How long does it take for Facebook ads to work and start getting the results you want?
This is a question I get all of the time from my students and clients.
In this post, I’ll share with you how long we run campaigns on Facebook before deciding if we should keep running a campaign or scrap it and start something new.
Before I continue… did you know we’ve launched a new and improved version of the No B.S. Advertising Club? By joining this low-cost, yet mega-valuable membership, you’ll get the unfair advantage you need to skyrocket campaigns for yourself or your clients! (Plus… Get $10,000 Worth Of Hard-Hitting Digital Advertising Goodness… For FREE!)
How long should you run Facebook ads before stopping them?
It can be tricky to know how long you should run your Facebook ads before deciding to stop your campaigns or scale them.
So here’s what we normally tell our clients about how long we’ll run their ads for.
For the first 30-45 days of a campaign, our main focus is collecting data.
We’re checking out how much it costs to acquire a lead, to book a call, to acquire a customer – whatever your particular goals are.
The second 45-day period after this is what we call the scaling phase.
This is the time when we shut down any underperforming campaigns and focus our resources on scaling and optimizing the top-performing campaigns.
Measuring Facebook campaign initial results
Sometimes you need to dig a little deeper to analyze the performance of your Facebook ads.
For example, we had an agency client we’d working with for about two weeks.
He came to us worried because we were spending about $300/day on ads, but he wasn’t booking many calls.
So I started working backward.
Just because this client hadn’t booked a ton of calls didn’t mean his campaign wasn’t getting results.
Over the past three days, we’d gotten this particular client thousands of leads.
That meant that thousands of people were JUST starting to receive his email follow-up sequences.
For high-ticket products especially, you need to give your funnel a bit of time to do its job.
Say you have a $10,000 group coaching program.
Even if your funnel is converting at an incredible rate – say, 10% of those leads end up scheduling a call with your sales team – that still means MOST people who became a lead are not ready to take action right away.
But that doesn’t mean they will *never* take action.
Human beings take a long time to make decisions, especially when we’re talking about a product that costs $10,000.
So here’s what I told my client…
I let him know we should keep running the Facebook campaigns, for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, we needed to wait and see how many leads book calls after going through his email follow-up sequence.
Of course, there will always be a few leads that book a call right away. But that won’t be the majority! Most of them will need to be nurtured via your emails in order to pull the trigger and book an appointment with you.
Follow the golden rule and wait 2-4 weeks before deciding whether to stop or scale your campaign.
Especially when you’re launching a new funnel, a new sequence, or a new product – you need to come into the advertising game with the expectation that the first few weeks will be about testing and gathering data.
Not necessarily making huge profits.
How to validate your offer before using paid ads
One way to save money on Facebook ads and shorten this testing period with your campaigns is to validate things organically first.
This is one of the biggest benefits of building an audience on social media and growing your email list.
You’re able to test things and validate your offers without spending a dime on paid ads.
If you’re getting a great response via organic, you can then decide to pour fuel on the fire and scale things with paid advertising.
Make sure to budget for this testing period
We encourage all of our clients to release their expectations on ROI for the first few weeks of their campaign.
Ask yourself:
“How much money can I spend on this campaign before getting a return on investment?”
For example, if you can only afford to let your ads run for one or two weeks without profit, and after that, it would be detrimental to your business’s bottom line…
Then you’re probably not ready for Facebook ads.
For example, at the moment, we’re spending about $15,000-$20,000/month on one of our verticals just to optimize that campaign and understand what we need to do to scale it and make it a success.
The bottom line is don’t turn off your campaign right away if you don’t see results immediately.
When asking how long it takes for Facebook ads to work, it’s helpful to keep human behavior and buying psychology in mind.
Factors to keep in mind when determining how long you should let your Facebook ads run
There are so many other factors to consider when asking how long it will take your Facebook ads to work.
Your type of funnel
What type of funnel are you using? Usually, for high-ticket funnels, your audience needs to be educated in some type of way.
They might need to watch a webinar, or a VSL (Video Sales Letter). They need to consume your content to understand why they need to spend the money on your high-ticket solution. Your funnel probably includes lots of follow-ups and might even require them to schedule a call.
The cost of your product
On the other hand, you might be selling a low-ticket product, in which case people take action much more quickly. If you’re selling widgets, things that are under $5, you’re selling impulse buys.
In those cases, you’ll start getting data and purchases much faster.
You need to ask yourself…
- What does my funnel look like?
- And based on the data, how much time do people usually take to buy?
Asking yourself those two key questions will help you understand how much should you wait for your ads to start getting results!
No matter what your product looks like, make sure you’re waiting at least 2-4 weeks before you make a decision.
The best way to do this is to go into the advertising space with a budget that you can afford to lose over the first month.
The first month isn’t about turning a profit…it’s about buying valuable data that will help you turn massive profits down the line.
If you want to get expert support on your campaigns, go ahead and join the No B.S. Advertising Club!
Get a second set of eyes on your campaigns from a team that’s generated over 100 million in revenue for our clients.
You’ll get access to a monthly Q&A call with me and my team as well as a supportive community full of people who are absolutely crushing it with their campaigns.
Not to mention… you’ll get $10,000+ worth of mega-valuable bonuses in there 😉
