Stop Guessing, Start Scaling: Why It’s Time to Trust Meta’s Advantage+ Tools

If you have opened your Ads Manager recently, you might have noticed a shift. The platform is gently (or sometimes quite forcefully) nudging you away from manual setups and towards something called Advantage+.

For years, media buyers and business owners were taught that "control is king." We spent hours tweaking interest groups, excluding specific demographics, manually selecting placements, and testing fifty different variations of "Lookalike Audiences."

But the game has changed.

The era of micro-managing the algorithm is ending. The era of machine learning is here. And if you are still trying to outsmart the machine, you are likely leaving money on the table.

The View from the Inside: Watching the Shift Happen

I’m not saying this because I read a press release. I’m saying this because I was in the room when the shift started.

During my time on the Commerce team at Meta, specifically working on Shop Ads, I watched the early rollout of the technology that would become Advantage+.

We were working with e-commerce brands to test these new automated tools. The premise was simple: Give the algorithm more freedom, and it will find you better customers.

At first, advertisers were sceptical. Giving up control feels scary. But the data didn't lie. We saw a genuine acceleration in performance among the brands that embraced the automation. They were seeing lower costs per acquisition (CPA) and higher returns on ad spend (ROAS) because the system could make thousands of decisions per second - far more than any human media buyer could ever manage manually.

Meta Wants You to Win (Selfishly)

There is a common misconception that Meta "hides" your best customers to make you spend more. The opposite is true.

Meta is a business. Their business model relies entirely on you spending money on ads.

• If you spend £100 and make £0 back, you stop advertising. Meta loses.

• If you spend £100 and make £500 back, you scale your budget to £1,000. Meta wins.

It is in Meta’s absolute best interest to get you the best possible results. They have built the Advantage+ suite - which includes Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) - to remove the guesswork and lower the barrier to entry.

They want the platform to do the heavy lifting so that you succeed, scale, and ultimately spend more with them.

What "Heavy Lifting" Does It Actually Do?

When you use Advantage+ tools, you are effectively hiring Meta’s super-computer to be your media buyer.

1. Audience Targeting: Instead of you guessing that your customer is "Women aged 24-35 who like Yoga," you give Meta a broad audience. The algorithm analyses millions of data points to find people who are actually ready to buy, regardless of whether they fit your pre-conceived persona.

2. Creative Testing: Advantage+ Creative can automatically adjust your images and videos for different users. It might brighten an image for one person, or swap the headline for another, based on what that specific user is most likely to respond to.

3. Placements: You might think your ads only work in the Instagram Feed. Meta’s data might prove that your cheapest conversions actually come from Facebook Marketplace or the Audience Network. Advantage+ puts your ad wherever it is cheapest to get the result you want.

So, Should You Just Click "Auto" and Walk Away?

Not quite.

While the robot is doing the heavy lifting, it still needs a human pilot. The "Advantage" lies in the execution, but the Strategy must come from you.

You still need to:

• Feed the machine with high-quality creative (images and video).

• Write compelling copy that speaks to your customer's pain points.

• Ensure your website and offer are strong enough to convert the traffic.

The tool is only as good as the inputs you give it.

The Verdict

If you are still manually excluding audiences and restricting placements based on "gut feeling," you are fighting a losing battle against one of the smartest algorithms in the world.

My advice? Run a test. Set up an Advantage+ Shopping Campaign alongside your manual campaigns. Give it the budget and the time to learn, and see if the machine can beat the human.

Based on what I saw during my time at Meta, I’d be willing to bet on the machine.

Need help setting up your first Advantage+ campaign? At Brand Canyon, I combine insider platform knowledge with creative strategy to help your business grow. Let’s chat.