Why Campaigns Start Strong Then Decline

Question

Hi Jon. This is Martina from Cambridge in the uk. Why do campaigns stop working after two, three weeks? If the ads are good enough to generate sales in the first two, three weeks, and there is no ad fatigue, why does the campaign stop working at some point?

Answer

Great question, Martina!

So Martina is a member of my Power Hitters Club - Elite community, and she’s a regular in our weekly strategy sessions.

Of course, the answer to this is going to be “it depends,” because there are all kinds of potential explanations for a drop in performance. But let me highlight a few of the reasons that you might be seeing this.

Let me start by saying that I don’t believe it’s normal to see great results for two or three weeks and then bad results after that point. But there are specific reasons why it’s natural that you would see better results at first.

Understand that when your ads are brand new, Meta starts by showing them to the people who are most likely to convert. I call these people the low-hanging fruit.

Meta starts with them because it’s expected that there’s a good chance they’ll perform the action you want. In many cases, this means remarketing, even if you didn’t specify a remarketing audience.

When you use algorithmic targeting, Meta will dedicate a portion of your budget to those people closest to you. Normally this would be people who visit your website, are on your email list, and who have engaged with prior ads or Facebook and Instagram posts.

But something you’ll likely find is that this emphasis on remarketing will decline with time. The reason for that is pretty simple. The remarketing audience is small, and it will get exhausted rather quickly.

You can actually prove this if you use audience segments and have defined them thoroughly. This is where I’ll do a breakdown by audience segments and see that a higher percentage of my budget goes to remarketing initially than later on.

The percentage varies, of course, but I’ll see 25% at first and then eventually it drops to 5 or 10%.

The exhaustion of your remarketing audience also helps explain this phenomenon generally. Meta goes after the low-hanging fruit at first, whether they’re from remarketing or not.

Eventually, this group of people will either convert or will be exhausted and Meta will move on to other people. And that next group will be less likely to convert.

The drop-off will depend on a lot of factors, starting with the size of your remarketing audience. But it could also be due to things like a smaller overall pool of ideal customers if you have more of a niche product.

It could also be related to a small overall pool, like when targeting small countries.

It’s also why you’d want to use multiple ads with diverse assets so Meta continues to have options. Even if there’s no specific problem with creative fatigue, it’s helpful for Meta to have some options of format and messaging.

I’ll finish by reiterating that it’s not normal to go from great performance to bad performance. Even when you lose that initial low-hanging fruit, your ads should eventually balance out and perform.

If they don’t, I’d continue introducing new ads, preferably with the creative testing tool.

Thanks for your question, Martina!