When one ad eats 90% of an ad set's budget, give the other ads their own ad set

Alper Taner… would say in a wrong way. That particular creative that got the 90% of the spend was maybe lucky, we call it lucky 5,000 impressions because Meta does some decision making around first 5,000 to 10,000 impressions. And if one of those 5,000 people who saw the ad didn't engage or whatever signals that Meta didn't receive, then it will not deliver anymore, but it will deliver the other one, which just got maybe one, two clicks and stuff like that.

Alper TanerAnd then I've seen that multiple times where you take out that dominant ad from that ad set and all the other ads suddenly bloom and you're like, "Oh, they were also great ads," but because of the other better ad or however you want to call it, which is not necessarily better ad, as well, because sometimes, Meta called the shots way too early, no conversions, nothing, it doesn't even give a chance. So, in those cases, we don't call that creative that got all the spend successful and all the rest bad labeling. I think this is not universal and this is really, I think, case by case basis. I've also seen ad sets with 50 ads live, "Oh, let's see what algorithm likes." And we will run it for a week and then we will see what happens. And then what happens in that week, 90% goes to the same ad and because they have this …

Alper TanerYou should, in those cases, for example, break the rules and like, "Hey, look, this reached my threshold, this is my decision threshold. Now, I want to see what other ads are going to perform for that minimum threshold that you decide based on your cumulative spend and cumulative performance over time." Yeah, so that's why there is no one rule that is valid for all, but I personally try to get spend on the other creatives if I see a dominant one. …

David Barnard… there when you do have that "winning creative" that's getting 90% of the spend, is it better to pull the other creatives out because that ad set already knows how to target that specific ad to the right people, to the right geography, and everything else? Is it better to pull the "unperforming ads" and give them a shot somewhere else or is it better to pull the performing ad into a different set? What's the best way to actually implement that?

Alper TanerDepends on whether this creative is in a creative test ad set versus in a BAU ad set. If it's in a BAU ad set, then I would create another BAU ad set and then I would include those creatives that were under delivering into the new one and I wouldn't touch something that is working well. But if it is within the creative testing ad set, and if it already reached my threshold, then I would already pause it and then I would put it on the bench to get ready to upload to BAU ad sets whenever the team will do the creative refresh. So, it is case by case basis, but in general, the rule of thumb is don't touch something is working well, but depends on what case we are talking about.

David BarnardYeah, that makes sense. I did want to step back and not to put words in Eric's mouth, maybe his point is more to not overly focus on a single hypothesis for why a creative won. So, going back to the whole, should you learn from creatives, because I do want to dig a little deeper into how you think about what you can learn. And the example he used was you look at a creative that has a dog in it and you're like, "Oh, people love dogs." And so, …