What is Meta Advantage

Meta Advantage is a set of advertising tools from Meta aimed at automating the work of marketers.

Its main feature and difference from ordinary tools is that Advantage uses machine learning and AI to automate work so that campaigns run with minimal user involvement.

Meta divides its AI tools into two groups with similar names. Meta Advantage+ is designed to automate the entire campaign. At the same time, there is Meta Advantage (without a plus sign), which combines many tools for targeted automation with AI. This is mentioned in the help section at the time of writing the article; we will use both spellings as they appear in the interface currently, but be aware that both groups of tools work on similar principles.

Currently, Advantage products are displayed in the ad interface as recommended, but for those who prefer to set up the campaign themselves, this option remains available.

What Meta Advantage Does

Advantage products collect information about the campaign in real-time and adjust strategies accordingly. Essentially, they are designed to streamline the process of creating and optimizing ads, making it more accessible to those who are not marketers or advertising experts on Facebook and Instagram.

This includes tools for automating audiences, creatives, placements, budgets, etc. Essentially, each proposition to enable “advantage” means that you personally won’t have to think about the aspect mentioned next. For example, “Advantage detailed targeting” will select detailed targeting using AI, “Advantage+ placements” will select placements based on AI recommendations, and “Advantage+ creative” will choose the best creatives from those you have created for showing to specific audiences.

Please note, there is currently no mention of creating creatives using AI or generating ad copy with AI — if you want to generate something, you’ll have to use traditional generative services. Instead, META claims to have trained AI to do what ordinary automated algorithms did before. Yes, before the advent of Advantage, advertisers could entrust the selection of placements to the Automatic Placements tool, and the substitution of the most effective creatives at the beginning of the carousel has been available for over 5 years (although until 2024, it worked without AI).

Let’s take a closer look at which specific tools are being discussed and how they can be applied.

Складові Meta Advantage

When setting up a campaign, you’ll see several proposals to apply Advantage, depending on the initial settings of the advertising campaign, particularly its objectives. In any case, proposals to apply Advantage audience appear when selecting the audience, and by default, the Advantage+ creative option is enabled. If you want to test these tools, do not disable these settings.

But these are not all available components; let’s document the complete list of Advantage tools from META.

Audience Automation

Advantage+ audience is a tool which allows AI to select the audience for your ad.

Advantage detailed targeting  allows the system to reach a broader group of users who, according to META data, may be interested in your product.

Advantage custom audience allows showing ads to users who do not belong to the audience you manually selected, based on the initial custom audience.

Advantage lookalike —  shows ads to people beyond the initial targeting based on the advertiser’s lookalike audience.

Creative Automation

Advantage+ catalog ads shows product ads from your catalog to people based on their interests. This strategy can be applied to campaigns aimed at Sales, App promotion, Engagement, Leads, or Traffic.

Advantage+ creative optimizes images and videos to better elicit the desired response from viewers. For example, 3D animation or music may be added to the image; a detailed list of options can be found in the help section.

Advantage+ creative for catalog is a new name for dynamic formats and creatives; shows users a combination of formats and creatives that a specific viewer is most likely to react to.

Advantage+ international catalog ads allows launching ads that will vary depending on the user’s country and language.

Destination automation

Shops ads helps to generate sales by directing users to your store or website; as of April 2024, only available in the United States.

Website and app improves the ad campaign to achieve desired conversions on the advertiser’s website or in their app.

Placement Automation

Advantage+ placements selects ad placements, distributing impressions between Facebook, Instagram, Meta Audience Network partners, and other available placements.

Budget Automation

Advantage campaign budget (formerly known as “campaign budget optimization”) – a tool that automatically manages the campaign budget across multiple ad sets to achieve better results. The idea is to distribute the budget among different ads so that the most effective ads receive the most spending.

Should You Use Meta Advantage?

Currently, in Meta’s documentation, Advantage tools and approaches are presented as “recommended.” At the same time, the approach where a specialist sets up a campaign as they see fit is considered too complex. META encourages advertisers to use Advantage both as a design for their advertising account with Advantage options pre-enabled and through direct communication.

Despite Meta encouraging users to use Advantage tools, several factors should be considered before applying these functions in your campaigns.

Who Should Use Advantage

Пропонуючи користувачам скористатись Advantage, Meta пропонує їм зекономити час на плануванні та моніторингу своїх кампаній.

Якщо йдеться про малий бізнес, особистий блог чи загалом перші кампанії людини, яка раніше не мала справ із рекламою, це буде дійсно корисним, та компенсує незнання всіх налаштувань та нюансів.

Водночас для фрілансерів й агентств, котрі працюють із малим та середнім бізнесом, Advantage може також бути помічним й компенсувати брак знань про конкретну нішу чи регіон.

Who Could Consider Not Using Advantage

If you are an experienced marketer, you have long noticed the trend of transforming digital marketing into a mysterious event under the hood of automated systems. Sometimes “smart” tools offer useful, unexpected approaches, but sometimes they do strange things that professionals try to avoid.

Conclusion

Advantage is a general term under which Meta has combined “smart” tools for launching and optimizing ads.

Advantage in the Facebook ad account is a recommended choice, but users have the option to set up and improve the campaign manually.

If you have the knowledge and skills to launch ads, disable Advantage options and work in the usual format. However, if you are a beginner in advertising or are promoting your own small business, these tools are made specifically for you. The only thing left is to consider whether you are ready to entrust your advertising budget to an “intelligent” decision based on AI.