What are Advantage+ ads?

In the fast-changing world of performance marketing, Meta has maximised the use of machine learning to streamline the campaign set-up process and ad optimisation. But what exactly are these enhancements, and do we trust Meta to have full control?

So, we give Meta more freedom and control, and allow machine learning to choose where to show the ad, and in what creative variation. Meta can also now choose the landing page to send a user to, reducing the amount of time, strategy, and manual implementation needed to create a paid social campaign. There are different areas of Advantage+ optimisation, and these can be found throughout the campaign set-up process.

If you’re like me, you were sceptical about relinquishing control when the first batch of features debuted in 2022. But as time has gone on and these features have been tried and tested, a few options have emerged that are worth trialling to see if they perform better against your static ads.

If your client is particular about how an ad is shown, then it may be best to stay away from some Advantage+ enhancement options and stick to the traditional campaign set-up.

Advantage+ Placements

Advantage+ Audiences

Advantage+ Creative

Which creative enhancements do we use?

How to turn off Advantage+ features

Finding the balance

Advantage+ Placements

When you select the Advantage+ Placements feature for your ad, Meta will try to get the most of your budget whilst increasing your ads visibility.

Your ads could appear across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Meta Audience Network. Placement possibilities are Facebook feed, Facebook Videos, Facebook Stories, and Facebook Reels, as well as the Instagram feed. From experimentation, we have seen a lower cost-per-click and cost-per-acquisition for campaigns using Advantage+ Placements.

Advantage+ Audiences

Advantage+ Audiences is a newer feature that uses AI to identify and aim for your highest value customers across all of Meta’s services with minimal input.

To determine this, Meta uses data from your pixel along with conversions history and information from users who engaged with your previous ads. If you decide to set up a test campaign, you can provide some audience suggestions - such as custom audiences, lookalike audiences, age range, and gender - to point the algorithm in the right direction.

You can also use this feature to set up remarketing audiences. Meta will use your conversion data to create well-engaged, remarketing, or lookalike audiences. Depending on your campaign strategy, you might still want to exclude customer lists to ensure users aren’t being served similar messages frequently.

It’s important to note that Meta will focus on reaching people who match your targeting suggestions before expanding to a further reach. Even if you select one age range, your campaign could still reach beyond this.

Advantage+ Creative

There are several different enhancements currently available to optimise your creative. These can be edited in the Advantage+ Creative box, under where you upload your creative and ad copy.

The enhancements available are:

• Music - Meta selects a song to accompany your ad based on its content.
• Dynamic Media - Meta shows either images or videos of your catalogue items based on what each person who views your ad is likely to engage with.
• Image Template – Meta creates different backgrounds, using AI, for eligible product images and delivers the version that your audience is most likely to respond to.
• Visual Touch Ups - Meta uses AI to enhance the quality of the asset provided, adding filters to help make the imagery stand out.
• Text Improvements – This feature allows Meta to optimise your ad copy and headlines.
• Relevant Comments - Meta selects comments on your ads that are most likely to improve your campaign performance, and surface these at the top of the comment section.
• 3D Animation – This feature gives your image depth and motion to help improve ad performance.
• Add Catalogue Items – You can add on a product set from your catalogue to serve underneath the ad creative. This will display similarly to an Instant Experience.

There are also specific enhancements available for Catalogue campaigns, including:

• Dynamic Format – Meta will show your ad in the format that people are most likely to engage with.
• Info Labels – Meta automatically shows information from your catalogue as an overlay in your ads when it's likely to increase engagement.
• Generate Backgrounds – This feature uses AI to create diverse variations of product images from your feed.

Which creative enhancements do we use?

Here at Herd, there are a few of these options that our Paid Media team typically use alongside Meta’s machine learning. But there are also some features that we aren’t too comfortable handing over full control to.

The first of these is Music. There is the concern that the music chosen won’t suit the tone of the ad If we wanted to include background music, that is better picked whilst creating video assets.

Another feature we exercise caution around is Generate Background. Whilst AI has massively improved, we have seen some poorly optimised creatives whilst testing this feature out. Your imagery and messaging are vital to hook a user in, so we think it’s best to be in full control of how they appear.

The same thinking applies to Adapt to Placement. If AI is stretching a 1080 x 1080px image to a 1080 x 1920px image, you can expect this to be a low-quality substitution.

However, there are a few enhancements like Dynamic Description and Info Labels that can help provide a user with more information, improving the likelihood that they stop scrolling and read a little further. The Relevant Comment feature, which pins an appropriate comment based on the content, can also can also be effective for supporting your campaign objective.

How to turn off Advantage+ features

You may not be a fan of these machine learning features and have opted out of using them. However, you might find that they keep appearing on a few ads despite being turned off. You can follow the instructions below to stop this from happening again.

Go to Ad Account Settings > Advantage+ Creative and untick the checkbox for the “Test New Optimisations”.

This feature is set up to test new enhancements to 10% of your audiences, meaning a handful of your users will see a different ad variation to the one you put live.

Finding the balance

According to research by Customer Lab, Advantage+ campaigns show:

• Lower cost per result
• Four times as many conversions
• An average of 17% uplift in cost per acquisition (CPA)
• An average uplift of 32% through the return on ad spend (ROAS)
• Reduced creative fatigue (when an audience is repeatedly exposed to the same creative elements)

These seem like positive results, but have you seen a similar uplift when using Advantage+ features across audience targeting, placement optimisation, and Advantage+ creative?

At Herd, we have found that meeting Meta halfway has worked well so far. Opting in for a few of these enhancements is a great way to boost engagement and conversion levels when creative fatigue starts to creep in.

There is definitely a place in our campaign strategy for Advantage+, and maybe one day we won’t have the luxury of choice anymore. But for now, while the technology is still developing, we will continue to test and use new features when appropriate.

If you have any questions regarding the usage of machine learning in Meta or want to discuss Paid Social opportunities, get in touch today.