Facebook Ads’ Advantage+ Shopping Campaign is a highly effective tool for e-commerce marketers looking to maximize sales with minimal effort. This feature streamlines campaign management by automating much of the targeting and creative optimization process. In this post, we’ll guide you through the entire setup process, discuss best practices, and offer tips for achieving the best return on ad spend (ROAS).
Table of Contents
- What is Facebook Ads Advantage+ Shopping Campaign?
- Why Use Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns?
- Ideal Time to Implement Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns
- The Importance of Best-Performing Creatives
- Broad Targeting: The Key to Advantage+ Success
- Step-by-Step Campaign Setup Process
- Optimizing Targeting for Conversions
- Budgeting and Setting Performance Goals
- Advantages of Catalog Integration
- Maximizing ROAS with Best Performing Ads
- Conclusion: Leveraging Automation for Sales Growth
1. What is Facebook Ads Advantage+ Shopping Campaign?
The Advantage+ Shopping Campaign is a lower-funnel marketing strategy designed to target users who are ready to convert. Facebook introduced this feature to make it easier for marketers to optimize their ads for sales, using machine learning to determine the best placement, audience, and creative.
Unlike traditional campaigns where you manually adjust various parameters, Advantage+ automates much of the process. It allows Facebook’s AI to take over and optimize ad performance by showing your ads to the right people at the right time.
2. Why Use Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns?
Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns are highly beneficial for scaling sales because they remove many manual adjustments. Facebook’s AI focuses on broad targeting and uses data from your account to enhance ad delivery. It’s particularly useful for:
- Maximizing ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) with minimal setup.
- Broadening your audience reach without manual targeting.
- Saving time by letting Facebook optimize the campaign.
If used correctly, these campaigns can double or even triple your ROAS, especially when combined with high-quality creatives.
3. Ideal Time to Implement Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns
While Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns are powerful, they’re not suitable for brand-new accounts. If you’re just starting, it’s better to run traditional campaigns to gather enough conversion data. Once you have sufficient data and conversions in your account, it’s the right time to move to Advantage+.
4. The Importance of Best-Performing Creatives
One of the most crucial aspects of maximizing ROAS with this campaign type is using your best-performing creatives. The reason this works is that the entire campaign depends on the quality of the creative, as Facebook handles most of the targeting. If your creative is optimized for conversion, you’ll see much better results.
5. Broad Targeting: The Key to Advantage+ Success
The primary focus of this campaign is broad targeting. Facebook wanted marketers to shift away from very specific, narrow targeting and explore broader audience segments. Advantage+ does just that—it automatically targets a wide audience, and you can only set minimal controls such as age, location, and device placements.
6. Step-by-Step Campaign Setup Process
Here’s how to set up a Facebook Ads Advantage+ Shopping Campaign:
- Create a New Campaign:
- Start by selecting “Sales” as your objective. This campaign type only works with the sales objective since it’s designed for lower-funnel conversions.
- Choose Advantage+ Shopping:
- Once you select the sales objective, Facebook will give you two options: a traditional manual sales campaign or Advantage+ Shopping. Choose the latter to proceed.
- Set Up Conversion Events:
- Ensure that your purchase pixel is set up correctly. You can either maximize the number of conversions or maximize the value of conversions. If your account has enough data, Facebook will allow you to set a target ROAS.
- Adjust Audience Control:
- While Facebook’s AI primarily handles targeting, you can make some adjustments. For example, you can set minimum age limits or exclude specific locations, such as cities or regions you don’t want to target.
7. Optimizing Targeting for Conversions
The strength of Advantage+ lies in its ability to leverage broad targeting. Unlike manual campaigns where you select specific demographics or interests, Advantage+ will cast a wide net. Facebook’s algorithm works behind the scenes to find the users most likely to convert based on historical data.
One of the key limitations, however, is the inability to target specific cities. You can only target entire countries or states, but this broad targeting works well for brands looking to scale fast.
8. Budgeting and Setting Performance Goals
You have two main budgeting options:
- Daily Budget: Facebook will try to spend your set budget amount each day.
- Lifetime Budget: Set a total amount and specify a time frame in which Facebook will distribute the budget.
Additionally, Facebook offers options for maximizing conversions. You can set a Target CPA (Cost Per Action) to maintain cost efficiency or simply let Facebook optimize for the most conversions.
9. Advantages of Catalog Integration
Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns can be highly effective when paired with a product catalog. If you’re running an e-commerce store, dynamic ads that pull directly from your catalog can offer a personalized experience to users based on their browsing history and interests.
This catalog-based targeting ensures that users see the most relevant products, further boosting the likelihood of conversions.
10. Maximizing ROAS with Best Performing Ads
To get the best out of your Advantage+ Shopping Campaign, follow this strategy:
- Test creatives in a manual campaign to find the best-performing ads.
- Use the best-performing creatives in your Advantage+ Shopping Campaign.
- Monitor performance and scale the campaign by increasing budget or extending reach.
This method helps you identify which ads resonate most with your audience and then scale those ads effectively.
11. Conclusion: Leveraging Automation for Sales Growth
Facebook Ads Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns are designed for e-commerce businesses that want to streamline their ad process and maximize conversions. By automating much of the ad creation and targeting, Facebook allows businesses to focus on creative optimization. If used with high-performing creatives and tested strategies, this campaign type can deliver exceptional ROAS and drive significant sales growth.
Be sure to implement these tips, regularly test your creatives, and monitor your campaigns to ensure they perform at their peak. Happy advertising!