Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO)
Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) is a feature that Facebook announced will be mandatory in September 2019 for all Ads Manager users. API partners, like adMixt, will still have access to Ad Set Level Budgeting which allows you to control spend and optimize on the ad set level. CBO enables Facebook to do that automatically. As an advertiser, you set your budget at the campaign level and signal Facebook where to spend based on your bid. Facebook takes the campaign budget and decides how much to spend on each target. With this new feature comes new strategies to get desired performance. Here are some tips that the adMixt team has discovered to successfully scale on CBO.
Keep your bids low to start. Transitioning into CBO can take 1–2 weeks before performance stabilizes. It takes time for Facebook to find the top performing targets and optimize spend across them. Until then, it helps to bid low and let Facebook find the most scalable audiences before adjusting bids.
When setting up your campaign, start with a modest amount of targets. You don’t know where Facebook is going to spend the most. Giving it enough options, but not too many, is essential. Once Facebook has determined where to spend, cut the worst performing targets quickly to make sure you’re getting the best performance possible.
If there are certain targets that you want to test that aren’t getting enough spend, split them out into a different campaign instead of continuing to push up the bid. Facebook will spend on the targets it thinks will get the best performance.
When measuring performance, look over a longer window. A three or four day window will show you more accurate trends on how certain audiences are performing.
Avoid using limits if possible. This is one of Facebook’s best practices for CBO. Adding a minimum or maximum budget to a target can limit Facebook’s ability to optimize your campaign. There are some cases where this could be necessary. For example, if remarketing and prospecting are included in the same campaign, it would be important to set limits so that remarketing doesn’t take up all the spend.
Lastly, don’t launch new creative late in the day. If you launch new creative into a campaign that is live at the end of the day, that creative will most likely spend quickly and get poor performance. If you are planning on testing something new, give Facebook the whole day to figure it out.
Campaign Budget Optimization is meant to make your life easier. It can save you a lot of time if you invest in the work up front. That means testing it out for yourself and learning what works. We hope these tips have given you a good starting point. Good luck! And contact us to learn more about how we can help you with your Facebook marketing program including CBO.
