It’s a somewhat complicated question…
There’s a fear among advertisers related to making changes to active ads. In some cases, that fear is justified. In others, it’s unwarranted.
BudgetA budget is an amount you're willing to spend on your Facebook campaigns or ad sets on a daily or lifetime basis. More Changes
The primary reason you might make a change to ads that are working is to increase your budget. While this is something that created great anxiety in the past, advertisers can make these changes more easily these days.
The big fear is restarting the learning phase, which could mean you won’t ever get those results back again. But Meta is much more forgiving about budget increases now. You also may see messages that nudge you to increase to a specific amount that won’t restart learning.
Ad SetAn ad set is a Facebook ads grouping where settings like targeting, scheduling, optimization, and placement are determined. More Changes
That said, you should mostly leave the ad set untouched. Don’t mess with the targeting, placements, performance goal, or bidding. If there’s ever a reason to change these settings, I tend to prefer creating a new ad set and starting over. The reason is that these types of changes can be so significant, it’s like creating a new ad set.
Ad Changes
Any significant edits to the ad itself should be discouraged at all costs. These changes will not only restart learning, but they will generate a new post and you’ll lose social proof.
I know how difficult it can be to let an ad sit out there with a typo. If you catch it right away, you’re fine to make the edit. But, there is an argument for keeping the typo as it often attracts engagement.
If you’re confident the results will remain stable, go ahead and make that change. Or if your results aren’t that amazing to begin with, there’s no reason to be afraid of restarting learning. Make that change if there’s a good reason to do it.
Changes I Make
The most common change I’ll make is adding new ads to an active ad set. When possible, I try to include all of the ads I’ll need at the time I publish the campaignThe campaign is the foundation of your Facebook ad. This is where you'll set an advertising objective, which defines what you want your ad to achieve. More, but sometimes this can’t be avoided.
Making this change will restart learning. For the most part, it’s not something I’m worried about. I rarely see negative impact from going back into learning due to adding more creative. If anything, I might see it helps.
Overall, I avoid major or unnecessary changes in favor of stability. If a campaign, ad set, or ad needs a significant change that will drastically alter how it performs, I’ll often just stop and recreate it.
How do you approach changes?
