Solved: Campaign stuck in learning phase, low ROAS, need help!

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on your campaign. It sounds like you're running into some very common, and very frustrating, issues that pop up when you first get started with Meta ads. A lot of the "common wisdom" out there about things like the learning phase can actually do more harm than good.

The good news is that most of this is fixable. Your questions about creatives, the learning phase, and ROAS are all connected. It's less about tweaking one little setting and more about getting the overall strategy and mindset right. Let's get into it.

First off, let's talk about this 'learning phase'...

Right, let's get this out of the way first because it's the biggest myth in paid advertising and it's costing people a fortune. You're worried about editing your campaign while it's in the learning phase. The truth is, you should be more worried about letting it learn the wrong things.

The "learning phase" is just Meta's algorythm gathering data. It's trying to figure out who is most likely to convert based on the initial data it gets. It needs about 50 conversions per ad set in a 7-day window to get a stable idea of this. When you hear you shouldn't touch it, what people *mean* is you shouldn't make massive, drastic changes that force the algorithm to start its learning process from scratch. It's not a fragile vase that shatters if you look at it the wrong way.

What causes the learning phase to reset completely?

• -> Changing your campaign objective (e.g. from Sales to Leads).
• -> Changing your conversion event (e.g. from Add to Cart to Purchase).
• -> Making a huge budget change all at once (a good rule of thumb is to avoid changing it more than about 20% every 24 hours).
• -> Completely changing your targeting audience in an ad set.

What does NOT cause a significant reset, and what you should absolutely do when needed?

• -> Adding a new creative (ad) to an existing ad set.
• -> Turning off a poorly performing creative.
• -> Adding an exclusion audience (like past purchasers!).

You said you forgot to exclude people who already purchased. This is a critical mistake, but a very common one. Every single penny you spend showing an ad for a product to someone who *just bought it* is completely wasted. You must fix this immediately. Go into your ad set settings, find the 'Custom Audiences' section, and in the 'Exclude' box, add an audience of everyone who has purchased in the last 180 days. The tiny blip this might cause in the learning algorithm is nothing compared to the money you're currently burning. Do it now.

You need more creatives, and you need them now...

Your question about adding more creatives is spot on. Nine is not a lot. In fact, it's barely scratching the surface. For our eCommerce clients, we often launch with 20-30 different creative variations. The game on Meta is won by creative testing. You have to throw a lot at the wall to see what sticks, because you, me, and everyone else are terrible at predicting which ad will actually resonate with people.

How to add them correctly: Go into your campaign and navigate to your ad set. Find your best-performing ad so far (or any of them, really) and click 'Duplicate'. This will create a copy of the ad *within the same ad set*. Now, you can change the image, video, or headline in this new, duplicated ad. That's it. Don't duplicate the campaign or the ad set. By keeping all the ads in one ad set, you allow Meta's algorithm to do what it does best: allocate the budget to the ads that are performing the best. This is called Creative Dynamic Optimisation (CDO) and it's the right way to test.

But don't just test nine different pictures of your product. You need to test different *angles* and *hooks*. Your product is $43. What problem does it solve? Who is it for? Why should they care? The message is far more important than the visuals.

Think about it using these frameworks:

• Problem-Agitate-Solve: Start with the pain point. For example, if you sell a skincare product: "Tired of dry, flaky skin ruining your confidence? (Problem) It feels like you've tried every moisturiser on the shelf, and nothing works for more than an hour. (Agitate) Our hydro-boost serum locks in moisture for 24 hours, giving you the smooth, glowing skin you deserve. (Solve)"
• Before-After-Bridge: Paint a picture of their current world, their desired world, and how your product gets them there. "Imagine waking up and not having to spend 30 minutes styling your frizzy hair. (Before) Now, imagine effortless, sleek hair that stays perfect all day. (After) Our anti-frizz spray is the bridge. One spray is all it takes. (Bridge)"

You need to be testing different hooks, different body copy, different images, different videos, and different calls to action. It's the combination of these elements that creates a winning ad. Below is a simple flowchart illustrating how you should approach this. You need a systematic process, not just random guesses.

A 1.89 ROAS isn't a price issue, it's an offer issue...

This is probably the most important piece of advice I can give you. You see a low Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) of 1.89 and your first instinct is "my product is too expensive, I should lower the price". This is almost always the wrong move.

A 1.89 ROAS means for every £1 you spend on ads, you're getting £1.89 back in revenue. Let's assume your product costs you something to make and ship, say your gross margin is 50%. That means of the £1.89 you make, only £0.95 is profit. You spent £1 to make £0.95. You are losing money on every single sale. Lowering the price will make this even worse. If you drop your price to $35, your ROAS will have to be much higher just to break even.

You don't have a price problem. You have an *offer* problem. The question isn't "how can I make my product cheaper?" it's "how can I make my offer more valuable so people are willing to spend more?". The goal is to increase your Average Order Value (AOV).

Here are some ways to do that for a $43 product:

• Bundles: This is the easiest win. Create a bundle. "Buy 2, Get 1 50% Off". Or "The Complete Starter Kit" which includes your main product plus two smaller, related accessories for $79. You've now more than doubled your AOV. Your ROAS might drop a bit, but your overall profit will skyrocket. I remember one campaign we ran for an eCommerce client selling cleaning products where we helped them achieve a 633% return.
• Value-Adds: What can you add to the offer that costs you very little but increases the perceived value? A free eBook? A video tutorial series? Free access to a private community? These things make the $43 price tag seem like a bargain.
• Risk Reversal: A strong guarantee can push hesitant buyers over the edge. "Try it for 60 days. If you don't love it, we'll give you a full refund and you can keep the product." This shows immense confidence and removes all risk for the buyer.

The single best way to make your ad campaigns profitable is to get customers to spend more money in a single transaction. Use the calculator below. Play with the AOV slider. You'll see how a small increase in what each customer spends has a much bigger impact on your bottom line than trying to squeeze another 10% out of your ROAS.

So what if you don't hit 50 conversions?...

You're worried about not getting 50 conversions in 7 days. I get it. Meta puts that number everywhere and it makes it seem like a magic threshold for success. It's not. It's simply the point at which their system has enough data to make highly stable predictions. Many, many profitable campaigns never consistently hit that number, especially if you're selling a higher-priced item or have a smaller budget. For some of our B2B software clients, for example, a much higher cost per acquisition is perfectly acceptable because the lifetime value of a customer is so high, and they certainly aren't getting 50 of those a week on a small budget.

The algorithm will still optimise with 40 conversions, or 30, or 20. It just might be a bit less efficient. The real question you should be asking isn't "How do I get 50 conversions?" but "How much can I afford to pay for a customer?". This shifts your focus from a vanity metric (exiting the learning phase) to a business metric (profitability).

To answer that, you need to know your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). How much is one customer worth to you over their entire relationship with your brand? Do they buy once and disappear, or do they come back and buy again? Calculating this, even roughly, is one of the most powerful things you can do for your business. It tells you exactly how much you can afford to spend to acquire a customer (your Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC) and remain profitable.

A healthy business model often aims for an LTV:CAC ratio of 3:1. This means if a customer is worth £300 to you over their lifetime, you can afford to spend up to £100 to acquire them. Suddenly, a cost per purchase of £25 on your ads looks like an absolute bargain.

Use the calculator below to get a rough idea of your LTV. This single number will give you more clarity on your ad performance than anything Meta's dashboard tells you.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

There's a lot to take in here, so I've broken down the most urgent actions into a simple table. This is the main advice I have for you to implement right away. Focus on these things first, as they will have the biggest impact on your campaign's performance and, more importantly, your profitability.

This can all feel like a lot to manage, especially when you're also trying to run the rest of your business. Getting an expert eye on your account can cut through the noise and get you to profitability much faster. We've seen these same issues countless times across hundreds of accounts, from eCommerce stores selling women's apparel (where we've hit a 691% return) to software companies trying to get signups for under £2.

The principles are always the same: test relentlessly, focus on the offer, and understand your numbers. If you'd like to go through your account together on a call and build a specific, actionable plan for your business, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can take a proper look at your campaigns and give you a clear roadmap for what to do next.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh