One of the ways to take your business to the next level is to take advantage of Facebook ads. The Facebook learning phase is crucial to how effective your ads will be.

To illustrate, to drive a car safely, you need to take driving lessons. In other words, you must learn how to drive. Facebook also needs to understand the audience and the content of your ads.

If you are a business owner, you should invest in Facebook media buying. It’s a great way to draw more customers to your business.

Unfortunately, many business owners don’t know how to get the most out of the learning phase. Remember, making the wrong decisions can cost your business.

The purpose of this guide is to provide you with practical tips on how to get the most out of the Facebook Ads learning phase.

So without any further delay, let’s get started!

What is Facebook Ads Learning Phase?

In simple terms, the ad learning phase is the period in which Facebook gets to learn vital information about your ads. During this phase, it learns how to optimize your ads to reach your target audience.

This phase is crucial to the success of your ad campaign. Facebook’s ad delivery system would take its time to study the ads to know the best time of day to display them to your audience.

Whenever you create a new Facebook ad or significantly alter an old one, the learning phase automatically comes on! Furthermore, avoid the temptation of creating too many ads at once. If you do this, the delivery system will struggle to understand the ads. 

However, you need to be patient during the learning phase as you may not see the expected results. Don’t panic; it’s normal for your ad’s performance to be volatile at this stage.

The greatest mistake you can make during the learning phase is to make a major edit to your ads. This will reset the whole optimization process to zero.

In addition, making a major edit to your ads can make some of them that have gone past the learning phase re-enter.

Another common mistake you should avoid is setting an unrealistic budget for the learning phase. Facebook marketing experts recommend setting a budget for 50 optimization events for the sake of stability.

Remember the illustration we used earlier? Who becomes a great driver in the first week of training? Hardly anybody! You need to be patient at this stage.

The good thing is that the Facebook ad delivery system will never stop learning about your ads. So you can expect continuous optimization of your ads.

How Long is The Learning Phase?

How long the learning phase lasts depends on certain factors. As an unwritten rule, the learning period ends when your ads have produced 50 optimization events.

Facebook allows you to determine your optimization event. You can either choose to optimize for lead campaigns or conversion. If you’re optimizing for conversions, 50 optimization events will generate 50 conversions.

However, the 50 conversions must take place inside one of Facebook’s conversion windows. Are you wondering what a conversion window is? A conversion window is a period during which someone views your ad and takes some action afterwards.

So you have the opportunity to choose your conversion window. For example, if you choose a 7-day conversion window, you need to produce at least 50 conversions every week for proper optimization.

If you observe that you’re not meeting up with your target, you may need to alter your objective. For example, if you chose the 7-day window and you are making 20 to 30 conversions every week, you need to find new ways of drawing traffic for your ads.

If you decide not to make the necessary adjustment, your ads won’t be properly optimized for your target audience.

Nonetheless, Facebook will never stop learning about new ways to optimize your ads, even if you don’t meet your conversion targets. As long as your ads are active, there is no reason for you to worry.

What Is Learning Limited?

At times, it happens that Facebook won’t be able to learn enough about your ad to fully optimize it for your target audience. If this happens, it is termed “learning limited.”

You don’t have to be so worried about this happening. “Learning limited” clearly means your budget is not being used effectively for ad optimization. To fix this issue, all you have to do is slightly alter your current setup.

You may wonder, when does an ad become learning limited? This occurs if your ad doesn’t get at least 50 optimization events after you make the last major edit to the ad set.

You must exercise caution before making any significant edits to your ad set. In some cases, a significant edit can make your ad reenter the learning phase.

Several factors can make an ad set become learning-limited. Factors such as low budget, high auction overlap, irregular optimization events, or even running too many ads at once.

However, you can fix the learning limitation issue using several methods. But before doing that, you need to understand the reason for the learning limitation.

One effective way to fix the learning limited problem is to expand your audience. The bigger your target audience, the more likely people are to engage with Facebook ads. It’s that simple.

Another effective way is to significantly raise your budget. Evidence has shown that ad setups with low budgets hardly receive 50 optimization events to leave the learning phase.

When Does Learning Reset?

Unlike what some people think, you won’t make an ad enter the learning phase with every edit you make in the ad setup. For instance, if you decide to alter the ad budget, it won’t trigger the learning phase to reset.

However, you must be careful when editing the ad setup. Any significant edit would likely trigger the learning phase to restart. Facebook has been transparent in regards to this – any major edit to ad will restart the learning phase.

Furthermore, if you decide to pause your ad setup for several days, it will automatically restart the learning phase. Think twice before pausing your ad setup.

Facebook revealed that adding a completely new ad to your ad setup will also trigger the learning phase to restart. Likewise, a change to optimization events will also have the same effect.

The learning phase is crucial for Facebook to understand your ads and to provide value for money. So do not let the thought of restarting the learning phase stop you from making the necessary edits to your ad setup.

Once you make the necessary edits, be patient enough for the learning phase to complete before taking any other significant actions. Once the phase is over, assess the performance of your ad.

How Does “Limited Learning” Affect Your Ad Performance?

For your ad to be fully optimized, it needs to exit the learning phase. However, if your ads are not performing as well as they should, they will hit the learning limited stage. This means your ad is not generating the needed impact.

The goal is for your ad to leave learning and hit the “active” stage. When it reaches this stage, Facebook will better understand the right set of people to show your ads to. As a result, this would translate into profits for your business.

You may ask, “Is it possible for me to exit the learning phase after hitting the learning limited stage?” The answer is yes, you can! It’s quite simple: to exit the learning phase, you need to get 50 optimization events.

However, if it’s taking too long for you to exit learning, there are practical steps you can take to ensure you leave the phase soon enough. The first step to take is to use fewer ad sets. This will ensure you get 50 result actions as soon as possible.

Tips To Get Out of Learning Phase

Being stuck in the learning limited phase can be so frustrating at times. But you don’t have to be frustrated or downcast. There are strategies for you to employ.

One effective strategy is to avoid actions that result in restarting the learning phase. Be careful of making any significant edits to your ad set.

For example, altering the ad campaign budget will restart the learning phase. There’s a rule that if you reduce or increase your budget by more than 20 percent every three days, the learning phase will restart.

If you want to get out of the learning phase, be careful about tampering with your ad campaign budget.

Another effective way of exiting the Facebook learning phase is to target a new audience. Your ads may not be performing as they should because the right set of people is not engaging with them. So try out new demographics!

Another effective strategy to get out of the learning phase is to use just a few ad sets. Running multiple Facebook ad sets at the same time increases the chance of your ads hitting the learning-limited stage.

One proven strategy to exit the learning phase is to increase your ad campaign budget. This is especially important if you are targeting cold audiences.

Conclusion

The Facebook learning phase is a crucial stage to ensure your ads get all the necessary attention and clicks. Jumping through this stage serves you no good.

It’s a phase where the Facebook delivery system gets to know your ads so well. Remember, if you’re stuck in the learning limited stage, raising your budget and using fewer ad sets are the two most effective ways of exiting the stage.

If you have more questions or you need some help with your Facebook Ads, we are here for you!