Meta Ads in 2026: creative is the new targeting (Andromeda playbook, CustomIQ webinar)

0:00Welcome

Welcome to Meta Ads in 2026. In the next twenty minutes you'll see why your creative now does the targeting, and how to run that playbook with CustomIQ. This session is for you if you already run Meta ads. You know Ads Manager, ad sets and the learning phase, so we'll skip the basics. Here's the plan. First, what changed in how Meta delivers ads. Then six moves: launch with diverse concepts, refresh live campaigns, turn footage into ads, diagnose, optimize and retarget.

0:35What changed with Andromeda

Let's start with the shift. Meta rolled out Andromeda, its AI system for ad retrieval. It changed how Meta decides which ad to show to whom. Before, you told Meta who to reach, with interests and narrow audiences, and the ad followed. Now Meta reads the creative itself and predicts who will respond to it. Your creative does the targeting, and interests are, at most, a suggestion.

1:04The three levers

So three levers matter, in this order. First, creative diversity: genuinely different concepts, not small tweaks of the same ad. Second, a simple structure. Few campaigns, broad or Advantage plus audience, and automatic placements, so the system has room to learn. Third, a clean signal. The pixel plus the Conversions API, with good match quality, so Meta learns from your real results.

1:36Concepts, not variations

What counts as different? Near-identical ads tend to be treated as one, and they end up competing with each other. Change the concept, not the button colour. Vary the format, the hook in the first seconds, the angle or the visual style. And when you find a winner, build new angles around it instead of cloning it. That gives you a loop, and the rest of this session follows it.

Research what competitors run, write diverse concepts, launch, diagnose, and refresh with new creative. CustomIQ does the heavy lifting at every step, but you approve every change. Nothing goes live and no budget moves without you.

2:191. Launch with diverse concepts

Move one, launch with concepts that are actually different. Every campaign starts from research into your competitors' ads. CustomIQ reads your competitors' active ads in Meta's Ad Library and notes their angles, hooks, offers and the gaps nobody covers. Then it proposes distinct concepts, and you choose which ones to generate. In this tutorial you'll create an ad campaign for Facebook and Instagram.

In CustomIQ, paid campaigns are requested in the chat, from the strategist. Start a new conversation. Say you want a campaign on Meta and add what the agent needs: goal, segment, product and monthly budget. Send it. If something's missing, or it wants to confirm your segment or product, it'll ask. Just answer. Once everything's clear, the agent shows you a summary: brand, segment, product, goal and budget.

If something's off, type what to change. If it looks right, click Continue to generate the strategy. Here's the plan: which campaign it proposes, why, and how much budget it gets. You'll also see the estimated cost in credits. Click Approve and execute. CustomIQ sets up the campaign and researches your competitors' ads. When the research is done, the campaign shows up in the summary, where you can open its details and check the strategy before moving on.

Before generating anything, check what's going to be produced. Click Creatives on the campaign. These are the ads the research proposes: images and videos, each with its copy and the idea behind it. Nothing has been generated yet. Every creative costs credits, and you don't need all of them to start. Remove the ones you don't want. We'll keep just one video and one image.

If a format you want is missing, just ask for it. Here there's no image, so we ask the agent to add one. It's only written into the proposal for now, not generated. Now only two creatives are active. The ones you removed won't be generated, so you won't pay for them. You can restore any of them later. When you're happy with the selection, click Done.

Now click Approve and generate assets. The agent generates only the two creatives you kept. That uses credits, but nothing is published on Meta yet. These are your creatives. Review them here or on the Campaigns page, and regenerate any you don't like. And this is the last step. Deploy campaigns creates the campaign in your Meta ad account, paused.

It only spends once you switch it on in Ads Manager. Done. Your campaign is waiting in Campaigns, where you can deploy it and track its results. Meta bills your ad spend directly. When you trim proposals to save credits, cut the near-copies, not the concepts. Keep a mix of formats and angles. And remember, the campaign lands in Meta paused, so the final switch is yours.

5:582. Refresh a live campaign

Move two, refresh a live campaign. When an ad wears out, you don't rebuild the campaign. You add a new concept to it. When an ad starts to wear out, you don't need a new campaign. From the chat you can add a fresh creative to the one that's already running. Open a conversation. Click New conversation. Type "Add an image creative to my Meta campaign".

If you'd rather have a video or a carousel, just swap the word image. The chat lists your published Meta campaigns. We'll add the creative to our lead campaign for the subscription agency. Answer with its number or its name. Now pick the product the creative will feature. The first option is the campaign's own product. We'll keep the same one. Next, the ad set it goes into.

The list comes straight from Meta, so you see the ad sets the campaign has right now. We'll pick the first one. Before generating anything, the chat proposes the creative: the angle, the headline, the copy and what the image will show. The proposal is free. You're only charged when you say "generate", so you can ask for changes at no cost. We ask for a different angle, in our own words.

And it prepares a new proposal that takes our request into account. When you like it, give the go-ahead. Type "generate". Now the image is actually created, and it's charged in credits. The creative shows up in this card as soon as it's ready. You can click it to see it full size. Type "ready" so the chat picks it up. The chat asks whether to publish it.

Say "publish" and it goes to Meta paused, so you can switch it on whenever you want. Or tell it what to change. Nothing is published without your approval. We'll leave it here, ready to review, and in the next tutorial we'll see how to approve content. Rising frequency with a falling click-through rate means fatigue. Answer it with a new angle, not a copy of the winner.

And since the proposal is free, shape the idea before you spend a credit.

8:303. Turn footage into ads

Move three, turn footage into ads. Format diversity is part of creative diversity, and the videos you already have are the fastest source. In this tutorial you'll edit one of your videos with AI, like a professional editor would, without touching an editing app. Open Video and go to Generated videos. Your uploaded videos are here too. Every video has an Edit with AI button, the sparkles icon.

Press it. By default the AI picks the edit itself, based on the video and your brand's style. Or choose exactly what you want, from removing silences to captions, music, voice-over, b-roll or colour correction. For example, remove silences and fillers, and add captions in your brand's colours and fonts. You can add instructions in your own words. To turn the video into an ad, choose Dynamic ad.

It edits for direct response, with fast cuts, giant words and impact screens. Pick the format, for example four by five for the feed. Before you start, you see what it will cost in credits. The maximum is reserved, and only what's really used is charged. Press Analyse and propose an edit. The AI watches and listens to the video and prepares the edit.

Then you review its proposal, ask for changes in your own words, remove any graphic you don't like, and apply it. The edited video lands in your gallery, and the original is never touched. As this is a demo, we close without starting. You can also do it from the IQ chat. Attach a video and say, edit this video like a pro, or pick Edit a video with AI in the actions menu.

That's Smart Edit. Turn raw footage into a polished post or ad in a couple of minutes. One recording can cover every placement: nine by sixteen, four by five or square. Dynamic ad gives you a direct response cut. And raw, phone-shot footage is a concept of its own, worth testing against your polished ads.

10:454. Diagnose from the chat

Move four, diagnose before you touch anything. Ask the IQ chat what's going on in your account. It reads Meta directly, and it's free. In this tutorial you'll ask the IQ chat what's going on in your Meta Ads account. It reads Meta directly, and it's free. Open a new conversation. Ask why your ad isn't running. CustomIQ checks every published campaign.

If Meta rejected an ad, it's in review, or there's no payment method, you see Meta's own reason. Here nothing is wrong. These campaigns don't spend because they were paused on purpose, and the chat offers to reactivate them. Now ask which ad is doing worst. You get how Meta rates each ad, quality, engagement and conversion, against similar ads. An ad below average usually needs a new creative, not more budget.

So the chat offers a button that opens that task. Nothing changes until you confirm. Finally, ask if your pixel is working. You see when the pixel received its last event. And the match quality of each event, from zero to ten, with what to do when Meta hasn't scored it yet. You can also ask who changed a campaign's budget, why your products don't show in your catalog ads, or what ads your competitors run.

That's how you find what's wrong in your Meta Ads in seconds, without opening Ads Manager. Three habits. An ad rated below average needs a new creative, not more budget. Check your pixel's match quality, because that's the signal Meta learns from. And when results move, see who changed what before you react.

13:135. Optimize with discipline

Move five, optimize with discipline. Before any change, read the campaign in the right order. Start with the learning phase. Meta needs around fifty optimization events per ad set per week to exit it, and costs run high while it lasts. Big edits to budget, audience or creative restart learning. So leave an ad set alone while it's still learning. And wait for enough conversions before you call a winner.

If spend concentrates on one or two ads, that's healthy: Meta found what works. In this tutorial you'll ask the IQ chat to analyse a live Meta campaign and review the changes it proposes, before anything is touched. Start a new conversation. And ask it to optimize your Meta campaign. The chat opens a guided process. Only the analysis step uses credits, and choosing changes is free.

It lists your live Meta campaigns. We answer with the name of the one we want to improve. The agent reads the campaign's results and returns its proposals, with a summary of what it found. Each proposal says what it would change, where, its risk and its expected impact, and why it recommends it. Tick only the proposals you agree with. Apply selected makes those changes on Meta.

As this is a demo, we won't apply anything. Or discard them all if none of them convince you. Underneath, you see exactly what the analysis cost. Back takes you to the campaign list, and Cancel leaves the process. Until you apply, nothing changes on the campaign. That's it. Ask for an analysis whenever you like, and you'll also find the daily proposals in Campaigns, under Proposals, ready to accept or discard.

CustomIQ proposes, you decide. Each proposal shows what it changes, its risk, its expected impact and why. If you want an analysis every morning, turn on Daily optimization in the campaign. It's off by default, and its proposals wait in Optimization proposals.

15:366. Retarget warm audiences

Move six, retarget the people who already know you. A warm audience needs different creative, not the same introduction again. In this tutorial you'll create a retargeting campaign, to show ads again to people who already visited your site, watched your videos or interacted with your ads. In the IQ chat, start a new conversation. And ask for retargeting on Meta.

For Google search campaigns, say Google instead. The chat explains what it will do. It creates a new campaign aimed at your warm audience, reusing the setup of one of your prospecting campaigns at a reduced budget. These are your active prospecting campaigns, each with its platform. Pick the one to build on. We'll answer with its number. The agent researches the warm audience and prepares the campaign.

Here's the summary, with the reduced budget. Its creatives don't introduce your brand. They pick up where the person left off, answer the objection that stopped them and close with a reason to act now. As with any campaign, you can review the proposed creatives before generating them. From here it works like any Meta campaign. Approve and generate assets creates the creatives, and then you deploy it.

That's it. If your campaign is already deployed, the chat may also offer retargeting on its own when a warm audience is ready. Retargeting creative never reintroduces your brand. It picks up where people stopped, answers the objection and gives a reason to act now. For website visitors you need the Meta pixel, and the agent checks it for you.

17:25Recap

Let's recap. You launched real concepts, refreshed with new angles, turned footage into ads, diagnosed in the chat, optimized with your approval and retargeted warm audiences.

17:39Questions

Now, the questions advanced advertisers ask us most. Should I drop interest targeting? Broad is the default now. Interests can still help new accounts with few conversions, and very niche or local offers. How many creatives per ad set? There's no magic number. Several genuinely different concepts beat dozens of near-copies. Diversity over volume. Will optimizing reset my learning phase?

Large budget or audience changes can. The agent takes that into account when it proposes, and you choose what to apply. Can CustomIQ change my campaigns on its own? No. Diagnosis only reads Meta, and proposals and new creatives wait for your approval.

18:28Next steps

Where to go next. Every feature in this session has a guide and a video in Help. And today, ask the IQ chat why your ad isn't running. It's free, and it tells you where to start. Thanks for watching. Now open CustomIQ and give Meta something worth targeting: genuinely different creative.