Automation: It’s all the rage for established digital advertising platforms these days.
Take Google’s recent introduction and expansion of Performance Max, which simplifies campaign setup and management based on an advertiser’s goals, so instead of managing several campaigns across the various Google ad placements, it all sits under one.
At the core of its simplicity is the automation of budgeting, bidding, and in many cases, delivery.
That means fewer decisions for humans and more reliance on machine learning to get advertisers optimal results.
You may be leery of turning more media buying decisions over to “the algorithm.” But it’s working.
What Is Meta Advantage?
Automation in Meta campaigns is not new.
With the advent of campaign budget optimization, automated audience expansion, and dynamic creative, media planners are used to turning some (or many) decisions over to machine learning.
But beginning in March of this year, Meta has consolidated and rebranded its automation tools into what it now calls “Meta Advantage.”
According to Meta, the purpose of the Meta Advantage suite of products is to “earn and sustain better results, personalize ad delivery and reduce work for advertisers.”
These products include the following, which I will outline in detail in this article:
- Advantage detailed targeting (formerly “detailed targeting expansion”).
- Advantage lookalike (formerly “lookalike expansion”).
- Advantage campaign budget (formerly “campaign budget optimization”).
- Advantage+ placements (formerly “automatic placements“).
- Advantage+ creative (formerly “dynamic experiences”).
Several more, including those below, are specific and nuanced and will be covered at a later time:
- Advantage+ app campaign (formerly “automated app ads”).
- Advantage+ lead campaigns (formerly “automated lead ads”).
- Advantage+ creative for catalog (formerly “dynamic formats and creative”).
- Advantage+ catalog ads (formerly “dynamic ads”).
- Advantage+ international catalog ads (formerly “multi-country and language dynamic ads”).
Advantage Vs. Advantage+
You’ll notice there are some Advantage products with a “+,” which begs the question, what’s the difference?
It helps to think of it in terms of scale or depth of automation.
Advantage products will help you automate a specific part of your campaign’s operation, whereas Advantage+ products can go a little further.
Instead of one facet like budget allocation or audience expansion, Advantage+ products can automate entire campaigns (or a large portion of them) using machine learning.
The plus, in this case, means more automation of more things.
Now, in detail, let’s look at a few of the most common Advantage and Advantage+ products.
