You don't choose Advantage+ anymore. It chooses you, unless you actively opt out. Through 2026, Meta has made Advantage+ the pre-selected setup for Sales, App, and Leads campaigns, folding manual campaign creation into the same flow as an option you now have to deliberately switch away from.
If you've been building campaigns on autopilot without noticing the defaults changed underneath you, or you're wondering whether fighting the algorithm is still worth it, here's what's actually changed and how to make the call properly rather than by accident.
You don't choose Advantage+ anymore. It chooses you, unless you actively opt out. Through 2026, Meta has made Advantage+ the pre-selected setup for Sales, App, and Leads campaigns, folding manual campaign creation into the same flow as an option you now have to deliberately switch away from.
If you've been building campaigns on autopilot without noticing the defaults changed underneath you, or you're wondering whether fighting the algorithm is still worth it, here's what's actually changed and how to make the call properly rather than by accident.
Key summary
- Advantage+ is now the pre-selected setup for new Sales, App, and Leads campaigns in Meta Ads Manager
- Manual targeting, placement, and creative control still exist, but you now have to opt out deliberately rather than opt in
- Meta's own data points to efficiency gains from Advantage+, but median CPMs across the platform have still climbed roughly 13% year-on-year
- Advantage+ works best with enough conversion volume and creative variety for the algorithm to actually learn from. It's not a universal fix for a struggling account
- The decision isn't "trust the algorithm" versus "fight the algorithm". It's about matching the setup to your account's actual data volume and creative pipeline
- Test before you commit fully, and keep a manual comparison running where the stakes are high enough to justify it
What "default" actually means here
This isn't Meta removing manual control entirely. You can still opt out and set up targeting, placements, and creative manually. What's changed is the starting point. When you create a new Sales, App, or Leads campaign, Advantage+ settings are pre-selected, and getting to the manual version now takes a deliberate extra step rather than being the standard path.
Defaults matter more than they should. Plenty of advertisers, especially time-poor small business owners managing their own accounts, will simply go with whatever's pre-selected. Meta knows this. The shift to Advantage+ as default is as much about behaviour design as it is about the underlying technology.
Why Meta is pushing this so hard
Meta's argument is straightforward: Advantage+ lets its delivery system make real-time decisions across audience, placement, and creative that a human manually configuring a campaign simply can't match in speed or scale. Early Advantage+ testing this year showed meaningful lifts in some accounts. Meta has reported ROAS improvements in the 8–15% range in early tests of related predictive budget features.
There's a less flattering read too. Manual controls (placement exclusions, precise audience definitions, granular budget allocation) all limit how much Meta's own optimisation can flex. Fewer manual constraints means more room for Meta's system to chase efficient outcomes across the whole platform, which is good for Meta's overall ad marketplace even when it's a wash (or a loss) for an individual advertiser.
Both things can be true at once. Advantage+ can outperform manual setups in the right conditions, and Meta can also have a structural incentive to push everyone toward it regardless of fit.
The CPM reality check
Whatever you think about Advantage+ on principle, it's not happening in a vacuum of falling costs. Median CPMs across roughly 40,000 brands sat around $15.06 over the past year, up approximately 13% year-on-year. Rising CPMs mean the margin for error on targeting and creative is smaller than it used to be, regardless of who, or what, is making the targeting decisions.
That's actually one of the stronger arguments for giving Advantage+ a genuine trial in the right account: if costs are climbing across the board, an automated system reacting to real-time auction data has a structural advantage over a human updating a manual audience list once a week.
When Advantage+ earns its keep
Advantage+ isn't magic, and it doesn't perform the same way in every account. It tends to work best when:
- You have real conversion volume feeding it. Machine learning needs data to learn from. A campaign converting a handful of times a week gives the algorithm very little to optimise against.
- You have creative variety. Advantage+ leans on testing multiple creative combinations against different audience segments. A single static ad with no variation limits how much the system can actually learn.
- Your product or offer suits broad targeting. If your customer base is broad, letting the algorithm find pockets of demand you hadn't considered is a real advantage. If you're selling something with a narrow, well-defined audience, broad automated targeting can waste spend finding that out the hard way.
When it's worth fighting for manual control
There are still good reasons to opt out deliberately:
- Compliance-sensitive categories (housing, employment, credit, and similar restricted categories) where you need precise, auditable targeting decisions
- Brand safety requirements where certain placements are unacceptable, not just suboptimal
- Low-volume accounts where there isn't enough conversion data for the algorithm to learn efficiently, and manual targeting based on known audience insight will outperform a system starting cold
- Established campaigns already performing well on manual setups, where the cost of testing a change outweighs the uncertain upside
How to actually test this properly
Don't switch your whole account to Advantage+ on faith, and don't reject it on principle either. Run it like any other test:
- Pick a campaign with reasonable data volume: enough conversions weekly that the algorithm has something to work with
- Run Advantage+ and your existing manual setup in parallel where budget allows, rather than replacing one with the other outright
- Give it a genuine runway: a week or two of learning phase before judging results, since automated systems need time to calibrate
- Compare on the metrics that matter to you, not just the ones Meta's dashboard surfaces first: cost per genuinely qualified lead or sale, not just cost per click
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still create a manual Meta Ads campaign?
Yes. Manual targeting, placement, and creative control are still available. You now have to actively opt out of Advantage+ settings rather than opt into them, since Advantage+ is the pre-selected default for Sales, App, and Leads campaigns.
Does Advantage+ actually perform better than manual campaigns?
It depends heavily on the account. Advantage+ tends to perform well with strong conversion volume and creative variety. Accounts with low conversion volume or highly specific compliance requirements may still get better results from manual control.
Why are my Meta CPMs going up if Advantage+ is supposed to be more efficient?
CPMs have risen platform-wide (roughly 13% year-on-year), driven by broader market dynamics like increased advertiser competition, not by Advantage+ itself. Advantage+ can help you navigate a more expensive auction environment, but it doesn't create cheaper inventory.
Should I switch all my campaigns to Advantage+ at once?
No. Test it on a campaign with reasonable data volume first, ideally alongside your existing manual setup, before making it your standard approach across the account.
Is Advantage+ mandatory now?
No, it's the default, not a requirement. You retain the ability to opt out and configure targeting, placements, and creative manually on Sales, App, and Leads campaigns.
Wrapping up
Advantage+ becoming the default doesn't mean manual control is gone, but it does mean you need to make a deliberate choice rather than accepting whatever Meta pre-selects. Test it properly where you have the data to make it worthwhile, keep manual control where compliance or brand safety demands it, and don't let rising CPMs push you into a decision you haven't actually validated for your own account.
