Meta’s Advantage+ sales campaigns (ASC)—previously known as Advantage+ shopping campaigns—represent the next evolution in Meta’s automated campaign toolkit. ASC offers a robust, AI-driven approach to campaign management.

In this article, find out what’s changed with the ASC naming shift, and how you can integrate them into a sophisticated Meta ads setup alongside manual campaigns and advanced tools like Bïrch (formerly Revealbot).

Key takeaways

• Meta’s Advantage+ Sales Campaigns (ASC) now support e-commerce, sales, lead generation, and app installs, with fully automated targeting, budget allocation, and creative optimization.
• ASC works best when supported by strong creatives, conversion volume, and a healthy budget—ideal for scaling mid-funnel performance.
• Most media buyers combine ASC with manual campaigns to control testing, retargeting, and niche targeting.
• Bïrch helps improve ASC performance by adding creative testing, automation rules, and performance monitoring across campaigns.

Advantage+ sales campaigns vs Advantage+ shopping campaigns: Key improvements in ASC

The shift from Advantage+ Shopping to Advantage+ Sales reflects Meta’s push to make automation the default for more than just e-commerce. ASC now supports sales, app installs, and lead generation, making it a versatile solution for any sales-driven ad objective. These are some of the key improvements:

• Flexible structure: Unlimited ad sets let you segment audiences, test creatives, and manage budgets in one campaign.
• AI-driven targeting: Adaptive AI replaces manual audiences, learning from engagement signals to reach high-value users and expand beyond preset segments.
• Streamlined automation: Full AI-driven optimization replaces manual campaign creation.
• Ad limits updated: Maximum 150 ads total, capped at 50 per ad set to encourage organized testing.‍
• Dynamic creative optimization: AI tests and personalizes copy, images, and video in real time to deliver top-performing creative combinations.‍
• Opportunity score: New 0–100 rating in Ads Manager gives real-time feedback and recommendations to improve cost efficiency.

Advantage+ sales campaigns vs. manual Meta shopping ads

Not every account is ready for ASC. To succeed, you need solid foundations like enough conversions (about 50+ per week), a broad audience, multiple strong creatives, and a healthy budget that supports AI-driven learning.

Key trade-offs of automating your campaigns with ASC:

• Broad targeting may dilute precision for hyper-niche products.
• Automated budgets can unevenly distribute spend across segments.
• Limited reporting and “black box” optimization might reduce insight.
• AI may favor creatives you wouldn’t choose yourself.

Despite this, ASC performs well when you have conversion volume, flexible targeting, and strong creatives. It can accelerate growth if your product appeals broadly and you’re already seeing mid-funnel traffic convert.

Choose Advantage+ when:

• You want maximum efficiency and scale with minimal manual work.
• You’re reaching broad audiences, or you don’t have deep segmentation data.
• You want to launch fast and use Meta’s latest AI optimizations.
• You’re running large-scale prospecting or retargeting and trust automation to find high-value users.

Stick with manual when:

• You need full control over targeting, placements, and budget.
• You’re targeting niche audiences or using proprietary insights that AI can’t capture.
• You’re testing specific creative or audience strategies manually.
• You want complete transparency into every campaign decision and metric.

Your decision to use Advantage+ over manual Facebook campaigns might come down to your goals and how you structure the funnel. But most media buyers still run a mix of both. As Hone John Tito, co-founder at Game Host Bros, puts it:

“We compensate it by mixing ASC with manual campaigns on small niches or top of the funnel testing. The optimal outcome is achieved by leaving the ASC to handle the high-volume mid-funnel sales, and manual ads pierce through the loyalty targets or new market tests.”

Sasha Berson, co-founder at Grow Law and an expert in legal marketing, also echoes this sentiment:

And they’re not alone. Pairing up ASC with manual campaigns to balance automation and control is also part of Kevin Heimlich’s experience. The CEO of The Ad Firm explains:

“ASC is designed to optimize for conversions from an audience that is already somewhat receptive or familiar with what you offer. If your current funnel is broken and people aren’t converting from your existing traffic, ASC won’t fix that fundamental issue. You need to fix those leaks first.”

Advantage+  sales campaigns work best when your funnel is already performing. It helps scale mid-funnel conversions, but it won’t fix poor targeting or weak creative. That’s why most media buyers use both: ASC for efficiency, and manual campaigns for control and testing.

How top media buyers use Advantage+: Real campaign insights from Fer Rivero and Alessandro Gargiulo

We chatted with experts Fer Rivero, a DTC advertiser and Alessandro Gargiulo, senior advertiser and co-founder of American Uncle, who shared how they blend Advantage+ with their own strategies and quality checks to get the best results.

Fer Rivero: Guiding Advantage+ with data and control

For Fer Rivero, Advantage+ is part of nearly every campaign, but never without direction. “As Advantage+ is taking over Meta, it is set for 99% of my campaigns,” Rivero explains. “But still I give it a certain target using Bïrch.”

The reason behind keeping control over Advantage+ campaigns, Rivero shared, has to do with avoiding unnecessary spend.

He’s also noticed that campaign results suffer when using Advantage+ with minimal input, like a client of his did for 95% of their campaigns. They were left with complete randomness in terms of CPR.

That’s why Rivero trusts automation only after winner creatives are identified: “I trust Meta’s platform automation only for adding budget for active campaigns when I have my solid winners. For the rest, I’m always using Bïrch. If a client doesn’t use Bïrch, I manually optimize all campaigns on a daily basis.”

Alessandro Gargiulo: Trusting automation, backed by strong creative

Once his team sets the foundation, Alessandro Gargiulo has a slightly more hands-off approach.

“What’s worked really well is letting Advantage+ handle broad audience targeting… The AI consistently found high-performing combinations and drove efficient results 80% of the time. Looking at our past numbers, only 1–2% of campaigns started in the last 3 months had problems that needed manual fix to placements.”

Still, Alessandro admits that automation has its flaws, explaining that Advantage+ has sometimes led to ad pairings they wouldn’t have chosen themselves. 

To maintain quality, his team uses Bïrch and in-house automation, avoiding Meta’s creative AI: “Automated creative from Facebook is rarely a good fit… it misses the mark for about 99% of our clients’ products. Disabling or customizing components of Meta’s automation on creatives is pretty much standard practice for us.”

In Alessandro’s experience, Meta’s Advantage+ works best when paired with clear direction and helpful tools like Bïrch. Mixing automation with hands-on guidance has led to better campaign results and less budget waste. 

With that in mind, let’s jump into some tips on how to optimize your own Advantage+ sales campaigns.

Optimization strategies for Meta Advantage+ sales campaigns

Here are some suggested best practices to consider when you set up your Advantage+ sales campaign.

Creative testing frameworks

• Upload diverse creatives (images, videos, copy) for AI-driven testing.
• Refresh assets regularly to prevent ad fatigue.
• Promote top-performing ads to new campaigns or higher budgets.
• Use user-generated content and dynamic formats for personalization.

Budget scaling strategies

• Use Advantage+ campaign budget for AI-driven spend allocation.
• Increase budgets gradually (10–20% every few days).
• Create multiple ad sets to let AI allocate budget efficiently.
• Monitor spend distribution and adjust creative or audience signals as needed.

Advanced performance monitoring

• Segment audiences for deeper insights (new vs. returning users).
• Use controlled experiments to measure true campaign impact.
• Track ROAS, frequency, and cost per incremental conversion.
• Analyze breakdowns by placement, creative, and audience.

Common ASC mistakes and how you can avoid them

Even with Meta’s automation, maximizing Advantage+ sales campaigns requires careful setup and ongoing management. Knowing common setup mistakes and how to fix them helps you get the most from Meta’s AI.

Setup errors that impact performance

• Poor tracking: Misconfigured Pixel/API drops data; verify events and deduplication.
• Too early automation: Build conversion data manually before scaling AI.
• Few creatives: Provide many ad variations to boost testing.
• Narrow targeting: Use broader audiences for better learning.
• Messy ad sets: Keep ad sets focused with fewer ads.
• No budget optimization: Use Advantage+ budget for smarter spend.
  

Optimization pitfalls

• Scaling budgets too fast disrupts learning and raises costs.
• Using stale creatives leads to fatigue and worse performance.
• Ignoring segment analysis hides wasted spend and issues.
• Overlooking AI suggestions misses easy optimization wins.
• Skipping manual vs. ASC tests limits strategy refinement.

The future of Advantage+ sales campaigns

Advantage+ sales campaigns are the future of Meta advertising: more automated, data-driven, and scalable. As Meta advances its AI, you can expect greater efficiency, smarter optimization, and new tools to further streamline campaign management.

You’ll be well-positioned to drive growth if you embrace automation while strategically guiding the AI and supplementing with manual controls where needed.

At Bïrch, we give you the tools and data-driven insights to get the most out of your Advantage+ sales campaigns. Try Bïrch for free to balance automation with smart, hands-on decisions, powering up your marketing.

FAQs

What is an Advantage+ sales campaign?

Meta’s Advantage+ Sales Campaigns (ASC), formerly known as Advantage+ shopping campaigns, are Meta’s newest AI-powered campaigns for Facebook and Instagram. They automate audience targeting, budget allocation, placements, and creative optimization—helping you drive conversions at scale with less manual work.

What is the difference between Advantage+ and manual sales campaigns?

Advantage+ campaigns rely heavily on Meta’s AI to automate targeting, creative testing, budget distribution, and placements. They are ideal for broad prospecting and scaling, and require less hands-on management.

Manual sales campaigns, on the other hand, give advertisers full control over audience selection, creative choices, budget splits, and placements, which is helpful when it comes to niche targeting, precise segmentation, and specialized strategies.

How do I turn off my Advantage+ sales campaigns?

1. Go to Meta Ads Manager.
2. Find the campaign in the campaigns tab.
3. Toggle the switch next to the campaign name to “off”.

Alternatively:

1. Select the campaign.
2. Click “edit”.
3. Set the campaign status to “paused” or “inactive” to stop ad delivery immediately.

How can I create an Advantage+ shopping campaign?

1. Open Meta Ads Manager and click “+ Create Campaign”.
2. Choose “sales” as your campaign objective (Advantage+ is the default for sales campaigns) and click “continue”.
3. Name your campaign.
4. Enable Advantage+ catalog ads if you’re promoting products from a catalog.
5. Set your budget and schedule.
6. Optionally enable A/B testing.
7. Add ad sets, provide audience suggestions or exclusions (if desired), and keep Advantage+ placements enabled.
8. Upload your creative assets, such as images, videos, or product sets.
9. Ensure tracking is set up with Meta Pixel or Conversions API.
10. Review and publish your campaign to let Meta’s AI optimize delivery.

What is an Advantage+ shopping campaign?

Advantage+ shopping campaigns are now called Advantage+ sales campaigns. This Meta tool helps marketers with a wide range of sales objectives, not just e-commerce. Campaigns created with Advantage+ automate targeting, creative delivery, and budget allocation across app installs, leads, and catalog ads, helping identify high‑value users with minimal manual setup.

Can I control demographic targeting in ASC?

No, ASC does not allow for specific demographic targeting such as age, gender, or interests. Targeting is generally limited to the country level, and the AI handles further segmentation automatically.

Can I exclude existing customers from ASC targeting?

Currently, ASC doesn’t let you exclude existing or past customers from your campaign’s target audience. This means your ads may be shown to people who have already purchased from you, which may be a waste of ad spend.

Can I choose or exclude specific ad placements?

ASC doesn’t let you select or exclude specific placements. The system automatically optimizes placements, which can sometimes impact brand appearance or safety.

What happened to Revealbot?
Revealbot underwent a comprehensive rebrand and is now known as Bïrch. This transformation reflects our renewed focus on blending automation efficiency with creative collaboration.