This is a great example of how broad targetingIn most cases, mention of Broad Targeting refers to the removal of all potential targeting filters: No custom audiences, lookalike audiences, or detailed targeting. Instead, rely only on location and letting the algorithm do the work. More works…

Advertisers are often resistant to running Advantage+ Shopping CampaignsThe campaign is the foundation of your Facebook ad. This is where you’ll set an advertising objective, which defines what you want your ad to achieve. More or using Advantage+ Audience because of the lack of demographic control. You can’t define your audienceThis is the group of people who can potentially see your ads. You help influence this by adjusting age, gender, location, detailed targeting (interests and behaviors), custom audiences, and more. More by gender or a hard age range (beyond an age minimum).

Any age range or gender inputs when using Advantage+ AudienceMeta’s AI-powered targeting option. Meta will attempt to find your audience for you based on pixel activity, conversion history, and ad engagement. You can also provide targeting suggestions that Meta will initially prioritize before going broader. More are merely suggestions.

Algorithmic Delivery: In Theory

The assumption is that this will lead to wasted budgetA budget is an amount you’re willing to spend on your Facebook campaigns or ad sets on a daily or lifetime basis. More on people outside of your core demographic. While this is often true for top-of-funnel optimization, it shouldn’t be when optimizing for purchases.

One of the examples we’re often seeing is businesses that primarily serve women. Why waste budget on men? It may seem counterintuitive but don’t resist Advantage+ Shopping and Advantage+ Audience, even though you can’t control gender targeting.

The algorithm should figure it out. Not only does it have conversion history and pixel data, but it will react in real-time to your results.

Or it should. Without an example, this is mostly “in theory.”

Real-Life Example

Well, someone in my community kindly shared a screenshot of results for an Advantage+ Shopping CampaignAdvantage+ Shopping Campaigns offer a streamlined way of creating a Sales campaign that leverages machine learning to get the best results. Presets are locked in and can’t be changed. The advertiser provides custom audiences at the account level that define current customers and can then determine a budget cap for how much of the budget is spent on current customers. More for a company that caters to women. Even though they couldn’t restrict targeting by gender, the algorithm figured it out.

The vast majority of the impressionsImpressions are the number of times your ads were displayed to your target audience. Impressions aren’t counted if it is detected they came from bots. More have been shown to women, with only 1% going to men. There was also a sale to “uncategorized,” and that’s someone who would not have been reached if this were restricted by gender.

The Power of Algorithmic Delivery

It’s a good reminder. If you’re considering running an Advantage+ Shopping Campaign or a sales campaign using Advantage+ Audience, do not freak out about the lack of demographic control.

It’s pretty cool seeing this example as validation. It shows how powerful some of these broad targeting options are. Your ads aren’t just randomly getting shown to anyone and everyone because you can’t control targeting.

Now if Meta could fix the problems with this for top-of-funnel optimization…