Like the bartender who lets you know you’ve had enough, Facebook is setting limits. On advertising, that is. Effective February 16, 2021, the social media giant has implemented ad limits. Here is what you need to know to avoid getting kicked out of the bar.
Why the Limit?
Like so many other things in life, too much of a good thing isn’t always the best idea. It might feel like Facebook is punishing you, but this change is actually meant to improve your ad’s performance. Ads have what Facebook calls a learning phase, which is a period of time where the system tries to target the right audience for your ad. Running too many ads at once limits this learning phase. By reducing ad numbers, Facebook claims it will be able to deliver a better service.
What are the Ad Limits?
Facebook has set different limits based on page size. Since the ad performance improves the more times it is shown, Facebook encourages advertisers to use different ad volumes to improve ad performance. Currently there are four ad volume tiers, and they are:
- Small to medium sized pages (spending less than $100K per month on ads) are limited to 250 ads
- Medium to large sized Pages (advertising less than $1M in their highest spending month) can purchase up to 1,000 ads
- Larger Pages (less than $10M in their highest spending month) are capped at 5,000 ads
- Largest Pages (Advertising more than $10M) are limited to 20,000 ads
Not sure where your page stands? Facebook makes it easy to check the ad limit for each of your pages. Head to the Ad Limits Per Page tool, which is accessible through the Business Manager menu. This will show you both your limit as well as ways to reduce your ad volume.
Other Questions
What happens when you reach the ad limit? You won’t be able to purchase any more ads, unfortunately. This is why a smart social media advertising policy is more important than ever. Some other concerns are:
- Which ads count toward the limit? All ads that are running and in review count towards your page limit. Fortunately, ads that use many creatives (ie. a dynamic creative ad and an automatic placement ad) only count as one ad.
- What if your Page has multiple ad accounts? There is only a single ad limit per Page and not per user. Only the ads for the page count towards that page’s limit. Page administrators can set additional ad limits for other people on their account by using the Ad Limits Per Page Tool.
- Can I just create another page to increase my limit? This really isn’t a great idea, mainly because separate pages competing in the same auctions will bid against each other in the ad auction, so you might end up increasing your costs.
It might seem crazy that Facebook is telling advertisers they have to cut back. After all, wouldn’t they want people to advertise more to increase revenue? But like an overly intoxicated person, an overly saturated market can be toxic for everyone.
