SSA #036: Facebook Ads Learning Limited [Fixed]

Read Time: 3.5 Minutes

I used to think that Learning Limited with my Facebook Ads was something to panic about. But it really isn't and there are a couple of simple ways to get your Facebook Ads out of Learning Limited, which is what I'm going to be sharing with you today.

Learning Limited shouldn’t affect you too much when running Facebook Ads to your books on Amazon; it's more of an issue when using the Sales objective, and sending people from your Facebook Ads to your own store on a platform such as Shopify.

Either way, if and when Learning Limited does become a problem, it’s good to know why it’s happening and how to fix it.

Now onto today's topic... Facebook Ads Learning Limited (and the fix).

What is Learning Limited?

In short, Learning Limited is Facebook telling you that it doesn’t have enough Conversion Data to fully optimize your campaign and get you the best possible results, based on your Campaign Objective.

Most authors use the Traffic objective for their Facebook Ads, meaning that Facebook will generate as many clicks as possible within the given budget.

Clicks are the conversion data for Traffic campaigns.

If you're using the Sales objective with your Facebook Ads, Facebook will generate as many Purchases as it can for you within your allocated budget.

Purchases are the conversion data for Sales campaigns.

In order to fully optimize, the Facebook algorithm needs data. Without it, the results are just not going to be there for you because the algorithm can't work at its optimum.

Based on your Campaign Objective (Sales, Traffic, Leads, etc.) it needs to know which people it’s showing your Ads to are helping you achieve that objective. Once it has this data, it can go out and find more people like that.

When Facebook can find more people that take your desired action (Clicks, Purchases, etc.), it knows you will spend more money with them - it’s a win-win for all involved:

• Facebook earn money
• You get Clicks, Sales, Leads, etc.

The questions then become, why does Learning Limited happen and how can I fix it?

Let's cover both of these topics...

Why Does Learning Limited Happen?

We've already established that Facebook needs conversion data to fully optimize, but let's get into the specifics.

In essence, the Facebook algorithm needs 50 Conversions per week to be fully optimized (at the Ad Set level - i.e. 50 conversions per Ad Set, per week).

If you're running a Traffic campaign, you need 50 Clicks per week on a single Ad Set. If you're not achieving this, you'll likely see a Learning Limited warning.

If you're running a Sales campaign, you need 50 Purchases per week on a single Ad Set. If you're not achieving this, you'll likely see a Learning Limited warning.

Even if you have Ad Sets that aren't achieving the 50 conversions per week threshold (Traffic or Sales), the Learning Limited warning may not always appear.

And if you make any significant changes to an Ad Set (e.g. Targeting, Placements, Ads, etc.) then you'll need to start building up to the 50 Conversions per week again from 0.

How To Fix Learning Limited

The top 5 reasons for Learning Limited being an issue, and not allowing an Ad Set to exit Learning Limited are:

• Small Audience
• Low Budget
• Too Many Ad Sets
• Poor Ads (that aren't converting)
• Under-Optimized Landing Page

For me though, the 2 quickest and most successful ways to exit the Learning Phase are to:

• Spend More
• Reduce Your Cost-Per-Result

Let's look at both of these in a little more detail.

#1: Spend More

This one is pretty self-explanatory. If you can spend more (i.e. increase your budget), you will get more traffic and more data.

Providing you have a solid book product page (on Amazon, your own store, etc.), by spending more, you should see an uptick in sales too, although that's not in any way guaranteed.

With more budget, if you're running a Traffic campaign, you'll be able to generate more clicks.

And with a Sales campaign, you'll not only generate more clicks, but because of the additional traffic, you'll also have more opportunities to make the sale on your store (i.e. more Purchases)

In turn, this will feedback to Facebook and allow the algorithm to find more people who share the same characteristics as those who have purchased from your store.

#2: Reduce Your Cost-Per-Action

Cost-Per-Action (CPA as I call it), is the cost for each desired action on your Facebook Ads.

If you're running a Traffic campaign, the desired action is a click on your Facebook Ads, but more specifically, a Unique Outbound Click, which is a column in your dashboard. This is measuring the number of clicks that go directly to your chosen URL (webpage).

And for Sales campaigns, the desired action is a Purchase from your Facebook Ads. Again, this is a selectable column in your dashboard.

If you can reduce your CPA (Cost-Per-Action), this will allow you to get more results for the same budget.

As an example, if you can reduce your Cost Per Unique Outbound Click, you'll get more clicks for your budget.

If you can reduce how much it costs you to generate a Purchase, all things being equal, you'll receive more Purchases for your allocated budget.

How Do You Reduce Your Cost-Per-Action?

As I cover in Jumpstart Facebook Ads For Authors, your Ad Creative itself (i.e. the Ads people are seeing on their Facebook Feed), is the biggest lever you can pull with Facebook Ads.

By strategically testing new ideas consistently, identifying what works, and what doesn't work, and creating Ads based on data that resonate with your readers and keep them engaged, you'll be able to transform your Facebook Ads results, reach more readers, and decrease your Cost-Per-Action.

Ultimately, when you achieve this, you'll be able to get yourself out of Learning Limited.

And that's going to wrap things up for today. Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

See you next week for another edition of The Saturday Self-Published Author.

To Your Success
- Matt