Meta Removes Detailed Targeting Exclusions From Ad Campaigns

You may have missed this earlier in the year, so a quick reminder that Meta has now removed detailed targeting exclusions as an option for all new campaigns.

Well, Meta hadn’t actually announced it, as such, until a week ago, but it had alerted advertisers that a change was coming by accidentally sending out a note about the change back in May.

I’ll explain.

As you can see in this image, Meta’s detailed targeting exclusions enabled advertisers to exclude people from their ad audience based on demographics, interests and/or behaviors. The option gave advertisers more capacity to refine their ad audience, but Meta’s found that, over time, these exclusions actually limit ad effectiveness, despite advertisers believing that they would improve performance.

Meta’s ad targeting systems, powered by its advancing AI systems, are now much more adept at displaying the right ads to the right users at the right time, improving overall campaign performance. And as such ad exclusions are now essentially a hindrance.

Indeed, Meta says that, in its own testing, the median cost per conversion for ad campaigns improved by 22.6% when removing detailed targeting exclusions from the mix.  

So even if you think you know what to exclude, Meta’s essentially saying that you’re probably wrong and you’re probably better off just trusting its systems to reach the right people.

Meta first announced a change to its ad targeting exclusions back in January, when it removed and consolidated some of its targeting options due to lack of use. Then in May, Meta sent out an alert to advertisers explaining that targeting exclusions would be removed entirely by June 28, which it then clarified had been sent in error and that there were no plans to remove the option.

It then removed them a month later. So those plans changed pretty quick.

Meta says that detailed targeting exclusions are no longer available for new campaigns, while existing campaigns that are utilizing audience exclusions will remain unaffected until January 31, 2025.

“From January 31st, we will stop delivery on campaigns using detailed targeting exclusions. You will see a warning banner if this happens.”

Meta further notes that advertisers can still use alternative exclusion options, including custom audience exclusions, as well as the audience controls in your account-level advertising settings, in order to restrict audiences based on brand protection or employment.

But no more audience exclusions within your campaign set up. Which, based on Meta’s data, might actually be a good thing either way. Meta’s also driving strong results with its automated Advantage+ campaigns, and in combination, this is probably a positive change overall, whether it seems like it or not.

It also aligns with Meta’s future vision, where advertisers won’t have to do any manual work at all to create an ad campaign.

Pretty soon, you’ll just enter a product URL and Meta’s AI system will generate an optimized ad description, custom product visuals, along with a range of variants, which will then be built into your system-generated campaign.

Which feels counter intuitive and like it couldn’t deliver better results. But the system is built on ad and audience engagement knowledge, and as such, it may well know better than you how to create ads that connect.