Whether to optimize directly for Purchase or start further down the funnel depends less on how new your account is and more on how common the product itself is. Common, mass-market products benefit from Meta's learning across other advertisers selling similar things. Niche products don't...
Audience Network is a placement most advertisers should manually exclude, even though doing so costs a few points on Meta's Advantage+ compliance score. One real account saw budget quietly shift to 30-40% going to Audience Network — a placement that should typically sit around 1-2%...
Custom audiences are still fully relevant in 2026 — using them for exclusion or retargeting does cost you some points on Meta's Advantage+ compliance score, but it doesn't disqualify a campaign from being Advantage+, and partial compliance performs perfectly well. Custom audience targeting hasn't become...
The Meta ads learning phase is the period where the delivery system is testing different audiences and placements to figure out who's actually likely to take the action you're optimizing for. It applies to every objective — sales, leads, engagement — not just new accounts...
A single 7-day retargeting window catches people who are ready quickly — but not everyone who's genuinely interested decides that fast. A staggered retargeting structure, following up again at later, distinct time windows with different messaging, keeps the door open for people who need more...
A meaningful share of what gets labeled "junk leads" is actually a setup problem, not a targeting problem — the wrong lead magnet or the wrong capture method plays a role too, but a well-built lead form can filter out a lot of the wrong-fit...
Inside the Leads objective, Meta offers two different optimization goals — Number of Leads and Conversion Leads — and picking the one that sounds more sophisticated isn't automatically the right call. For most businesses, the simpler option performs better. What each one actually optimizes for Number of...
For lead generation built around Messenger, Instagram DM, or WhatsApp conversations, the objective you choose — Leads or Engagement — determines what kind of person shows up on the other end, and the two produce meaningfully different audiences even when the end goal looks the...