23 Jul The New Meta Ads Campaign Structure for 2026 (Andromeda)
If your Meta ads account has felt off since late 2025 — numbers that don’t behave the way they used to, a structure that used to reliably deliver results now feeling inconsistent — the most likely cause is a foundational change Meta made to how ads are matched to audiences, and it means the campaign structure that worked before probably needs rebuilding, not just tweaking.
What changed
Around September 2025 (some reports place it as early as August), Meta introduced a new ad retrieval system, commonly referred to as Andromeda. It’s a rebuild of the underlying engine that decides which ad gets shown to which person — not a settings change, a fundamentally different matching system. Andromeda’s stated goal is matching the best ad to the right audience intent at whatever point they’re at in their customer journey, going beyond the platform’s long-standing intent-based approach.
The new skeleton
To get the benefit of this system, the current recommendation — for sales, lead gen, and app install objectives specifically — is going fully Advantage+ across every level: campaign, budget, audience, placement, and critically, the ad level too.
At the ad level, this means putting significantly more ads into a single ad set than the old structure used. For one offer, one product line, or one category, the structure that’s working for most accounts right now is:
- One campaign, one ad set
- 10 or more ads within that single ad set as a starting point
- Retargeting kept as its own separate structure, run alongside this top-of-funnel setup
Different products or offers can each get their own campaign and ad set — this isn’t “one campaign for your entire account.” It’s one campaign and ad set per offer or category, replacing what used to be multiple ad sets within a single campaign each testing a handful of different ads.
Why the old structure doesn’t work the same way anymore
The old approach — several ad sets within one campaign, each isolating a small number of ads to test against each other — was built around a system that optimized at a narrower level. Under the current system, that structure tends to fragment the signal Andromeda needs, splitting delivery data across many small pools rather than feeding one larger, richer pool. In most cases now, that old multi-ad-set testing approach simply doesn’t perform the way it used to.
The honest caveat
This isn’t a universal rule that applies identically to every account. Some accounts are still seeing better results with the old structure — the shift across the industry is still very much in transition, not a fully settled best practice. The right move isn’t blind adoption; it’s rebuilding toward this new structure as a starting point, then evaluating actual performance against it rather than assuming it’s automatically correct for your specific account.
Evaluating the new structure requires a different mindset too
Once the structure changes, how you judge performance needs to change with it. Under the old structure, an underperforming individual ad was usually a signal to pause it. Under this new structure, that’s no longer automatically true — an ad might get very little delivery simply because it resonates with a smaller slice of your audience, not because the ad itself is weak. Evaluating a single ad in isolation, the way accounts used to, can lead to cutting something that’s actually doing its job for a specific segment. How to build and evaluate that kind of ad portfolio is worth its own read.
This breakdown is written by Jason Gan, a Meta Certified Professional and Badged Meta Business Partner who has personally audited over 1,000 advertiser accounts since 2010. You can see real account breakdowns on the Jason Gan YouTube channel.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did my old Meta ads campaign structure stop working in 2026? Meta introduced a new ad retrieval system, referred to as Andromeda, around September 2025. It changed how ads are matched to audiences at a foundational level, which means account structures built around the old system — multiple ad sets each testing a handful of ads — often stopped performing the way they used to.
What is the new recommended Meta ads campaign structure? For a single offer, product line, or category, the current recommendation is one campaign with one ad set, fully on Advantage+ across campaign, budget, audience, placement, and ad level — with 10 or more ads placed in that single ad set as a starting point, rather than spreading ads across multiple ad sets.
Does this new structure mean I should only have one campaign total? No. Different products, offers, or categories can each have their own campaign and ad set. The one-campaign-one-ad-set principle applies within a single offer or category, not across an entire account, and retargeting still runs as its own separate structure.
If your old structure has been underperforming and you’re not sure why
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