How to Scale Your Facebook Ads: Vertical vs. Horizontal Scaling

Scaling your Facebook ads is essential for increasing reach, improving conversion rates, and optimising your campaign’s performance. When done correctly, it helps your ads reach a larger audience without losing their effectiveness. There are two primary methods to achieve this: vertical scaling and horizontal scaling.

Vertical Scaling

Vertical scaling involves increasing the budget on your top-performing campaigns. It is usually done by raising the budget incrementally by 10-20%, once or twice a week. The key advantage of this approach is that it maximises the returns on successful campaigns while avoiding a reset in Facebook’s learning phase. Vertical scaling is commonly used with Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) or Ad Set Budget Optimization (ABO).

How Vertical Scaling Works:

• Campaign Budget Optimisation (CBO): Facebook dynamically allocates your budget across different ad sets based on performance.
• Ad Set Budget Optimisation (ABO): You control which specific ad sets receive a higher budget.

Pros of Vertical Scaling:

• Maximise Success: You increase spending only on high-performing campaigns, ensuring you capitalise on what’s already working.
• Controlled Risk: By increasing the budget incrementally, you avoid drastic performance disruptions.

Cons of Vertical Scaling:

• Ad Fatigue: If you don’t refresh your creatives regularly, your audience may lose interest, leading to decreased ROI and ROAS.
• Limited Reach Expansion: Vertical scaling focuses on existing audiences, limiting your ability to reach new segments.

Horizontal Scaling

Horizontal scaling focuses on creating new ad sets or campaigns, targeting different audiences, testing various creatives, or adjusting campaign objectives. This approach is perfect for expanding your reach and avoiding overexposure to a limited audience.

How Horizontal Scaling Works:

• Target New Audiences: Create new ad sets to reach untapped demographics or interests.
• Test Different Creatives: Experiment with diverse content formats, such as videos or carousels, to find what resonates with different audience segments.
• Expand Geographically: Launch campaigns in new locations to replicate the success from existing markets.

Pros of Horizontal Scaling:

• Diverse Campaigns: You decrease your risk by running multiple campaigns rather than relying solely on high-performing ones.
• Wider Audience Reach: By targeting new audience groups, you can reach potential customers beyond your current segments.

Cons of Horizontal Scaling:

• Higher Management Effort: Managing and testing multiple campaigns requires more manual work.
• Inconsistent Performance: Some campaigns may perform better than others, making results less predictable.

Combining Vertical and Horizontal Scaling

For optimal results, combining both vertical and horizontal scaling offers a well-rounded strategy. Vertical scaling helps you boost top-performing campaigns, while horizontal scaling ensures you’re reaching new audiences and diversifying your efforts.

By blending both approaches, you can:

• Maintain Success: Continue capitalising on high-performing ads through vertical scaling.
• Test New Audiences: Use horizontal scaling to target new segments or experiment with fresh creatives, helping prevent over-reliance on one campaign.

For example, you can increase the budget on a high-performing ad set (vertical scaling) while simultaneously testing new audience segments with different parameters (horizontal scaling).

Cross-Platform Scaling

To expand your reach further, you can scale beyond Facebook ads by incorporating cross-platform marketing. Adding platforms like Google Ads, Instagram, and email marketing into your strategy creates a more holistic approach to digital marketing.

Benefits of Cross-Platform Scaling:

• Diversified Reach: Each platform has a unique audience, allowing you to reach different segments.
• Enhanced Brand Visibility: Consistent messaging across various channels strengthens your brand presence.
• Better Performance Tracking: Analysing data across platforms helps refine and optimise your digital marketing efforts.

Best Practices for Scaling Facebook Ads

Regardless of whether you choose vertical, horizontal, or cross-platform scaling, following these best practices will help ensure success:

• Monitor Key Metrics: Track important performance indicators like click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) to guide your scaling efforts.
• Regularly Refresh Creatives: Prevent ad fatigue by rotating your creatives to keep your audience engaged.
• Leverage Data: Use Facebook’s analytics tools to make data-driven decisions and optimize campaigns.

Conclusion

Successfully scaling your Facebook ad campaigns requires balancing vertical scaling to amplify existing successes with horizontal scaling for long-term growth. By integrating these strategies, along with cross-platform marketing, you can expand your reach, improve conversions, and optimise your overall marketing spend.

With a multi-layered approach, your business will not only achieve growth but also sustain long-term success in the fast-evolving world of digital marketing.