Facebook Ads Learning Phase - Top Strategy To Get Ahead [2024]

How can we get new knowledge? Learn. Similarly, Facebook needs to learn to deliver the ads effectively. That is why the Facebook ads learning phase exists.

Learning The Facebook Ads Learning Phase

Concept

If you notice then in the beginning of every running ad set, cost-per-action (CPA) will go quite high and this even combines with an unstable performance. Do not freak out because it is when Facebook ads machine learning does its job.

During the Meta-learning phase, things like creative, placement, audience, etc. are a bit messy as Facebook constantly creates new combinations to see which works the best. You can see this as a trial and error period. Thanks to this process, after the learning phase, the important numbers are back to where they were meant to be.

In summary, the Facebook ads learning phase is something that must happen (mostly) for a good cause.

In case you do not get the idea, let’s take an example.

You intend to produce an electronic device with a 2-day battery life. In the first 3 tries, the device lasts only 1 day, and in the next 3 tries the battery lasts even shorter only 18 hours. After about 10 other trials, the product can finally last 2 days, yay. 

Be patient and you will get what you deserve from the Facebook ads learning phase

Facebook ads learning phase works just like that, it takes trials and errors to improve and finally becomes stabilized after some time. 

Did we just mention that it requires a certain amount of time for Facebook ads machine learning to finish the work? Oh yes, we did. So, let’s see exactly how long the phase lasts.

Length Of The Meta Learning Phase

The length actually depends on several factors, for example, Facebook attribution window, edits during the learning phase, budget, etc. 

However, there is a rule applying for all cases, the Facebook ads learning phase ends right after the 50th result action within the attribution window time frame.

For better understanding, when you set a campaign objective to purchase conversion, there must be 50 purchases after people click on your ad within 7 days or 1 day depending on the attribution window.

Given that, do not misunderstand that a shorter attribution window gets your ads out of the learning phase faster. Because if the attribution window is set to 1 day, your ads must collect 50 actions within 1 day or well, you do not want to hear the consequence.

Okay, so how can you know the status of the Facebook ads learning phase? Well, it will be shown quite clearly in the Delivery column and in the next section, we will talk about the 3 statuses available.

The 3 Status Of Facebook Ads Learning

Learning

Well, this is quite obvious. When this status is shown, it means that the Facebook ads are still in the learning phase. So, let’s move on to the next one.

Learning Limited

If this status is shown, you really need to consider editing the ads somehow. “Learning limited” status happens when your ads cannot get the required amount (50) of actions in one week.

Well, you can even take this as a warning from Facebook saying that your ads will not have a bright future. 

We all have been there (or not yet) seeing the Facebook ads learning phase limited

But, sometimes, that is not really the case. If the ads have gathered 45 actions with only 5 missing, maybe it is better to wait and see whether they perform well after the study.

This looks troublesome to you, right? No worries since we have prepared a section just for the learning limited thing below. Just keep reading.

Active

We all know what this status says. Your ads have exited the learning phase and it is time for them to shine.

The active status is surely the main target, so let’s see what you should and should not do to get it

Is Your Ad Still Learning?

To avoid answering yes to this question, the first thing is to not make the Facebook ads learning phase reset while getting out of it faster. Alright then, which kind of actions should be ignored?

Do Not Make Big Adjustments

During the Facebook ads learning phase, editing will trigger a reset. This applies to most of the elements in the ad, excluding the small ones like changing the budget by less than 20% or setting a bid cap. 

We will divide the edits into three categories representing the facebook campaign structure.

At the campaign level, do not touch the budget, bid amount and facebook bid strategy.

Regarding the ad sets level, adjustments related to audience, placement, bid strategy, optimization event, bid amount and budget will take the learning phase back to the starting line. Moreover, pausing the ad for more than 7 days and adding new creative also do the same thing. 

And, never edit anything in the ads.

Basically, just wait until the Meta learning phase ends and then you can freely adjust the ads.

Do Not Include A Lot Of Ad Sets

Having too many ad sets means that each of them is not delivered often. This leads to a large amount of time required for all ad sets to finish their learning phases, thus wasting time and money. 

In worse cases, you will be the one to make the learning phase reset through some changes.

However, we know that sometimes you still need different ad sets for different cases like when you have a wide range of audience in multiple locations. And if that is the case, try to consolidate and combine similar ads to reduce the number needed to learn.

Do Not Create An Unsuitable Setup

For the Facebook ads learning phase to end, 50 result actions must happen. So, having a suitable setup in the start is quite crucial. No one likes to make changes and see the learning phase restart.

Firstly, pay attention to the budget and bidding strategy and make sure they are able to generate 50 actions in 7 days. Secondly, the audience size should not be too small since more people equals more chances of getting a conversion. Lastly, the conversion event might be the problem as it needs to be reasonable while happening frequently enough.

Those 3 actions above are what you will need to do if you do not like seeing the learning phase reset or stuck. And, here we come to the next problem, the learning limited status.

You Hate “Learning Limited” And So Do We

We mentioned the conditions for learning limited status to appear above. Anyway, let us remind you again. This status happens when the Facebook ads machine learning does not have 50 actions after 1 week. 

So, why does this situation happen to you? Unlucky, Facebook’s errors, God does not love you? No, we do not think so. 

Everything happens for a reason and learning limited status is not an exception. 

1. You should see if your budget and target audience is large enough. If not, then it is time to change them.
2. Are you running too many ad sets at the same time? If the answer is yes, then you should decrease the number to resonate with the budget.
3. Try to look around the ad sets settings and see whether there are any points to adjust. For example, rare events are also a popular factor leading to the learning being limited.
4. An aspect that gets overlooked so many times when people deal with the learning limited status, is inaccurate tracking . Since Facebook Pixel does not always gather all the data, maybe the Facebook ads machine learning is not fed fully, thus leading to the learning limited case. Solution for this: combine Facebook Pixel and CAPI smoothly and not a single byte of data can get away from you. 

Well, in case your conversion event is just too special to replace despite it being the reason why your ads’ learning is limited, why not get more insight before deciding? But, the longest attribution window lasts only 7 days? This is the part where Two Owls UTM dashboard comes.. 

With Two Owls, you can see late conversion on the days after day 7. So, how does this really help?

For example, you get learning limited with only 40 conversion events after day 7. Two Owls UTM dashboard will then show how the ads perform on day 8, 9, 10… As such, you will know more about the ads and maybe they are doing really well regardless of the learning limited status.

Let’s see what the Two Owls UTM dashboard can do

Final Thoughts

And, here we are at the end of the article. Basically, we have covered all you need to know about Facebook ads learning phase from the concept to the solutions for its issues. 

To sum up, this is a really important process if you want your Facebook ads to become successful, so there is no reason to ignore it. Yep, sometimes, unfortunate events happen like learning limited status, but overcoming them is not so hard.

Also, when you feel stuck somewhere during the Facebook ads learning phase, remember that you always have Two Owls to lean on.