Is Meta Advantage+ worth the hype?
If you’re running ad campaigns, you must have heard about Meta Advantage+ Audiences.
Well, for those of you living off the grid, Meta Advantage+ Audiences is a tool that allows you to promote your ads effectively to the targeted audience by using technologies that automatically make adjustments on who should see your ads.
It takes age or location as starting points but then searches for more potential customers interested in your products.
This new approach is similar to tools like Google Performance Max, as it takes over many tasks that digital marketers used to handle manually.
Yes, you’re right, it is yet another algorithm-first promotional model.
But what makes Meta Advantage+ different from others, and how can you make the most of this powerful new tool?
Let’s get into it:
Meta Advantage+ campaign types
Currently, Advantage+ offers two main types of campaigns: one for shopping and another for apps.
With either of these options, you can put all your ads, either static images or videos with dynamic content into one unified structure.
This collection of ads is then directed towards your audience during their whole journey.
Therefore, you need not segregate your ads into different segments such as prospecting or re-targeting.
Rather than that, through this approach towards advertising, Meta uses the most recent machine learning techniques and analytics to help you achieve desirable results by using its marketing standards on every platform.
Not the average spray-and-pray approach
Even with algorithms doing most of the work, you still need to actively monitor your campaign’s performance.
There are three key areas where your input is essential:
- The data you provide to the platform
- The creatives you design
- The insights generated from the campaign
These aspects require human oversight and can significantly impact results.
In fact, it could add up to a 15% performance boost, on top of the 20% improvement the algorithms already deliver.
But there comes the creative block...
Now, let’s suppose you are managing a paper company and you would like to utilize Meta’s Advantage+ shopping campaign. Using an ad targeting tool along with Advantage+ allows you to control your ads fully covering everything from their initiation up to their perfection by adjusting them, according to the way your clients respond to them.
As we all know, a lot of different ads have to be created so that a system can test and determine what works. Initially, some ads might perform quite poor, while there is also a possibility of showing the same message often.
So, how do you make sure that your advertisements always feel new?
Well, the good news is that Advantage+ is very intelligent and speedy in changing paths. When it realizes that one ad is failing, it immediately replaces it with another one that happens to be better or even tailors the ad for each client.
Now, this helps keep your ads interesting without your customers ultimately getting bored of viewing repetitive stuff.
How does Advantage+ work?
Meta’s Advantage+ campaigns, whether for shopping or apps, run on machine learning and pro analytics.
To get the best results, these campaigns thrive on having plenty of options and data to work with. The more creative assets and data you provide, the better the system can learn and optimize.
Having more options means the machine can pick up on more signals, which speeds up the optimization process.
It’s recommended to use at least 10 to 50 creatives, but you can actually test up to 150 different ones in Advantage+ shopping campaigns. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you need to invest a fortune in creating tons of high-end ads.
The differences between creatives can be small—think variations in headlines, body text, calls to action, or even button colors. You could also try out “lo-fi” creatives that have a DIY vibe, depending on your brand.
The bottom line is, that you don’t need 40 completely unique, high-budget creatives to make Advantage+ work well.
Unlimited learning, limited targeting
One thing that is important to keep in mind about Advantage+ is that your ad targeting options are going to be somewhat limited. This may sound surprising especially if we consider the parent company of Facebook which has been recognized for its accuracy in targeting capabilities.
For Advantage+ to work its magic and optimize your ad targeting efforts; you will have to adhere to broader targeting based on geographical location and age.
In case you want to provide more commands for the system, use your existing customer base as a model. Thus, Advantage + can create audiences for you based on such data. It is similar to how Google’s new GA4 uses available data in building ideal customer models for targeting purposes.
Advantage+ vs. Original Audience Options
Differentiating between an Advantage+ Audience and an original audience option may be complicated particularly with audience expansion involved.
However, let us break it down:
Similarities
Both Advantage+ Audience and original audience options have the similarities of going broader.
Advantage Detailed Targeting helps expand your audience automatically when you are optimizing for conversions, link clicks, or landing page views through the original audience options – this cannot be turned off.
In the same way, Advantage Lookalike automatically uses the conversions when optimizing.
If you're not thrilled that Advantage+ Audience treats your inputs as more of a guideline, keep in mind that your audience often gets expanded in the same way with the original method, too.
Differences
Flexibility to Target
Original Audience Options: give you more control over ad targeting. You will have well-laid-down details like; age, gender, religion, location, etc., hobbies, and what people talk about as well as their behaviour.
In addition to these options, there’s the Advantage Detailed Targeting or the Advantage Lookalike feature that can expand your audience from its settings.
Advantage+ Audience: The targeting inputs in Advantage+ are more like general recommendations than fixed policies. The idea behind this is that it optimizes performance through this automatic broadening of targeting based on the machine learning process.
Therefore Meta can still discover and communicate effectively with the most accurate audience who may not fit into those initial categories
Audience Expansion
Original Audience Options: In some cases, it occurs automatically. However, you rank higher in terms of when and how it occurs usually. You have to select campaigns in which you want to include audience expansion features like Advantage Detailed Targeting or Advantage Lookalike.
Advantage+ Audience: In Advantage+ Audience, the audience expansion is more aggressive. The system was made for constant optimization and targeting to enable the ad to perform better.
As a result, it frequently grows beyond the specified audiences without requiring to turn on any additional options.
Machine Learning and Data
Original Audience Options: Despite this, the original options rely more on the criteria you set for targeting while the machine learning still operates. Performance data does help optimize the system, but it starts from a narrow perspective based on your input.
Advantage+ Audience: Advantage+ is a more advanced version of machine learning and relies on data. It accommodates wider inputs and improves targeting strategies as well as develops ad content using its real-time knowledge.
Consequently, it can change rapidly with less regulation hence producing better results..
Creative Flexibility
Original Audience Options: You have the liberty of selecting how many creatives to use.If you fail to give enough creative assets, the system will take longer to optimize.
Advantage+ Audience: Having a large number of creator collateral supports Advantage+. If you give out more choices, the system can test multiple variations which lets it come up with quick productive campaigns.
Use Cases
Original Audience Options: Perfect for marketers who want more control over targeting their products as well as steering very close to certain customers.
Advantage+ Target Audience: It provides a better opportunity to individuals who want to have a more personalized audience, maximize campaign impact, and trust Meta's machine learning ability to find what audience and creative set are best.
Final thoughts
There’s a lot to think about, but here are the main takeaways:
- If you're focusing on conversions, it’s best to use Advantage+ Audience.
- You might not need to rely on audience suggestions, but it’s worth trying them out—they won’t hurt your results.
- Advantage+ Audience isn’t the best choice for top-of-funnel goals like link clicks or post engagement, especially if your target audience is specific in terms of age or gender. This might also be a challenge when optimizing for leads.
- When using Advantage+ Audience, rethink your usual campaign setup. Often, you’ll only need one ad set per campaign to avoid overlap that could hurt your results.
However, if you want to take your ad retargeting to a whole new level, connect GoAudience with your campaigns to explore new audiences. It will also help you target and re-engage your audience.
Also, it helps you create laser-focused retargeting strategies, making sure you reach the right people at the right time. Because who wants to miss the opportunity to acquire an optimized audience?
GoAudience has a free version where you can explore the product and how it works. Check it out here!
