When to Switch to Original Audiences
Advantage+ Audience is the default for any objectiveWhen you create a campaign, one of the first things you’ll do is select an objective. The campaign objective is your ultimate goal. Your selection will impact options, including optimization and delivery. Options include Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App Promotion, and Sales. More, but you do have the option to switch back to original audienceThis is the group of people who can potentially see your ads. You help influence this by adjusting age, gender, location, detailed targeting (interests and behaviors), custom audiences, and more. More options. There are times when the way Advantage+ AudienceMeta’s AI-powered targeting option. Meta will attempt to find your audience for you based on pixel activity, conversion history, and ad engagement. You can also provide targeting suggestions that Meta will initially prioritize before going broader. More works may not be ideal.
That said, don’t overthink this. Some advertisers resist Advantage+ Audience, and that’s usually a mistake. If you’re optimizing for purchases, you shouldn’t switch back. This is when it’s at its best. The algorithm’s only focus will be getting you more purchases within your budgetA budget is an amount you’re willing to spend on your Facebook campaigns or ad sets on a daily or lifetime basis. More, and you do not want to restrict that.
But if you see that your ads are routinely served to people who are much older than your target or to a gender you don’t serve, you may need to switch back. This is most likely an issue when optimizing for actions other than purchases since the algorithm would otherwise adjust.
Advantage+ Audience allows you to set a suggested age range and gender, but within Audience ControlsAdvertisers aren’t able to exclude locations or customize age targeting from directly within the ad set of an Advantage+ Shopping Campaign. But Audience Controls within the Ad Account Settings allow the ability to make these adjustments account-wide for all Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns. More, you can only set an age minimum and there’s no hard constraint for gender.
The algorithm will always try to get you more of the action you set as the performance goalThe Performance Goal is chosen within the ad set and determines optimization and delivery. How you optimize impacts who sees your ad. Meta will show your ad to people most likely to perform your desired action. More. So if it’s conversionsA conversion is counted whenever a website visitor performs an action that fires a standard event, custom event, or custom conversion. Examples of conversions include purchases, leads, content views, add to cart, and registrations. More > purchases, that shouldn’t be an issue. For anything else, it could be.
If you are optimizing for anything other than conversions or traffic (which was updated recently), the original audience options allow you to select detailed targeting that won’t be expanded. Combined with the ability to select true age and gender restrictions, these tighter constraints may be necessary when optimizing for engagement-level actions.
Engagement-level optimization can be problematic regardless, but it is much more likely to go off the rails if you can’t set these basic limitations. It’s one of many reasons you should prioritize conversions when you can — and use Advantage+ Audience when you do.