Today we were asked this question on our Mastermind. “After launching an ad on Facebook (and Instagram) and getting it running, what’s the normal life cycle of that ad?”

Great question, let’s break down what you can expect and how to manage your ad to keep it performing well, so you’re free to focus on other areas of your business.

First, it’s normal for a good ad to last a long time. In fact, one agent using StreetText, Chase Whitney, launched an ad in 2023… and it’s still running awesome today. (See the image below.) It is generating leads and winning at the ad auction. You’ll notice that lead cost is actually improving!

Here’s how you can get the same results after launching your ad and getting traction.

Businesses have collected more than 6 million unique contacts from advertising on our platform. And we analyze hundreds of thousands of ads every month. Here’s what we’ve learned.

Best practices if the ad is doing well:

Step 1: Avoid aggressively changing the campaign/adset budget.

Meta’s algorithm will think you’re not happy, and will go in search of a new audience to match your ad, and often that can crater the performance of a great ad.

Step 2: Do not pause the ad for more than 1 or 2 days.

Our stats show that pausing an ad for more than 48 hours causes Meta to reset it. Meta goes into a relearning process and tries to find a new audience.

Step 3: Keep an eye on comments.

It sounds obvious when you hear it. Ads start to falter if they get overly negative comments or if comments go without a reply. Your ads are the window to your business. Show the audience that there’s someone friendly who is there to respond to their questions.

Best practices if the ad is struggling:

If you’ve done everything above, and the ad performance is tapering off a cliff, we do something we like to call “Ad CPR.”

Step 1: Check the daily ad spend. If the daily spend is decreasing compared with your daily budget, decrease the budget to match the spend.

It’s a simple trick, but it brings the budget in line with the audience Meta is matching it against. If it starts performing well again, then you can slowly increase the budget back to where it was.

Step 2: If that is still not working, relaunch the ad 3 times.

Using StreetText, this is simple to do. Click the “re-use ad” button above the ad and set it as a 3 ad split test. Then after 24 hours keep the winner, and turn off the two worst performers.

Here’s how to do it manually.

Create a new ad that matches the original ad. If you can re-use the original ad post do that to keep the engagement.

Important! Do not click “duplicate” in Meta, as that will carry the ad’s reputation and audience history over. You want to find a new audience. So to help Meta do that, create a new campaign, new asset, and new ad. The goal is to tap into a new audience that is right for the ad creative. Do this three times. After 24 hours, turn off the two worst performers, and keep the best performing ad running.

Final notes

In short: If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

The data shows that it’s better to run more ads at a lower budget on Meta, than it is to run one ad with a bigger budget. You’ll tend to get better audience matches and leads at a lower cost.

When an ad is working, it’s best to leave it alone. Let it do its thing, while you are free to do your thing. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments.

Hope you have a stellar day! Happy advertising.