How to Set Up Facebook Ads in 2025's Complex Era

Transcript

Facebook ads is about to change forever and it doesn't matter if you're running a small business or an eight or nine figure brand. As we speak, we're heading into a new era and the good thing is is that right now it's a level playing field. Anyone has the capability to win today. Now, I've been able to pick up on these huge shifts because I'm in th... Read More

Key Insights

• Facebook ads are reverting from very simple to very complex strategy, reversing the roughly-2020 shift toward broad Advantage Plus that made running anything else feel foolish, reopening doors for complex manual structures at the start of 2025.
• Advantage Plus smart campaigns are being eliminated and merged into the manual structure, confirmed by the Facebook product team's early-2025 announcement and visible as Advantage Plus and regular campaigns merging inside ad accounts.
• An Advantage Plus campaign is identified by an 'on' toggle signaling old-school Advantage Plus settings, which were previously only accessible by creating an original Advantage Plus campaign rather than a manual one.
• The recommended prospecting campaign uses campaign budget optimization set to about 90-95% of total spend, so a $1,000 budget allocates roughly $900 to prospecting for acquiring new customers.
• A 'pack' is an ad set where each new round of creatives launches, regardless of whether it contains two, five, or thirty creatives, keeping every fresh batch of ads organized as a net-new pack.
• Graduating only top-performing ads into a 'winners_interest' group under one prospecting campaign reduces wasted spend, since roughly 49 of every 50 ads receive only the spend they deserve.
• Interest targeting should hit dissimilar affinity groups rather than obvious competitors; a Nike brand should target skincare or cosmetics audiences showing affinity instead of Adidas to expand the broad audience.
• The retention campaign uses a low daily budget to manage frequency toward existing customers, preventing the overexposure that makes people sick of a brand and unlikely to buy.

Questions & Answers

Q: What is the biggest shift happening in Facebook ads right now?

The biggest shift is from super simple strategy back to very complex strategy. Just four years ago everything moved from complex to simple with the rise of Advantage Plus, which Facebook pushed so hard that running anything else felt foolish. Now, starting at the top of 2025, the trend has reversed and Facebook is reopening doors for advertisers to build complex manual structures again, making strategy matter more than it has in years.

Q: What is happening to Advantage Plus smart campaigns in 2025?

At the beginning of 2025 the Facebook product team announced that Advantage Plus smart campaigns are disappearing and being merged into the manual campaign structure. Inside ad accounts, Advantage Plus campaigns actually merged with regular campaigns for the first time. The setup shifted from forced Advantage Plus to optional Advantage Plus, letting advertisers keep advantage audiences or click 'further limit the reach of your ads' and add an interest group to make it non-advantage.

Q: How do you identify if you have an Advantage Plus campaign?

You can identify an Advantage Plus campaign by seeing an 'on' toggle button in the campaign. If that toggle is on, it signals you are using the old-school Advantage Plus settings, which were previously only accessible by creating an original Advantage Plus campaign rather than a standard manual one. Recognizing this button matters because it tells you whether your audience is locked into the older forced-advantage structure or the newer merged manual setup.

Q: How should you set up a prospecting campaign?

Create a sales campaign called prospecting focused on acquiring new customers. Turn on campaign budget optimization set to about 90 to 95 percent of total spend, so a $1,000 budget allocates around $900. Set engaged customers to anyone who visited your site in the last 30 to 90 days and existing customers to anyone who ever purchased. Use website and shop, maximize conversions, the correct pixel, standard 7-day click one-day engaged one-day view attribution, and leave audiences blank.

Q: What is a 'pack' in this Facebook ads structure?

A pack is an ad set where you launch a new round of creatives. Every time you have a fresh batch of creatives to launch, you place them in a net-new pack, whether that batch contains two, five, or thirty creatives. Packs are named sequentially, like pack one and pack two, optionally with a descriptor. This organization keeps testing structured under one prospecting campaign and separates each creative round for cleaner performance analysis.

Q: How do interest groups reduce wasted ad spend?

Interest groups reduce wasted spend by graduating only top-performing ads into a 'winners_interest' group under one prospecting campaign, so creatives that do not work get little spend. The speaker estimates one in fifty ads could be a winner while forty-nine of fifty receive only the spend they deserve. Facebook needs just a few signals, scrolls, and impressions to decide allocation, whereas human practitioners need 20 to 30 purchases costing thousands of dollars and weeks.

Q: Who should you target when adding interest groups?

Target audiences dissimilar to your obvious competitors rather than the interests you already reach. The speaker warns that a Nike brand would be tempted to target Adidas, but should instead target a brand or category dissimilar to Nike. For example, if you notice an affinity among people focused on beauty and skincare, you could type in skincare or cosmetics to reach a cohort much different from your traditional broad target, expanding your reach into new affinity groups.

Q: How should you structure retargeting and retention campaigns?

For retargeting, create a sales campaign with campaign budget on and the same settings, but in the ad set click 'further limit the reach of my ads' and insert custom audiences: a 30-day site visitor and a 30-day or 90-day add-to-cart list, with smaller brands using 90-day. For retention, use a low daily budget to manage frequency to existing customers, setting up a 180-day purchasers ad set so you avoid overexposing customers who dislike constant messaging.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Facebook ads are entering a new era described as a level playing field where anyone can win. The core shift is from super simple strategy back to very complex strategy, reversing the roughly-2020 move toward broad Advantage Plus, driven by the early-2025 elimination of Advantage Plus smart campaigns.

• The recommended structure starts with a prospecting sales campaign using campaign budget optimization set to 90-95% of spend, proper engaged and existing customer audience segments, and ad sets organized as packs. Performance goal is maximize conversions with standard 7-day click, one-day engaged, one-day view attribution and blank broad audiences.

• As accounts scale, top ads graduate into single-interest groups targeting dissimilar affinity cohorts to expand reach and cut wasted spend. A retargeting campaign hits 30-day site visitors and 90-day add-to-carts, while a low-budget retention campaign controls frequency to 180-day purchasers among existing customers.