Solved: Scaling Facebook Bidcap Campaigns Vertically

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out! It's a really common situation to be in – you've finally got a campaign that's working well on Facebook, and now you're terrified that looking at it the wrong way will make it implode. Honestly, being cautious is the right move, especially with how volatile the platform has been this year. The problem you're having with duplicating the campaign and seeing performance crash is something I've seen countless times. It's frustrating, but it tells us a lot about how the algorithm is working.

You're right that you'll need to scale vertically, but the old "just increase the budget by 20%" advice is a bit too simplistic and can often lead to just as many problems. There's a much more robust and reliable way to think about scaling that involves understanding *why* your campaign is working, transitioning to a more flexible bidding strategy, and building a campaign structure that's designed for growth from the ground up, rather than relying on one fragile, high-performing campaign.

I'm happy to give you some of my initial thoughts and guidance on this. We'll walk through why horizontal scaling is likely failing you, how to approach vertical scaling in a more controlled way, and then introduce the concepts that truly unlock scale, like ROAS bidding and proper campaign architecture. Let's get this sorted for you.

We'll need to look at why duplicating your campaign is a dead end...

Before we even get to scaling, it's really important to understand why your attempt at horizontal scaling went so wrong. You said that as soon as you duplicate the campaign, performance crashes, and when you kill the duplicate, it returns to normal. This isn't a fluke; it's a predictable outcome of how the Facebook auction works, and it's a trap many advertisers fall into.

When you have a campaign that's working, the algorithm has found a sweet spot. It understands the type of user within your target audience who is most likely to convert at the cost you've specified with your bid cap. It's optimised, it's in a groove, and it's delivering results. Now, what happens when you duplicate it?

You've essentially just created an identical twin and thrown it into the same auction to compete for the exact same audience. You now have two (or more) ad sets bidding against each other for the same pool of users. This is called audience overlap, but in this case, it's self-inflicted. The immediate effect is that your own ads start driving up the price for each other. The CPMs (Cost Per Mille, or cost per 1,000 impressions) increase because the auction sees more competition for those valuable users. Suddenly, the cost to reach the people who are likely to convert goes up, and your cost per conversion follows suit across both the original and the new campaign.

On top of that, each new campaign or ad set you launch has to go through the "Learning Phase." During this period, the algorithm is spending your money to figure out who to show your ads to. It's volatile by design. By duplicating your stable, optimised campaign, you're not just creating competition; you're also forcing the new campaign back to square one. This drains budget inefficiently and often leads to the poor initial results you've seen. The algorithm gets confused, delivery becomes erratic, and the overall perfomance of your account dips. It's no wonder that when you pause the duplicate, the original campaign breathes a sigh of relief, the internal competition vanishes, and it settles back into its profitable groove.

So, the takeaway here is that for true horizontal scaling—that is, reaching more people—you can't just duplicate what works. You need to find *new, distinct audiences* to test. This means expanding into different interest groups, building different types of lookalike audiences, or exploring different demographics. But that comes later. For now, let's focus on getting more out of the audience that is already working for you through smarter vertical scaling.

I'd say you need a more intelligent approach to vertical scaling...

You asked if the normal 10-20% increase would work and how often. The short answer is: maybe, but it's not the right way to think about it. That advice is a relic from a time when the algorithm was less sophisticated. Today, acting based on a rigid schedule ("I'll increase it every 3 days") is less effective than acting based on stable performance indicators. The algorithm needs stability to perform well, and sudden, arbitrary changes can knock it off balance.

Instead of a fixed percentage on a fixed schedule, you should think in terms of "earning the right to scale." Your campaign tells you when it's ready for more budget or a higher bid. How? By consistently delivering good results and spending its full daily budget without a drop in efficiency.

Here’s a more dynamic and effective process:

1. Establish a Baseline: Let your campaign run without any changes for at least 3-4 days. You need a stable baseline for your key metrics, especially your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and the amount spent daily.
2. Check for Stability: Is the campaign consistently spending its full daily budget? And is the CPA stable and within your target range during this period? If the answer to both of these questions is 'yes' for at least two to three consecutive days, the campaign is signaling that it has found enough cheap conversions and is ready for more.
3. Make a Small, Calculated Increase: If the signals are positive, then you can make a small increase to your bid cap or budget – the 10-20% rule is a decent starting point here. A small change is less likely to shock the algorithm and push you back into the Learning Phase.
4. Wait and Watch: After the increase, do nothing for another 2-3 days. Let the algorithm adjust and see if it can maintain performance at the new, higher level of spend. You're looking for the same stability signals as before.
5. Rinse and Repeat: If performance remains stable, you've earned the right to make another small increase. If performance degrades and your CPA rises above your target, you've found the current ceiling for that audience and creative combination. At that point, you'd either pull back the budget slightly or accept the higher CPA if it's still profitable.

This method is reactive and based on data, not a predefined calendar. It respects the algorithm's need for stability and reduces the risk of derailing a campaign that's working well. The key is patience. Scaling too fast is the number one reason profitable campaigns fail. It's like trying to force more water through a pipe than it can handle – the pressure builds, and eventually, it bursts. Slow and steady wins the race.

To make this clearer, here is a simple decision-making flowchart that visualises the process. This is the logic you should be applying daily when managing your campaign.

You probably should move beyond Bid Caps to truly scale...

While the patient vertical scaling method works, you will eventually hit a ceiling. A bid cap, by its very nature, is a restrictive instruction. You're telling Facebook, "Do not, under any circumstances, pay more than £X for a conversion." This is great for controlling costs, but it's terrible for scaling. Why? Because you're leaving profitable conversions on the table.

Imagine there's a potential customer who is very likely to not only convert but also become a high-value, repeat purchaser. The algorithm might calculate that acquiring this specific person will cost £X + £2. With your strict bid cap, the algorithm is forbidden from even trying to win that auction. It's forced to let that valuable customer go and instead keep searching for cheaper, potentially lower-quality conversions that fit under your cap. This is what limits your spend and ultimately your growth.

The solution is to change the instruction you give the algorithm. Instead of giving it a cost ceiling, you give it a profitability target. This is where Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) bidding comes in. This is, without a doubt, the most powerful scaling tool for any business that can track purchase values (like eCommerce).

With ROAS bidding, you tell Facebook, "For every £1 I spend on ads, I want to get at least £4 back in revenue." (Or whatever your target is). This is a fundamentally different and more intelligent instruction. It gives the algorithm enormous flexibility. Now, it can decide to bid £15 to acquire a customer who is likely to spend £100, and it can bid £2 to acquire a customer who will likely spend £10. In both cases, your profitability target is met or exceeded. The algorithm is no longer shackled by a fixed cost; it's empowered to make smart business decisions on your behalf, bidding dynamically based on the predicted value of each individual user. This is how you unlock significant scale while protecting your profit margins.

I remember one client we worked with who sold subscription boxes. They were stuck, spending around £500 a day with a strict CPA target, just like you. Their ROAS was good, but they just couldn't spend more. We transitioned their main campaign to a Minimum ROAS bidding strategy. It was a bit nerve-wracking for them at first, but within a few weeks, we had scaled their daily spend to over £2,000 while actually *improving* their overall return. We eventually hit a 1000% ROAS for them because the algorithm was free to hunt for the big spenders. That's the power of focusing on return, not just cost.

Of course, to use ROAS bidding, you need to know what your target ROAS should be. This isn't a random number; it's calculated based on your product costs and desired profit margin. You need to understand your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) to truly know how much you can afford to spend. A higher LTV means you can afford a lower ROAS on the first purchase because you know you'll make more money over time.

To help with this, here's a simple calculator to help you figure out what a sensible target ROAS might be for your business. Play around with your own numbers to see how your margins impact the return you need from your ads.

You'll need to build a proper campaign structure for growth...

So far, we've talked about getting more from your existing winning campaign. But relying on a single campaign, no matter how good it is, is like building a house on a single pillar. It's inherently unstable. To build a resilient, scalable advertising machine, you need a proper structure. In the agency world, we almost always use a variation of the ToFu/MoFu/BoFu funnel.

This stands for Top of Funnel, Middle of Funnel, and Bottom of Funnel. It's a way of organising your campaigns based on the audience's familiarity with your brand and their intent to purchase.

• ToFu (Top of Funnel): These are your prospecting campaigns. The goal here is to reach new people who have never heard of you before. This is where you test all your cold audiences: interest targeting, demographic targeting, and lookalike audiences based on your best customers. This is the engine of your growth.
• MoFu (Middle of Funnel): This is for warming up audiences. These are people who have shown some interest but aren't ready to buy yet. You'd retarget people who have watched a certain percentage of your videos, engaged with your Instagram page, or visited your website but didn't view a product. The messaging here is less about a hard sell and more about building trust and showcasing value.
• BoFu (Bottom of Funnel): This is where the money is made. These are your retargeting campaigns for high-intent individuals. You're targeting people who have visited a product page, added an item to their cart, or started the checkout process but didn't complete the purchase. The ads here are direct, often with a clear call to action, a reminder, or perhaps an offer to entice them to finish their purchase.

Why is this structure so powerful for scaling? Because it isolates variables and allows you to manage different parts of the customer journey independently. Your current successful campaign is likely a prospecting (ToFu) campaign. By splitting out your retargeting (MoFu/BoFu) into separate campaigns, you achieve several things:

1. Stability: Your BoFu campaign, targeting hot leads like cart abandoners, will likely be your most profitable and stable campaign. It can run consistently in the background, generating sales, insulating you from the volatility of testing new things at the top of the funnel.
2. Controlled Testing: You can now test new audiences and creatives in your ToFu campaigns without any risk to your core, profitable retargeting campaigns. If a new interest audience fails, you just turn it off. It doesn't affect the performance of your BoFu campaigns at all. This removes the fear you're currently feeling.
3. Tailored Messaging: You can speak to each audience segment appropriately. You wouldn't show an ad saying "Still thinking about it?" to someone who has never heard of you. This structure allows for messaging that matches the audience's awareness level, which dramatically improves conversion rates.

You would move from one single campaign to a structure of three core, always-on campaigns. It might sound more complex, but it's actually simpler to manage in the long run because it's so organised. It gives you a clear framework for where to allocate budget and how to diagnose problems. If sales drop, you can look at each stage: Is ToFu traffic down? Are people not moving from MoFu to BoFu? Is the BoFu conversion rate dropping? It gives you clarity and control.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

To pull this all together, here is a phased, actionable plan you can follow to move from your current fragile situation to a robust and scalable advertising setup. This isn't a quick fix, but a strategic shift in how you manage your Facebook ads. It's designed to build on what's working while systematically de-risking your account and opening up new avenues for growth. Each phase builds upon the last, so it's best to follow them in order.

Implementing this kind of strategic overhaul can feel daunting, especially when you're busy running your business. While the principles are straightforward, the execution involves constant monitoring, a deep understanding of the auction dynamics, and the experience to know when to push forward and when to pull back. It's a full-time job to manage this process correctly and extract the maximum potential from your ad spend.

This is, of course, where professional help can make a significant difference. Having an expert team that lives and breathes this stuff can accelerate your growth and help you avoid costly mistakes. We've scaled countless accounts using these exact methodologies, tailoring the approach to each client's unique business goals and margins.

If you'd like to chat through your specific situation in more detail and have us take a proper look under the hood of your ad account, we offer a completely free, no-obligation strategy session. We can review your campaigns together and give you a more personalised roadmap for scaling your business. It's often incredibly helpful just to get a second pair of expert eyes on things.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh