Solved: Best Facebook Ads Testing Strategy with €30 Daily Budget?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

Happy to give you some initial thoughts on your question. It's actually one of the most common questions I see, but the answer isn't as simple as picking option 1 or 2. The truth is, the structure of your campaign is probably the least important part of the equation right now. Both of the structures you mentioned could work, but they could also both fail spectacularly and burn through your €30 a day with nothing to show for it.

The real problem usually lies a few steps before you even get to building the campaign in Ads Manager. It’s about what you’re putting inside that structure – the audience you target, the message you show them, and the offer you make. Get those wrong, and the fanciest campaign structure in the world won’t save you.

So, let's take a step back. I'm going to walk you through a different way of thinking about this, focusing on the foundations you need in place before you worry about adsets and creatives. This is the stuff that actually makes the difference between wasting money and building a profitable advertising engine, especially on a tight budget.

We'll need to look at what you're actually testing, not just how...

The core of your question is about testing. But what are you testing for? The goal isn't just to find a winning creative or a winning adset. The goal is to find a winning message for a winning audience. The campaign structure is just the container for that experiment.

Let's be brutally honest. With a €30 daily budget, you don't have the luxury of running massive, complicated tests. Every single euro has to work as hard as possible. This means you can't afford to test random ideas. You need a ruthless, focused approach that starts with a deep understanding of who you're trying to reach.

Most people fail here. They pick a few broad interests in Meta's targeting options, throw five different ads at them, and pray one sticks. This is like playing the lottery. You might get lucky, but you're far more likely to end up with an empty wallet. We need to replace guesswork with strategy. And that starts with your customer.

Forget the idea of a 'perfect' testing structure for a moment. Instead, let's focus on building the right ingredients. If you have a powerful message and you're showing it to the right group of people, even a simple campaign structure will start to show promise. If you have a weak message or you're showing it to the wrong people, no amount of fiddling with adsets will fix it. You'll just be rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Let's now discuss how to get those core ingredients right. Once we've done that, deciding between 1 adset with 5 creatives or 5 adsets with 1 creative becomes a much simpler, tactical decision rather than a shot in the dark.

I'd say you need to forget demographics and find their nightmare...

Right, this is the most important part of the entire process, and it's where 90% of advertising fails. You need to define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). But I don't mean the useless, sterile profile that most marketing courses tell you to create. "Female, 35-45, lives in a city, interested in yoga" tells you almost nothing of value. "Companies in the tech sector with 50-100 employees" is just as bad. This kind of demographic data leads to generic, boring ads that get ignored because they speak to everyone and therefore no one.

To stop burning your cash, you have to define your customer not by who they are, but by the problem they have. You need to become an obsessive expert in their specific, urgent, expensive, and deeply frustrating nightmare.

Your ICP isn't a person; it's a problem state. Let me give you an example. Say you're selling a project management software. Your ICP isn't "a project manager". It's the project manager who lies awake at 3am because she's terrified of telling her boss that a critical project is behind schedule again. Her nightmare is the constant status update meetings, the confused team members, and the feeling that she's losing control. Your software isn't a "tool with Gantt charts"; it's the solution to that specific nightmare. It's the thing that gives her control back and lets her sleep at night.

For a B2C example, say you sell high-quality, comfortable work-from-home clothing. Your ICP isn't "someone who works from home". It's the person who feels sloppy and unproductive in their pyjamas all day but finds traditional work clothes uncomfortable and restrictive. Their nightmare is that nagging feeling of unprofessionalism, the dread of an unexpected video call, and the discomfort of sitting in jeans at their own kitchen table. Your clothing isn't just "loungewear"; it's the bridge that lets them feel professional and comfortable.

How do you find this nightmare?

You have to do the work. Talk to your existing customers if you have any. If not, go find where your potential customers hang out online. Don't just look for them; listen to them. What are they complaining about? What questions are they asking? What are their biggest frustrations related to the problem you solve?

-> Read forums and subreddits related to your niche.
-> Look at the comments section on blogs and YouTube channels your ICP follows.
-> Find Facebook Groups where they congregate. What are the recurring themes?
-> What are the negative reviews of your competitors' products saying? That's a goldmine of pain points.

Once you have isolated that nightmare, your next job is to figure out where these people live online. This is the blueprint for your targeting. It's not about guessing interests anymore; it's about finding their digital footprint.

-> What specific podcasts do they listen to on their commute?
-> What industry newsletters do they actually open and read?
-> What software tools do they already pay for?
-> What influencers or thought leaders do they follow on Twitter or LinkedIn?
-> Are they members of specific, niche communities?

This level of detailed research turns targeting from a gamble into a calculated move. Instead of targeting the broad interest "Business", you can target people who follow specific business leaders, use specific software (like HubSpot or Salesforce, which can sometimes be targeted as interests), and are members of groups like "SaaS Growth Hacks". The audience will be smaller, but it will be infinitely more relevant. With a €30 budget, relevance is everything. You can't afford to show your ads to anyone who isn't a perfect fit.

Do this work first. Don't spend a single euro until you can describe your customer's biggest problem better than they can themselves. This is the foundation for everything that follows.

You probably should stop selling features and start selling relief...

Once you know your customer's nightmare, you can finally write an ad that they can't ignore. This is the second core ingredient. Most ads are terrible because they talk about the company or the product. They list features, specs, and details. Nobody cares.

People care about their own problems. Your ad's only job is to show them that you understand their problem and have a way to solve it. It needs to speak directly to the pain you identified in the last step. There are a couple of simple, powerful frameworks for this.

For a service or a product that solves a complex problem, use Problem-Agitate-Solve (PAS).

1. Problem: State the nightmare you identified, using the exact language they would use. Grab their attention immediately by showing you get it.
2. Agitate: Pour a little salt in the wound. Describe the consequences and frustrations of the problem. Make them feel the pain and the urgency to solve it.
3. Solve: Introduce your product or service as the clear, simple solution. The way out of the nightmare.

Let's use our work-from-home clothing example. A bad, feature-based ad would say: "Introducing our new line of WFH wear! Made from 100% organic cotton with a relaxed fit. Available in 5 colours. Shop now!"

A PAS ad would say: "Another day in your pyjamas feeling like you haven't really started? (Problem) That unexpected video call sends you into a panic, and trying to work in 'real' clothes just feels stiff and horrible. It's hard to feel like a pro when you feel like you're still in bed. (Agitate) Our collection is designed to be the bridge. The polish of a work outfit with the comfort of your favourite loungewear. Look sharp, feel amazing, and own your day. (Solve)"

See the difference? The first ad sells clothes. The second sells confidence and professionalism.

For a product or software that creates a clear transformation, use Before-After-Bridge.

1. Before: Describe their current world. The world filled with the nightmare problem.
2. After: Paint a picture of the new world. The world where the problem is gone, and they're enjoying the benefits.
3. Bridge: Position your product as the bridge that gets them from the 'Before' state to the 'After' state.

Using our project management software example. A bad, feature-based ad: "Our PM tool has Kanban boards, reporting dashboards, and team integrations. Sign up for a demo!"

A Before-After-Bridge ad: "Your project status is a mess of spreadsheets and conflicting email chains. You're constantly chasing people for updates and dreading the next meeting. (Before) Imagine opening one single dashboard and seeing exactly where every project stands, in real-time. Your team is clear on their tasks, and you're confidently hitting your deadlines. (After) Our platform is the bridge that turns chaos into clarity. See how in a free 14-day trial. (Bridge)"

To illustrate the difference, consider this comparison:

Your creative (the image or video) should do the same thing. It should visually represent the 'After' state or the pain of the 'Before' state. Your ad copy and your creative must work together to tell this story. With your small budget, you probably can't afford to test 5 completely different ad concepts. It's better to perfect one really strong, problem-focused ad and then maybe test small variations of it (e.g., a different headline or a different image) later on.

You'll need to stop paying Facebook to find non-customers...

This is a major trap that people with small budgets fall into. They see the option for "Brand Awareness" or "Reach" campaigns and think it's a cheap way to get their name out there. This is a catastrophic mistake. It is the fastest way to burn your €30 a day and get absolutely nothing in return.

Here's the uncomfortable truth. When you tell the Meta algorithm to optimise for 'Reach', you are giving it a very specific command: "Find me the largest number of people inside my target audience for the lowest possible price."

The algorithm, being the ruthlessly efficient machine it is, does exactly what you asked. It goes out and finds all the people in your audience who are least likely to ever click an ad, least likely to engage, and absolutely, positively least likely to ever buy anything. Why? Because those people's attention is not in demand. They are cheap to show ads to. You are actively paying one of the world's most powerful advertising systems to find you the worst possible audience for your actual business goals.

You are not a global brand like Coca-Cola or Nike. You cannot afford to spend money just to be "seen". Every euro you spend must have a chance of bringing back more money in return. This means you must always optimise your campaigns for a conversion event that is as close to a sale as possible.

This means choosing campaign objectives like "Sales" or "Leads". Yes, the cost per click (CPC) or cost per thousand impressions (CPM) will look higher. This scares people. They see a €0.10 CPC for a Reach campaign and a €1.50 CPC for a Sales campaign and think the Reach campaign is "cheaper". It's not. It's just a more efficient way of wasting money.

You need to show your ads to people who have a history of doing what you want them to do. People who click 'Shop Now' and actually buy things. People who fill out lead forms. Meta knows who these people are. The 'Sales' objective tells the algorithm to go find those people. The 'Reach' objective tells it to find their exact opposite.

For one B2B software client, we were able to reduce their cost per user acquisition from £100 to £7 on Meta Ads by focusing on conversion optimisation. This demonstrates the power of optimising for action over mere reach.

Awareness is a byproduct of making sales and having a great product that solves a real problem. It is not a prerequisite to making your first sale. Don't pay for awareness. Pay for action.

Finally, The Structure - How to Test on €30 a Day

Right, now that we've laid all the critical groundwork – a nightmare-focused ICP, problem-solving ad copy, and a conversion-focused campaign objective – we can finally talk about the structure. With all those pieces in place, this part becomes much simpler.

Given your €30/day budget, I would strongly recommend against splitting it across multiple campaigns. You need to give Meta's algorithm enough data and budget to learn effectively. Spreading it too thin is a recipe for disaster. So, my advice is to go with a variation of your option #1, but with a more strategic approach.

This is the main advice I have for you:

Your starting point should be 1 Campaign (ABO - Adset Budget Optimization) > 2-3 Adsets > 1-2 Ads per Adset.

Why ABO and not CBO (Campaign Budget Optimization)? Because with a tiny budget, CBO can be unpredictable. It might spend all your money on one adset before the others get a fair chance. ABO lets you control the spend per adset, which is better for a structured test at this scale. You can allocate, say, €10-€15 to each of your 2-3 adsets.

What goes in the adsets?

This is where your ICP research comes in. Your first adsets should be your best, most educated guesses at a winning audience based on that research. Don't test random interests. Each adset should represent a distinct 'hypothesis' about your customer.

-> Adset 1: Core Interests. Group together 3-5 of the most relevant interests you found. For our PM software example, this might be interests like "Asana", "Trello", "Project Management Institute", and people who follow a specific PM thought leader.
-> Adset 2: Shoulder Interests. These are interests that your ICP likely has, but aren't directly related to your product. For the PM, this might be interests in productivity podcasts, or software like "Slack" or "HubSpot".
-> Adset 3 (Optional): Broad. If you have an established pixel with lots of data, you could test one adset with no interest targeting at all, just age, gender, and location. But for a new account, stick to interest-based adsets.

What goes in the ads?

Inside each adset, start with your 1-2 best ads. These should be the ads you crafted using the PAS or Before-After-Bridge framework. They should be almost identical across the adsets, so you are truly testing the audiences against each other. You could have one image ad and one video ad, or two image ads with slightly different headlines. But don't test wildly different concepts at the same time as different audiences. That's too many variables.

The recommended starting structure is as follows:

Let this run for at least 4-7 days without touching it. You need to give it time to exit the learning phase. With €30/day, you won't get tons of conversions quickly, so you need patience. Look at the leading indicators: are you getting clicks? What's the cost per click (CPC)? Are people landing on your page? After a week, you can assess. If one adset is getting much cheaper clicks and maybe a conversion or two, while the other has spent money and done nothing, you have a winner. You can then turn off the loser and allocate its budget to the winner, or use it to test a new audience hypothesis.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. The goal of this first phase is just to find ONE audience and ONE ad that shows a glimmer of hope. Once you find that, you can start building from there – creating lookalike audiences, testing new creatives to that winning audience, and slowly scaling your budget.

As you can see, the path to making a small budget work is paved with disciplined strategy, not random testing. It's about doing the hard work up front to understand your customer so that every euro you spend has the highest possible chance of success.

This is obviously a lot to take in, and implementing it correctly requires experience. Getting this wrong can be the difference between a campaign that builds your business and one that just drains your bank account. Many business owners find that getting expert help to set up these foundational elements is the best investment they can make, as it saves them a fortune in wasted ad spend down the line.

If you'd like to go over your specific business and how this approach could be tailored to you, we offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can review your plans and give you some direct guidance. It might be a good next step to make sure you start off on the right foot.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh