Solved: Duplicate Facebook Ads or Start Fresh Campaigns?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! Happy to give you some of my thoughts on this. It's a really common question, and the advice you've been given isn't totally wrong, but it's based on a massive oversimplification of how the Facebook (Meta) algorithm actually works.

The short answer is no, duplicating a year-old campaign isn't standard practice and it won't magically transfer "hard-earned AI data" in the way you're hoping. The real "learning" doesn't live inside one specific campaign, it's a bit more complex than that. Let's break down what's actually happening and what a better approch might be for your spice business.

Let's clear up this "reusing AI data" idea...

This is probably the biggest myth in the Meta ads world, and it causes a lot of confusion. When people talk about "AI data" or "the algorithm's learning," they're usually picturing it as a little pot of gold stored inside each campaign. The idea is that the longer a campaign runs, the bigger the pot of gold gets, and if you start a new campaign, you lose it all. That’s just not how it works.

The real learning happens in a few different places, and the campaign level is the least important of them all for long-term data.

1. Your Meta Pixel (Dataset): This is the absolute core of your accounts intelligence. It's the peice of code on your website that tracks everything: who visits, who views a product, who adds to cart, and most importantly, who buys. Every single conversion, from every campaign you've ever run, feeds data into this pixel. This is your long-term memory. It's what allows Meta to understand what a "spice buyer" looks like for your specific business. This data is used across your entire ad account, regardless of which campaign it came from. When you start a new campaign, the algorithm leans heavily on this historical pixel data to find the right people from day one.

2. The Ad Set Level: This is where the short-term, active learning happens. When you launch an ad set, it enters the "Learning Phase." During this time, the algorithm is actively spending your budget to explore your chosen audience, figuring out who is most likely to convert based on your campaign objective. It's testing delivery to different pockets of people within your targeting to see who responds best. This learning is specific to that ad set's combination of audience, creative, and objective at that specific point in time.

So, what does duplicating actually do?

It's simply a shortcut. It copies the settings of the old campaign and ad sets—your targeting selections, placements, budget type, etc.—so you don't have to build it all from scratch. That's it. It does not copy over the performance history or the completed learning phase of the original ad set. The new, duplicated ad set starts completely fresh and will enter its own, new Learning Phase. You aren't "reusing" any data; you're just saving yourself five minutes of setup time.

Why restarting after a long break is like starting fresh anyway...

Your situation is a perfect example of why this matters. You haven't run ads since last year's Super Bowl. In the world of digital advertising, a year is an eternity. Think about everything that has changed:

• Your Audience: People's habits and interests have shifted. New competitors might have entered your local market.
• The Platform: Meta has likely updated its algorithm dozens of times since then. The way it optimises and delivers ads is constantly evolving.
• The Creative Landscape: Ad styles that worked a year ago might look dated and ineffective now.

Trying to revive a campaign from that long ago is like trying to navigate a city using a year-old map. The core layout might be the same, but so many crucial details have changed that you're almost guaranteed to get lost. The "learnings" from that campaign are stale. Duplicating it won't help because the environment it was learning in no longer exists.

So, what should you do instead? A simple structure for your spice business...

Instead of thinking in terms of one-off campaigns you turn on and off, I'd strongly recommend building a simple, 'always-on' structure. This gives the algorithm a constant stream of data and allows it to continuously optimise. For a local business like yours, a basic funnel approach is definately the way to go.

You'll create two seperate campaigns:

Campaign 1: Prospecting (Finding New Customers)

• Objective: Sales/Conversions. Always optimise for the final action you want someone to take.
• Audience: This is where you test. Start with broad targeting within your local DMA (Designated Market Area). Create a few ad sets to test different interest groups. For example:
  • Ad Set 1: Interests like 'Cooking', 'Recipes', 'Food & Wine'.
  • Ad Set 2: Interests related to competitors or complementary brands, like 'Weber Grills', 'Big Green Egg', 'HelloFresh'.
  • Ad Set 3: A broad audience with no interest targeting, just your local area, to let the algorithm find buyers based on your pixel data.
• Creative: Use high-quality photos or short videos of your spices in action. Show delicious-looking food being made. Highlight what makes you local and special.

Campaign 2: Retargeting (Winning Back Warm Leads)

• Objective: Sales/Conversions.
• Audience: This is for people who already know you. Create custom audiences for:
  • All website visitors in the last 30 days.
  • People who engaged with your Facebook or Instagram page in the last 90 days.
  • People who added a product to their cart but didn't buy in the last 14 days (this is your most valuable group!).
• Creative: Here you can be more direct. Show customer testimonials, remind them of the items they left in their cart, or offer a small incentive like free local delivery to get them over the line.

This two-campaign structure is simple, effective, and allows Meta's AI to do what it does best: use your rich pixel data to find new customers in the Prospecting campaign, and efficiently close the deal with people who are already interested in the Retargeting campaign.

Let's talk numbers: What can you actually afford to pay?

This brings me to a much more important topic than duplicating campaigns: knowing your numbers. The ultimate goal isn't just to get sales, but to get them profitably. To do that, you need to understand your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). In simple terms, how much profit does an average customer generate for you over their entire relationship with your business?

Why does this matter? Because if you know a customer is worth £200 to you over their lifetime, you suddenly have a very clear idea of how much you can afford to spend to acquire them in the first place (your Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC). A healthy business often aims for a 3:1 LTV to CAC ratio, meaning if your LTV is £200, you can comfortably spend up to £66 to get that customer and still be very profitable.

This math frees you from worrying about small daily fluctuations in ad costs and lets you focus on the bigger picture of profitable growth. I've built a simple calculator for you to play around with your own numbers.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

To wrap things up, here's a clear, actionable plan. Forget about the old campaign and focus on building a solid foundation for the future.

Running ads successfully is less about finding secret tricks and more about applying solid, proven structures consistently. It takes time for the algorithm to learn and for you to gather enough data to make smart decisions, which is why having an expert partner can often accelerate the process significantly by implementing these frameworks correctly from the start.

If you'd like to go over your specific situation and see how a professional strategy could be applied to your business, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation. We can take a look at your account together and give you some more tailored advice.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh