How the Optimizer Works

The optimizer is the most consequential thing Layers does for you. It runs every 6 hours per ad layer (Meta, TikTok, Apple Search Ads), evaluates each campaign, adset/adgroup, ad, and keyword, and proposes actions such as:

• Pause an entity that's burning budget without converting.
• Adjust budget (up or down) on an entity with strong or weak unit economics.
• Adjust bid (Apple / TikTok keywords).
• Hold (no action) — the most common outcome, by design.

Proposed actions then pass through a guardrail approval stage; only approved actions are executed.

Inputs

For each entity, the optimizer reads:

ads_content.organic_score is used when selecting new creatives to launch — it does NOT pause already-running ads.

Decisions

The optimizer assigns each ad (and each adset, adgroup, campaign) one of the following classifications every cycle:

• TOO_YOUNG — under 3 days old. Never paused.
• LEARNING_PHASE — platform reports the entity is still in learning. Never paused.
• TOP_PERFORMER — performance score ≥ 80. Never paused.
• HEALTHY — performance score ≥ 50. Never paused.
• UNDERPERFORMING — CPA materially above pool average, or low performance score.
• FATIGUED — CPA degraded over time, frequency high, sufficient spend.
• CRITICAL — >$50 spent with zero installs in 7d, or CPA > 2.5× pool average.

Only UNDERPERFORMING, FATIGUED, and CRITICAL entities are eligible for pausing. Every decision is gated by the guardrails.

Guardrails

Hard rules that gate every proposed action:

1. Min age 3 days before any action on an entity.
2. Min $5 spent before a pause action in the content-refresh disable step.
3. Min 100 impressions before budget/bid changes.
4. Never disable ads classified TOP_PERFORMER or HEALTHY.
5. Never leave an adset/adgroup empty.
6. Max 50% budget change per cycle, and never more than $100 absolute.
7. Max 40 total actions and 20 pauses per cycle.
8. Cooldowns between actions on the same entity: 48h for structural and budget changes, 24h for bid changes.
9. Manual overrides win — override = 'include' keeps a creative eligible regardless of score; override = 'exclude' forces ineligible.

These rules exist so the optimizer never bricks an ad account by pausing or rebalancing everything during a noisy day.

Why a low organic score doesn't pause running ads

A common confusion: the organic score affects which creatives are picked for the next launch. It doesn't pause already-running ads. If a creative's organic score decays below 4.0 while it's running, it stays running — the optimizer is purely watching ad performance metrics (CPA, fatigue, CTR).

This intentional split prevents thrash: an ad with a great CPA but aging organic score wouldn't be killed mid-run.

See Organic scoring and Ad eligibility for the full picture.

Cycle cadence

The watchdog is a lightweight safety check that auto-pauses entities with catastrophic spend patterns (e.g., $50+ spent and 0 installs) between full optimizer cycles.

Reading optimizer decisions in the UI

Each optimizer run writes its proposals, approvals, and rejections (with reasons) to the project's workflow-run history. Open the layer detail page and look at the most recent ad-optimize run to see:

• Classifications assigned to each entity and the metrics that drove them.
• Proposed actions, and whether each was approved or rejected by guardrails.
• Reasons actions were rejected (e.g., "Entity too young (2d < 3d minimum)").

Pausing the layer

If you need a freeze (e.g., during a launch week, regulatory review, or system incident), use the Pause action on the layer's Danger zone. While paused, no scheduled commands run — the optimizer stops proposing or executing actions until you resume.

Next

• Safety guardrails in detail.
• Reading the dashboard.