Marketing & social media updates - META Advertising
- Jan 10
- 4 min read
Staying up to date with marketing trends is no longer the problem. We read newsletters, follow experts, and are presented with new updates every single week. A lot of updates; not always visible, not always easy to apply, and often driven by AI optimisations behind the scenes.
And yet, I keep seeing the same pattern with many marketers: we know something has changed, but we’re not always sure what that actually means for our strategy.
This article is therefore not a list of trends or predictions. What you’ll read here are structural shifts that are already happening today, and that will be applied even more in 2026.
Updates META (Facebook & Instagram) Advertising 2025-2026
tl;dr
Meta advertising has evolved from manual targeting to AI-driven value optimisation. Control is no longer in the settings, but in the quality of your input. And yes, creatives matter more than ever.
What are the characteristics of Meta?
Meta is a combined ecosystem of Facebook and Instagram, where content, community and advertising come together in one AI-driven environment.
What? Facebook is mainly used for groups, communities, events and updates.
Who? Facebook remains strong across a broad demographic, with a clear core audience between 25 and 55 years old.
Format? Facebook performs best with text and images in a 4:5 format, combined with Reels in 9:16 and Stories also in 9:16. A major advantage of Facebook is the ability to include external links.
What? Instagram focuses more on inspiration, discovery, and following brands and personal brands.
Who? Instagram attracts an audience between 18 and 45 years old, including creators, brands and visually driven users.
Format? Instagram prioritises 9:16 Reels and Stories. Images, videos and carousels in the feed perform best in a 3:4 format.
What changed in 2025?
Where micro-targeting (based on interests and lookalikes) used to be a key part of your strategy, it has now become almost irrelevant. Today, it’s the algorithm that decides who sees your ad — based on behaviour and the visuals you use. That’s also why Advantage+ has become the default setting.
Instead of optimising your campaigns through hyper-specific segments or endless targeting options, the new Andromeda system mainly evaluates ads based on their creative signals ; such as visuals, messaging, format and creative diversity. Brands that use a wide variety of creatives (different hooks, images, angles and formats) give the AI algorithm more material to learn from and optimise. This also means you should no longer structure your ad sets by audience, but by format. Create multiple creative variations within the same format. And make sure they are truly different. (Yes, just changing one sentence or moving it around is not enough.)
So what does this mean? Less manual work in campaign setup and more structural simplicity; but significantly more effort in the creative process.
Reels Trending Ads were also recently launched. This is a new ad format within Meta (Instagram and Facebook) that allows your ad to appear directly next to or after the most popular and trending Reels content. The selection of these Reels is not random. Meta uses AI to determine daily which videos are “trending,” based on engagement, views, virality and relevance.
Why would you use Reels Trending Ads? Because it places your brand next to content people are genuinely excited about, which automatically increases attention. Meta reports up to a 20% lift in awareness compared to standard campaigns. On top of that, your ad feels more native and organic, which often leads to higher engagement.
Value-based targeting fits perfectly into this shift. Your ads are shown more often to audiences that are valuable to your business and not just to people who are likely to convert, but perhaps bring less long-term value. It’s quality over quantity.
You define in advance what a specific conversion is worth to your business. For example, a returning customer is often more valuable than a first-time buyer, so you assign a higher value to that action. This requires some extra setup in the beginning, but it usually results in stronger campaign performance over time.
That said, value-based targeting works best for mature accounts with sufficient data. For a first campaign, the impact will likely be limited.
What is the role of AI in META advertising?
Meta’s ad machine doesn’t look at what you find beautiful, it looks at how real people respond. The algorithm continuously analyses behaviour: is an ad saved? Shared? Does it lead to a click, a comment, or a purchase? These signals determine who sees which ad.
AI doesn’t just help distribute ads — it also helps build them. Meta’s systems can automatically test different variations of visuals and copy to see which combinations perform best for specific audiences and situations. You don’t have to manually test every version yourself. Not everyone loves that idea, but for less creative marketers, it can definitely help (or at least inspire).
The platform is also constantly learning. New interactions ( even conversations within AI-powered features) are used to better understand what users actually want to see. As a result, ads gradually become more personalised and more relevant.
Just like with content, structure and meaning matter. AI understands what works by observing behaviour and not because someone clicked the right settings. Content and ads without clear context are not only distributed less, they’re also interpreted less effectively by the algorithm.
What does this mean for your strategy in 2026?
Managing fewer settings and clicking fewer options does not mean less responsibility. On the contrary.
The role of the marketer is shifting from operator to strategist. Creatives, data and clear business goals increasingly determine the success of your campaigns. Poor input gets penalised faster than before. But campaigns built on strong input grow faster as well.
This is the second part of a series on marketing and platform updates that many marketers missed in 2025 and that will become even more important in 2026.
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