An Agency’s Honest Review: Meta Advantage+ Pros And Cons

Almost weekly, I get an email about a shiny new AI feature coming to a social media platform near you. “It will change your workflow!” they say. “It will make content creation easier! It will help you reach more people!” 

While these claims are great, they are often not backed by proof. In reality, most of these AI features are just fluff—an email subject line and nothing more. And you shouldn’t trust fluff with your advertising budget. 

Today I’m going to dive into the most popular social media platform: Meta. They have an entire suite of AI features to help “optimize” your ads, but are these just fluff, or do they really make a difference in your advertising? I’ll explore the Meta Advantage+ pros and cons so you don’t throw money down the doomscrolling drain. 

What Is Meta Advantage+?

According to Facebook, Meta Advantage+ is “a suite of products that helps advertisers maximize performance by using AI to optimize campaigns in real-time and match ads to the people most likely to take action.” 

These enhancements were first released in 2022 for sales campaigns to help optimize shopping ads. Now they are available across all campaign types, with new features added frequently. 

In 2026, most of the new features have had one thing in common—AI. Image and video generation has rolled out to all ad accounts, along with other enhancements powered by Meta AI. While there are Meta Advantage+ pros and cons, Facebook’s ultimate goal is clear: full ad automation.

Here is the list of the current 2026 Meta Advantage+ features:

You might be thinking—man, that’s a lot of Facebook advertising AI tools. But these are just on the ad level. There are also AI-based targeting, budgeting, and end-to-end campaign features that you can implement.

Targeting: 

• Advantage+ audience
• Advantage+ custom audience
• Advantage+ lookalike 
• Advantage+ detailed targeting

Placements and destination:  

• Advantage+ placements 
• Advantage+ destination 

Budget: 

• Advantage+ campaign budget 

Ad creative: 

• Advantage+ creative
• Advantage+ catalog ads 

Campaigns: 

• Advantage+ sales campaigns
• Advantage+ app campaigns
• Advantage+ leads campaigns

How Does Meta Advantage+ Work?

Meta Advantage+ uses machine learning to choose who sees your ads, what creatives get prioritized, and what placements they appear on. It’s supposed to optimize your ads so the best combination is shown to each user, customized to what they are most likely to interact with.

You provide the creative and targeting suggestions, and Meta will do the rest. 

It starts with your campaign. You can choose either a manual setup or a streamlined setup.

The tailored web traffic campaign will rely on Advantage+ features to build the campaign for you. The manual setup gives you more control over budget, targeting, and ad creation. 

Here at Tower, our content specialists prefer manual setups. When managing clients’ budgets, control is key. We make sure the campaign is exactly how we want it, without any surprises hidden behind an “AI optimization” label. 

Once you’ve built your campaign, you can turn on and off Advantage+ features for your ads. The specific options available to you depend on your campaign goal and ad type. Sales campaigns act differently than traffic campaigns. Similarly, carousel ads will have slightly different AI tools than video or single-image ads.

You also want to consider how each Advantage+ feature will appear across placements. The way one feature looks on Instagram will be different than how it looks on Facebook, WhatsApp, and the Audience Network.

Meta Advantage+ Pros and Cons

An AI feature that can create my whole campaign for me? Sounds perfect! But don’t get blinded by empty promises. Whether you love AI or hate it, the real question is: Do these features help your ads get seen, drive more people to your website, and result in more sales? Or are they just a brand risk because you don’t have control over their output?

I run 4–5 Meta ad campaigns every single month, across a variety of industries. Here are the trends I’ve noticed, the Meta Advantage+ pros and cons, and my overall thoughts on using AI in advertising.

Pros of Meta Advantage+

1. Simplifies Campaign Setup

One of the main pros of Meta Advantage+ tools is that they make it easy to set up a campaign. They create the targeting for you. They decide on placements for you. And they allocate budget for you. The tools are easy to use and help you quickly build a campaign from scratch. 

2. Expands Your Audience

Advantage+ targeting features help expand your audience by finding people expected to perform similarly. This can help you reach users who would never have heard of your brand otherwise. 

3. Ideal For eCommerce

The last pro of Meta Advantage+ is that these features were originally built for eCommerce brands, and that’s where they continue to shine. Meta determines who is most likely to make a purchase, and the tools will customize which products are shown for each user. If you have a large purchase history, then your pixel has plenty of data to find the best buyers for your products.

Cons of Meta Advantage+

1. Unreliable Visuals

A major con of Meta Advantage+ is that, unfortunately, most of these features do not produce quality visuals. Here are some examples from my own ads, where Advantage+ actually made my creative look worse.

2. Lack Of Visibility

Many marketers refer to these AI enhancements as “black boxes” because they are hard to preview and even harder to control. 

While some AI enhancements have a preview option, it’s not always accurate. These tools customize your ad for each user, meaning there’s an almost infinite number of ways to edit the copy and creatives. Only a handful of these are shown to you as a preview, making it hard to catch mistakes before they go live. 

You never actually know what version Facebook will use or how your ads will look. This lack of visibility and control makes Advantage+ a risky option.

3. Questionable Lead Quality

The Advantage+ targeting features seem nice. But many marketers agree—Meta sacrifices lead quality to get more results. This means they will override your targeting suggestions or deliver ads across lower-quality placements (like the Audience Network) just to get a click or lead, even if it’s spam.

That’s why I recommend excluding the Audience Network and any other placement that hasn’t performed well in the past.

In theory, AI-based targeting is good for national brands with broad audiences. However, if you have a niche audience and localized targeting, Advantage+ detailed targeting and Advantage+ lookalike audiences can hurt your ads. 

For example, I tested this with a senior living client. The audience for this community is extremely specific—people 55 and older who live in or around Lancaster County. My Advantage+ ads reached people in their 40s, completely outside my targeting. Even if I got leads from these users, they were not qualified to move in, making their clicks a waste of money.

4. Hard To Turn Off

Meta automatically turns on many of these features, and you have to manually turn them off. For sales campaigns, it’s especially difficult to turn off the Advantage+ targeting, and some of the other ad tools are hidden behind drop-downs that you have to search for. 

Some users on Reddit also found that Meta ignores your preferences and will use features even if they are turned off on your end. 

5. Off-Brand Creatives

If your company is particular about brand guidelines, then these AI features probably aren’t for you. Meta will take your branding as suggestions, but it still chooses fonts, colors, and even music based on what it likes best. 

I’ve seen Advantage+ choose off-brand, seemingly random music for ads. For example, a women’s clothing company had ads with a mariachi song in the background.

In addition, the text generation options are hit-or-miss. Some versions are usable, but others are completely off-brand and don’t match your company’s voice. 

6. Risk Of Losing Customers 

The last con of Meta Advantage+ is that some of the features—such as image generation, video generation, animation, and image expansion—rely on AI to expand an image or create a visual. If done poorly, this can make your ads feel less authentic or even cringey. Meta also has AI-generated music options, which face the same concerns.

According to research shared with Marketing Brew…

Relying on these Advantage+ features could mean losing customers.

Should I Use Meta Advantage+ Features On My Ads?

The answer depends! Now that you understand Meta Advantage+ pros and cons, you need to understand your brand guidelines, audience, and goals. Some of these features might work well for you, and others might not. 

I don’t recommend turning on every single Facebook advertising AI tool. However, you might find a few that make a positive impact. 

When To Use Meta Advantage+

• If you have broad targeting, not restricted by age, gender, location, or income 
• If your ad account has a large conversion history and lots of pixel data to help Meta accurately target users 
• If you’re an eCommerce brand trying to increase sales  
• If it aligns with brand guidelines and gives you control over how the feature will look once the ads are live 
• If you’ve tested the feature and it helps your ads perform better 

When Not To Use Meta Advantage+

• If you have niche targeting limited by age, gender, location, or income
• If you want full control of the ad creative and branding
• You have a limited budget and can’t afford to waste any money on Advantage+ features that might not work 
• If you’re concerned about your company’s visual identity 
• If the features do not let you control and monitor how the ad will look once live 
• If you’ve tested the feature and it does not produce more results

A/B Testing Meta Advantage+

I always recommend that marketers test specific tools they might want to use long-term. Compare how ads perform with the feature turned on and with it turned off, and let that inform your strategy moving forward. Here are some A/B tests I’ve done with my clients.

• Profile end card: I created two ad sets for a senior living client. One had carousel ads that included a profile end card. The other didn’t. The end card ad set had a $0.32 cost per result, while the ad set without the end card saw a $0.27 cost per result. 

• Advantage+ targeting: I created two ad sets for a senior living client. One used standard targeting for people 55 and older. The other used Advantage+ AI-based targeting. While the Advantage+ ad set had a slightly lower cost per result, 5.6% of the audience it reached was younger than 55—completely outside our targeting. 

• Text generation: I created two ad sets for an Amish outdoor structures company. One had four ads all created by me. The other had the same four ads, but I used the text generation feature to write a few variations of each ad. The Advantage+ ad copy variations saw a lower CPC and more link clicks.

See how this paid social strategy translated into real results for our clients!

Tips For Optimizing Your Ads Using Meta Advantage+

Follow The Data

Test, test, test! You’ll never know what works for your specific industry and audience if you don’t try. A/B test to see what features actually improve performance, and which are just a waste of money. 

Rely On Human Oversight

As we mentioned when discussing Meta Advantage+ pros and cons, you can’t trust Facebook to make your ads look good. AI isn’t a designer, and it doesn’t have taste. 

Always preview what the Advantage+ elements will look like on the final ads, and always proofread any text generated by AI. Add your own unique spin to ensure it matches your brand voice and has a human touch.

Try to maintain as much control as possible. Use manual setups, select your own music tracks, customize the Advantage+ creative features whenever possible, and remember to preview the end result across all placements.

Use The Branding Feature

Most ad accounts have a branding feature where you can input brand colors, fonts, tone of voice, and visual style. This helps inform Meta’s Advantage+ to create things that are on-brand for you. But be warned—this doesn’t always work. Some of the creative elements still show up looking off-brand and unprofessional.

Avoid Image Or Video Generation

Having Meta AI completely generate your ad visuals is a risky move. Consumers are growing more AI literate every day. They are getting better and better at spotting AI, especially younger audiences, and they are not afraid to share their opinions in the comments. Using AI in your advertising is a potential PR disaster waiting to happen.

Create A Variety Of Ads

With Meta’s Andromeda update and this push for automated AI tools, the more ad creatives and variations you include, the better chance you have of getting seen. 

I’ve been following this conversation on Reddit for a while. A lot of marketers agree that Facebook wants to fuel its algorithm, and your ads are the way to do it. This creative diversification will help Meta pair the right ad with the right customer.