What are Facebook Automated Rules?

Facebook rules automatically check your campaigns, ad sets and ads on a set schedule and depending on your settings will either send you a notification or make a change to the campaign if the rule requirement is met.

When you create an automated Facebook rule you can choose:

• The criteria that triggers the rule
• What action happens when criteria is met
• The campaign, ad set or ad you want the rule to affect

When to Use Them

There’s a bunch of great opportunities to use these automated rules…I almost can’t think of a time you wouldn’t want to be using them. Nevertheless here are some common instances that these Facebook rules would help.

• Busy marketing agencies with a lot of clients don’t always have the time to check every ad campaign to see if the CPA is too high.
• Using the rules as a safety net during weekends or holidays to ensure nothing goes wrong while you’re away.
• Automated Facebook rules are great for scaling ads. Increasing the daily budget by 10% to 15% every 48 hours if the CPA stays in your target range.
• If you want daily notifications sent later in the afternoon so you get an idea for that days performance and to know if any changes need to be made before the end of the day.

How to Create Facebook Automated Rules

Here is your step by step guide to creating and managing Facebook Automated Rules.

1. In the main navigation menu in Facebook Ads Manager, select Automated Rules under the Advertise section.

2. Click Create Rule

3. Fill in all the fields including Rule Name, Apply Rule To, Action, etc.

4. Set the Action of the rule to your liking:

Your four main options include:

• Turning the ad set off or on
• Sending you a notification
• Adjusting the budget
• Adjusting the manual bid

5. Set the Conditions of the automated rule

You have a lot of options when it comes to the rules condition but some of the most common include:

You then need to select an amount so the rule can determine if the performance of the ad set is greater than, smaller than, between or not between that number.

6. Set the Time Range for the rule

Facebook describes this as “the number of days worth of data you’d like to apply your rule to.”

7. Set your rule’s Schedule

Select how frequently and at what times for Facebook to check your ad sets to see if they meet your rule criteria.

8. Select how you would like to receive your Notifications

Whether you’re action is just a notification or and actual change to the ad set Facebook will always notify you if something has triggered the rule.

Limitations To Facebook Rules

It’s worth being aware of the limitations that Facebook places on rules:

• A maximum of 250 rules can be created for each ad account
• Political ads can’t use rules at all, only verified individuals can make changes
• A rule can work at ad, ad set or campaign level but not a mix of different levels. Just create a second rule for a different level if required.

Facebook Rules Best Practices

1. If you are just starting out with Facebook automated rules try using just the notification for the action so you can get a feel for it.
2. For large daily budgets we recommend using the Continuous schedule so your ads are checked every 30 minutes for rule criteria.
3. When creating any rule always add a second condition involving a spend or impression minimum. You don’t want your ad to turn off just because your condition was met after only 10 people saw the ad. Facebook recommends at least 8,000 impressions before a rule should be triggered.
4. We recommend always using Facebook automated rules for ad budget scaling as it can save you a lot of time.

Related: How Negative Keywords Can Help Your Google Ads Performance.