Automated rules in Facebook Ads can help you save time, alert you to account issues, and ensure that you make necessary edits in a timely manner. We’ve noticed that Facebook has expanded the capabilities of rules in the recent past, making them potentially more useful for online marketers.

In this article, we’ll review how to set up and manage rules, along with some suggestions for practical uses.

Creating a New Rule

Within Facebook Ads Manager, access automated rules by selecting “Rules” above the campaign table. From the dropdown that appears, you can choose to create a new rule or manage existing rules.

Defining Your Rule

Once you click “Create a New Rule,” you’ll see a box appear where you can select options for the rule. First, you can choose to apply the rule to all active campaigns, all active ad sets, or all active ads. Note that you can also select individual campaigns and then choose to create a rule in order to apply the rule to those campaigns.

Rule Actions

Next, you’ll choose the action you wish to take place when the rule is triggered.

Here’s a list of available actions at the time of publication. Note that the budget and bid options apply only at the ad set level.

• • Turn off campaigns
  • Turn on campaigns
  • Send notification only
  • Adjust budget
    • Increase daily budget by
    • Decrease daily budget by
    • Increase lifetime budget by
    • Decrease lifetime budget by
    • Scale daily budget by target field
  • Adjust manual bid
    • Increase bid by
    • Decrease bid by
    • Scale bid by target field

When choosing to increase or decrease a bid or budget, you’ll see a field where you can input either a percentage or dollar amount. You can also add a minimum or maximum cap for your bid or budget.

The “scale daily budget/bid by target field” options apply only for ad sets with manual bids. These allow you to automatically adjust manual bids to help target a particular value for a metric. For instance, you may want to target a $5 CPA but be willing to keep your bid between $5-$10.

Finally, once you’ve defined the action, you can choose a frequency of hourly, daily, weekly, or biweekly.

Rule Conditions

In the Conditions section, you can define the criteria that must be met for a rule to fire.

Available variables include a wide array of options, such as:

• Standard metrics like clicks, spend, etc.
• Campaign/Ad Set Name
• Budget
• Time-based parameters
• Specific conversion events
• Offline conversions

Note that you can add multiple conditions, all of which must be met for a rule to fire.

Finalizing Your Rule

Next, you’ll define a time range to look back at data. This can range anywhere from today to lifetime.

Set a schedule for the rule to run. It can run continuously, daily, or on a custom schedule that you set. You can choose to run in set timeframes on particular days of the week if desired.

Finally, enter the names of individuals who should receive notifications when a rule runs. Note these must be people who have access to the ad account. Name your rule and click “Create” to save it!

Practical Uses for Rules

We’re impressed with the wide range of options now available in Facebook’s rules and the opportunity to automate more activities in Ads Manager! Here are a few ideas for using rules:

• Pausing a campaign/ad set at a specific time, as an alternative to setting an end time
• Enabling a paused campaign/ad set to start at a specific time
• Sending a notification for campaigns that have not converted in a certain timeframe or have a high CPA
• Reducing bids or budget for lower performing ad sets (and vice versa for higher performers)
• Sending a notification or pausing an ad set when the frequency becomes exceptionally high

What uses have you found for Facebook’s automated rules? Are there any other features you’d like to see them add? Let us know in the comments below!