Guide to Using Advantage+ in Meta

In recent years, Meta has made substantial investments in artificial intelligence (AI), with a focus on driving innovation and improving the performance of its advertising products. As Meta’s Dave Wahner highlighted at the end of 2022, AI infrastructure was one of the critical pillars underpinning the company’s growth, especially in tools like Advantage+. This bet on AI has paid off, as reflected by Meta’s remarkable 22% year-over-year revenue growth to $39 billion in Q2 of 2024.

Meta’s expansion into AI-driven capabilities is not just reshaping how its core platforms—Feed, Reels, and ads—function but is also unlocking new efficiencies and performance improvements for advertisers. Advantage+ themes, specifically, exemplify the company’s commitment to leveraging AI for more effective, streamlined ad creation and targeting, providing brands with a unique opportunity to scale their campaigns with increased precision.

“We are significantly expanding our AI capacity. These investments are driving substantially all of our capital expenditure growth in 2023. There is some increased capital intensity that comes with moving more of our infrastructure to AI. It requires more expensive servers and networking equipment, and we are building new data centers specifically equipped to support next generation AI-hardware. We expect these investments to provide us a technology advantage and unlock meaningful improvements across many of our key initiatives, including Feed, Reels and ads. We are carefully evaluating the return we achieve from these investments, which will inform the scale of our AI investment beyond 2023”. 

Dave Wahner from 2022 as quoted in Ben Thompson’s Meta Myths. 

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Oh boy they did, and how did that manifest itself? – via Advantage+ technology…

In this post, we will explore how Advantage+ themes have transformed Meta’s advertising landscape and the key benefits that advertisers can expect when incorporating this AI-powered tool into their strategies.

What Are Advantage+ Campaigns?

Advantage+ campaigns offer a full-funnel marketing approach that leverages machine learning to automate the entire campaign process. Unlike traditional campaigns, which involve significant control over audience targeting and segmentation, Advantage+ simplifies the process by using automation to optimize campaign performance.

Essentially, it combines audience targeting and creative testing into one fluid, adaptive system.

With this method, you lose some control over targeting specific audiences, similar to Google’s Performance Max campaigns. However, the upside is that you gain access to Meta’s robust algorithm, which continuously tests and learns from audience interactions—making it akin to using lookalike audiences on steroids.

Benefits of Advantage+ Campaigns

All-In-One Campaigns
One of the most appealing aspects of Advantage+ campaigns is their consolidation. Rather than managing multiple campaigns segmented by audience or funnel stage, this approach allows you to run just a few, or even a single, campaign that automatically manages different stages of the customer journey—from awareness to purchase. This reduces the number of campaigns, increases the data collection at the campaign level, and ultimately leads to greater consistency in performance.

Automated Audiences and Creatives
Meta’s machine learning capabilities are at the heart of Advantage+ campaigns. The algorithm automatically segments audiences based on data insights, targeting the most relevant users for your ads. In addition to audience targeting, the campaign also optimizes creatives by testing different variations and selecting the best-performing ones. This automation ensures that your ads are always being refined to maximize engagement and conversions without requiring constant manual adjustments.

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Dynamic Budgeting and Testing
Advantage+ campaigns are always in a state of learning and testing, allowing for dynamic adjustments based on performance. This method is particularly beneficial for brands looking for agility in their ad strategy. You also have the option to cap budgets for specific segments, like engaged or existing audiences, providing some control over where your spend goes.

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Advantage+ vs. Manual Campaigns: When to Use Each

One of the critical questions marketers face is whether to use Advantage+ campaigns or stick with the more traditional, manual approach to campaign management. While both have their advantages, knowing when to use each can significantly impact your overall ad performance.

Advantage+ Campaigns
These campaigns are fully automated, using AI to optimize targeting, ad placements, and budgets across the Meta platform. They are ideal for those looking for ease of use and real-time optimizations. Because Meta's AI is handling most of the work, these campaigns often yield better results with less effort​.

Manual Campaigns
While manual campaigns provide more control over every detail, from audience targeting to budget allocation, they require a higher level of expertise. This method is best suited for advertisers who need fine-tuned campaigns for very specific strategies​.

Meta recommends using both campaign types as part of a diversified account setup, leveraging the power of automation while retaining control over particular elements when necessary.

The Modern Meta Ads Funnel

Advantage+ campaigns operate within the framework of Meta’s modern marketing funnel, which is structured around five key stages:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Purchase
• Retention
• Expansion

With this campaign structure, you can nurture your audience throughout the entire customer lifecycle using just a few campaigns. This not only streamlines the process but also collects richer data at every funnel stage, leading to more informed decisions and better long-term results.

While Advantage+ campaigns offer fewer levers for manual control, they more than make up for it with their dynamic, automated, and data-driven approach. For marketers looking to streamline their Meta Ads strategy while still achieving high performance, this modern method is a powerful tool.

Power Five

In addition to the automation and efficiency provided by Advantage+ campaigns, Meta’s Power 5 methodology can further enhance campaign performance. The Power 5 tactics are designed to maximize the use of Meta's machine learning capabilities, simplifying your ad strategy while driving better results through automation.

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Automatic Advanced Matching
This feature allows Meta’s pixel to collect additional customer data like names, emails, and phone numbers from input fields on your site, increasing the accuracy of your audience targeting. This enhanced data enables better matching with lookalike audiences, helping Meta deliver your ads to high-converting users​.

Account Simplification
Rather than manually managing dozens of ad sets, Power 5 encourages marketers to streamline their account structures. This allows Meta’s algorithm to efficiently process more data, improving optimization while reducing the need for constant tinkering​. This tactic aligns with Advantage+ campaigns' philosophy of fewer, more consolidated campaigns, creating consistency at the campaign level​.‍

Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO)
CBO is critical to maximizing the efficiency of Advantage+ campaigns. Instead of assigning budgets at the ad set level, CBO allows Meta to dynamically allocate budgets across ad sets based on performance. This real-time adjustment helps avoid manual errors and ensures that your budget is spent where it’s most effective​

Automatic Placements
Meta's Power 5 strategy recommends enabling automatic placements to allow Meta’s AI to place your ads across its ecosystem (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, etc.). This tactic ensures your ads reach the most relevant users on the best-performing platforms at the right time​.

Dynamic Ads
Dynamic ads automatically show personalized content based on user behavior, such as retargeting individuals who visited your website but didn’t complete a purchase. This tactic is especially effective for eCommerce businesses, as it increases the likelihood of conversions by showing relevant products​.

By integrating Advantage+ tools, along with applying the Power 5 Methodology to your campaigns, marketers can leverage Meta’s full range of AI-driven tools to enhance campaign performance, simplify ad management, and focus on strategic growth. These tools work together to automate complex tasks, allowing you to spend more time on creative development and less on manual optimization.