How Long Should You Run Your Facebook Ad For

In this article, I’m going to answer the question, how long should you run your Facebook ad for?

The short answer is there’s no length of time, and it all depends on the data you get back if your ad is performing well there’s no need to do anything with it until you notice a change in your metrics.

And all you’re looking to do is pause under performing ads as you let the best-performing ads run.

But with that said there are multiple factors you should be looking for.

Such as, if I launch a new campaign I usually run 1 or 2 campaigns with around 3-5 ad sets.

And I’m usually testing what copy angle works best, which image or video is working best, what headlines are working, and even all the way to the landing page conversion rates because all of these help determine how long I should run my ads.

The 5 factors for determine how long to run a Facebook ad campaign

#1 ad fatigue

If you're running local ads or only national vs international, your ads are going to be shown to an audience a lot quicker than if it’s international due to a smaller audience.

I’m always checking the frequency doesn’t go above 2 and when it does, this is when I switch out the creative.

#2 Budget

Spending a big budget such as 10k a month is going to increase the frequency of your ad being shown a lot more than a smaller budget such as 50 or 10 dollars a day.

So again I always continue to keep an eye on that frequency number making sure it doesn’t pass 2.

#3 cost per leads

The ultimate goal is to get the sale or the lead that then turns into a sale and If your results start dropping rapidly then this is where you want to be consider turning off your ad or changing the creative.

If you’ve changed your creative and it's still not making a difference then it’s usually time to drop the ad and turn it off.

#4 Seasonal changes

Due to seasonal spending habits, there could have been a drop due to this.

What I would suggest is that if it was working well, and your frequency isn’t high, switch it off wait a few days or when the season changes and then turn it back on to kick start the algorithm.

#5 Be patient

Be patient with your ads, and let your ads run for longer than you might expect.

You should change your mindset and know that you should run your ads long enough to let the algorithm find your customer.

Facebook at first might seem like it’s not working for some, but the truth is, its machine learning is trying to know everything it can about your customer.

So at least let your ads run for at least 4-7 days, or if you’re going past 2 x times the CPA.

quick summary

1. There is no length of time for how long an ad should run and for best practice always determine everything through your data.
2. Track your purchases, keep it all simple and watch your CPA number.
3. And finally Creative is something you’ll always be changing, never think it’s done once and sit back and let results come in.

You’ll find you’ll need to regularly update your creative when the ad fatigues.

Following all of this you might benefit from learning more about why your ads aren't converting and making sure you're targeting the right audience.