Meta's two ad-level ways to give new ads real spend without separate testing campaigns — "Push delivery to this ad" (default 20% of budget for 7 days, rolling out to ~half of Heath Media's accounts in Oct 2026) and the Creative testing tool (2–7 ads split-tested on segmented audiences) — when each fits by conversion volume, how much budget to test with (10–60%), and the short-term performance hit.

Push delivery vs the creative testing tool

TL;DR

The problem. New ads dropped into a working ad set get no spend, because the incumbents keep it all. Advertisers then kill the old winners to force spend, and performance drops.¹²
Push delivery to this ad (ad level → Show more settings; rolling out, in about half of Ben Heath’s accounts as of Oct 2026). It dedicates a share of the daily budget to the ad, default 20% for 7 days, then delivery returns to normal.³⁴
Creative testing tool (ad level, below the creative). Split-tests 2–7 ads, up from 5, on non-overlapping slices of the audience with a share of budget you choose. Compare on cost per result for your optimisation event, never cost per engagement.⁵⁶
Choose by conversion volume. Testing 5 ads at once at 1–2 conversions/day can take a month or more, so use push delivery one ad at a time. Dozens or hundreds of conversions a week make the batch tool practical.⁷
Both keep tests inside the existing ad set, so there’s no data fragmentation from extra testing campaigns or ad sets.⁸
Expect worse short-term results. Most new ads won’t beat the best 2 of the last 3 months. You test for the occasional ad that changes the business, e.g. 4.8× ROAS against a 3× norm.⁹

Details

How much budget to test (Ben; Heath Media spends 30–40% of $100M+/yr on testing):

typically 10–50%, up to 60%
100% if nothing converts
10–20% when campaigns are very profitable¹⁰¹¹

How long. Base duration on conversion volume, not days. A campaign with 20 conversions in an hour is as “mature” as one with 20 in two months. Low-volume accounts may need a month. If a test ends with ~3 conversions, rerun or extend it. There’s no proxy metric that lets you judge early.¹²¹³

Best practices (Ben):

Don’t test around one-off sales like BFCM; let Meta consolidate on winners. Repeating monthly sales are an exception, since learnings carry over.¹⁴
Push only big changes: new format, style, hook, avatar or angle. A new background colour doesn’t need it.¹⁵
Don’t try to split-test your way to “the one perfect ad”. Post-Andromeda delivery is personalised, so a diverse set beats a single average winner.¹⁶

Jon Loomer’s flow. For an initial batch, use the creative testing tool only if you want a true A/B test, accepting less efficient delivery. Let ads run another week after the test ends. Publish later batches straight into the ad set without a test, and judge results in aggregate after a couple of weeks. Use push delivery for a few days on an ad you feel was unfairly neglected.¹⁷¹⁸

Disagreements / caveats

Inside the ad set vs a separate testing campaign. Dara Denney and Smart Marketer test outside the scaling campaign so new ads don’t disturb it (Meta creative testing setups at $5K, $50K and $1M+ per month). Ben (at low or medium volume) and Loomer test inside it with these tools. CTC adds a separate “underspend” ASC (Fixing Meta underspend — CTC's four phases, and why they never turn off ads).
Push delivery and the testing tool can’t run in the same campaign at once: the test option greys out while a push is active.¹⁹
Feature names and limits are from Aug–Oct 2026 and still rolling out.

Getting spend onto new Meta ads — push delivery vs the creative testing tool

Push delivery vs the creative testing tool

TL;DR

Details

Disagreements / caveats

See also

Getting spend onto new Meta ads — push delivery vs the creative testing tool

Push delivery vs the creative testing tool

TL;DR

Details

Disagreements / caveats

See also

Footnotes