The initial phase of Demand Gen campaigns is critical for overall campaign success. During this period, the campaign or portfolio is calibrated to align it with the newly established goal. This article provides insights into the duration of this learning period for campaigns, the various factors that can influence this initial phase and where to get more details about the status of your Demand Gen campaign's learning phase.
Before you begin
To ensure optimal performance, it's crucial to avoid making significant changes to your campaign settings during the learning phase. This can disrupt the system's learning process and delay its ability to reach optimal performance. It's best to follow the recommendations provided by the Google Ads UI.
As the system learns, you might notice fluctuations in your campaign's performance metrics, such as the click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate. These fluctuations are a natural part of the learning process as the algorithm gathers more data. Once the performance of your campaign stabilises, these variations should even out.
Why campaigns fluctuate during the learning phase
After you create a new campaign or make a change to your bids, budgets or creatives, the campaign or portfolio needs some time to calibrate towards the campaign goal. When this occurs, 'Learning' may be shown as your bid strategy status. Learn more about bid strategy statuses.
Google Ads operates on a sophisticated machine-learning algorithm that requires a certain amount of data to understand and optimise your campaigns effectively. This initial phase, often referred to as the 'learning phase' (or learning period), lasts up to 2 weeks when your campaign is set up correctly.
Where to learn more about my campaign’s learning phase
During campaign construction
When building a Demand Gen campaign, after adding a campaign budget, advertisers can see a campaign forecast card entitled 'Learning phase estimates'. These estimates detailed below explain what kind of performance an advertiser can expect during the learning phase:
- Days to first conversion: The expected number of days that it will take until a campaign achieves its first conversion
- First week conversions: The expected number of conversions that a campaign will achieve within the first week
- Days in learning phase: The expected number of days that a campaign will take to receive enough conversions to exit the learning phase
Advertisers will be notified if a campaign’s learning phase estimates meet the performance expectations for a typically successful campaign:
- Campaigns that meet or exceed the performance expectations for a typically successful campaign will be indicated by a tick icon next to the estimate.
- Campaigns that do not meet the performance expectations for a typically successful campaign will be indicated by an information icon next to the estimate.
- Advertisers can hover over the icon to learn more about how to improve estimates, including making changes to bids, budgets, conversion goals, audiences or creatives.
These performance estimates are based on a variety of factors, including campaign settings (the bid and budget, conversion goal, audience selections) and account performance history. Factors not taken into account that may impact campaign performance include correct conversion pixel setup and the eligibility of creative assets. These estimates also don’t account for potential delays in conversion reporting but rather reflect eventual reporting.
When managing a live campaign
You can confirm whether your campaign is still learning by checking its bid status. If it indicates 'Learning', it is recommended that you don’t make additional changes while a campaign is in the learning phase in order to reach full campaign performance more quickly.
Tip:
You can hover over the 'Learning' status to learn why your bid strategy is in the learning phase. Learn more about bid strategy statuses.
