What Are Learning Periods In Digital Marketing?

Most ad platforms have something called a “learning period.” This is not a period for the marketer to observe and learn from the performance. Instead, it’s a period of time ranging from 48 hours to two to four weeks when the ad platform is learning how the campaigns should behave based on conversion rates and auction prices of targets.

There is a lot of debate in the industry around learning periods and how much they impact or don’t impact performance at various stages of an account’s life. This post will:

• Outline exactly what’s covered in learning periods.
• What can reset learning periods, and whether you should be concerned about that.
• Strategies to work with learning periods at various stages of an account.

Note: This is written by a Microsoft employee, and the content is intended to be a platform-agnostic take on learning periods.

What Is Covered In Learning Periods?

Learning periods revolve mostly around conversion tracking and bidding. However, they can also be impacted by ad creative.

Campaigns in learning periods might under- or overbid in the first few days of going live. This is because the algorithm is learning what auction prices (CPCs or CPMs) will serve the campaign based on the targets chosen. However, if the campaign is in an older account, it might clear this learning faster. Additionally, if there is a lot of data (either historical data from other campaigns or spend to gather data more quickly) it’s possible to clear learning periods faster.

Ad creative learning periods revolve around which creative is served more often and paired with other supplied creative. While you can pin creative to force it to serve in specific spots, that may limit the placements available to you.

What Triggers Learning Periods And How Concerned Should You Be?

Lots of things can trigger learning periods, though how “severe” the learning period is depends on historical data as well as the specific changes being made.

Here is a list of common actions a marketer can take that would trigger learning periods:

• Pausing a campaign for more than 72 hours.
• Changing the budget more than 15% in a 7-day period.
• Pausing a keyword/ad that has conversions to launch a new one.
• Changing TCPA/TROAS goals (especially if they are large changes).
• Adding a new campaign (learning period contained in the new campaign).

Note that changing creative in an existing ad, as well as small pauses, are not enough to trigger a learning period. This is because there’s enough data to counteract a small interruption.

However, if you’re making changes to all creative, that creative will still need to go through editorial. If you will be making that kind of wholesale change to an ad, it might be better to create a new ad and then change the rotation to rotate indefinitely.

Learning periods typically mean spend fluctuation (i.e., spending more per click or not serving as often as you were before). Ideally, you would make any needed changes to your campaigns before…