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I read Meta's latest Advantage+ announcement twice, looking for the catch. There is one, but it is not where you would expect.
The catch is not that automation is bad. It is that automation by default quietly moves decisions from you to the system, and most advertisers will not notice which ones until results change. So before you click the new setup, it is worth knowing exactly what is being handed over.
This is a test phase, and details may change. What follows is based on what has been reported so far.
What exactly did Meta announce about Advantage+ in February 2025?
Social Media Today and Adweek both reported on February 6, 2025. Here is what they say.
One setup instead of two
Meta is testing a new setup so marketers no longer have to choose between manual and Advantage+ sales campaigns. Advantage+ optimization would be available across campaign elements.1 Adweek describes it as combining flows that used to run as separate campaigns, and quotes Meta's VP of product saying Advantage+ is not mandatory.2
The label and the rename
Campaigns in the test carry an "Advantage+ on" label showing when Meta's AI optimizations are applied. They turn on when you use Advantage+ audience, placements or campaign budget. Advantage+ shopping campaigns are now Advantage+ sales campaigns.1
Leads campaigns and Opportunity Score
Meta also said Advantage+ is expanding to leads campaigns, with the streamlined setup being tested there too, and that early testing showed 10% lower cost per qualified lead with Advantage+ on. It described an Opportunity Score from 0 to 100 in Ads Manager, with a 5% median decrease in cost per result for advertisers who adopted the recommendations.1
10%
Is more automation good for your results?
Sometimes. The honest answer is that it depends on what you fed it.
Why Meta pushes automation
Meta's own engineering team has been explicit about the direction. Its Andromeda retrieval system shrinks a pool of tens of millions of possible ads to a short list of thousands, and Meta says advertisers who turned on Advantage+ AI-driven targeting saw a 22% increase in return on ad spend.4 SMT also reports Advantage+ shopping campaigns grew 70% year over year in Q4.1 The platform is investing heavily here, and it will keep nudging advertisers in this direction.
Why you should still verify
Every figure above is Meta's. They are useful signals and they are not guarantees for your account. Results depend on the quality of your offer, creative and the events you send back. Think of Meta's numbers as a reason to run a test, not a reason to skip one.
Ben Heath, who runs an ad agency, flagged a different catch in a video he posted on February 27, 2024 about the existing-customers setting for Advantage+ shopping campaigns:
with things like Advantage Plus shopping campaigns they tend to be quite retargeting heavy
That is his observation from client accounts, not a Meta statement. It is the reason I look at new-customer share before I trust a strong return on ad spend.
VideoBen Heath
Hidden Setting Explodes Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (Facebook Ads)
His walkthrough shows where the existing-customers setting lives and why feeding it your buyer list helps the system.
What should you hand over to Advantage+?
The things that benefit from scale and speed of testing. Meta's system sees far more signals than you can.
- Audience expansion. Let the system find people beyond your hand-built interests, a tradeoff I walked through in Advantage+ audience vs detailed targeting.
- Placements. Let it move delivery across feeds, stories and reels where it finds results.
- Budget distribution within a campaign. Let it shift spend between ad sets or ads as results come in.
What should you keep manual?
The decisions that depend on your business, not on delivery.
| Hand to automation | Keep with a human |
|---|---|
| Who sees the ad inside your targeting | What you are selling and at what price |
| Where the ad appears | The creative concepts and the promise |
| How spend moves within a campaign | The total budget and the stop-loss |
| Delivery pacing | The conversion event you optimize for |
| Routine testing of small changes | Claims, compliance and brand review |
Automation optimizes the answer. You still have to pick the question.
The conversion event is the one that matters most
Advantage+ will chase whatever you tell it to chase. If the event is a cheap action that rarely turns into revenue, the machine will become excellent at finding cheap actions. Choose the event closest to money that Meta can see reliably (a clean Conversions API setup helps), and revisit it when your funnel changes.
Creative is still yours
Meta's engineers say the number of creatives in the system is expected to grow significantly and that diversity helps.4 Automation does not write your strategy, and a steady creative testing cadence is how you keep feeding it. If every concept is the same idea, you have given the machine nothing to choose between.
Who should move first, and who should wait?
Not everyone needs to be first in line for a test.
Move sooner if you have steady volume
Automation learns from events. An account that produces a healthy number of purchases or qualified leads every week gives the system something to work with, and a clean comparison against your current setup is easy to read.
Wait and watch if volume is thin
If you only see a handful of conversions a week, a new setup can take a long time to settle, and a bad week looks the same as a bad system. Hold your structure steady, fix the offer and the follow-up, and let others find the rough edges first.
Be careful in regulated categories
If you advertise anything with claims that need review, such as health, finance or income, treat every automated element as a place where something could slip through. Check what the system is allowed to change in your ads, and review the creative as it will actually appear.
How do you test the new setup without risking the account?
- Wait for access. This is a test, so you may not see it yet. Do not rebuild in a panic.
- Duplicate your best performing campaign rather than replacing it.
- Change one thing. Turn Advantage+ on for one lever, such as placements, and keep the rest.
- Give it room to learn. Meta's developer guidance says the learning period stabilizes with at least 50 events over a 7-day period, and warns that significant edits can trigger a new one.3 Do not judge on day two.
- Compare cost per customer, not cost per click. Judge the result against your original campaign.
- Keep notes. Write down what changed and when, so you can read the result later.
What is the bigger lesson?
Meta is moving toward a world where the system does more of the media buying, and you do more of the thinking about what is worth buying. That shifts value toward the things only you control: the offer, the proof, the follow-up and the truth in your claims.
So spend your energy there. That offer-to-follow-up path is what I map out in the system I build for clients. The advertisers who treat this as a settings change will get average results. The ones who treat it as a prompt to sharpen their offer and creative will get better ones.
Keep building.Ekai
Questions people ask
What are Advantage+ sales campaigns?
Meta renamed Advantage+ shopping campaigns to Advantage+ sales campaigns to reflect a wider range of advertisers than online stores. Meta reported the change on February 6, 2025 alongside a test of a streamlined Advantage+ setup.
Is Advantage+ mandatory in the new setup?
No. According to Adweek's report, Meta's VP of product said using Advantage+ is not mandatory. Advertisers in the test see an Advantage+ on or off label showing whether AI optimization is applied.
What does Meta say the new setup improves?
Meta said that in early testing, leads campaigns with Advantage+ on had a 10% lower cost per qualified lead, and that advertisers who adopted Opportunity Score recommendations saw a 5% median decrease in cost per result. Both are Meta's own early figures.
What should I keep manual in Advantage+ campaigns?
Keep the decisions automation cannot make: the offer, the creative concepts, the conversion event you optimize for, your budget limits and your compliance review. Let the system handle placements and delivery once those are right.
Sources
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