Written by Beth Tees, Paid Social Executive

What is Advantage+ Targeting?

Advantage+ targeting places trust in Meta’s delivery system to find the perfect audience for your ads. The main change in the targeting is that it uses demographics such as job titles and interests as guidance for targeting instead of direct attributes to target.

Meta has been gradually removing demographics so that we are no longer able to target them. This means that we are moving closer to a time where there will be no demographics left to target and we will only be able to supply the platform with location and age.

It is easy to find broad targeting a bit daunting because it means giving up some control and trusting the platform to reach the right audience with ads.

However, Meta and our initial testing strongly suggests that broad targeting is the best way to get the best results for your campaigns.

Audience size is no longer as relevant however we recommend applying context. There’s no point targeting the population of the US with $20 a day!

At Tag Digital, we want to stay ahead of platform changes, and this involves incorporating these targeting options across our Meta campaigns. We have witnessed impressive results, with some campaigns experiencing a remarkable 700% increase in conversions compared to the previous year.

As we continue to utilise this targeting approach, we are developing best practises and noticing trends.

Using broad targeting for a campaign with free visitor registration has resulted in a significant increase in registrations.

It’s important to note that free registration, coupled with broad targeting to millions, can lead to a higher volume of leads.

However, it’s crucial to ensure that these registrations translate into actual event attendance. To boost attendance rates, we’ve found it essential to run a pre-registration campaign in the final weeks. This involves a website traffic campaign targeting individuals who have already converted.

We use ads to remind them of the event and its features. By delivering these reminder ads leading up to the event, we’ve observed higher attendance rates.

Despite this it is still important that we continue to test advantage+ audience for all event types so that we can familiarise ourselves with their performance for different objectives and how we can optimise them.

This means that when the time comes that there is limited or no demographic targeting option available we will be prepared to use this audience in any scenario.

When using advantage+ targeting for events with free registration, it’s crucial to monitor the quality of registrations.

Broad targeting allows us to reach millions of individuals, which can result in a high volume of registrations.

Since we rely on Meta to find our target audience, it’s important to regularly check if the registrations align well with the event. With the event being free, more people might sign up, even if they’re not genuinely interested, and they might not show up on the actual event day.

If we notice lower-quality registrations, offering some basic demographic guidance to the platform can help improve the situation.

For paid tickets with advantage+ targeting, the issue of poor-quality registrations becomes less likely.

Since individuals have to pay to attend these events, they are less likely to sign up and pay for something they are not genuinely interested in.

While it’s still essential to monitor registration quality for relevance, the likelihood of low attendance or poor-quality registrations is significant. It’s more important to focus on getting the most value for events with paid tickets.

One way to do this is by offering tickets with extra add ons. Although this might make the CPA higher because the tickets are more expensive, it boosts the value of each conversion, giving us a better ROI and in turn makes the campaign more valuable for the client.

For campaigns using advantage+ audiences, ensuring accurate conversion tracking is vital.

When individuals convert through our Meta ads, the platform learns the characteristics of likely converters.

Advantage+ audiences leverage this machine learning, enabling ads to reach individuals with attributes similar to those who have already converted. This significantly enhances the likelihood of conversion and overall campaign success.

However, if conversion tracking isn’t correctly set up, the platform misses the chance to learn from conversions, hindering its ability to target individuals likely to convert in future ads. On a worse note, there’s a chance that Meta could learn from events set up poorly.

For example, if we mark reaching the registration form as a conversion instead of completing it, the platform may class individuals who didn’t complete the form as converted users.

This could lead the platform to target people who are similar to those that didn’t convert, reducing the chances of actual conversions.

Conclusion

We believe, it is crucial to start incorporating advantage+ audience targeting into our campaigns.

Meta is moving towards broader targeting, and we’re approaching a time where demographics may become limited or unavailable.

Adapting to this new targeting method is essential to stay ahead and be prepared for further reductions in available demographics.