Facebook ads of yore were a collection of advertising obstacle courses and brain-bending puzzles. Meta wants today’s advertising to be as simple as the press of a button. Case in point: The ability to automatically apply delivery recommendations.
You’re likely seeing a constant stream of delivery recommendations these days. You can take it a step further and accept them all.
But, should you?
The Button
Within your Account Overview, you may have seen this…
It reads:
Recommendations are generated when there’s an opportunity that could improve your campaign performance. You can control the types of adjustments that are automated and turn them off at any time.
This sounds scary. Before we do this, we need to learn more about what types of changes fall within these recommendations.
Automatic Adjustments
If you turn that slider on, you’ll see that you do have some control over what delivery recommendations are considered and which you will automatically apply.
Let’s break these down…
Campaign Structure: “Ad setsAn ad set is a Facebook ads grouping where settings like targeting, scheduling, optimization, and placement are determined. More may be combined so they deliver more efficiently. Ads that are underperforming could be turned off, which may redistribute 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.”
This seems most relevant to Auction Overlap and Audience Fragmentation. My assumption is that the ads that are turned off are only in relationship to the ad set that was combined.
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: “Adjust targeting settings when there’s an opportunity to reachReach measures the number of Accounts Center Accounts (formerly users) that saw your ads at least once. You can have one account reached with multiple impressions. More more people who might be interested in your ads.”
This seems to suggest that even if you don’t turn on one of the Advantage+ audience expansion products, Meta may turn it on anyway if it’s believed to help you get more results.
Creative and Format: “Your ad creative may be enhanced when it’s likely to improve performance. This applies to media, text, ad format and other visual elements.”
You have the option of turning on Advantage+ Creative when you put your ad together. If you don’t, it may automatically get turned on (or an element of it may get turned on) if it may help you get better results.
Delivery and Engagement: “Optimize how your ads are delivered and which placements they’re shown in. This includes settings related to how people may engage with your ad, like which outcomes are prioritized.”
This seems a bit vague, but it sounds like it could change how your ad set is optimize (“which outcomes are prioritized”). It also seems to be related to turning on Advantage+ PlacementsFormerly known as Automatic Placements. When you utilize Advantage+ Placements, Meta will automatically optimize which placements are used and when to get you the most results for your budget. More, even if you had manually selected individual placements.
Spend and Schedule: “Your budget will never be changed. Other bid and schedule settings may be adjusted to help spend your budget more efficiently.”
This, again, lacks details. I assume if you used a Cost Cap or Bid Cap, the cap you set may be automatically adjusted if this is on. The only “schedule setting” I can imagine might get adjusted is if you use dayparting — maybe a day or time you had turned off would get turned back on if it would lead to better results.
What Should You Do?
Look, I just came around to broad targeting and (usually) rolling with Advantage+ Placements. I might be a little conservative on this.
But, I am not ready to hand over the wheel completely to Meta.
In order to turn these settings on, you’d need to be comfortable with Meta’s automated assessment globally — in all cases. The problem is that there are often exceptions to when I want to use these things.
Let’s address these one at a time…
Campaign Structure: There might not be a single time I’ve accepted Meta’s recommendation to merge campaignsThe campaign is the foundation of your Facebook ad. This is where you'll set an advertising objective, which defines what you want your ad to achieve. More or ad sets. Usually, it makes no sense to do so. Otherwise, I’ll give up on a campaign or ad set when I decide I’m ready.
I’m keeping this off.
Audience: We often have no choice whether Detailed Targeting or Lookalike Audiences are expanded these days, at least if you are optimizing for some sort of conversion. But if it’s off, it’s because I want it off. And there are times when I’m targeting a custom audience and I absolutely do not want to expand that audience.
I’m keeping this off.
Creative and Format: I’m actually beginning to experiment with Advantage+ CreativeWhen turned on, Advantage+ Creative can make adjustments to your ad on a per-user basis to get you the best results. Adjustments include text (swapping headline and description), image brightness, turning images into a video, applying a template, adding music for Stories, and more. More a bit more. I’m open to using it. I’m not convinced it’s particularly helpful yet. But I’m moving in that direction. Still, if I have it off it’s because I want it off (for now, at least).
I’m keeping this off.
Delivery and Engagement: First, I can’t imagine being open to Meta automatically changing my optimizationThe 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 goal. I understand how optimization works. I chose my optimization goal for a reason. Don’t change it.
If I’m optimizing for any type of conversion, I’m using Advantage+ Placements. But there are times when I won’t, and that’s largely because of flaws in Meta’s ads optimization. Once again, if I’m not using all placements, there’s a reason for it and I don’t trust Meta with this.
I’m keeping this off.
Spend and Schedule: The problem is that I’m not even sure what this is about. If it’s related to bidding, I don’t do a lot of manual bidding anyway. If it’s about dayparting, I don’t do that either. So… I just don’t have a reason to turn this on.
I’m keeping this off.
It’s not that I’m opposed to adjustments with any of these recommendations. The problem is that I don’t fully trust Meta to apply them globally whenever the algorithm thinks it should. There are too many weaknesses in the system right now.
The ads algorithm is getting better. It’s super smart. But it’s not perfect either. And because of that, I just can’t turn this on yet.
Watch Video
I recorded a video about this, too. Check it out below…
Your Turn
Do you automatically apply delivery recommendations, partially or completely?
Let me know in the comments below!
