Campaign Level Budget vs. Ad Set Level Budget: Which Should You Use for Your Paid Facebook Ad Campaigns? [2023 Edition]
Wondering which budget option is right for your Facebook Ad Campaigns? No matter your business model or offer, this post will teach you everything you need to know.
“Determining your budget type depends on your answer to two questions: 1) Do you want to budget at the campaign or ad set level? 2) Do you want your budget spent over the lifetime of a campaign or based on a daily average?” - AdEspresso by Hootsuite
Facebook Ads: Budget Optimization
If you have ever ran a paid ad campaign on Facebook, you’ve probably wondered “Should I use a campaign level budget or should I set my budget at the ad set level?”
This post will explain the difference between campaign level and ad set level budget optimizations and when to use each.
Campaign Level Budget vs. Ad Set Level Budget
Campaign budget optimization (titled “Advantage Campaign Budget” in Facebook ads manager, also referred to by many advertisers as CBO) lets Facebook automatically distribute your budget across all ad sets within your campaign according to performance, whereas ad set budget optimization allows you to set specific budgets for each ad set which will stay the same unless manually changed (the idea here is you change the budgets yourself based on what you see in the campaign’s performance metrics).
CBO Advantages
Allowing Facebook to distribute your budget across all ad sets within your campaign according to performance is advantageous to you because:
1) Facebook’s machine learning system is incredibly smart. With CBO, Facebook gives more spend to the ad sets that are performing best and less spend to the ad sets that are underperforming (based on whatever campaign objective you chose). This means you get the most bang for your buck by avoiding spending large amounts of your budget on ad sets that aren’t working.
2) It is simple and saves you time. By letting Facebook’s machine learning system decide where to give your budget based on performance, you avoid having to go into every individual ad set and adjust the budget yourself (however, some people prefer to adjust each ad set manually which I will touch on next).
ABO Advantages
Choosing how much budget each individual ad set gets is advantageous to you because:
1) You have complete control. You decide how much budget goes to each ad set and you can adjust that budget whenever you would like. This method is for advertisers who are constantly monitoring their campaigns and prefer to manually optimize based on whatever conversion they’re trying to drive.
2) If you’re prioritizing budgets based on metrics that Facebook’s algorithm can’t track, you can adequately spend your budget on the ad sets that will deliver the results you’re looking for.
The Real Question: When Should You Use CBO vs ABO?
The best choice for you will depend on your business goals and what specific conversions you are trying to drive through your campaigns.
Both budget options exist to be used, there is no such thing as “CBO always performs better than ABO” or vice versa. It’s all about your skill level as a Facebook Advertiser coupled with your business offer and goals.
In most cases, you’ll want to use CBO if you’re optimizing for purchases and don’t have time to monitor your campaigns close enough to manually adjust the budgets. You are not any less of an advertiser for using CBO because you have limited time. Facebook’s algorithm in CBO campaigns often produces better results than advertisers using ABO to manually adjust their budgets.
In most cases, you’ll want to use ABO if you want complete control over your budget and believe you can outperform Facebook’s algorithm. At times, Facebook’s algorithm in CBO campaigns may not give enough spend to certain ad sets in order to give them a fair chance. This means Facebook is telling you they don’t work but you don’t actually know if that’s true because they didn’t get enough spend to accurately test their worth.
Conclusion
Test, test, test! Test using CBO and ABO in your Facebook advertising and see which method drives better results for you and your specific business. Whichever method drives the most results for your business is the one you should use.
Additional Resources
Have additional questions? Or are you looking to customize a Facebook ads strategy to you or your client’s particular business? You can set up a 100% FREE consultation with me at jasethorne.com.
The Facebook Business Help Center is another great resource that can answer your questions and provide foundational knowledge on Facebook advertising.
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