The learning phase is when the delivery system still has a lot to learn about an ad set. During this period, Facebook’s ads delivery system is exploring the most appropriate way to deliver your ad set. It is also during this time that the ad sets are less stable and normally have a higher cost-per-action (CPA).
The learning phase occurs when you create a new ad or ad set or edit an existing one.
When an ad set is in the learning phase, you’ll see the word "Learning" under the Delivery column. Ad sets exit this stage once performance stabilizes, usually after around 50 optimization events since its last significant edit.
Best Practices
To prevent ad sets from exiting the learning phase, here’s what you should do:
1. Modify your ad set only when it's out of the learning phase. By making changes to an ad, ad set, or campaign during the learning phase, you reset learning and delay the delivery system’s ability to optimize.
2. Avoid inessential revisions that cause ad sets to re-enter the learning phase. Edits that meaningfully alter your ad set’s performance in the future can cause it to re-enter the learning phase. Only tweak your ads or ad sets if you believe that’s going to improve its performance.
3. Avoid high ad volumes. When you create many ads and ad sets, the delivery system learns less about each ad and ad set than when you create fewer ads and ad sets. By combining similar ad sets, you also combine learnings.
4. Use realistic budgets. If you set a very small or excessively high budget, the delivery system has an inaccurate indicator of the people for whom the delivery system should optimize. Set a budget that is large enough to get at least 50 total optimization events and avoid frequent budget changes as it can cause an ad set to re-enter the learning phase.
The learning phase is needed as it helps Facebook’s delivery system to best optimize your ads. Therefore, do not try to avoid the learning phase completely. Testing new creatives and marketing strategies is key to help improve your performance over time.