At scale, the biggest challenge isn't finding winning ads, it's knowing when to kill losers before they drain your budget. Most media buyers either kill ads too early (missing potential winners) or let them bleed money too long (burning budget on clear losers).
When you're managing millions in monthly ad spend, or even running ads at low scale, you can’t afford to waste spend, or make emotional decisions. Every day you let a losing ad run costs real money. Every winner you kill prematurely costs you opportunity.
But how do you make these decisions systematically? Can you simply wait "a few more days" to see if an ad turns around? How do you protect winning campaigns from underperforming creative tests?
Kyle, a verified MediaBuyer who verifiably spent $15M+ across Meta and Google ads and worked with brands like Nike, developed a mathematical framework that removes emotion from kill-vs-scale decisions.
In this insight, we'll show you the exact 10X Kill Switch Rule and systematic approach we use to test ads without bleeding budgets.
Kyle's Kill Switch Philosophy
Kyle realized something important after years of managing huge budgets:
"Generally if it's going to be above 10x spend in relation to the target CPA, I'm going to kill switch it and just turn it off."
But the kill switch is just half the equation. The other half is making sure you give ads enough budget to actually work. As Kyle puts it: "The daily spend really needs to be 3x the target CPA so I can get enough volume coming in because Meta needs at least 50 conversions in a seven-day period to optimize."
So Kyle's system has two mathematical rules that work together:
The Budget Rule: 3x your target CPA = minimum daily spend for testing
The Kill Rule: 10x your target CPA = automatic kill point
These aren't arbitrary numbers. They're based on how Facebook's algorithm actually works and what Kyle learned spending millions with major brands.
Setting Up the Math
Here's how Kyle calculates everything before launching any test:
If your target CPA is $100, you need at least $300 per day for testing that creative. And if that creative spends $1,000 total without getting you a conversion, it gets killed immediately. No exceptions.
Kyle breaks this down with different examples:
- Target CPA $50 → Need $150/day minimum, kill at $500 total spend
- Target CPA $100 → Need $300/day minimum, kill at $1,000 total spend
- Target CPA $500 → Need $1,500/day minimum, kill at $5,000 total spend
The timeline usually works out to about 3-4 days per decision. You're either killing the test or you've got a winner you can start scaling.
How Kyle Structures His Accounts
Kyle keeps his testing completely separate from his scaling campaigns. He learned this lesson the hard way - when you mix new, unproven creative with your best performers, the new stuff can drag down your whole account.
The foundation of our kill switch methodology is isolating all creative testing into separate campaigns, as shown in our core account structure:
His account structure looks like this:
- T_PROSPECTING_US (Core scaling campaign - winners only)
- T_PROSPECTING_TESTING_US (Testing campaign - new creative)
- T_RETARGETING_US (Retargeting campaign - proven creative)
As Kyle explains: "I take the winners from our creative testing campaign and put them into our prospecting and retargeting campaigns." Simple promotion system - test in isolation, promote winners to the big leagues.
He also learned not to use Facebook's built-in A/B testing tool. "I've found that this tends to increase the costs of creative tests with little to no upside," Kyle says. His method is faster and cheaper.
Key Notes About This Structure:
- Winners from testing campaigns get promoted to core scaling campaigns
- Don't use Facebook's A/B testing tool (too expensive, too slow)
- Same creative often works in both prospecting and retargeting
- Core campaigns use CBO, testing campaigns typically use ABO
The Testing Process
When Kyle launches a new creative test, here's exactly what happens:
Days 1-3: Hands off completely – Kyle doesn't make any optimization decisions during this period. He lets Facebook figure out how to distribute the budget among the different ad variations. "Even Facebook now suggests a minimum of 72 hours before evaluating performance," he notes.
Day 3 onward: Start monitoring – Now Kyle starts tracking total spend per ad against his 10x kill threshold. But he's not making hasty decisions - he's looking for clear patterns.
Kyle typically puts 3-6 ad variations in each test. Same concept, different executions. Maybe different hooks, different thumbnails, different opening lines. He keeps everything else the same so he can see exactly what's working.
Making The Decision
After a few days of data, Kyle usually sees one of three scenarios:
The winner scenario: The creative hits target CPA or better. Kyle's move here is interesting - he doesn't immediately move it to the core campaigns. Instead, he scales it right there in the testing campaign first.
"I start scaling the ad set directly in the testing campaign," Kyle explains. "I do this before dripping the new creative into the core campaigns to make sure that the creative can withstand an increased budget."
The maybe scenario: Performance is okay but not great - maybe 10-25% above target CPA. Kyle gives these a bit more time. He'll turn off the worst individual ads to let the better ones get more budget. But if nothing improves after 5-7 days total, it gets killed.
The kill scenario: When creative is performing badly - 2x target CPA or worse - Kyle doesn't hesitate. As soon as it approaches that 10x total spend threshold, it's done. "I need to turn that one off and replace it with some new type of variant," he says.
Why This Works
Kyle's system works because it's based on how Facebook's algorithm actually functions, not on hope or gut feelings.
"Meta needs at least 50 conversions in a seven-day period to optimize," Kyle explains. That's why the 3x daily spend rule exists - to give the algorithm enough volume to work with. And the 10x kill rule exists because if a creative can't convert within that threshold, more money won't fix fundamental creative problems.
The math removes emotion from decisions that cost real money. Kyle doesn't have to wonder "should I give this one more day?" The numbers tell him exactly what to do.
Try This
Here's how to implement Kyle's system this week:
- Step 1: Do the math for your business. Take your target CPA and multiply by 3 - that's your minimum daily testing budget. Multiply by 10 - that's your kill threshold.
- Step 2: Set up a separate testing campaign if you don't have one. Keep it completely separate from your best-performing campaigns.
- Step 3: Launch one creative test with your calculated budget. Test 3-6 variations of the same concept.
- Step 4: Apply the timeline and thresholds exactly as Kyle does. Kill or scale based on the math, not your feelings.
Remove emotion from testing with mathematical thresholds. Media buyers who use systematic decision-making consistently outperform those making gut-feel choices.
For more, watch the full Q&A interview with Kyle here.
