Meta Ads in 2025: Advantage+ vs Manual Control

The Death of Interests

Interest targeting (“People who like Golf”) is fading. Meta’s AI is now smarter than your manual segmentation.

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) are the new standard. They use machine learning to find buyers based on pixel data, not just static interests.

When to Use Advantage+

• Broad Appeal Products: Fashion, Beauty, Gadgets.
• History of Data: Account has 500+ purchase events.
• Goal: Scale revenue with less management time.

When to Use Manual Control

• Niche B2B: Selling industrial equipment? The AI often struggles. Stick to Lookalikes of high-value customers.
• Retention: When retargeting existing customers specifically (though ASC does this too, it gives you less control over frequency).

The Creative = The Targeting

In an AI world, your creative does the targeting. If you show a video of a woman applying anti-aging cream, the AI will find women interested in anti-aging. You don’t need to select “Anti-aging Interest.”

Strategy: Test 5 dramatically different creatives (UGC, Polished Studio, Review Overlay, Unboxing). Let the algorithm pick the winner, then iterate on THAT format.

Let the robot do the math. You do the psychology.