The "Learning Limited" status in Facebook refers to an ad campaign that has not received enough engagement to be automatically optimized.
To understand what Learning Limited means for your Ads Manager ad or storm campaign, it's helpful to look at the entire process.
Facebook Ads: From Learning to Active
Every ad that is posted on Facebook first goes through a period of what Facebook calls "Learning." The Learning phase is required and cannot be bypassed, as this is when your optimal ad placement is discovered.
In general, the Facebook ad process looks like this:
- Posted: An ad is posted to Facebook.
- Review: Every ad goes into review first and then either goes to Learning or is rejected. (If your Facebook ad is rejected, please contact us for assistance.)
- Learning: The ad goes through Learning to optimize its placement and audience. (For example, Facebook may learn that your ad performs better on news feeds rather than stories and with certain demographic sub-groups within your overall targeting parameters.) Facebook must collect at least 50 high-quality ad engagements or "optimization events" from users to complete the Learning phase.
- Active: Immediately after Learning, the ad becomes Active. Facebook users see it and engage with it, and in the case of a PSAI client, the leads enter your Com Portal.
Ideally, your ad would progress through these steps quickly, but that doesn't always happen.
Why Does Learning Limited Occur?
If Facebook cannot get 50 optimization events for your ad, then the tool will not be able to complete the Learning phase. The status will then change from Learning to Learning Limited.
Learning Limited means that your ad campaign has stalled because Facebook is unable to optimize its placement. There are many reasons that your ad may not have reached the required 50 optimization events:
- Your budget is too small.
- Your budget is spread too thin across separate ad groups.
- Your audience size is too small.
How to Move Your Facebook Ad Through Learning Limited
To get your ad out of Learning Limited, action is likely required and may include:
- Expanding the audience size.
- Increasing the ad budget.
- Combining separate ad sets.
Please keep in mind that actual performance is much more important to your business than Facebook's label. If you have a campaign that is generating leads at a good cost, then you don't necessarily need to agonize or make major adjustments over the ad's Facebook status.
If your Facebook ad campaign shows Learning Limited and is not performing as you hope, please contact us for assistance. Use this link to submit a Support ticket, or open the Help widget in the bottom right corner of your screen.
Please do not edit your ad campaign before contacting us. Edits may cause Facebook's Learning phase to start over, which will delay your ad campaign even further.