NEW Learning Phase is Great News for Facebook Ads!

Summary

This video discusses a significant update to Facebook's ad learning phase, which now requires only 10 conversions within 3 days instead of 50 in 7 days to complete. The change allows for more granular optimization and frequent adjustments in ad campaigns, benefiting advertisers, especially smaller businesses. The presenter also highlights the importance of stability in ad strategies and the continuous learning of Meta's AI for improved ad performance.

Takeaways

• 😀 The introduction of a new Facebook ads learning phase changes the approach to Facebook advertising.
• 🔍 The learning phase is a period where Facebook's AI learns to optimize ad performance based on given inputs and campaign goals.
• 🛠️ The AI during the learning phase adjusts targeting, ad delivery, and frequency to find the most effective strategy for conversions.
• 📈 The previous learning phase required 50 conversions within 7 days to be completed, which was challenging for smaller businesses.
• 🆕 The new learning phase requires only 10 conversions within 3 days, making it easier for advertisers to optimize campaigns.
• 🎯 Advertisers can now optimize for events lower in the conversion funnel due to the reduced requirements of the new learning phase.
• 🤖 Meta's AI is becoming smarter, allowing it to learn with less data, which benefits advertisers with smaller budgets.
• 🚫 Despite the new learning phase, stability and consistency in ad campaigns are still crucial for optimal performance.
• 📝 It's important to stay updated with Facebook's advertising changes to adapt strategies and maintain competitive advantage.
• 🔄 Facebook ad campaigns continue to learn and improve even after the learning phase, emphasizing the value of ongoing optimization.
• ⏳ The new learning phase feature may not be available in all accounts yet, and official documentation might be released later.

Q & A

What is the Facebook ads learning phase?

The Facebook ads learning phase is a period after launching a new campaign where Facebook's AI and machine learning processes analyze and learn how to deliver the best possible results based on the advertiser's objectives and inputs, such as targeting and optimization preferences.

What changes has Facebook made to the learning phase requirements?

Facebook has reduced the requirement from 50 conversions within 7 days to 10 conversions within 3 days for a campaign to exit the learning phase. This change makes it easier for advertisers, especially those with smaller budgets, to get out of the learning phase.

Why is it important to understand the learning phase for Facebook advertisers?

Understanding the learning phase is crucial because it impacts how effectively Facebook's AI can optimize ad delivery to achieve the best results. If the learning phase is not completed successfully, the campaign may be stuck in 'learning limited' mode, which hinders optimal performance.

What is the impact of the new learning phase on campaign optimization?

The new learning phase allows advertisers to optimize for events lower down the funnel, such as purchases, more frequently and with fewer conversions required. This can lead to better results as the AI can focus on the advertiser's true objectives rather than just getting out of the learning phase.

How should advertisers adjust their strategy in response to the new learning phase?

Advertisers can now consider optimizing for lower funnel events and making more frequent adjustments to their campaigns, while still maintaining stability and consistency. However, they should be cautious and ensure that the changes are beneficial and not just for the sake of making changes.

What is 'learning limited' and why was it a concern for advertisers?

'Learning limited' is a status that campaigns could fall into if they did not meet the previous learning phase requirement of 50 conversions in 7 days. It was a concern because it meant the AI could not fully optimize the campaign, potentially leading to suboptimal results.

How does the new learning phase affect smaller businesses with lower conversion volumes?

The new learning phase is more accommodating for smaller businesses as it requires fewer conversions (10 within 3 days) to exit the learning phase. This makes it more feasible for them to optimize their campaigns and benefit from Facebook's AI capabilities.

What is the recommended approach to making adjustments to Facebook ad campaigns?

The recommended approach is to avoid making frequent adjustments and instead space them out to allow the learning phase to complete successfully. With the new learning phase requirements, adjustments can be made more frequently, but advertisers should still prioritize stability and consistency.

How does the learning phase relate to the overall performance of a Facebook ad campaign?

The learning phase is critical for setting the foundation of a campaign's performance. Once completed, the AI can better understand the advertiser's goals and optimize the campaign accordingly. Even after the learning phase, the AI continues to learn and improve, leading to better results over time.

What is Facebook Ads Mastery and how can it help advertisers stay updated with changes?

Facebook Ads Mastery is a course and community offering by the speaker, designed to keep advertisers informed about the latest updates and changes in Facebook advertising. It provides cutting-edge material, community support, and regular live calls and trainings to help advertisers adapt their strategies effectively.

Outlines

00:00

📈 Introduction to Facebook Ads Learning Phase Changes

The speaker introduces significant updates to the Facebook ads learning phase, explaining that the new phase is a departure from previous practices. They emphasize the importance of understanding the learning phase, which is a period where Facebook's AI learns to optimize ad performance based on the advertiser's objectives and input data. The learning phase involves machine learning processes to determine the best targeting, impression distribution, and optimal times for ad delivery. The video promises to detail the changes and how they impact advertising strategies, including the previous requirement of 50 conversions within 7 days to exit the learning phase, which was challenging for smaller businesses.

05:01

🔍 New Learning Phase Requirements and Strategic Adjustments

The speaker discusses the new requirements for the Facebook ads learning phase, which have been reduced from 50 conversions in 7 days to just 10 conversions in 3 days. This change is expected to benefit advertisers, especially those with smaller budgets, by making it easier to exit the learning phase and optimize campaigns for desired outcomes. The summary covers the potential for advertisers to now target lower in the funnel, the possibility of making more frequent adjustments to campaigns, and the importance of maintaining stability in campaign strategy. The speaker also mentions the existence of a community and course for staying updated on Facebook advertising changes.

10:01

🚀 Continuous Learning and the Evolution of AI in Ad Campaigns

The final paragraph delves into the ongoing learning process of Facebook's AI beyond the learning phase, highlighting that as campaigns accumulate more conversions, the system refines its optimization, leading to potentially better results over time. The speaker also notes that while the new learning phase feature may not be available in all accounts yet, it represents a positive trend of AI making advertising more efficient and accessible. They advise advertisers to focus on creative and offer development as the main competitive advantages, while AI takes care of optimization and settings. The paragraph concludes with a teaser for a video sharing long-term lessons learned from years of Facebook advertising experience.

Keywords

💡Facebook Ads Learning Phase

The Facebook Ads Learning Phase is a period when a newly launched ad campaign undergoes machine learning processes to determine the most effective way to deliver ads based on the campaign's optimization goals. It's crucial for understanding the video's theme as it sets the stage for discussing changes in Facebook's ad platform. The script mentions that the learning phase involves AI trying to find the best audience within targeting options and determining the optimal frequency of ad impressions.

💡Meta

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is central to the video's narrative as it develops and implements the AI and machine learning systems that manage ad campaigns. The term is used to refer to the company's technology and its impact on advertisers' strategies, as seen when the script discusses how Meta's systems learn from conversion data to optimize ad delivery.

💡Optimization

Optimization in the context of the video refers to the process of refining ad campaigns to achieve better results based on specific goals such as purchases or lead generation. It is key to the video's content as it explains how the new learning phase allows for more precise optimization, with examples given like focusing on 'purchases' or 'add to carts'.

💡Conversions

Conversions are the actions advertisers want users to take, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. The script emphasizes the importance of conversions in the learning phase, noting that the new requirement is 10 conversions within 3 days, down from 50 in 7 days, which is a significant change for advertisers.

💡Campaign Adjustments

Campaign adjustments refer to changes made to an ad campaign, such as updating targeting settings or adding new ads. The video discusses how frequent adjustments can impact the learning phase, advising against constant tweaking to allow the AI to effectively learn and optimize the campaign.

💡Impressions

Impressions measure how many times an ad is displayed. The script explains that during the learning phase, the system determines the optimal number of impressions per person to convert, whether it's better to spread impressions thin across many viewers or concentrate them among fewer individuals.

💡Leads

Leads represent potential customers who have shown interest, typically by providing contact information. The video uses 'leads' as an example of a conversion goal, highlighting the importance of optimizing campaigns to attract high-quality leads.

💡Funnel Optimization

Funnel optimization is the strategy of focusing on different stages of the customer journey, from initial awareness to final purchase. The script discusses optimizing for events lower down the funnel, which becomes more feasible with the new learning phase requirements.

💡AI and Machine Learning

AI and machine learning are technologies that enable the ad platform to analyze data and make decisions to improve ad performance. The video highlights how Meta's AI systems have become smarter, allowing them to learn with less data and thus benefit advertisers with smaller budgets.

💡Stability

Stability in the context of the video refers to maintaining consistency in ad campaigns to allow the AI systems to learn effectively. The script advises against frequent changes to avoid disrupting the learning process, emphasizing the importance of stability for optimal ad performance.

💡Facebook Ads Mastery

Facebook Ads Mastery is a course mentioned in the script that aims to help advertisers stay updated with the latest changes in Facebook's ad platform. It represents a resource for advertisers to learn and adapt their strategies in line with the evolving landscape of Facebook advertising.

Highlights

Introduction of a new Facebook ads learning phase, which is a significant change from the previous phase.

The new learning phase allows for a rethinking of the entire Facebook advertising strategy.

Explanation of the Facebook ads learning phase as a machine learning process to optimize ad performance.

The importance of setting up campaigns correctly for Meta's AI to understand advertiser goals.

How the learning phase works when launching a new campaign or making significant adjustments.

Old requirement of 50 conversions within 7 days to exit the learning phase was challenging for smaller businesses.

The issue of campaigns getting stuck in 'learning limited' and the dilemma it created for advertisers.

New learning phase requirements are 10 conversions within 3 days, making it easier for advertisers to achieve.

The ability to optimize for conversion events lower in the funnel due to the reduced requirement.

Recommendation to make adjustments to ad campaigns less frequently to maintain stability.

The potential for more frequent changes in ad campaigns with the new learning phase.

Emphasis on the importance of staying up to date with the latest changes in Facebook advertising.

Introduction of 'Facebook Ads Mastery' course and its benefits for advertisers.

The ongoing learning of ad campaigns even after the learning phase has ended.

The new learning phase is a feature that may not be available in all accounts yet.

AI's role in making advertising easier and smarter, allowing for better results with less data.

The focus on offers, products, services, and creative ads as the main areas for competitive advantage.

The constancy of some elements in Facebook advertising amidst the changes in others.

Transcripts

I've got some huge Facebook ads news and

that's that we now have a new Facebook

ads learning phase it's very different

from what we had previously it now means

we can rethink our entire approach to

Facebook advertising in this video I'm

going to explain what the new Facebook

ads learning phase is and the

adjustments that we can now make to our

Facebook advertising strategy because of

it okay so before I go through the

details of the new Facebook ads learning

phase and compare it obviously to to the

previous one and explain what that means

the ramifications of that for Facebook

advertisers I'm just going to very

quickly explain what the Facebook ads

learning phase actually is cuz I'm sure

there are some people watching this

video that don't know that so the

learning phase is basically once you

launch a new Facebook ad campaign it

learns it goes through what's called The

Learning phase and that's Mets machine

learning processes their AI effectively

um trying to work out how to get you the

best possible results based on what you

have asked for and the inputs to you you

have given so let's say for example

you're running a sales campaign that's

optimizing for purchases meta can

assuming you've got your pixel set up

correctly and all that sort of stuff

meta can see who is buying your products

based on your advertising who isn't and

they can use that information to adjust

how your campaign is delivered so that's

going to include things like within the

targeting options that you've given who

should they actually put your ads in

front of because there's probably going

to be a small subsection within your

targeting options that produce the best

results so meta's going to try and find

those that's one of the things they're

going to do in the learning phase in the

learning phase they're also going to

work out how many Impressions on average

does each person need to convert to go

ahead and purchase or become a lead or

whatever is it two Impressions is it six

Impressions they're going to work that

sort of stuff out is it better to spread

your ad budget across lots of people but

quite thinly in terms of Impressions

like each person gets one or two

Impressions but quite thin or is it

better to concentrate those Impressions

and each person get six seven eight

Impressions um but fewer people actually

see your ads they're going to work out

things like what time of day produces

the best results what day of the week

produces the best results and all these

various elements go into working out how

to get you the best possible results and

that's why it's so important to set up

your campaign in a way that meta can

understand what it is that you actually

want as an Advertiser what do you want

it's not that simple what do you want do

you want leads do you want purchases

what is it that you really want cuz if

mattera knows what you want they can

then learn the AI systems can learn and

try and get you those things so that's

that's what the learning phase is and

designed to do and it's really important

and it's a great thing that it happens

because it helps us all get much better

results but it's something that you need

to be aware of now the learning phase

happens when you launch a new campaign

it also happens after you make a

significant adjustment to that campaign

so if for example you create a new ad

add into that campaign um even if you

make an adjustment to an existing ad if

you change your targeting settings or

your placement settings or any of the

major things at the adset level then

that adet will go back into the learning

phase and it's one of the reasons why

people like me don't recommend that you

make adjustments to your Facebook ad

campaigns all the time if you're

constantly in there and tweaking and

adjusting things then you are constantly

going back into the learning phase

you're going into that this period of

experimentation and you're unlikely to

get the best results so for a long time

people like me have recommended you want

consistency with your ad campaigns yes

you want to be able to test things and

adjust things but don't do it twice a

day or every day you want to space those

out uh obviously depending on your

conversion volume so the old Facebook

ads learning phase the requirement to

get out of the learning phase that the

data that meta needed that they said was

50 conversions within 7 days and that is

conversions of whatever it is you're

optimizing for so if youve got a sales

campaign optimizing for purchases it's

50 purchases but if you've got a sales

campaign optimizing for add to carts

then it's 50 ad to carts and that's what

meta wanted um to learn now meeting that

requirement getting to those 50

conversions within 7 days is just

impossible for some business

particularly those that are relatively

small operating with a with a smaller

budget they might be generating five or

10 conversions in a week and this most

often happens to be fair with service

based businesses where they only work

with a few customers um they're really

high value and their lead flow is never

going to get to 50 a week realistically

not until they scale massively and what

happens then is that the campaign

wouldn't get out of the learning phase

and it would get stuck in something

called learning limited You' see this

alongside um your adsets and a lot of

advertisers would freak out about that

they think well my campaign's not

optimized properly it hasn't got the

data to get the right results and we're

stuck in in learning limited and that

obviously wasn't ideal you want meta's

really powerful AI systems and machine

learning processes to be on your side

you want them to do all the things that

we've already discussed in this video

around helping you advertise the right

time of the day to the right type of the

people the right amount of times all

that sort of stuff to get you the best

possible results and if they're saying

learning limited it's not able to do

that effectively so that's been one of

the the big challenges for advertisers

with the learning phase has been getting

out of the learning phase particularly

smaller ones getting past learning

limited and getting your ad campaign to

the point where it says that it's active

and that left advertisers with a bit of

a dilemma because you could either

operate with say 20 leads a week not get

out of learning phase and be stuck in

learning limited but optimizing for what

you really want which is leads which is

usually what would be my recommendation

or you could start to think well maybe I

could change what I'm optimizing for

because I'm not getting 20 leads a week

but I'm getting more than 50 landing

page views a week so I could instead go

ahead and optimize for landing page

views and that will get me out of the

learning phase and that would be true

but you might see worse overall results

because you're not optimizing what you

really want meta is putting all that uh

brain power that it's got all that AI

power into getting you as many landing

page as possible instead of as many

leads as possible which often didn't

produce a better result even if it did

help you get out of the learning phase

so it really left advertises in in a bit

of a difficult situation

now the new learning phase is really

quite different so instead of needing 50

conversions in a week meta are now

saying it's 10 conversions within 3 days

now obviously generating 10 conversions

in 3 days is a lot easier than

generating 50 conversions in a week you

can operate with a smaller budget yes

it's a shorter time frame but the number

of conversions is that much less that

it's still uh much easier for

advertisers to achieve now that means so

we can make some adjustments as Facebook

and Instagram advertisers so if you had

before decided to optimize for some

something higher up uh the funnel so if

you think about the top of the funnel

being like a link click and then you go

down and you might have initiate

checkout and add to car and purchase and

hopefully that makes sense in terms of

the the progression here right if you

wanted to optimize for say purchases but

you just weren't getting 50 conversions

in a week and you thought I just can't

do this I'm going to have to go for

something higher up the funel I'm going

to have to go for something like add to

cart or initiate checkout or maybe even

just the link click right at the top

because the requirement to get out of

the learning phase is that much less you

may now be able to go for a conversion

event that's lower down the funnel and

we know that that's good because if you

can do that that means that meta is

going to be optimizing for what you

really want and you're likely to get

better results you might not be

generating 50 conversions in a week but

you might be generating 25 conversions

in a week well as long as you get 10

within 3 days you're you're fine you can

now go ahead and optimize for that

purchased conversion event and obviously

the same principle is going to apply

with uh lead campaigns and and other

campaign types you can now optimize with

things lower down the funnel it also

means that you might be able to make

changes more frequently now I've said to

people before look as a general rule of

thurm don't make adjustments to your ad

campaigns more than once every seven

days because you've roughly had this

7-Day learning phase window now of

course for a lot of advertisers if

you're generating really large

conversion volume you got through the

learning phase much faster um some

businesses are generating smaller

conversion volume needed to wait longer

than 7 days to be able to make a call on

ads because if you only generate a few

conversions a week how would you know if

an ad's working or not after 7 days you

don't but the same principle now apply

but we're going to shorten the time

frame so instead of the general rule of

thumb being don't make adjustments um in

a shorter time window than 7 days with

those caveats I've mentioned now we

could say don't make adjustments more

often than every 3 days again with the

caveats mentioned there still be

businesses that generate 10 conversions

in an afternoon and you're through the

learning phase really quickly and there

are going to be others that generate

really small conversion volume that need

to wait much longer to make adjustments

to their ad campaigns to know if an ad's

working but I do think in general with

this change that's one of the big big

things that's going to help Facebook

advertisers being able to condense that

time period so that you can get through

more tests and more iterations of new

ads targeting options whatever it is

that you're looking to test quicker um

and that's obviously going to help us

get better results over the long run

because we're going to learn meta is

going to learn we're going to have more

goes at ads and things like that that

gives you a greater percentage chance of

getting great results those two things

are a really big shift that we can make

based on this adjustment to the learning

phase now as you can see from this video

it's obviously really important to stay

up to date with the latest changes when

it comes to Facebook and is advertising

if you want the best possible results

now the best way for me to help you with

that stuff is through Facebook ads

Mastery my brand new course with

community and there will not only let

you know about all the updates and

changes that happen as soon as they

happen but also what that means for you

as a Facebook Instagram Advertiser and

the adjustments that you can now make

it's brand new course material never

before seen very much latest up-to-date

stuff created by me and my team and it's

the stuff that we use to train new stuff

memb so very much Cutting Edge um and

some really really cool useful

information in there and there's also a

whole Community angle it's done on

school so there's loads of communication

from me and my team uh in in amongst the

the members of Facebook ads Mastery

we've got over 450 people in there um

already all talking and and helping each

other out which is absolutely fantastic

uh we do live calls and trainings

regularly in there as well and if you're

interested there is a link in the

description you can click through there

and go ahead and check it out and I hope

to see you on the inside so before you

run off and go crazy with your Facebook

ad campaigns and start making loads of

changes it's important for me to say

that stability is still an important

factor that hasn't changed yes we might

be able to make changes more often but

we still want to try and keep things

consistent and stable if you're

constantly switching between different

campaign types and adding things in and

running a split test here and adding new

ads and making tweaks multiple times a

day your ad campaigns are going to

suffer and your results are going to

suffer and there is the formal learning

phase and that has changed significantly

but it's also worth noting that we know

that Facebook ad campaigns continue to

learn after the learning phase so yes

under the previous learning phase you

might have generated 100 conversions in

a week uh you might be nicely out of the

learning phase but once you've generated

a th000 conversions total your ad

campaigns will probably perform better

when they generate 100 and once they

generate 5,000 conversions they generate

better results than when they've just

generated a thousand because meta

continues to learn it continues to

compound obviously like with anything

just like when we're learning a new

skill right the most intense learning

period is at the beginning because you

have no idea and you're learning on

hypers speed but you do something you

carry on you keep learning you keep

getting better at it maybe not at the

same Pace but it still helps improve

things so stability and being able to

just increase overall conversion numbers

within an ad account I think is still

really important and still going to help

um your ad campaigns also this new

learning phase is a new feature it's

only available in some of our accounts

right now that's why I grabbed a

screenshot to show you with because I

didn't want learning phase stuff

disappears obviously as the campaigns

learn so you sort of kind of need to

capture anyway but just it may well be

out of the ad account I was planning on

recording this video so I just grabbed a

screenshot so I be able to um to show

you and I imagine a lot of people

watching this video at this point don't

yet have it from what I have heard this

is likely to be rolled out and it does

make sense because for a while now we've

been seeing Facebook and Instagram ad

campaigns get out of the learning phase

even when they don't meet the 50

conversions in 7 Days criteria like you

can see because it says alongside your

ad set learning when it's in the

learning phase and then it will go

active once you're out of the learning

phase and that's been happening with ad

campaigns much sooner than 7 days and

with less conversions than 50 so we kind

of think some behind the- scenes stuff

has been a little bit along these lines

anyway but the fact that meta are making

this official um and and we're seeing it

now in ad account is great but you might

not have this yet just be aware of that

if you're going to go dive in and start

making changes and things along those

lines increasing budget more quickly

maybe you want to hold off until you see

this sort of message pop up in in youred

account from what we can see so far

there's not been any additional um like

information in the meta support docs for

advertisers normally when they make a

change like this they will release

something maybe between when I record

this and this actually gets published

that will come out but as of the time

we're recording uh we haven't got that

yet I think once they roll it out to

everyone that's like normally when we

see some um documentation around it and

some information that we know this is

this is here to stay uh but just

something to be aware of that this may

be in your ad account may not so don't

just immediately jump on onto this and

start making adjustments that I've

recommended because you might not

actually have this yet and this is a

good example of AI making things easier

for advertisers making situation better

for advertisers meths AI is getting

smarter and smarter and smarter at

getting us results and clearly they've

worked out that they can now learn with

less data obviously that's a smarter

system being able to do that which is

great because it means advertisers don't

need to operate with as large a budget

in order to get out of the earning phase

they can test smaller um they can

optimize F low down the funnel they can

make adjustments all the good stuff that

we've talked about that that are knock

on effects from this but I think this is

a trend we're going to we're going to

see continue and continue that as meta

AI gets smarter and smarter more and

more stuff is going to be automated more

of the settings type stuff is going to

be um improved automatically by what

better can do which is fantastic it

allows us advertisers to crack on with

what really really matters which is

going to be the offers that we put

together the products and services that

we sell and of course the ads themselves

the copy and the creative um and those

will be the the main focus and those

will be the areas for competitive

Advantage as well not necessarily all

the settings which I think is a good

thing so some elements of Facebook

advertising change all the time right

we've had big Chang changes to targeting

I've talked about a big change um to the

learning phase but other things are much

more constant and in this video here I

share the lessons the truth I've learned

about Facebook advertising from 11 years

of running ads on the platform which

seems like an enormous amount of time um

spending more than 50 million ads

generating more than 200 million for

more than 2,000 clients um in that time

period so a ton of experience I boil it

all down into that video it's a big one

but it's a lot of value I think you

should go ahead and check it out