverage dynamic options.
• Adjust Attribution Window: Use longer attribution settings to give the system more data to learn from.
• Increase Budget: Ensure your budget is sufficient to generate at least 50 conversions per week, or continue with Learning Limited mode if the CPA is within your goals.
• Broaden Audience Targeting: Switch to Advantage+ Audience targeting and consider audience expansion to improve targeting.
• Expand Placements: Use all available placements for conversion-based campaigns to give the system more room to optimize.
• Optimize Conversion Events: Optimize for higher-funnel events to provide more signals for the learning phase.

To check the percentage of your budget that's spent in the learning phase for your Facebook Ads account, navigate to the Account Overview section in Business Manager. There, you can review the performance metrics and see what percentage of your budget is currently in the learning phase.