Don't Use This Facebook Ads Feature

"Don't use Advantage+ Audiences with your Facebook Ads."

That was my advice yesterday when I wrote a whole post on this topic inside the private Facebook Group for members of Jumpstart Facebook Ads For Authors.

I've been doing a lot of testing with Advantage+ Audiences over the past couple of months, so I have some solid data to work with.

And, although Advantage+ Audiences may perform well in the beginning, it's got a pretty short shelf life.

The reason being that it's targeting middle-of-funnel (warm) and bottom-of-funnel (hot) audiences.

This is the low-hanging fruit for the Facebook algorithm.

I thought Advantage+ Audiences were amazing in the beginning, as they got traction within a couple of days.

With Unrestricted Targeting (location, gender and age), it takes anywhere from 3-7 days, typically.

But after 6-7 weeks, the Advantage+ Audience Ads I was running got steadily worse:

– Higher CPM's (Cost Per 1,000 Impressions)

– Lower CTRs (Click-Through Rate)

– Higher CPCs (Cost Per Click)

– Higher Cost Per Sale

– Higher Frequency

The issue is, because Advantage+ Audiences are focused on the warmer audiences, it soon runs out of people to show your Ads to.

Therefore, the same people continue to see the same Ads, which drives up the frequency, making the Ads harder to scale (see this newsletter where I talk about frequency and scale).

Unrestricted Targeting, on the other hand, which is where you target location, gender and age only, is much more focused on targeting top-of-funnel (cold) audiences.

This results in audiences being vastly bigger than the audiences Advantage+ has access to.

"But Matt, I thought you said each Ad creates its own audience."

And you're right, it does.

But some people within that audience will be warmer than others, and that's where Advantage+ Audiences seem to focus.

It's a cheaper audience and can deliver quick results.

The problem is, you'll have a bunch of Ads that are targeting smaller, warmer audiences, rather than bigger, colder audiences.

As some authors in the Facebook Group have mentioned, what can also happen with Advantage+ Audiences, is that you'll get lots of engagement on your Ads, but very few sales.

So, in conclusion, my advice would be to stay away from Advantage+ Audiences and stick to Unrestricted Targeting.

Gotta run... we're taking the boys swimming this morning, so time to don the speedos!

To Your Success
– Matt