BEST PRACTICES
How Learning Limited Effects Facebook Ads and How to Fix It
7 min read
SOMO
20.12.2022
Creating a campaign on Facebook is daunting enough without additional statuses that impact the success of your campaign. To help you understand how and why your Facebook Ads campaign hasn’t gone directly to Active status, we’ve broken down what the Learning Limited status is, how to avoid it and what it means for your campaign.
What is a Learning Limited status?
When you create a campaign on Facebook, your ads will go through a learning stage. If your ads campaign does not achieve 50 optimisation events during the Learning stage, it will have a Learning Limited status.
An optimisation event is what Meta will optimise your ads campaign towards based on your goals. Each time an event related to your optimisation goal occurs, Meta will mark this as an optimisation event.
There are 11 campaign objectives you can choose from for your Facebook ads campaign. These are:
- Brand awareness
- Reach
- Traffic
- Engagements
- App instals
- Video views
- Lead generation
- Messages
- Conversion
- Catalogue sales
- Store traffic
Is a Learning Limited status a negative thing for my ads?
According to Meta, yes, the Learning Limited status is negative because Meta sees the campaign as not optimised and not performing as well as it could be.
A Learning Limited status isn’t a penalty or a demerit. Your ads will continue to run while in Learning Limited. The Learning Limited status is more like a warning to let you know that your ads may require adjustments to increase the success of the ads.
However, depending on your goals and the size of your company and audience, a Learning Limited status does not mean you will not reach your goals. Here at SOMO, we have seen clients with small to medium size businesses make a profit through Facebook Ads while being stuck in the Learning Limited phase. The key takeaway from our experience is that Facebook ads can be an effective and profitable form of advertising, even if the Learning Limited phase.
Can I avoid a Learning Limited status for Facebook Ads?
While it is possible to exit the Learning Limited phase, the ideal situation is where you go straight from the Learning phase to Active. As mentioned previously, your campaign needs to pass 50 optimisation events.
Here are a few steps to take to avoid the Learning Limited status.
- Combine campaigns and ad sets to get results faster
Smaller ad sets that are not combined have a smaller reach and will have fewer results, meaning they are unlikely to reach the 50 optimisation events goal.
- Expand your audience
A larger audience means more opportunities for Meta to find additional conversion opportunities.
- Raise your budget
This suggestion may not always be possible or realistic for smaller businesses. However, at the end of the day, the more you spend, the more likely you are to hit 50 optimisation events in 7 days.
How do I exit the Learning Limited Phase?
If your campaign does enter the Learning Limited phase, you can try these steps to exit Learning Limited.
- Apply the steps to avoid entering the Learning Limited phase
If you didn’t do so already, try combining campaigns and ad sets, expand your audience, and/or raise your budget.
- Raise your bid or cost control
A bid or cost control that is too low has fewer opportunities to reach its audience and is unlikely to hit the 50 optimisation events goal.
- Change your optimisation event.
By picking an optimisation event that occurs more frequently, you are more likely to hit the 50 optimisation events goal. However, be cautious when changing your optimisation event and choose an optimisation event that makes sense for your business goals.
Does audience size impact Learning Limited status?
In the past, a smaller audience led to positive results for your campaigns. However, this has changed on Facebook, and Meta recommends that you create a broader audience for your ads to yield better results and avoid a Learning Limited status.
SOMO’s takeaway
Nick, Digital Marketing Specialist
Now, more than ever, ad campaigns need to receive as many data signals as possible. Security updates on phones and desktops have restricted companies’ insights into customers and buyer behaviour. As such, it is beneficial for companies to avoid or exit the Learning Limited phase to gather as much data as possible.
With that in mind, it is still possible for ads to run in the Learning Limited phase and be successful. In instances where you can not exit the Learning Limited phase, try to collect as much data in concentrated areas as possible.
Want to know more about how SOMO can help you create and manage your Facebook ads? Why not set up a free strategy call with us today.
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