Wish to streamline how you run ads on Meta’s platforms like Facebook and Instagram? Well, there is a smarter way to do so.
I recently had the opportunity to interview Dhruv Vohra, the Managing Director for Small and Medium Businesses at Meta Asia Pacific. In our conversation, he unpacked some of the newest features in Ads Manager that make life easier for entrepreneurs who may not have the time, expertise, or manpower to run complex campaigns.
Let me share what I learned, and why these tools could save you hours of stress.
Challenges Small Businesses Face in Running Ads
Running digital ads as a small or medium sized business (SMB) owner can feel overwhelming. Many of you don’t have a dedicated marketing team. You’re juggling inventory, suppliers, customer service, and the actual running of your business.
On top of that, the dashboard for social media ad platforms often look like a cockpit. They are full of levers and buttons that require constant adjustment (and you’re afraid to accidentally press the “eject” button!).
Targeting is another pain point. Many business owners don’t have time to figure out custom audiences or segment buyers down to the last detail.
Layered on top of that would be your creatives, perhaps the most important part of the social advertising puzzle.
Finally, there’s optimisation—deciding whether to chase traffic, leads, or conversions, all while trying not to waste your budget.
This was why I told Dhruv during our chat that “One of the challenges that small businesses have is what they need to adjust and optimise to change. If all that work can be taken away from them, there’ll be a great advantage.”
Dhruv agreed. And this is exactly where Meta’s new tools come in.
Opportunity Score as Your Virtual Coach
Heard of the Opportunity Score in Meta’s Ads Manager? No?
Well, the Opportunity Score is a feature in Ads Manager that gives advertisers a score out of 100, along with tailored recommendations to improve campaign performance. These recommendations are based on tested strategies, personalised to your account, and ranked by potential impact.
As Dhruv explained:
“Meta’s opportunity score helps businesses get the most out of their ad spend with experimentally proven recommendations. It gives you a score out of a hundred and then shows you simple proven ways to improve your ads just with a few clicks. The recommendations are proven, so that means they’re tested, they’re personalized, so custom to your business, and then prioritized for most impact.”
Think of it like having a personal tutor built right into the Ads Manager. Rather than stare blankly at rows of data, you’ll get a simple checklist of what to fix first.
And yes, you no longer need to hire an expert to tell you every tweak—the system itself should nudge you towards smarter decisions.
Automating Campaigns with Advantage+
Now let’s move on to Meta Advantage+—a feature that you’d probably have seen on Meta’s Ads Manager.
Advantage+ is a suite of automated ad solutions that use machine learning to streamline campaign setup, creative testing, audience targeting, and budget allocation. With Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, for instance, advertisers can automate up to 150 creative combinations and let the system optimise for best performance.
As Dhruv highlighted during our interview: “Trust AI and our automation tools to find the right audience for you, for the right goals, sales leads, or awareness.”
What does that mean for you? Well, you don’t have to burn hours deciding where your ads should appear or which creative should get more budget.
Instead, let Advantage+ do the heavy lifting (and testing) for you, automatically shifting your ad spends to what’s working best. Think of it like switching your ads to autopilot where you still set the destination, but the system plots the smartest route to get you there.
Purchase Optimisation to Reach Ready Buyers
Next, we’ll talk about some of the exciting new innovations coming your way. The first is Purchase Optimisation.
Purchase Optimisation is a new AI tool in Ads Manager that helps businesses show their ads to people most likely to complete a purchase. It draws from past user behaviours plus predictive signals so that your ad budget is skewed towards audiences who are more primed to buy.
Dhruv explained it this way:
“It helps you find people who are most likely to buy, and we show them your ads just at the right time. It’s super helpful… because it lets small businesses boost sales by reaching keen buyers. Without overspending on ads, you can use it to max out sales. Get your ads to people most likely to buy. Keep ads and cost of ads in check. Make sure your budgets work hard for you.”
In simple terms, this means you are no longer have to waste money on audiences who are just browsing. Instead, your ads go to the people who are most likely to click “buy now.”
For a small business owner, that can be the difference between spending on impressions and actually seeing revenue come in.
Value Optimisation Turns Clicks to Profit
Wait, there’s more. If Purchase Optimisation helps you find people who are ready to buy, Value Optimisation takes it a step further.
Value Optimisation is a campaign setting that helps advertisers maximise the overall purchase value (not just volume) generated by their ads. Advertisers can choose to optimise for revenue, profit, or other valuable actions like subscriptions.
As Dhruv explained during our chat:
“Value optimisation is our primary offering for advertisers looking to move beyond volume of conversions. There are several types of value businesses can optimise for… you could value optimise for purchases that maximise conversion value for your purchases. You could also value optimise for profits.”
Think about it this way. Two customers buy from you. One spends twenty dollars, the other spends two hundred. With Value Optimisation, the system learns that the two-hundred-dollar customer is worth prioritising.
Final Takeaway
Running social media ads used to mean endless trial and error. You had to figure out the right campaign objectives, right targeting, right placements, and spend hours tweaking campaigns. Sometimes, you’ll cross your fingers hoping that the right people would see your ads.
Today, Meta has baked artificial intelligence directly into the Ads Manager:
- Opportunity Score shows you exactly what to fix, like having a coach beside you.
- Advantage+ automates campaign management so you don’t have to decide where to place every ad or which creative should get more budget.
- Purchase Optimisation finds the people who are most likely to buy, saving you from wasting impressions on casual browsers.
- Value Optimisation goes even further by teaching the system to focus on customers who bring in more revenue or profit, not just more clicks.
For small business owners, the system itself is now your guide and advisor. As I reflected to Dhruv, it’s like “having a tutor beside you, teaching you how to run and optimise your ads without you having to hire somebody.”
That, to me, is a huge win for any business owner trying to make every advertising dollar count.
