Lifetime media spend

Lifetime Budgets

Lifetime budgets are a bit different and have their own benefits and challenges.

When setting up lifetime budgets, you give Facebook the budget you’d like to spend for the entirety of the campaign and then choose the date the ad set should end on.

The Benefits

Facebook is a bit more performance-conscious with lifetime budgets than it is with daily budgets. With lifetime budgets, Facebook will adjust daily spend levels based on the results of the campaign.

If one day sees strong performance, Facebook will spend more of the budget that day to take advantage of the day. It will then also lower daily spend on days where results aren’t as strong to conserve for another strong day. At the end of the run time, the total spend will even out to the original budget you gave.

Another benefit is that lifetime budgets allow advertisers to choose the hours of the day and days of the week that the campaign will be running.

If you need to display your ads only during certain hours, this is the budget type for you. (That said, I suggest only using this from the get-go if it’s absolutely necessary and otherwise letting performance decide when your ads are on and off, but that’s a post for another day.)

The Drawbacks

With the good comes the bad, but admittedly, the “bad” for lifetime budgets is more a sense of convenience than anything.

With lifetime budgets, daily spend can fluctuate a lot. It can be tough to know what kind of coverage you’ll be getting on any given day or what your ad spend will be. If you’re in an important season for your business and need to ensure you have coverage, or if you simply want to know what to expect when it comes to your ad spend, it might make more sense to go with daily budgets.

Lifetime budgets require advertisers to set an end date along with your budget. By doing this, you’re telling Facebook the amount of money it has to spend for that timeframe.

If you are certain there will be no changes to the time frame or budget, this is a great option. But if you’re likely to get additional budget or lengthen or shorten your promotion, then this might not be a good fit.

Although adjusting budget and changing the end date are possible, doing so will impact how Facebook prioritizes your budget.

Let’s say, for example, you set an ad set to run for two weeks, but then have to cut it down to only one after a couple days. Facebook will then adjust and spend a much higher amount on those last few days to try and spend your lifetime budget during the shortened period.

Lifetime Budget vs. Daily Budget

Now, that was a lot of information to keep track of. Here’s a quick review of the key times you’ll want to choose one of these budget options over the other.

Choose daily budgets when:

• Your campaign will be evergreen
• You want to maximize strong performance
• You expect to change your budget regularly

Choose lifetime budgets when:

• You need to run your ads on a schedule
• Your campaign has a set budget and end date

Not choosing the right budget option can be a costly Facebook advertising mistake. Keep these differences in mind so you can identify the right option for your campaigns!