I’ve been a Facebook-then-Meta advertiser since close to the beginning. This site exists (for 13 years strong now) because of my passion and deep understanding of how everything works. It’s been my pleasure sharing tips over the years to help keep you ahead of the curve.
That’s why the current path of Meta ads targeting pains me. My only goal is to help you understand where things are now and where they are heading so that you are best prepared. I’ve published several videos and posts to help explain what’s happening with targeting. The most common response I’m receiving is disbelief, if not outright defiance.
I am not trying to convince you that Advantage+ Audience is always effective or that you should go targeting-free with Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns. I want you to understand that your targeting inputs matter less than they ever did before. Knowledge of this is power because it helps advertisers better understand their role and where they can be most impactful.
Some of the things I’ve said and will repeat here aren’t up for debate. It’s how things work now. Too many advertisers simply don’t have a full understanding of how targeting works in the current environment. They are tweaking things and turning dials that have little or no connection to results.
But, the defensiveness runs deep, and I understand this. If you believe that the value you add as an advertiser is found, partially or entirely, within your targeting strategy, you will hate everything that I’m saying on the topic. It’s an attack on your way of life, and that’s scary.
This post may not fix that. It took me longer than I care to admit to accept it, and I was surely angry and defensive at first. But, I hope that this at least sends you in the direction of understanding.
Interests, Behaviors, and Detailed Targeting
First, Interests and Behaviors is the same category of targeting as Detailed Targeting. I include them all here because advertisers often misunderstand what Detailed Targeting means and lump it in with remarketing, lookalike audiences, and demographic adjustments.
This is the oldest method of targeting. It was a big deal when advertisers were given the ability to target people based on their interests and behaviors. It allowed us to isolate people based on specific interests that were related to what we were promoting.
It allows me, for example, to target people who may be interested in online-advertising content and products.
This was powerful since it would give me confidence that my ads were being shown to people who cared about, and were more likely to respond favorably to, my ad.
But, the current environment is not the same as that of 2014. The value of these inputs is not the same.
1. Inaccuracies.
I encourage you to take the time to go through the interests and behaviors that can be used to target you. Some of it is accurate. Some of it is outdated. And some of it is straight-up random.
I was originally going to list out all of the most random ways that advertisers can waste their money targeting me, but I honestly don’t know where to start. There are a lot of them. I wrote about this four years ago.
North Carolina State University ran a study in 2022 that estimated 30% of interests and behaviors used for targeting are inaccurate or irrelevant. These categories are far from perfect. We should treat them accordingly.
We assume that when we use detailed targeting that our ads will reach people who have an interest or experience directly related to that thing, but it’s not that simple. Meta seems to make inferences from random engagements that are far less meaningful.
2. Expansion.
This is a big one. It’s not new. But, advertisers continue to act surprised by or completely oblivious to this.
If you optimize for conversions, link clicks, or landing page views and you provide detailed targeting inputs, Advantage Detailed Targeting is automatically turned on. It can’t be turned off.
This means that your ads will reach people beyond those interests and behaviors if it can improve results. Your audience is expanded.
We don’t know how much your audience is expanded. We don’t know how much of your budget will be spent on the interests you listed and on people beyond those groups. But, this uncertainty matters.
There’s a very wide range of possibilities here. Maybe only a small percentage of your budget is spent on reaching people beyond your intended interests. Maybe most was spent on people you didn’t plan to target.
You should have concerns regarding the accuracy of detailed targeting inputs. You should also assume that there’s a distinct possibility that the results you get have more to do with the expansion of your audience than the inputs you provided.
While we can’t say definitively that interest targeting doesn’t matter at all, the amount of positive impact they can make is certainly in question.
Bottom line: My point isn’t that you can’t get good results while using detailed targeting. A common response I get from advertisers is that they get good results when they use interests. The point is that it’s questionable how much your selections of interests and behaviors impacted your results.
Lookalike Audiences
Like interest targeting, lookalike audiences are not new. When they were announced, lookalikes presented an enhancement from using interests only. Instead of guessing about what your customer was interested in, you could have Meta find people who were most similar to your customers.
While they made sense at one time, it’s questionable whether they remain relevant today. At the very least, they’re certainly less useful than they once were.
1. Expansion.
Once again, there’s a bit of fuzziness about the parameters you’re providing. When optimizing for conversions, Advantage Lookalike is automatically turned on and it can’t be turned off.
This means that you may reach people beyond the percentage of lookalike that you selected. We won’t know how much this is expanded or how much of your budget is spent on this expansion versus your selected audience.
2. Algorithmic Targeting.
I generally find it curious that advertisers will favor lookalike audiences over Advantage+ Audience (which we’ll cover in more detail shortly). Lookalike audiences are algorithmically driven. Meta will search for people similar to those in your source audience and compile an audience that is much, much larger.
Instead of using a lookalike audience based on your current customers, let’s instead assume you use Advantage+ Audience without suggestions. By definition, Meta will use signals like pixel activity, conversion data, and prior engagement with your ads to determine who should be in your audience.
It seems odd to be okay with Meta’s development of lookalike audiences but not with algorithmic targeting. There are very obvious similarities between the two.
How much impact do the lookalike audiences that you provide have on your results? Due to expansion, we don’t know. And why should we prefer it over Meta’s more recent algorithmic targeting developments?
Targeting Inputs are Deprioritized
You may not like it, but it’s clear what Meta is doing. If you use original audiences and optimize for conversions, your detailed targeting and lookalike audiences will be expanded. Those inputs are less important than they once were.
Of course, Meta doesn’t want you to use those approaches anyway. Meta wants you to use Advantage+ Audience.
While you can provide targeting inputs, it’s pretty darn obvious that Meta doesn’t think this is necessary. Otherwise, those inputs would be immediately available.
If you provide custom audiences, lookalike audiences, detailed targeting, age maximum, or gender, they will be used as audience suggestions.
This is the default way to impact targeting. While the option to provide targeting inputs using original audiences still exists, Meta works hard to discourage you. When you click to use original audiences, you’ll get an alert asking if you’re sure.
Meta’s tests show that you can improve your results by up to 33% if you use Advantage+ Audience over original audiences. It’s in Meta’s best interests that you get those superior results.
When it comes down to it, Meta may not even prefer that you use Advantage+ Audience. When creating a sales campaign, you are defaulted to Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns.
You still have the option of creating a manual sales campaign, but Meta clearly wants you to go this route.
Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns take algorithmic targeting even further. Your targeting inputs are virtually non-existent.
It’s not that you will always get better results using Advantage+ Audience or Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns. But, Meta has found that advertisers do get better results with these methods, on average. And your impact on targeting in either case is minimal.
Remarketing
I still remember how excited I was when advertisers were given the ability to target website visitors. It changed the entire industry.
You don’t need to convince me of the value of reaching people who are deeply connected to us. I lived primarily off of remarketing for a very long time. The question is whether much of the remarketing that we once did is still necessary.
Audience Segments for sales campaigns opened my eyes to this possibility. Once you define your Engaged Audience and Existing Customers (essentially your remarketing audiences), you can see how much of your budget is spent on remarketing while not even trying.
In my tests, it doesn’t matter whether I use Advantage+ Audience (with or without suggestions) or original audiences. I regularly see a similar distribution between remarketing and prospecting.
If Meta is going to prioritize your remarketing audience anyway, why is it necessary to create separate ad sets to reach your remarketing audience — especially a general remarketing audience (all website visitors, for example)?
The primary argument for remarketing now is if you have a unique message for a very specific group of people that would only be relevant to them. Minus such a message, it just doesn’t feel necessary.
Exceptions and Caveats
I’ve been careful to specify that the situations when detailed targeting and lookalike audiences are least impactful are when those audiences are expanded. The end result is likely more like Advantage+ Audience than you think.
But, there are times when you can turn expansion off — and it may even be recommended. If your performance goal is post engagement, ThruPlay, or just about anything other than a conversion (or link clicks and landing page views for detailed targeting), Advantage Detailed Targeting and Advantage Lookalike are options that can be turned on or off.
I’m not suggesting that turning off expansion will give you better results. Instead, your inputs obviously mean more if targeting is restricted to what you provide.
There are also times when using original audiences instead of Advantage+ Audience may be preferred, especially when optimizing for top-of-the-funnel actions. Not only do you get more control over detailed targeting and lookalike audiences, but age maximums and gender become tight constraints. If you’ve seen that your budget is wasted outside of your demographic preferences when using Advantage+ Audience, this is always an option.
That said, this still doesn’t have anything to do with your detailed targeting and lookalike audience selections.
How Much Does It Matter?
If I’m successful at nothing else with this post, I hope that you at least walk away with a new skepticism about your impact on targeting.
I said it before, but it requires repeating: This isn’t about whether Advantage+ Audience is superior to using interests and lookalikes. It’s that any difference between the three approaches has the potential of being completely random.
If you’re getting great results using a certain group of interests, it may be partially due to the interests you’re using. It may be mostly due to the expanded audience. We don’t know. The main thing is that the inputs you provided aren’t likely to be the main or only reason you’re getting those results.
Results from test after test are showing me this. Surface level metrics are nearly the same. Distribution between remarketing and prospecting are nearly the same. Results are nearly the same.
And when there’s a wider difference, it’s a disparity that often can’t be replicated when I recreate the test. It was random.
That’s why I want you to obsess less over these things. It’s not that I demand you stop using original audiences with interests and lookalikes. I just want you to stop obsessing over them. It’s unlikely that you found the perfect combination of targeting inputs.
Advertisers are superstitious creatures. Even if we know that something we’re doing isn’t why we’re getting great results, we don’t want to rock the boat. And that’s perfectly fine.
But, I encourage you to resist the need to over test your targeting. If you continue to create multiple ad sets for different groups of people, hoping to isolate the best performing selection of targeting inputs, you are likely doing more harm than good.
It’s also a potentially colossal waste of time that could be better spent on things that matter, like your ad copy, creative, landing page, and attribution.
The Direction We’re Heading
This should be obvious…
1. In a very limited number of situations, you can avoid having your detailed targeting and lookalike audiences expanded. In those that remain, they may be expanded by default, but you can turn it off. Meta wants you to turn it on.
2. When optimizing for conversions (and sometimes link clicks or landing page views), your ads can be delivered to people outside of the interests and lookalikes that you provide.
3. The default approach to targeting is Advantage+ Audience. Meta doesn’t want you to use original audiences and tries to discourage you from using them.
4. Meta doesn’t even seem to care if you provide any targeting at all with Advantage+ Audience. When you do, it’s merely a suggestion.
5. If you’re creating a sales campaign, it defaults to Advantage+ Shopping, which allows for virtually no targeting inputs at all. This is what Meta wants you to do.
Your targeting inputs matter far less than they ever did before. More importantly, Meta doesn’t seem to want or even need them. And the trend line is towards eliminating them entirely.
You can be upset about this, but I simply ask that you acknowledge it. Repeat after me:
“My targeting inputs mean less than ever before. Meta doesn’t want or need my targeting inputs. One day, I will likely lose all ability to control these things.”
Once you accept it, you can prepare.
How to Impact Who Sees Your Ads
This may seem like you’re placed in a helpless situation, but you’re not. Your targeting inputs may not matter much, but you can still impact who sees your ads.
1. Performance Goal. Think about it. This might be the most impactful control of all. Whether your audience is expanded or you’re using Advantage+ Audience, the algorithm is driven by finding people who will perform the action that you want, as defined by the performance goal. This includes the conversion event that you choose when optimizing for conversions.
What you define as your goal will drastically alter who sees your ad. Meta’s focus will be on helping get you that action.
2. Ad Copy, Creative, and Offer. A common claim is that the ad does the targeting now, and I don’t know that this is literally true. I haven’t seen Meta specify that the algorithm scans your copy for keywords to determine who sees your ad. But, it’s mostly semantics.
Your initial audience is likely determined by pixel activity, conversion data, and prior engagement with your ads. After that, it learns from who performs the action that you want. So, you want your ad copy, creative, and offer to attract your ideal audience.
You don’t want to attract a general audience. You want to attract very specific people. In a sense, you want your ad to repel people who aren’t your ideal customer.
These aren’t small things. Crafting effective copy, creative, and offers isn’t easy to do. Don’t feel as though a light-touch approach to targeting is somehow the easy way out. You still have work to do.
Your Turn
What’s your approach to reaching your ideal audience? Has it evolved?
Let me know in the comments below!
