27 Jul Should a New Ecommerce Store Use Advantage+ or Manual Targeting?
Advantage+ works best when Meta already has data to work from — a genuinely new ecommerce store doesn’t have that yet, which makes manual targeting the stronger starting point in many cases, not Advantage+ by default.
This is a related but distinct decision from whether to start a new site with a traffic objective before switching to conversions — that’s about which objective to run first; this is about how the audience itself gets defined while the account is still new.
Why Advantage+ struggles on a new store specifically
Advantage+ is built to let Meta’s system find the right audience automatically, using signal from what’s already been learned about who converts for a given business. On a brand-new ecommerce store, that learning simply doesn’t exist yet — there’s no purchase history, no established pattern of who buys, nothing for the system to lean on beyond very generic signals. Handing full targeting control to a system with no relevant data to work from tends to underperform compared to a more deliberate starting point.
Why manual targeting is the better starting point here
With manual targeting, you’re the one defining who the audience should be, based on what you’re actually selling and who you believe the buyer is. This gives the campaign a much more informed starting point than an automated system with no history — you’re supplying the context Meta hasn’t had the chance to learn yet. As the campaign runs and starts generating real conversion data, that’s what eventually gives Advantage+ something meaningful to work from.
When to make the switch
There’s no fixed universal timeline for when a new store should shift from manual to Advantage+ — it depends on how quickly the account accumulates enough conversion history to give the system real signal. The practical marker isn’t a specific number of days; it’s whether there’s now a meaningful base of actual purchase and engagement data behind the account, rather than none at all.
The broader principle
This is really a specific application of a broader idea: Advantage+ is a suggestion-based system that performs in proportion to how much relevant learning it has access to. A mature account with months of conversion history gives it plenty to work with. A brand-new account gives it almost nothing — and in that specific situation, deliberate manual targeting is doing a job the automated system genuinely can’t do yet.
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
Should a brand-new ecommerce store use Advantage+ targeting? Not necessarily right away. Advantage+ relies on Meta having enough learned data about who converts for a specific business. A genuinely new store has no purchase history yet, so manual targeting — defining the audience yourself based on what you’re selling — is often a stronger starting point.
When should a new store switch from manual targeting to Advantage+? Once the account has built up a meaningful amount of purchase and engagement history, giving Meta’s system real signal to work with. There’s no fixed universal timeline — it depends on how quickly the account accumulates enough conversion data.
Is Advantage+ always better than manual targeting? No. This depends heavily on context, and account maturity is one of the clearest deciding factors — a new account with no history is a genuinely different situation than an established one with months of conversion data already feeding the system.
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