Let's be honest. No one loves budgeting. That's why we're here to help give you all the answers you need and hopefully save you the hassle of some serious number crunching. In this guide, we'll walk through proven tactics to help you determine the right budget to use with your Proxima audiences for Meta ads.
Overview
We've got two different setup paths based on how much budget your brand can allocate to testing your first set of Proxima audiences:
Basic: Recommended for brands with smaller budget limitations, unable to allocate 10x their in-platform CPA to testing
Launch all 5 Proxima audiences stacked into a single ad set at the maximum test budget available in an ABO campaign
Advanced: Recommended for brands that can commit 10x their in-platform CPA or more in test budget
Launch all 5 Proxima audiences in their own ad sets, each with a daily budget set to at least 2x your in-platform CPA with ABO turned on
When to begin optimizing (Basic + Advanced)
We recommend waiting until you've spent at least 30x your in-platform CPA on Proxima audiences to begin adjusting their budgets.
For example: If your daily budget for each of the 5 audiences is set to 2x your in-platform CPA, wait at least 3 days to begin scaling individual audiences.
Another example: If your daily budget for each of the 5 audiences is set to 1x your in-platform CPA, wait at least 6 days to adjust budgets.
Advanced: Budget guidelines 💰
The goal of the first 5-7 days is to spend against each of your 5 Proxima audiences at even levels with budgets substantial enough to observe significant performance differences between them.
If you are spending less than $100k per month account-wide:
We recommend setting each ad set to at least 2x your in-platform CPA. This gives Meta enough budget per ad set to start producing conversions quickly and help you evaluate where you should start shifting dollars.
Okay, let's do some math. Say your in-platform L30D CPA is $60:
$60 x 2 = $120
$120 x 5 audiences = $600 daily
If you are spending between $100k - $150k per month account-wide:
We recommend setting each ad set to at least 3x your in-platform CPA. This gives Meta enough budget per ad set to start producing conversions quickly and help you evaluate where you should start shifting dollars.
Okay, let's get into some numbers. Say your in-platform L30D CPA is $60:
$60 x 3 = $180
$180 x 5 audiences = $900 daily
If you are spending more than $150k per month account-wide:
We recommend setting each ad set to at least 5x your in-platform CPA. This gives Meta enough budget per ad set to start producing conversions quickly and help you evaluate where you should start shifting dollars.
Okay, let's math it up. Say your in-platform L30D CPA is $60:
$60 x 5 = $300
$300 x 5 audiences = $1500 daily
💡 Tip: If you plan to run other LAL sizes or broad audiences within your campaign, we recommend using ABO or setting minimum spend constraints on the ad sets
Basic: Guidelines for working with a limited budget 💰
Stack all Proxima audiences into one ad set
Turn on ABO with the highest volume bid strategy
If you would like to test Proxima audiences under a cost cap bid strategy, please be sure to select the 10% LAL size as these perform best under a cap
Scale your audiences 📈
Now that your audiences are up and running, let's walk through some tips for how to scale them successfully. But before we get into it, let's make sure the audiences have had enough time live before making any budget changes. Following the first 5-7 days, we recommend turning off any audiences with performance you’re not happy with, stacking audiences that are delivering close to average performance into a single ad set, and gradually scaling the audiences with performance you’re happy with.
How long should you let the audiences run before increasing budgets is dependent on a few things:
Initial Budget
If you started your budget lower than 2x your CPA, the audiences may need more time to heat up before assessing which ones you should scale or turn off. A good rule of thumb is if an ad set has not materialized a conversion after spending 6x your in-platform CPA, we recommend shutting off the ad set and reallocating budget to other Proxima ad sets.
Bid Strategy
If you are running under a cost per result goal or cost cap, it may take longer for the audiences to have spent enough to make a decision on what ad sets to scale.
💡 Tip: If you have been running your ad sets under a cost cap and can't get them to spend after 7 days, try swapping out the creative to see if it helps increase spend levels
After you have identified the ad sets you want to scale
Increase the budget by 20-50%
Continue to increase the ad sets by 20-50% every few days or until you have reached your desired scale
⚠️ Avoid a hard reset or too large of budget changes as it forces FB to relearn on the adset ⚠️
Situations that can force a hard reset include:
50% budget drops
200% spend increase
More than one significant change in budget over a 24-48 hour period
How to tell if you’ve forced a hard reset? The ads in the ad set will go back to "pending"