38- Meta Keeps Changing: Should You Still Use Lookalikes, or Go Broad?

Summary

In this conversation, Stacy Covitz discusses the evolving landscape of audience targeting in marketing, emphasizing the need to shift from narrow, specific targeting to broader strategies. She highlights the impact of AI and algorithm updates from platforms like Meta, which are changing how marketers should approach their audience engagement.


Takeaways

•    If you are used to going very specific in your targeting, that needs to change.
• What's working is going broad

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Meta Advertising Changes
01:02 When to Use Lookalike Audiences

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Transcript

Hey, hey, it's Stacy Covitz, your meta ad strategist and today is just a quick reality check. It's all about meta changing constantly. A few months ago, I did a whole episode about dialing in your targeting, your audiences.

interests, lookalikes, all the things. But now I'm switching gears because what's working now looks a little bit different. So today I'm answering the question, should you still use lookalike audiences or is it better to go broad and let Facebook's Advantage Plus do the heavy lifting? Let's break it down.

So I know I'm always talking about how annoying it is to have to turn off manually all of MetaAd's default AI settings and slowly but surely we are now leaving some of those set to on. Let's start with targeting.


If you are used to going very specific in your targeting, in other words, you've got interests and location and age and jobs and just everything you could think of and you're stacking those together to really try and narrow in on your person.

That needs to change. Here's why. And there's an exception. I will tell you the exception. But first, here's why.

Metas new all of their new updates and their AI and their algorithm and whatever it all is compiled. Andromeda, I don't even know if that's how you say it, but all of that combined is now focused on rather than you being in charge of stacking

interests and all of that to target your audience and your person. What's working is going broad. So using AI Advantage Plus, let them find your people, which just seems counterintuitive to what I've been talking about. Right?

 but here's why.

In 2025, broad targeting has been working really well. But here's the thing. You need to have things really in place. You're tracking, your offer's clear, your ad says who it is right away, you're calling out your audience. And then, if that's all set, Facebook is really good at finding the people.

that you're looking for. Are lookalike audiences dead? Nope, they're still useful. If your budget is smaller, your offer is super specific, or you've got a great customer list of buyers.
 If you have an email list that is segmented into your buyers, that is one of the best ways to, that is one of the best audiences to create a lookalike audience for because Facebook's algorithm is really good at finding buyers, but if they don't know who buyers are,

they can't find them. So if all of your data is non-sales data, then go broad. But if you do have data, hence a lookalike audience or an audience of buyers, then go ahead and create a lookalike audience and use that.

And I'll say it again, it's really hard to get used to letting meta take control over the targeting because you know, it's your money and you feel like, my goodness, I'm giving all my money and I'm saying, take it, find my people. But.

That's more incentive to get your creative and your messaging and your copy really, really specific. So when your target audience or your perfect person is scrolling by and they see your ad, they know it's for them. They know it's for them. They're thinking, holy cow, this is for me. And it doesn't matter if you've targeted them in your ad.

using the traditional targeting options that we're also used to.


Okay, so how do we decide? Let me give you a couple guidelines. Use broad targeting advantage plus if your goal is clear, Your ad plainly calls out your audience, like in the headline or the first line.

and you're willing to let it run for a few days to do its learning, which I'm always talking about. You need to let your ad run for three to five days, right? Okay. Now lookalikes, if you have a nice list of recent customers that have purchased, or you have a very narrow niche, you're looking for homeschool families or dentists that

only do a certain procedure. I mean, if you're really, if your audience is really niche, then don't go broad. Or if your budget is small and you need a little bit more control, you're not quite ready to let meta take the reins. So if you're unsure, go broad. And if the results feel a little bit too messy or expensive,

Try a lookalike from your list of buyers. Now, obviously, if you don't have a list of buyers, then this is not for you.

You can test, so try a test. Use two campaigns, one with a broad audience and then one with a lookalike.


Use the same ad, same image, same everything and let them both run for five to seven days. Don't be making any changes and let's see what happens.

Check your results, find out which one brought in more of what I wanted, signups or sales. Which one costs less? 

Did people follow through and stick around? And did they open my emails? 
So to wrap up, yes, meta keeps changing and so will our approach.

Right now I am starting to go broad, let Facebook do its thing, add lookalikes if I want a little bit more control, but you gotta go with the changes, right? We gotta evolve or we're going to get left behind.


I hope this made sense. hope it was helpful. And if you have any questions about your ads, your business in the show notes is all of my contact information and I love helping you. So with that, thanks for listening and I will see you next time.