Let’s be honest. There is a lot of bad advice out there about how to scale Facebook ads.
I see strategies being pushed in agencies and courses that overcomplicate everything and, frankly, burn money.
If you are looking at a campaign and wondering why it isn’t scaling, listen up. I’m going to break down one specific scaling tactic that I absolutely hate, and I’m going to tell you exactly how I prefer to handle it.
The CBO Foundation
First, let’s establish the baseline. If you watch my content, you know my preferred setup.
I start everything with Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO). I set a minimum budget to ensure decent distribution, and that is it. I keep the structure simple and let Facebook’s algorithm do the heavy lifting initially.
But the problem isn’t usually how people start; it’s how they try to scale.
The “New Campaign” Trap
Here is the thing I don’t like that I see constantly:
You have a campaign that is working. The ads are good. The ROAS is there. You want to spend more money.
So, what do many media buyers do? They launch a brand new CBO campaign loaded with the exact same assets that are winning in the original campaign.
Why? I genuinely don’t see why you would start a new CBO and force a brand new optimization phase just to scale something that works.
While it is sometimes good to “renew” campaigns, simply cloning winning ads into a new structure is inefficient. You are essentially resetting the learning phase and hoping the new campaign catches the same wave the old one did.
The Better Way to Scale: Give Facebook a “Reason”
Instead of launching new campaigns with old ads, I prefer to restructure existing, winning campaigns with new creatives.
If a campaign is already working, don’t abandon it. Feed it.
When you introduce brand new creatives or new messaging angles into a live, successful CBO, you are giving Facebook a reason to optimize that campaign even further.
You aren’t just restructuring with the same old things; you are providing fresh data points. This allows the algorithm to find new pockets of inventory and new audience segments within a structure that already has proven history.
Stop Micromanaging Placements
There is another side to this that drives me crazy, carried over from my days working in an agency where I was obligated to apply strategies I didn’t agree with. (If my old boss is watching this… just kidding. Sort of.)
I used to be forced to analyze minuscule aspects of data before launching a scaling CBO. For example, we would see that “Facebook Feed” had the best performance in the test campaign.
So, the “strategy” was to launch a new scaling CBO targeted only at the Facebook Feed placement.
This is archaic. In the current era of Meta ads, restricting placements like that is usually a mistake. Trust the CBO. If the Feed is performing best, the CBO will naturally spend most of the money there anyway. Don’t force it by restricting the algorithm’s options.
The Takeaway
Stop trying to outsmart the machine with complex campaign structures.
- Start simple with CBO.
- When something works, don’t clone it into a new campaign to scale it.
- Scale by injecting new creative angles into your winning campaigns.
Your campaign structure shouldn’t be doing the heavy lifting; your creative should.
CLICK BELOW TO SEE SOME AD ACCOUNTS I MANAGED
Showcasing Results: How My Managed Ad Accounts Exceed Expectations
