How should you target Meta ads for a local newsletter?

Stop building interest stacks. The creative is the targeting now.

Ad rules I run

1. Hook in two seconds, with people in frame. No empty venue shots and no AI-animated stills as openers. My audience noticed and complained about AI video, so I moved off it.
2. Make it look like content. People want ads that look like posts. Video is the format.
3. Question, place, action. An engaging question up top, a geographic callout on one line in the middle, a short call to action at the bottom.
4. Put FREE in the first sentence. Capitalized. Not buried.
5. Say what it is. Lead with the thing, not a clever tagline.
6. Use non-round subscriber counts. 7,500 or 46,000. Round numbers like 10,000 sound made up.
7. Name the cities. If your newsletter's name doesn't include the towns you cover, put them in the copy. A name without city names hurts city-level ads.

Test without breaking what works

Run one proven primary campaign and a separate test campaign for new ideas. On a small budget, consolidate: one campaign, two ad sets, instead of several campaigns fighting over the same dollars.

The exception: B2B

For a business-owner audience, manual targeting still earns its keep. Business-owner interests, age 35 and up, Marketplace off, and a high revenue threshold.