Aaron Young explains Google Ads' learning phase: it triggers when you increase budget over 20%, pause ad groups, add many keywords, or change target CPA/ROAS. The phase ends after 50 conversions or three conversion cycles. For accounts spending heavily, it usually clears within 48 hours.
What is a learning cycle when it comes to Google Ads and should you be worried about it? This is one of the questions I get all the time. And in fact, I could show you long email chains of business owners who are so worried that one of their campaigns has gone into a bid status learning. So let's really, really quickly break this down. Now, the big thing that I really want to point out is that the learning status or the bid status learning happens when you make a significant change inside of Google Ads. The main things are going to be you've increased the budget generally by more than 20%, or you've changed the traffic. So you've paused multiple ad groups, or you've dumped in a whole heap of new keywords, or you've changed your target CPA, or you've changed your target ROAS. And essentially what you need to be thinking about is remembering that Google works on the data that's inside of your platform. Can reach back to 90 days, works best over the past 30 days. So if you've gone through and changed something significant Google is essentially going, hey, give me some time to work out how I can best make your budget work to achieve your target and goal. Now, the good news is, is especially if you're spending money at scale, we've seen campaigns jump out of learning inside of 48 hours. And the reason for this is because when we look at Google's documentation, and we've seen this in real life as well, real accounts, is that that learning phase will exit when one of two things have happened. Firstly, you've got more than 50 conversions. So once you've made those changes and Google's picked up a pool of 50 conversions, it exits learning, exits learning, or secondly, it's gone through 3 conversion cycles. Conversion cycle is when inside of Google Ads you get a click and you go through to a conversion. So if that average time takes 5 days, it's gonna take you 15 days. If it's only 2 days, it's gonna take you 6 days. So when it comes to learning cycles and Google Ads, it's not something to be massively scared about. It's just understanding that you've made some changes and Google needs time to catch up. Now, we would recommend as a general rule, if you are getting more than 50 conversions a week, ideally if you're getting more than 50 conversions in 1 or 2 days, it's something you don't need to worry about because Google will move very, very quickly. Do keep an eye on your search impression share, but don't be afraid of seeing bid status learning on your Google Ads account.
