You may have missed this earlier in the year, but Meta is now removing detailed targeting exclusions as an option for all new campaigns.
In fact, Meta didn’t announce this until a week ago, but alerted advertisers that the change was coming by mistake sending out a notification about it back in May.
I will explain.
As you can see in this image, Meta’s granular targeting exclusions allowed advertisers to exclude people from their ads based on criteria such as: Demographics, interests and behaviorThis option allowed advertisers to be more targeted in their targeting, but Meta found that over time these exclusions actually limited the effectiveness of their ads, even though advertisers believed it would improve performance.
Meta’s ad targeting system is powered by an evolving AI system that helps show the right ads to the right users at the right time, improving overall campaign performance, which is why ad exclusion is fundamentally a roadblock.
In fact, Meta says that in its own testing, removing granular targeting exclusions from the mix increased the median cost per conversion for ad campaigns by 22.6%.
So even if you think you know what to filter out, Meta is basically saying that you’re probably wrong and it’s better to trust the system to get it to the right people.
Meta first announced changes to ad targeting exclusions in January, removing and consolidating some targeting options due to low usage. It then sent an alert to advertisers in May explaining that the targeting exclusions would be permanently removed by June 28, but later clarified that the alert was sent in error and that it had no plans to remove the options.
It was then removed a month later, meaning plans changed quickly.
According to Meta, granular targeting exclusions will no longer be available for new campaigns. Existing campaigns using audience exclusions will not be affected until January 31, 2025.
“Starting January 31st, we will stop serving campaigns using advanced targeting exclusions and will display a warning banner if this occurs.”
Mehta further noted that advertisers can use alternative exclusion options. Custom Audiences Exclusion and audience control Account level Ad SettingsThis is to limit your audience based on brand protection or employment.
However, you no longer exclude audiences within campaign settings, and based on Meta’s data, this may be a good thing anyway – Meta is also seeing great results with its automated Advantage+ campaigns, so combined with this, it’s probably a positive change overall, whether it seems like it or not.
This is in line with Meta’s future vision, where advertisers won’t need to do any manual work at all to create ad campaigns.
Soon, you’ll be able to simply enter a product URL and Meta’s AI system will generate optimized ad descriptions, custom product visuals, and different variations to be incorporated into your system-generated campaigns.
This may seem counterintuitive and like you can’t get any better than this, but because this system is built on knowledge of your ads and your audience’s engagement, it may know better than you how to create ads that connect.
