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What turns Meta Advantage+ on and off, and should you use each setting?

Meta shows Advantage+ on or off for budget, audience and placements. What flips each one, what doesn't, and what Meta says about when to use them.

Meta Ads Manager shows Advantage+ on or Advantage+ off on three sections of a campaign: Budget, Audience and Placements. Each one goes off when you narrow it past a line Meta defines. Budget goes off with several ad sets and no campaign budget. Audience usually goes off when you make a suggestion a hard limit. Placements goes off when you exclude a placement or a device in any ad set. Account-level controls don't change any of the three, and Advantage+ creative isn't part of this switch at all.

Turning a section off doesn't stop the campaign. Meta says you are "no longer creating a campaign with Advantage+ on and will not benefit from all the AI optimizations", and that "Manual campaign features are all still available."

What turns Advantage+ off in Ads Manager?

Meta's help page What turns Advantage+ on and Advantage+ off starts from the default:

For most campaigns, you're now starting in the recommended setup, or Advantage+ campaign setup. You may see a campaign score of 100 and Advantage+ on for some options.

Then the rule that applies to every section:

If you narrow your Budget, Audience or Placements too far, you will see Advantage+ off on that section. This means you are no longer creating a campaign with Advantage+ on and will not benefit from all the AI optimizations.

The page opens with a caveat: special ad category campaigns and pharmaceutical campaigns "may not have access to all Advantage+ features, or may see a different experience."

Each section has its own rule, in an accordion on that page:

SectionAdvantage+ onAdvantage+ off
BudgetCampaign budget "as the budget strategy, with single or multiple ad sets", including with "optional spending limits""if you have multiple ad sets in your campaign and are not using campaign budget"
Audience"if you use suggestions for audience settings you choose, where it's available""usually" when you choose a setting under Further limit the reach of your ads "and if the Use as a suggestion box is unchecked"
Placements"if you use Advantage+ placements""if you exclude placements in any ad set, or opt out of Mobile or Desktop devices"

Which objectives start with Advantage+ on?

Sales, app promotion and leads. Meta's About the Advantage+ campaign experience page: "If you choose the sales, app promotion or leads objective, you'll see the Advantage+ setup which helps you reach your campaign goals by applying AI across your campaign."

The same page says what happens if you leave it:

Manual campaign features are all still available. Even if you see Advantage+ off, your campaign can still benefit if you choose the broadest settings possible and other Meta Advantage+ features.

How do you turn off Advantage+ audience?

Open Further limit the reach of your ads at the ad set level, choose a setting, and uncheck Use as a suggestion. Meta's on/off page says the label "usually shows" off after that, and that some versions of Ads Manager name the path Further limit your audience, then Reach a limited audience.

Meta's Choose audience settings in Advantage+ campaigns page lists what you can uncheck there: age, gender and custom audience inclusions. And it asks you not to do it lightly: "Only remove a suggestion to reflect business needs, so you don't miss any opportunities to maximize performance."

Two changes leave the label on. The on/off page: "You can raise the minimum age up to 25 or exclude a custom audience without turning Advantage+ off." Custom audience exclusions "are always set as controls even if Use as a suggestion is checked", so an exclusion is already a hard limit.

The difference between a control and a suggestion is the whole point of Advantage+ audience: controls limit who can see the ad, suggestions are hints the system can go past.

Should you use Advantage+ audience?

Meta's answer has one clear exception. Its About Advantage+ audience page says Meta "recommends A/B testing with Advantage+ audience for almost all campaign types", and that "If you're running a retargeting campaign, then Advantage+ audience isn't recommended."

If your real constraint is legal or logistical (a minimum age, countries you can't ship to), the on/off page points to a setting that leaves Advantage+ on:

Using account-level controls will not affect your campaign's Advantage+ state. Account controls are useful if your business has constraints across your ad account. For example, if you can't show ads to people under a certain age or ship products to some countries.

Meta's account controls page says "Account controls apply to all campaigns in your ad account", so they suit rules that hold everywhere. A one-campaign audience choice still needs the ad set setting.

How do you turn off Advantage+ placements?

On Awareness, Traffic and Engagement campaigns, exclude any placement in an ad set or opt out of mobile or desktop devices. Meta's on/off page says either one shows Advantage+ off.

On Leads, App promotion and Sales, that option is going away. Meta's What's new in placement settings page says "For these objectives, you no longer choose placements manually at the ad set level", as a rollout reaches your account. Meta's replacements, and where each one stops, are in Meta's new placement settings.

One of those replacements matters here. Account controls can exclude four placements, two Audience Network ones, Facebook Marketplace and the Facebook right column, and because they are account-level controls, using them doesn't turn Advantage+ off.

Should you use Advantage+ placements?

Meta's case is cost. Its About Advantage+ placements page cites an experiment in which ad sets on Advantage+ placements "delivered an 11.7% lower cost per action (CPA) on average" than manual placements, with no date, sample or method given. The practical cost of using it is creative: your ad can run in frames it wasn't designed for, from a full-screen Story to a Feed slot.

How do you turn off Advantage+ campaign budget?

Run two or more ad sets and set the budget on each ad set instead of on the campaign. With one ad set, the Budget section shows Advantage+ on either way, because Meta's "on" rule covers campaign budget "with single or multiple ad sets".

Spend limits don't turn it off. Meta lists "Use optional spending limits" under Advantage+ on. Whether you should use Advantage+ campaign budget comes down to one line on Meta's comparison page, "You value all ad sets the same", and why Advantage+ campaign budget spends unevenly covers the rest.

Where is Advantage+ creative in all this?

It isn't on that page. The three sections are Budget, Audience and Placements, so Advantage+ off on all three doesn't show whether Meta is editing your images, video or text. Advantage+ creative enhancements are set per ad, in the ad's creative settings, and turning them off has its own problems: several are on by default and there is no account-level switch that turns them all off.

How do you turn off an Advantage+ sales campaign?

Change any of the three sections above. Meta's About Advantage+ sales campaigns page defines the campaign by those settings: "The most advanced AI optimizations are enabled when your sales campaign uses Advantage+ audience, placement and budget." Narrow one, and that section shows Advantage+ off. It is still a Sales campaign, and the manual settings you chose are the ones it runs on.

Meta backs leaving it on with one figure, again without a date or method: "Advertisers who used Advantage+ sales campaigns saw 9% improvement in cost per conversion, on average." The page's best practices include connecting first-party data and providing "a wide variety of diverse creative assets".

What Meta's recommendations do with these settings

Expect to be asked to turn them back on. The on/off page says you "may see recommendations in the top right with personalized opportunities to improve your setup, as well as pop-up recommendations throughout the flow." Meta's opportunity score lists "Using Advantage+ audience may improve performance" as an example recommendation, and Meta's worked example has applying Advantage+ placements worth 5 points. A draft campaign with everything on can show a campaign score of 100, which Meta says "does not reflect future performance", any more than opportunity score does.

Which Advantage+ settings are safe to narrow?

  1. Check whether the rule belongs to the account. Age floors, country limits and the four excludable placements can go in account controls, which leave Advantage+ on.
  2. Know the free changes. A minimum age up to 25, a custom audience exclusion and spend limits all keep the label on.
  3. Don't use Advantage+ audience for retargeting. Meta says it isn't recommended there.
  4. Check the objective before planning on manual placements. Leads, App promotion and Sales are losing ad set placement choices.
  5. Look at creative separately. The on/off labels don't cover creative enhancements.
  6. Test before you trust the averages. The 9% and 11.7% figures are Meta's, with no method published. An A/B test answers the question for your account.

Sources

Meta revises these pages without notice and rolls changes out account by account, so check the source and your own Ads Manager before acting on any of it.

Terrads makes each placement's file at its own size, so an ad on Advantage+ placements has something built for every frame it lands in.