Creative is no longer just the thing people see. It is also a signal. It tells Meta who is engaging, what problem is resonating, and which users are more likely to act.

If the hook is generic, the product benefit is unclear, or the ad looks like every other brand in the feed, the algorithm has little useful information to work with.

The evidence supports this. Circana/NCS found that creative drove 49% of incremental sales, compared with 11% for targeting, across nearly 450 campaigns. [3] Kantar has also found that the most creative and effective ads generate more than four times as much profit. [4]

On Meta, ads are competing in fast-moving environments like Feed, Stories and Reels. Creative has to stop the scroll, communicate the product clearly, give Meta variation to learn from, and be refreshed before fatigue sets in.

This is why “which audience should we target?” is now often too narrow. The better question is: “Which messages, angles and formats should we test in our creative?”

The best advertisers are building better inputs

When people talk about creative on Meta, they often think only about visuals. But in an automated system, “creative” should be understood more broadly.

It includes the hook, offer, format, landing page, positioning, proof points, ad copy, call to action and post-click experience.

A good creative should test different hypotheses: a pain-point-led hook, product demonstration, social proof or founder-led explanation. Each gives Meta different information and helps the platform understand which message works.

But volume on its own is not the answer. More ads will not fix unclear thinking. The strongest Meta accounts are producing more useful creative, built around real customer problems and buying triggers.

Out with the old targeting, in with the new creative

It would be too simplistic to say targeting no longer matters. There are still important decisions around exclusions, customer lists, value rules, age, segmented setup, remarketing, and commercial goals.

But targeting is increasingly becoming a set of guardrails rather than the main performance engine. Today, Meta is often better at finding likely responders within a broader pool than a human is at manually predicting every pocket of demand.

For many advertisers, the growth ceiling is no longer hidden inside one more interest stack. It is hidden in the creative backlog, offer, landing page, tracking setup, product feed, test structure and speed at which insights become new creative.

Signal Quality Matters Too

Creative is one of the biggest inputs, but not the only one.

Meta can only optimise towards the actions it can see and understand. If tracking is weak, the system is learning from incomplete data.

This is especially important for lead generation. A campaign optimising towards cheap form fills can find cheap form fills, but that does not always mean valuable customers.

This is why the Meta Pixel, Conversions API, Event Match Quality and CRM integrations matter. [7]

In practical terms, a strong Meta setup needs strong creative inputs, strong conversion signals and strong interpretation from the media team.

What This Means For Clients

For clients and marketers, this means asking better questions.

Instead of only asking “Which audience are we targeting?”, we should ask what creative angles we are testing, what the algorithm is learning, whether we are feeding back the right conversion data, and whether we are optimising towards quality or just volume.

This is where a good paid media agency adds value: connecting creative strategy, media buying and measurement.

Final Thoughts

Creative, signals and strategy are becoming the targeting advantage.

Meta’s automation can find demand, but it needs something meaningful to work with. Great creative must be at the forefront of our Media Buying plans.

References

[1] Meta - “Meta Advantage+ Explained in Two Minutes”
https://about.fb.com/ko/news/2025/04/meta-advantage-explained-in-two-minutes/

[2] Meta - “Maximize campaign performance with new Advantage+ AI features and proven recommendations”
https://about.fb.com/ltam/news/2025/02/maximiza-el-rendimiento-de-tu-campana-con-las-nuevas-funciones-de-advantage-ai-y-recomendaciones-probadas-empiricamente/

[3] Circana - Brand loyalty and sales impact research, including NCS Five Keys findings
https://www.circana.com/post/brand-loyalty-impact-on-sales

[4] Kantar - “The Art of Proof: How creative quality drives profit”
https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/advertising-media/the-art-of-proof-how-creative-quality-drives-profit

[5] Meta - “Introducing New Automation Tools to Increase Sales and Drive Growth”
https://about.fb.com/news/2022/08/introducing-new-automation-tools-to-increase-sales-and-drive-growth/

[6] Meta Engineering - “Meta Andromeda: Next-generation personalised ads retrieval engine”
https://engineering.fb.com/2024/12/02/production-engineering/meta-andromeda-advantage-automation-next-gen-personalized-ads-retrieval-engine/

[7] Meta Developers - Conversions API and Event Match Quality documentation
https://developers.facebook.com/documentation/ads-commerce/conversions-api/verifying-setup