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TL;DR

Don’t die on the hill of any particular bid strategy. All of them can work. Sometimes at the same time.

Test out different bid strategies frequently.

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The Explanation

Listen, if anyone tells you there's ONE perfect bid strategy for Meta ads, they're either lying or haven't tested enough. Despite what the Facebook reps or industry gurus claim, there isn't a universal "right way" to bid on Meta.

The absolute best performers we see are constantly tinkering with different bid strategies across their accounts rather than following some rigid doctrine.

Bid Strategies	What it means	Pros	Cons
Cost Cap	You're telling Meta to spend money as long as it can predictably generate you purchases at your target CPA (on average) over a 7 day window.	You will spend a lot on good days, while maintaining efficiency on bad days.	You can't predict your daily ad spend. It's also harder to control spend manually.
Lowest Cost	You're telling Meta to spend your entire budget but aim to acquire customers at the cheapest CPA possible in the auction.	You can predict your ad spend and control how much you're spending.	You will inevitably have days where you acquire customers above your target CPA.
Bid Cap	You're telling Meta to only bid up to a certain amount for a customer. This is a hard-stop-line, which means that if it predicts that it can't win auctions, it will not spend.	You will spend a lot on good days while maintaining efficiency on bad days.	You can't predict your daily ad spend. It's also harder to control spend manually.

How To Set It Up

Systematically test multiple bid strategies simultaneously (lowest cost, bid caps, cost caps, value optimization)
Allocate different percentages of your spend to different strategies (e.g., 65% lowest cost, 20% bid caps, 15% cost caps)
Create proper test structures with identical creative and audiences
Let data, not dogma, determine what works for YOUR specific account

What We've Seen Across Ad Accounts

Here's the thing: every single account behaves differently. We've seen accounts where cost caps absolutely crush it, and others where they tank performance compared to lowest cost.

One of our beauty clients swore by lowest cost until we tested bid caps on their best-performing audiences — and saw a 22% efficiency improvement virtually overnight.

For another client, a blend of strategies actually outperformed any single approach. Their optimal mix ended up being mostly lowest cost with strategic use of bid caps on high-intent audiences and cost caps on their prospecting campaigns.

Remember, you don’t have to be an absolutist on a specific bid strategy.

The key insight here: