Creating Rules

You set up rules by following the steps below:

1. Go to the Config drop-down menu in the top-right corner, then select Rules.
   
2. Click on Create New Rule.
   
3. Configure the rule frequency:
   • Determine when your rule will begin to be applied
   • Determine the frequency of how often your rule will be applied
     
4. Configure the rule conditions:
   • Decide how many conditions you would like to apply
   • You can choose to create a rule that will make adjustments to your ads (increase/decrease your bid)
   • And/or a rule that will take a definitive action (pausing your ads)
   • Select a timeframe that makes sense given your goals. For example, you may want to allow your campaign to spend for a full week (i.e. one week until now) before pausing poorly performing ads, while you may want to assign a shorter time frame (i.e. 2 days until day -1) for bid adjustments.
     
   • By clicking Add, an additional ‘and’ circumstance will be created for the rule.
   • If you click Add New Condition, an ‘or’ circumstance will be created.
     Note: If more than one condition for a rule has been selected, the Marin Social platform will scan the conditions starting with the first one. If the first condition is met, the post will be boosted and the Marin Social platform won't take into account any further conditions of the rule. In case the first condition of the rule isn't met, then the Marin Social platform will move on to scan the next condition etc. 
5. Click on the Create button to create the rule.

Applying Rules

To apply the rules that you have created:

1. Go to the Parameters section in the right-hand side panel.
2. Scroll down to the Advanced configuration section.
3. Select the rule from the Optimization Rules dropdown menu.
   
4. Check the Apply the rule automatically box. This will ensure that the rule is automatically triggered and applied to any ad that meets the conditions.

Note: Leaving this box unchecked will not apply your rule automatically. Instead, a suggestion will appear for each ad that triggers the rule, allowing you to manually take the rule action. To see these suggestions, you must apply the suggested metric under the settings column within the Build Dashboard tool.

Best Practices

1. Decide the type of rule you will use:
   1. Action Rule - Apply rules to take action on your ads’ bids based on the ads’ CPA, CPC, CPE, etc.
   2. Pause Rule - Apply rules to safeguard your campaign - Pause ads at a certain spend cap or max CPA value
   3. Frequency Rule - Apply rules to manage frequency
   4. Combine - Combine multiple types into one rule by using multiple conditions
2. Use past campaign performance & data to inform rule application start and frequency
   • At what level of spend/clicks/time do you get your first conversions?
   • How many conversions do you typically get per day?
   • How have CPAs fluctuated in the past?
   • Don’t apply your rule too frequently - it can hinder delivery & performance (changing bids too frequently is discouraged by Facebook)
   • Use trial & error to determine the most effective frequency of your rules
3. Create one rule with multiple conditions to:
   • Prevent ads from spending without converting or generating clicks/engagements
   • Adjust bids (increase/decrease) for better control over spend and performance
   • Control frequency
4. Apply rule at the campaign level (rather than Media Plan)
   • As each campaign has unique performance, rules will be most effective when applied on a campaign basis

Note: Rules will be applied at the campaign level, but will be triggered based on ad performance and will affect individual ads

Additional Information

• We recommend only using automatic rules for basic activities like pausing/stopping campaigns. More complex tasks e.g. daily optimization should be performed manually.
• Our best practice recommendation is to create no more than five conditions at any time.