How Do You Split Budget Between Prospecting and Retargeting?

Prospecting aims ads at people who do not know you yet. Retargeting aims at people who have already visited or bought. This page fits when you run both and need to decide how much budget each gets. It does not fit if you have no customer or visitor audience yet, because there is nobody to retarget. The Meta pages cited here give no ratio, so any split here is your own method.

Does Meta publish a recommended split?

Not on the Meta pages cited here. What Meta documents are controls that limit spend on one audience. So the split starts as an assumption you write down, then you check it against your own results. Two checks help. First, whether each side meets its own goal, such as a break-even ROAS. Second, whether the retargeting ad set can spend its budget at all, since it depends on how many people have visited or bought.

How can you enforce a split on Meta?

Approach	What it does	What Meta documents
Ad set budgets	You set each ad set’s budget yourself	If you have specific budget requirements for an ad set, Meta says you may want an ad set budget
Exclusion	A custom audience exclusion keeps existing customers out of an ad set	Documented as a way to spend none of your budget on existing customers
Maximum spend limit	Caps what an ad set can spend, under one campaign budget	Documented for limiting spend on existing customers

The exclusion and the spend limit are Meta’s steps for existing customers. You can apply the same structure to another custom audience, such as site visitors; that use is your method, not something Meta states.

How does the two ad set setup work?

Meta’s steps for a limit on existing customers use one campaign with a campaign budget and two ad sets:

1. In ad set 1, open ad set spending limits and set a daily or lifetime maximum, as a percentage or a dollar amount. Include the custom audiences of existing customers and uncheck “use as a suggestion”.
2. Use the same creative in both ad sets, then duplicate ad set 1.
3. In ad set 2, add a custom audience exclusion for the same people. It spends the rest of the budget on prospective customers.

Meta says a percentage amount will scale but US dollars will remain static, and that it will likely spend less than the amount you set but will aim to spend no more.

What should you know about spend limits?

• A maximum limit is a weekly cap. Meta says it will not exceed 7 times your maximum across the week, and daily spend can exceed the figure on a given day.
• Meta recommends using the least amount of spend limits, because they can prevent a campaign budget from taking advantage of the best opportunities.
• A minimum limit is a target range, not a guarantee, and cost or bid controls can make it unachievable.
• Meta does not recommend a minimum and a maximum on the same ad set.
• With maximum limits, Meta says pausing or deleting ad sets means the total the campaign can spend may fall below the campaign budget, and that you should raise your maximum limit if you raise the campaign budget.
• Edits take up to 15 minutes to take effect.

How do you review the split?

1. Write the starting split and the date you set it.
2. Judge each side against its own goal, such as break-even ROAS. Under a campaign budget, Meta says spend may not be equal across ad sets and advises analyzing results at the campaign level, so check the campaign total too.
3. Change one thing per step and read weekly totals.
4. If the retargeting ad set sits in Learning limited, Meta says it is not getting enough results to exit the learning phase. Compare its audience size with its budget as one possible cause.
5. To test what a retargeting campaign adds, you can run a conversion lift test on it. Meta says conversion lift compares a test group that can see your ads with a control group that does not, and lists account requirements as a guide, such as past spend and conversions.

FAQ

Is there a standard prospecting to retargeting ratio?

No Meta help page cited here gives one. A ratio from any other source is not a Meta figure, so treat it as a starting assumption, record it, and check each side against its own goal and weekly results before you change it.

Can a retargeting audience be too small for its budget?

It can happen. Meta says an ad set that does not get enough results to exit the learning phase shows Learning limited. If your retargeting ad set sits there or cannot spend its budget, compare the audience size with the budget, or lower the budget.

Should prospecting exclude existing customers?

Meta documents the exclusion as a way to spend none of your budget on existing customers. The pages cited here do not say how that changes results. If you want to know, use an A/B test or a conversion lift test and compare outcomes.