Should I use Meta Advantage+ for newsletter ads?

I split Advantage+ in two: yes to the audience, no to the creative tricks.

"We use Advantage+ for targeting, but we don't use it for all these random design things."

Why use the Advantage+ audience?

Because Meta knows its users better than I do. For a free local newsletter, the only targeting I set is location. Everything else is broad, and the creative does the sorting. When I coach someone starting out, the setup is: turn everything off, start a new campaign, no end date, Advantage+ on.

If the creative attracts a certain kind of person, Meta finds more of that person. Even Meta now says not to target, and to let the creative be the target. My general approach is to be very broad: here's what we do for you, you should sign up.

Don't stuff interests in, either. When one publisher showed me their setup, they hadn't added moms or people who read the news. Good. That's how it should be.

Why turn off Advantage+ creative enhancements?

Three reasons:

• I think those design features work for e-commerce, for products and physical things. A newsletter isn't a physical thing.
• You can't really see a preview of what Meta will show.
• My ads depend on exact text placement, like keeping copy small and centered so no placement crops it. I want the ad to run exactly as designed.

What about Advantage+ placements?

We've run image ads on Advantage+ placements when there wasn't much data comparing image to video. Placement is where text cropping bites, which is why I keep on-screen text centered with lots of margin. On one campaign aimed at business owners, I removed Marketplace placement.

The bigger targeting picture is in how to target Meta ads for a local newsletter.