Beginning September 2019, a big change is coming to Facebook’s campaign structure: campaign budget optimisation will become a fixed default and you won’t be able to turn off campaign budget optimisation for new and existing campaigns.

Not too long ago (2017), Facebook launched campaign budget optimisation as an option for advertisers to be able to automatically manage their budgets at the campaign level, rather than the ad set level. But in 7 months time it will not be an option, it will be forced update on all advertisers. Clearly, some advertisers aren’t happy about this:

As someone that is very budget conscious for our clients, I am NOT a fan of this being fixed.

Facebook Campaign Budget Optimization Becomes Fixed Default https://t.co/T8b7sb2cAA via @jonloomer pic.twitter.com/oJgNDKPmBy

— Akvile DeFazio (@AkvileDeFazio) February 5, 2019

its getting worse and my ad-sets just not stopping spending. not making a whole lot of sense… i have these on CBO (campaign budget optimization) too. doesn't sound like a $300 CPA is optimizing much at all. @robjective 60% spend while only 40% through the day? pic.twitter.com/1h44IMkZn3

— dennis hegstad (@dennishegstad) February 3, 2019

Truth be told, we can’t blame them. We’ve tried this with some client campaigns and we’ve seen varied results. Even Jon Loomer wasn’t able to give glowing endorsements.

Not into this….https://t.co/Ud1Fo8iJMR via @jonloomer

— keith ? (@keif_xyz) February 5, 2019

But Facebook highlights the following benefits of campaign budget optimisation:

• You’ll have the ability to set one central campaign budget to optimise across ad sets, and we’ll automatically and continuously distribute the budget in real-time to your top performing ad sets.
• In real-time, we’ll capture the most results for your budget, effectively lowering your total cost per result.
• Campaign budget optimisation can generate more results and lower costs.
• Campaign budget optimisation and the lowest cost bid strategy can help you achieve the lowest cost per result for your overall campaign, not for any given ad set

And they backed it up with BuzzFeed’s success story. So let’s give it a chance.

The campaign budget optimisation migration will surely be a significant change for most advertisers and will require a major change in habits and processes, as Jon Loomer aptly puts it. But advertisers are given plenty of notice to get familiar with it before it becomes the default. So prepare to say goodbye and embrace the change.

What’s the reason for the change?

We can’t be sure. Is it to simplify campaign structure and internal infrastructure? Could it be to align more closely with Google Ads campaign architecture? Is it us mere humans cannot allocate budget and optimise as well as Facebook’s Artificial Intelligence (AI), or could we call it Surveillance Capitalism? Take your pick.