New, AI-powered campaign types like Meta’s Advantage+ have quickly become an essential tool in most brands’ toolkit. They produce extremely impressive outcomes, delivering performance and efficiency at a level many brands haven’t seen since prior to the iOS 14 update, which changed how Meta advertising could reach iPhone users.
We’ve written a lot about the benefits of Advantage+ campaigns, particularly for shopping applications. But we’ve also spoken about their limitations—like diminished control over audience targeting. As a result, it’s worth testing if more traditional, manual campaign styles can still deliver equally-impressive results.
Recently, we encountered a situation with a paid social eCommerce client where a client’s specific targeting and ad appearance requests couldn’t be assured with Advantage+. Instead, we offered the option to test a standard campaign tailored to their needs.
Testing Meta Catalog Ads: Standard vs. Advantage+
The “standard” version of a dynamic product ad (DPA) campaign we built for the client was designed to target their core demographic more precisely. We also only utilized square placements for this campaign because the client didn’t think that the typical vertical placements that catalog ads often display were not a match for their existing product creative and felt it a poor fit for their brand. This sort of preference-based placement control isn’t possible when using Advantage+, which relies on its algorithms to place ads in whatever format it thinks will work best.
The test DPA campaigns ran alongside their Advantage+ DPA equivalents for two weeks in May, 2024 and spent a nearly-identical amount—a difference of 00.05% separated the two budgets. But the results were much farther apart: Compared to the Advantage+ campaign, our “standard” catalog ad campaign achieved:
- A 57% higher return on ad spend (ROAS)
- A 37% higher customer acquisition cost (CAC)
- A 28% higher click-through rate (CTR)
- 59% more purchases
Why the “Old Standard” Might’ve Outperformed the “New” Advantage+
Our team will be the first to admit that it was a bit surprising that the standard version of this DPA campaign had such significant improvements over the Advantage+ version—but this is why it’s always important to test even your best practices. What’s “best” will often change over time or vary from one brand to the next, and the only way to pinpoint those circumstances is through testing.
We believe that there are two factors that influenced these results:
- How Advantage+ Targets Users
Advantage+ is very good at finding users who are ready to buy imminently. It draws those conclusions based on whether someone has taken past actions like adding items to their cart or otherwise interacting in ways that imply an intent to purchase. It will even take signals from ads that aren’t your own—if a user has made a purchase from any other Facebook ad in the past, for example, Advantage+ will be more likely to target that user than someone who never has. That means that the Advantage+ algorithm is geared to nudge people over that threshold and complete a conversion action.
On the other hand, the algorithm in standard campaigns is more focused on finding an audience that aligns with what is being offered in the campaign. In a sense, it opens itself up more quickly to additional opportunities in a different way than Advantage+ would, which would be beneficial over a short period of time like the two weeks observed here.
- Additional Audience and Placement Control Without Advantage+
The standard campaign also gave us more control over audience, placement, and display options than the Advantage+ campaign did. This allowed us to serve the ads specifically to an audience—users aged 25-45—that we knew historically had purchased from the brand at a higher rate than other groups.
We were also able to control which placements the ads were shown in, and to only show them on placements that appropriately fit the creative we had available. In some cases, brands may want to control ad appearance tightly based on their existing creative—which isn’t feasible with Advantage+ ads, since they can assemble ads in different formats and combinations that may not align with your specific preferences.
When to Consider Using Standard Campaigns Over Advantage+
Advantage+ is an extremely potent tool that ADM already considers a first-choice campaign type, but based on client needs—and the reinforcement provided by these results—it’s always worth testing alternatives. We recommend testing a standard DPA campaign if:
- You’re specifically trying to reach new customers: The standard CPA shines when it comes to finding new purchasers, and these campaigns have an added benefit: A standard campaign allows you to exclude warm audiences (like past website visitors) whereas Advantage+ audiences are blended across cold and warm audiences. That means you can specifically focus on just net new customers within your main target demographic and let the dynamic ads do the work of bringing those purchases in.
- You prioritize control and customization: Standard DPA campaigns offer greater control over audience options, placement customization, and bidding strategy. If you want to fine-tune your campaigns more granularly based on creative or targeting preferences, this might be the better option. For example, standard DPA campaigns allow you to exclude or narrow in by state, zip code, or radius—Advantage+ does not. So if your brand has strong feelings about how and where your creative displays, a standard campaign will give you a measure of control that Advantage+ takes away.
- You feel like you’re leaving money on the table with Advantage+ DPA Ads: If you’ve noticed declining performance or inconsistent results with Advantage+ DPA, a standard DPA campaign could be a worthwhile experiment to potentially improve outcomes. A switch to standard DPA ads could also be worth testing if you haven’t run them in a while, since Meta is constantly making behind-the-scenes changes to how these campaigns work.
The Importance of Continual Testing
Although the results of our effort showed that a standard campaign performed better than Advantage+ in one instance, that doesn’t mean that Advantage+ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Advantage+ DPA campaigns offer numerous benefits and have proven successful in a huge variety of applications. We have since run this test for other clients and in some cases seen similar results—but in others, Advantage+ DPA has continued to outperform standard DPA campaigns.
These experiments underscore how important it is to continually test your marketing strategies to find the absolute best fit for your goals. New, AI-powered tools like Advantage+ can work wonders, but there are also scenarios where older, more manually-tailored campaign styles can achieve things that they can’t—particularly when dealing with nuanced audiences or creative needs. Experimenting with both Advantage+ and standard DPA campaigns will help you determine the best fit for your specific goals and audience.
If you’re looking for a paid social media agency that’s always willing to ideate and execute to ensure you’re getting the most out of your marketing budget, consider reaching out to the team at ADM for a consultation or social media marketing audit.
