Winning ad dies every time I move it from Testing to BAU ad group — what am I doing wrong?
App promotion campaign | Optimizing for in-app subscribes
I run a pretty simple campaign structure:
- 1 Testing Ad Group — where I test new creatives
- 1 BAU (Business As Usual) Ad Group — where I move winners to scale
I haven't found a winner in a while, so my BAU ad group currently only has 1 ad in it. This week I finally found one that looked legit, and then watched it die twice. Here's the full timeline:
Step 1: Found a winner in Testing
After ~8,000 impressions in the Testing ad group, this ad was crushing it:
| Metric | Value |
|---|
| Spend | $158.78 |
| Results | 17 in-app subscribes |
| Cost/Subscribe | $9.34 |
| App Installs | 43 |
| Cost/Install | $3.69 |
| Outbound CTR | 1.07% |
Strong upper AND lower funnel metrics. I was hyped. Paused the ad and moved it into BAU.
Step 2: Duplicated via Post ID into a NEW BAU ad group — performance tanked
I duplicated the ad using
Post ID into a brand new BAU ad group (the ad lived in there alone). After ~2 days:
| Metric | Value |
|---|
| Spend | $211.93 |
| Results | 7 in-app subscribes |
| Cost/Subscribe | $30.28 |
| App Installs | 28 |
CPA went from $9.34 →
$30.28 (3.2x worse). Spent more money and got way less results. Turned it off.
Step 3: Duplicated (Meta duplicate button) into an OLD paused BAU ad group — completely dead
Thinking maybe the new ad group was the issue, I tried duplicating the original ad (this time using Meta's duplicate button, not post ID) into one of my older BAU ad groups that had been paused for a while.
| Metric | Value |
|---|
| Spend | $71.53 |
| Results | 0 subscribes |
| App Installs | 0 |
| Outbound CTR | 0.13% |
Absolutely dead. $71.53 spent with literally zero results. The 0.13% CTR vs 1.07% in testing tells me Meta was serving this to a completely different audience.
Summary of the decline:
| Metric | Testing | BAU #1 (Post ID → New Group) | BAU #2 (Duplicate → Old Group) |
|---|
| Spend | $158.78 | $211.93 | $71.53 |
| Subscribes | 17 | 7 | 0 |
| Cost/Subscribe | $9.34 | $30.28 | — |
| Outbound CTR | 1.07% | 0.94% | 0.13% |
What I've tried:
- Duplicating via Post ID into a new ad group
- Duplicating via Meta's duplicate button into an existing (paused) ad group
- Both methods killed the ad
Questions:
- Is moving a winning ad out of Testing into BAU fundamentally flawed? Should I just leave winners in the Testing ad group and scale there?
- Does duplicating into a new or paused ad group reset Meta's learnings entirely, forcing it back into learning phase with no signal?
- Is the fact that the BAU ad group only has 1 ad in it hurting delivery? Does Meta need multiple ads to optimize properly?
- For those running a Testing → BAU structure: what's your process for graduating winners without killing them?
Any help is appreciated — I've now spent ~$440 trying to scale a $9.34 CPA ad and I'm getting nowhere.
.png)
