Many advertisers need to do the WRONG thing regarding scaling, which could ruin their chances of success with their campaigns. In this tutorial, I will explain why those old methods don’t work AND introduce a new, utterly AUTOMATED way to scale campaigns. This new method has been working great in my agency. It limits your downside while giving you a lot of upside potential.

The Wrong Way to Scale Facebook Ads

Many advertisers have heard that the best way to scale is to leave your existing successful campaign alone, duplicate it, and then run a new identical version alongside your original campaign. The problem is that this approach leads to several issues, with auction overlap being the most significant.

Auction Overlap

Auction overlap means that both campaigns are competing against each other in the auction, and Meta won’t allow that to take place within one ad account. Only one will be allowed into the auction if you have identical campaigns. This results in under-delivery and poorer performance in both campaigns.

The Problems with Duplicate Campaigns

When you use the duplicate campaign structure and have identical campaigns running alongside each other, only one will be entered into the auction at any time. This results in one or both campaigns under-delivering because Meta will switch between them periodically. This leads to less data being gathered, which is crucial for Meta’s machine learning to optimise your campaigns over time. More data equals better results!

Why It’s a Problem that the Inspect Tool Is Gone

The inspection tool allows advertisers to see the extent of audience overlap. Now that Meta has removed this tool, it’s much harder to duplicate ad sets successfully and get good results. My recommendation is to abandon the duplication technique altogether.

A MUCH Better Way to Scale Facebook Ads

If duplicating campaigns isn’t effective, what is the right way to scale a Facebook ad campaign? Here’s a new, automated technique that has been surprisingly effective and works well.

Incremental Scaling

Before diving into the automated technique, it’s worth mentioning the old scaling method in roughly seven-day increments. This method is still valid and can be effective.

Automated Scaling Rules

The new way we’ve been using recently has shown great results and involves setting up automated rules to scale campaigns in small increments based on performance criteria. Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to Your Campaign:
   • Click the “More” dropdown and select “Create a New Rule.”
2. Create Custom Rule:
   • Please set it to increase the daily budget by a small percentage, like 3%, and also set a maximum daily budget cap.
3. Set Rule Details:
   • Increase the daily budget by 3%.
   • Set a maximum daily budget cap (e.g., $20, $50, $10,000).
4. Define Threshold:
   • Specify the cost per result threshold that makes the campaign profitable (e.g., $30).
5. Set Time Range:
   • For in-app lead campaigns, use same-day data.
   • For sales conversion campaigns, use a three-day data window.
6. Run Rule:
   • Set the rule to run once per day.
7. Create Rule:
   • Click “Create” to activate the rule.

Benefits of Automated Scaling

This automated scaling technique removes the guesswork and emotion from scaling your campaigns. If your campaign meets the set benchmarks, it will scale; if not, it won’t. You can also set up reverse rules to decrease the budget if the cost per result exceeds a certain threshold (e.g., $35). This creates a dynamic budget situation where you spend more when campaigns perform well and less when they don’t, limiting potential losses.

The Bottom Line

This new automated scaling technique is far preferable to duplicating campaigns, which causes auction overlap issues. It’s a strategy worth testing to see how it works for your campaigns. By leveraging automated rules, you can scale your ad spend effectively, ensuring your campaigns grow when they perform well and protect your budget when they do not.