Solved: Facebook Ad Rejection Issue When Converting to CBO

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

I've reviewed the situation you described. It's a classic Facebook ads pickle – you've got something that's working a treat, but the platform itself seems to be putting a spanner in the works when you try and scale. It’s a common story and you're right to be cautious, but being too cautious can often be the very thing that stalls your growth. I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts, hopefully it gives you a bit of a clearer path forward. The core issue isn't just about ABO vs CBO or a single rejected ad; it's about building a more resilient and truly scalable advertising system so that one little problem doesn't bring the whole thing to a halt.

We'll need to look at your scaling mindset...

Alright, let's get straight to it. The way you're thinking about scaling is, if I'm being brutally honest, holding you back. Increasing a budget from £10 to £12.50 isn't a scaling strategy; it's a timid nudge. The algorithm barely registers such a small change. It's like trying to make a car go faster by polishing the bonnet. You're right that big, sudden budget changes can shock an adset back into the learning phase and mess with performance, but the changes you're making are so small they're unlikely to have any meaningful impact, positive or negative.

Scaling isn't about protecting one or two winning adsets like they're priceless Faberge eggs. It's about having a system that constantly finds new winners and efficiently allocates budget to them. Your current problem highlights a bigger weakness: your entire scaling plan hinges on one ad creative. When that ad got rejected, your plan fell apart. That's not a scalable setup, it's a house of cards. A proper scaling strategy shouldn't be fragile. It should be robust, able to withstand the wierd and wonderful world of Facebook's automated review system.

I've seen this happen countless times. A client comes to us with a 'golden adset' they're terrified to touch. But that one adset is often a fluke, a lucky combination of factors that won't last forever. True scale comes from a structured process of testing and iteration, not from clinging to past successes. You need to shift your mindset from "how do I protect this thing that's working?" to "how do I build a machine that reliably produces things that work?". This means being prepared to be a bit bolder, to risk a bit of short-term instability for long-term, significant growth.

I remember one campaign we worked on for a subscription box client was in a similar spot. They had two ABO adsets delivering a fantastic return, but they'd been stuck at the same daily spend for months, too scared to change anything. Their growth had completely flatlined. The first thing we did was move to a CBO structure and started agressively testing new creatives and audiences. Did some of the tests fail? Of course. But within a few weeks, we'd found new combinations that allowed them to triple their daily spend while maintaining their target ROAS, eventually hitting a 1000% return. They had to get over that initial fear of breaking what was working to unlock that next level of growth.

I'd say you need to rethink the ABO vs CBO debate...

Your question about converting your existing campaign to CBO is the right one, but your fear about it is based on a slight misunderstanding. Yes, changing from ABO to CBO can trigger a re-review of the ads within it. It’s a risk. But given that your best ad is already on thin ice and can't be used in new adsets, you're already in a compromised position. Playing it safe isn't really an option anymore because your current path leads to a dead end. You can't scale by duplicating the adset, so what's the alternative? Stagnation.

CBO (Campaign Budget Optimisation) is designed for scaling. It lets Facebook's algorithm do the heavy lifting, automatically shifting your budget to the best-performing adsets and ads in real-time. With ABO (Adset Budget Optimisation), you're manually trying to do what the algorithm is built to do automatically, but with far less data. You're giving £10 to Adset A and £10 to Adset B, even if Adset B could generate twice the results with £15 and Adset A would only generate half the results with £5. CBO fixes this inefficiency.

The fear of campaigns competing with each other (your concern #2) is generally overblown, especially at your budget level. It's called 'audience overlap'. While it's a real thing, Facebook is pretty good at managing it, and it becomes much more of a concern at significantly higher spend levels. Structuring your campaigns properly is a better way to manage this than avoiding CBO altogether.

So, what should you do? I wouldn't convert the existing campaign. Don't touch it. Let that £40/day campaign continue to be your 'control' group, your golden goose for as long as it lasts. Instead, you should build a new CBO campaign designed for scaling from the ground up.

Here's a look at how that structure might work. We're moving from a fragmented approach to a consolidated one.

In this new CBO campaign, you'd put all your winning audiences as seperate adsets. The CBO will figure out which one is strongest on any given day and give it more money. Then, inside each adset, you need to give it new ads to test (which we'll get to next). This is how you scale. You find the winning combination of audience AND creative, and the CBO does the work of funding it. Your job is to feed the machine with new, strong contenders.

You probably should stop relying on a single 'golden' ad...

The fact that one ad accounts for 70% of your sales was never a strength; it was a critical vulnerability. You've just experienced the consequence of that. A single ad creative is not a business strategy. You need a creative system. You should always have multiple, fundamentally different ad creatives running and a pipeline of new ideas ready to deploy.

Your immediate priority should be to create at least 3-5 new ads that are completely distinct from your 'golden' one. Don't just change the headline. Change the image, the video, the copy, the angle, the core message. You're trying to find your next winning ad, not just a pale imitation of your last one.

Think about why your best ad worked. What problem did it solve? What emotion did it tap into? Now, how can you communicate that same value proposition in a totally different way? I've run ads for B2B SaaS where a polished corporate video performed okay, but a raw, user-generated-style (UGC) video shot on a phone absolutely crushed it, reducing our CPA from over £100 down to just £7. The message was the same, but the delivery was more authentic and resonated better. You need to test these different formats.

Let's try and build out some new angles using a proven copywriting formula. Let's assume you sell, for example, a high-quality leather wallet for men.