Everything you need to know about Meta’s Advantage Plus campaigns, catalogs, budget, placements, and more

Meta’s Advantage+ terminology is confusing!

In the past couple of years, Meta has been experimenting with automated, algorithm-controlled campaigns on their ads platform. 

In the newly launched Advantage+ campaign, for example, you can specify only minimal constraints like country and budget caps for existing customers. This gives Meta the freedom to use its AI and machine learning algorithms to identify and target anyone it believes could be your potential customer (powered by your past purchaser data).

But in usual Meta fashion (sorry, Meta!), they’ve also started using the Advantage+ nomenclature for other features and tools in their interface. 

And it’s super confusing – some of these features aren’t even new, they are just existing features renamed with the Advantage+ branding. And it’s not just about keeping track, it creates a lot of disconnect, even when discussing advertising within your own teams.

In this short piece, I’m going to clarify the differences between everything Advantage+ on Meta.

Here we go!

Advantage+ Shopping Campaign

This is a type of ad campaign setup offered by Meta.

With Meta’s Advantage+ campaigns, Meta’s AI decides most of your campaign settings. This makes campaign creation faster but also means less control for the advertiser. 

Meta’s advanced algorithms deliver your ads to the right audience, with the best placement, creative and message mix. 

But you can also choose the Manual sales campaign, which gives you complete control over your campaign settings.

Learn everything about Advantage+ campaigns here.

Advantage+ Catalog

This is a setting at the campaign level that can be enabled/disabled. These were previously called “dynamic ads” on Meta – in fact, you’ll see a lot of folks in the ads community still use this term. Advantage+ catalog ads are simply the evolution of the dynamic ad. Even though this is a type of ad, it’s enabled at the campaign level.

Advantage+ catalog ads are powered by a catalog of all the products in your store. Using Meta’s machine learning and advanced algorithm, they automatically pick the products to showcase to your audience, based on their interests, intents, and actions. 

Advantage Campaign Budget

This is a renaming of Campaign Budget Optimization or CBO.

When you enable Advantage campaign budgeting, Meta will automatically optimize your budget distribution to your ad sets at the campaign level. 

For example, if you set a campaign up with 3 ad sets and enable Advantage campaign budgets, Meta will ask you to enter a budget for the entire campaign. Then Meta’s algorithm will automatically decide the spend distribution based on the performance of the ads.

<yellow-low-highlight>TIP:<yellow-low-highlight> Disabling this option means that your ad budget will have to be manually adjusted at the ad set level. This is also known as Ad Set Budget Optimization or ABO.

Advantage+ Creative for Catalog

This is an ad-level setting. 

Enabling Advantage+ Creative for catalog lets Meta’s algorithms optimize ad formats (carousel, single image, collection), your creative(s), and their destination. They will automatically test and show the best-performing combinations of creative, formats, and placement to your audiences.

<yellow-low-highlight>TIP:<yellow-low-highlight> Disable this option to choose the ad format that you’d like to use for the catalog – carousel, single image, or collection ads.

Advantage+ Placements

This was previously known as Automated placements. 

With Advantage+ Placements enabled (enabled by default), Meta’s advanced machine learning will automatically choose which placement(s) to deliver the ads and optimize based on the conversions for each placement.

Alternatively, you can choose "Manual placements" which allows you to handpick exactly where you would like your ads shown. You get more control with the manual option, but you will have to keep an eye on the manual setup every time you launch a new ad or a new ad set.

In summary, Meta uses the term “Advantage” to indicate that Meta’s algorithms will make the decisions for that feature, instead of you manually keeping track on your end.

Here’s a cheat sheet for your reference (and to share with your team):

Did this blog help you better understand Meta’s nomenclature? Let us know.

And of course, if there are any new features or renaming around Advantage+ branding, I’ll keep this blog updated.

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