131 – How Meta’s Advantage+ is Wasting Your Budget

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In this episode of the Sports Marketing Machine podcast, Jeremy Neisser unpacks Meta Advantage Plus—Meta’s automated ad system for Facebook and Instagram. While it promises simplicity, Advantage Plus often hurts sports teams by prioritizing clicks over actual ticket sales, lumping all fans into one generic audience, and masking true performance with misleading metrics.

Jeremy explains why manual ad setup, audience segmentation, and conversion tracking are essential to avoid wasted spend. He also highlights when Advantage Plus can be useful, such as for merchandise sales, but makes it clear: selling tickets requires a more hands-on, strategic approach.

Takeaways

• Advantage Plus is Meta’s autopilot for ads.
• It often works against sports teams trying to sell tickets.
• Personalization in ads is critical for success.
• Manual setup helps you better understand your fans.
• Conversion tracking is essential for measuring real results.
• Wasted impressions and high frequency are red flags.
• Build warm and hot audiences for targeted marketing.
• Advantage Plus works better for broad merch campaigns.
• Don’t rely solely on Meta’s “easy button.”
• A manual, hands-on approach makes you a stronger marketer.

Chapters
00:00 – Introduction and context
02:15 – What Advantage Plus really is
04:32 – Why Advantage Plus fails for ticket sales
07:10 – How to tell if Advantage Plus is wasting your money
09:30 – Smarter alternatives: warm audiences and creative testing
11:30 – When Advantage Plus can help (merchandise sales)
13:45 – Final takeaways and call to action

Episodes mentioned:

• Episode 128 – 3 Changes with Meta That Affect Your Ads (and How to Sell More Tickets Anyway)
• Episode 125 – “I Saw Your Ad—But Didn’t Buy”: Fixing the Fan Follow-Up Funnel
• Episode 111 – Building Your Marketing Budget Like a Funnel: Awareness to Action
• Episode 110 – Meta Ads 101 – The Smart Way to Retarget: Website Visitors, Social Engagers & Timing That Converts (Part 4 of 4)
• Episode 109 – Meta Ads 101 – The Hidden Power of Lookalike Audiences in Meta Ads (Part 3 of 4)
• Episode 108 – Meta Ads 101 – How to Use Exclusion Lists in Meta Ads to Boost ROI (Part 2 of 4)
• Episode 107 – Meta Ads 101 – Link Clicks vs. Landing Page Views (Part 1 of 4)
• Episode 21 – The 3 Audiences You Should Have In Your Meta Business Suite

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