Meta expands ad control options with AI-powered tools

Meta is rolling out a suite of expanded ad tools designed to give marketers more control over how their campaigns are optimised, particularly in today’s AI-driven advertising environment where outcomes matter more than just impressions.

At the core of this update is a broader push to help advertisers tailor Meta’s artificial-intelligence (AI) systems to prioritise the outcomes that align most closely with their business goals, whether that’s increasing profit, reducing customer churn, or acquiring high-value subscribers, the tech company said in an announcement.

One of the biggest changes is an enhanced focus on value-based optimisation. Meta is refining its value optimisation product, enabling advertisers to tell the system exactly what types of conversions matter most to them. Behind these updates, Meta's goal, it said, is to help advertisers guide its ads system to optimise for the outcomes most important to their business, keeping in mind their key performance indicators, and how they want to measure success across media channels. 

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Advertisers can now optimise based on an improved purchase-based ROAS, a new beta profit-based ROAS to send profit-margin data via Meta’s conversions API to focus on more profitable sales, and an event-based ROAS for brands which value actions such as subscriptions or first-time purchase.

Understanding that not all marketers measure success the same way, Meta is also providing more ways to define attribution. The incremental attribution functions will allow brands to optimise in real-time for incremental conversions, helping marketers better measure what’s actually driving results across platforms. 

"Even if an advertiser has never run a conversion lift test themselves, they can simply toggle the setting on in Ads Manager, and we’ll automatically optimize their campaign to drive more incremental conversions," Meta said. 

Custom attribution, which Meta is launching as a test, will be integrated with third-party analytics tools such as Adobe Advertising and Triple Whale, enabling advertisers to share click-level attribution data with Meta for further optimisation. On this, Meta said: "Advertisers can incorporate insights from external measurement sources into our optimization and drive more outcomes as measured in their analytics tools."

Additionally, Meta will also expand Value Rules, a tool that lets advertisers assign greater value to specific audience segments. The tech firm said that an advertiser who knows that a certain age group is typically more likely to be a repeat purchaser, could create a rule that would have them bid more for these customers, since they know that they likely will have higher lifetime value and ultimately help their bottom line. For example, a brand might choose to bid more for female shoppers aged 45–54 if they historically drive higher lifetime value. 

"As marketers increasingly get comfortable with letting AI and machine learning models handle things such as targeting, budget allocation, or in some cases even ad creative, many businesses are reaping the benefits and seeing improved results," Damian Kim, head of product monetization for APAC, Meta said.

Kim, however, added that every business is different and there is no one size fits all approach to AI-driven advertising. 

"In fact, it’s quite the opposite. As AI and machine learning models increasingly get more advanced, it’s now possible to get very precise in terms of what specifically you want the AI to do for you," he added. "Our aim is that this collection of new products, which are value rules, value optimisation and incremental attribution, gives advertisers new ways to tell us what they want to achieve, so that ultimately, we can help drive their business strategy on Meta."

Last month, Meta officially rolled out ads on Threads, opening up the platform to all eligible advertisers worldwide. The new ad placement called “Threads feed” will be automatically enabled for new campaigns using either 'Advantage+' or' Manual' placements. Marketers can opt out of the placement manually.

Ads on Threads are currently being tested in select markets, with a broader rollout expected as Meta continues to refine the experience. Among the markets in the Asia Pacific region include Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore. Meta first trialed ads on Threads in January this year, partnering with a select group of brands in the US and Japan. 

Meanwhile, earlier that month, Meta's Instagram began using artificial intelligence to identify teens who lie about their age in a bid to bypass protections built into its 'teen accounts' feature. The Meta-owned platform said the AI will proactively flag accounts that appear to belong to teens, even if they claim to be older. Those accounts will then be placed into teen account settings.

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