Meta expands advertising features with targeted offers and value rules

Meta has announced four significant advertising platform updates that expand targeting capabilities and provide advertisers with enhanced control over campaign delivery and creative content. The updates, spotted by digital marketing specialist Bram Van der Hallen and documented in official company materials, introduce features spanning commerce management, bidding optimization, content control, and audience analytics.

According to Meta's Commerce Manager documentation, the platform now offers targeted offers functionality exclusively for US-based shops. This feature enables merchants to create promotional campaigns with audience-specific visibility controls. The system supports four distinct audience categories: new customers, followers, abandoned cart users, and custom audiences created within Commerce Manager.

The targeted offers feature operates through Meta's Commerce Manager interface, allowing merchants to choose which audiences can view and redeem specific promotional codes or discount offers. New customers are defined as individuals who have not purchased from a Facebook or Instagram shop within the previous two years. Followers encompass users who follow the merchant's Facebook Page or Instagram account. Abandoned cart audiences include people who added items to their shopping cart but failed to complete purchases within the last 30 days.

Value rules represent the most technically significant update among the four new features. According to Meta's Ads Manager documentation, value rules are now available across all ad accounts and campaign objectives, marking a substantial expansion from previous limited availability. The feature allows advertisers to increase or decrease bidding amounts based on specific demographic and technical criteria including age, gender, mobile operating system, geographic location, and ad placement.

The bidding adjustment system enables advertisers to express relative value across different audience segments, placements, and conversion locations within consolidated campaign structures. Advertisers can establish rules indicating how much more certain audiences or placements are worth to their business objectives. Meta's optimization algorithms then adjust delivery to focus on criteria and outcomes that advertisers value more highly.

Value rules functionality includes several technical limitations that affect compatibility with existing bidding strategies. The feature does not support campaigns already using return on ad spend goals, bid caps, or "maximize value of conversions" performance goals. Additionally, value rules are not available for manual bid strategies such as cost per result goals or Housing, Employment, Credit campaigns.

When advertisers create value rule sets, Meta applies a hierarchical priority system where only the first applicable rule adjusts bidding for each auction participant. For example, if rule one targets women in California with a 20% bid increase and rule two targets women using specific mobile operating systems with a 50% increase, only the first rule applies to women in California using those devices.

The creative content control update introduces restricted word functionality at the ad level within Meta's advertising interface. This feature addresses advertiser concerns about AI-generated text options containing inappropriate content for specific brands or industries. Advertisers can now input specific words or phrases they want excluded from automated text generation, providing brand safety controls for campaigns using Meta's artificial intelligence creative tools.

The restricted words feature operates specifically within Meta's AI-generated content systems, preventing designated terms from appearing in automatically created ad copy variations. This functionality supports brand voice consistency while maintaining the efficiency benefits of automated creative generation. The feature integrates with existing creative optimization tools without requiring changes to campaign structure or targeting settings.

Meta's Facebook professional dashboard now includes an expanded audience insights section labeled "Popular with your followers." This analytics feature provides data about content and pages that resonate with an advertiser's existing follower base, including engagement with content from other accounts. The insights are designed to inform both organic content strategy and paid advertising creative development.

The audience insights data encompasses follower interactions across Meta's platform ecosystem, analyzing engagement patterns to identify content themes and formats that generate highest response rates. According to the platform documentation, these insights help advertisers create content that aligns with their audience's demonstrated interests and engagement behaviors.

These updates arrive as Meta continues expanding its AI-powered advertising capabilities throughout 2025. The company reported second quarter advertising revenue of $46.6 billion, representing 22% year-over-year growth driven by artificial intelligence improvements across its advertising infrastructure.

The targeted offers feature specifically supports Meta's broader commerce integration strategy. Merchants can create promotional campaigns without requiring traditional promotional codes, using audience targeting to control offer visibility instead. The system automatically applies one-use-per-customer limitations for new customer audiences, preventing redemption abuse while encouraging first-time purchases.

For promotional campaigns requiring traditional discount codes, the targeted offers system supports both public and secret promotional code types. Public codes are visible to selected audiences but can only be redeemed by users meeting audience criteria. Secret codes provide additional security by limiting both visibility and redemption to targeted user groups.

The Commerce Manager interface enables merchants to create custom audiences based on specific criteria including platform usage, page interactions, event participation, and retention patterns. Custom audiences can then be used for targeted offer campaigns, providing sophisticated segmentation capabilities beyond the standard four audience types.

Value rules implementation requires careful consideration of campaign structure and existing optimization settings. According to Meta's documentation, advertisers using value rules may observe increased conversions from preferred audiences, placements, and conversion locations, but overall cost per result may increase due to strategic bidding adjustments.

The feature supports creation of up to 10 individual rules with up to 2 criteria per rule. Available criteria include age ranges, gender selections, operating system types, geographic locations, and specific ad placements. The system evaluates each potential ad delivery against the established rule hierarchy, applying appropriate bidding adjustments based on the first matching rule.

Meta's emphasis on AI-powered optimization continues with these updates, particularly through the integration of audience insights and creative controls. The company announced enhanced AI capabilities at Cannes Lions in June 2025, including expanded brand customization tools and improved creative generation systems.

The restricted words functionality addresses growing advertiser demand for brand safety controls within automated systems. As Meta's AI creative tools generate increasing volumes of ad content, the ability to exclude specific terminology becomes crucial for maintaining brand voice consistency across campaigns. The feature operates at the ad level, allowing different brand guidelines for different campaign objectives or audience segments.

Professional dashboard analytics enhancement through the "Popular with your followers" section provides competitive intelligence capabilities. By analyzing follower engagement with content from other accounts, advertisers can identify trending topics, successful content formats, and audience interest patterns that inform creative strategy development.

The four updates reflect Meta's strategy of combining automation with advertiser control, providing sophisticated optimization capabilities while maintaining brand safety and strategic oversight. These features are now available globally through Meta's advertising interface, with targeted offers limited to US-based commerce operations.

Implementation timing varies across the four features. Targeted offers require US shop setup with appropriate Commerce Manager permissions. Value rules are immediately available for eligible campaign types. Restricted words functionality can be implemented within existing ad creation workflows. Audience insights appear automatically within professional dashboard analytics for accounts with sufficient follower data.

Meta's continued platform development addresses evolving advertiser requirements for sophisticated targeting while maintaining ease of use. The company's opportunity score system, launched globally in June 2025, provides performance optimization recommendations that complement these new targeting and control features.

The updates support Meta's competitive positioning against other advertising platforms investing heavily in automated optimization technologies. Value rules provide differentiation by combining artificial intelligence optimization with advertiser-controlled strategic direction, enabling sophisticated campaign management within simplified interfaces.

For marketing teams managing complex product portfolios or diverse customer segments, these updates offer enhanced campaign optimization capabilities within unified campaign structures. The features enable businesses to implement strategic bidding policies reflecting varying customer lifetime values, product margins, or conversion quality metrics while maintaining operational efficiency.

Timeline

• August 2025 - Meta announces four new advertising features: targeted offers, universal value rules, restricted words, and enhanced audience insights
• July 2025 - Meta value rules become widely available for placement-specific bidding control across all advertising accounts
• July 12, 2025 - Meta unveils Creative breakdown for Flexible formats and AI-generated image ads with performance transparency
• July 30, 2025 - Meta reports Q2 2025 advertising revenue of $46.6 billion with 22% year-over-year growth
• June 22, 2025 - Meta launches opportunity score globally for all advertisers with AI-powered optimization recommendations
• June 17, 2025 - Meta announces generative AI advances at Cannes Lions including enhanced branding tools and video generation capabilities
• June 4, 2025 - Meta formally announces value optimization expansion including Value Rules, Value Optimization, and Incremental Attribution
• May 1, 2025 - Zuckerberg outlines vision to replace creative agencies with AI through automated advertising systems
• January 21, 2025 - Meta removes detailed targeting exclusions for ad accounts to streamline campaign performance

Summary

Who: Meta Technologies announced the advertising platform updates, with features affecting advertisers using Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger platforms globally. Digital marketing specialist Bram Van der Hallen spotted and documented the updates for the marketing community.

What: Meta introduced four new advertising features: targeted offers for US shops allowing audience-specific promotional campaigns, value rules enabling bidding adjustments across all campaign objectives, restricted words preventing unwanted terms in AI-generated ad content, and enhanced audience insights showing follower engagement patterns with external content.

When: The features were announced in August 2025, building on Meta's broader AI advertising expansion throughout 2025. Value rules achieved universal availability after formal announcement on June 4, 2025, while targeted offers launched exclusively for US commerce operations.

Where: The updates are available globally through Meta's advertising platforms including Ads Manager and Commerce Manager, with targeted offers functionality limited to US-based Facebook and Instagram shops requiring appropriate commerce account permissions.

Why: The updates address advertiser demands for enhanced targeting control, brand safety, and campaign optimization capabilities while supporting Meta's AI-powered advertising automation strategy. The features enable sophisticated audience targeting and bidding optimization within simplified campaign management interfaces, supporting Meta's competitive positioning against other advertising platforms investing in automated optimization technologies.

PPC Land explains

Value Rules Value rules represent Meta's sophisticated bidding optimization system that allows advertisers to adjust bid amounts based on specific audience demographics, geographic locations, mobile operating systems, and ad placements. This feature enables businesses to express the relative worth of different customer segments within their campaigns, with Meta's algorithm automatically increasing or decreasing bids by specified percentages for targeted criteria. The system supports up to 10 individual rules per campaign, each containing up to 2 criteria, and operates through a hierarchical priority structure where only the first applicable rule affects each auction. Value rules are incompatible with existing manual bidding strategies like return on ad spend goals or bid caps, requiring advertisers to choose between automated optimization approaches.

Targeted Offers Targeted offers enable US-based merchants to create promotional campaigns with audience-specific visibility and redemption controls through Meta's Commerce Manager. The feature supports four distinct audience types: new customers who haven't purchased within two years, followers of Facebook Pages or Instagram accounts, users with abandoned shopping carts from the last 30 days, and custom audiences created by merchants. These offers can operate with or without promotional codes, with public codes visible only to selected audiences while secret codes provide additional security layers. The system automatically implements one-use-per-customer limitations for new customer audiences, preventing abuse while encouraging first-time purchases and supporting Meta's broader e-commerce integration strategy.

Commerce Manager Commerce Manager serves as Meta's centralized platform for merchants operating Facebook and Instagram shops, providing tools for inventory management, promotional campaign creation, and audience targeting. The interface enables businesses to create targeted offers, manage custom audiences, and configure promotional codes while maintaining integration with existing e-commerce systems. Merchants require specific permissions including Shops on Facebook and Instagram commerce account access plus partial catalog permissions to utilize advanced features. The platform supports both direct checkout experiences and website redirection, with recent updates emphasizing external checkout processes to give merchants greater control over customer transaction experiences.

AI-Generated Content AI-generated content encompasses Meta's artificial intelligence systems that automatically create advertising text, images, and video variations to optimize campaign performance. These tools utilize machine learning algorithms trained on vast datasets to produce creative assets that align with brand guidelines while targeting specific audience segments. The restricted words feature now allows advertisers to exclude specific terminology from AI-generated text options, addressing brand safety concerns while maintaining automation benefits. Meta's AI creative capabilities expanded significantly throughout 2025, with the company reporting increased adoption rates and improved campaign performance metrics for advertisers utilizing these automated content generation tools.

Audience Insights Audience insights provide detailed analytics about follower engagement patterns, content preferences, and interaction behaviors across Meta's platform ecosystem. The "Popular with your followers" section analyzes how audiences engage with content from various accounts, identifying trending topics, successful content formats, and interest patterns that inform creative strategy development. These insights encompass both organic content performance and paid advertising engagement, helping advertisers understand which external content resonates with their specific follower base. The data supports both content creation decisions and advertising campaign optimization by revealing audience preferences beyond direct brand interactions.

Campaign Objectives Campaign objectives define the primary goals and optimization focus for advertising campaigns within Meta's platform, determining how the algorithm distributes ads and measures success. The value rules feature now supports all campaign objectives, expanding from previous limitations to sales and app promotion campaigns. Different objectives trigger distinct optimization behaviors, with sales campaigns focusing on conversion generation while brand awareness campaigns prioritize reach and frequency. Meta's system automatically adjusts bidding strategies, audience targeting, and creative delivery based on selected objectives, making this choice crucial for campaign performance and compatibility with advanced features like value rules.

Bidding Optimization Bidding optimization encompasses Meta's automated systems that determine how much to bid for each ad auction opportunity based on campaign goals, audience targeting, and competition levels. The platform's AI algorithms analyze thousands of signals including user behavior, historical performance data, and real-time market conditions to calculate optimal bid amounts. Value rules enhance this process by allowing advertiser input about relative audience value, while maintaining algorithmic efficiency in auction participation. The system balances cost efficiency with performance goals, automatically adjusting strategies based on campaign learning phases and performance feedback loops.

Brand Safety Brand safety refers to protective measures ensuring advertising content aligns with company values, industry standards, and regulatory requirements while avoiding association with inappropriate or harmful content. Meta's restricted words feature addresses brand safety by preventing specific terminology from appearing in AI-generated creative content, giving advertisers control over automated content generation. This becomes increasingly important as AI systems generate larger volumes of advertising content with limited human oversight. Brand safety considerations extend beyond content creation to include placement controls, audience targeting restrictions, and monitoring systems that prevent ads from appearing alongside objectionable material.

Custom Audiences Custom audiences enable advertisers to target specific user groups based on detailed criteria including past website visitors, email subscribers, app users, or individuals matching uploaded customer data. Within Commerce Manager, merchants can create custom audiences using platform interactions, page engagement metrics, event participation, and retention patterns for targeted offer campaigns. These audiences integrate with Meta's broader targeting ecosystem, supporting both advertising campaigns and promotional offer distribution. The system maintains privacy compliance while enabling sophisticated segmentation, allowing businesses to reach high-value prospects or existing customers with tailored messaging and offers.

Performance Optimization Performance optimization encompasses the continuous improvement of advertising campaign results through data analysis, strategic adjustments, and feature utilization to maximize return on investment. Meta's platform provides multiple optimization tools including value rules for bidding control, opportunity scores for recommendation guidance, and creative breakdown analytics for asset performance evaluation. The company's AI-powered systems automatically adjust campaign delivery based on real-time performance data, while new features give advertisers enhanced control over optimization parameters. Effective performance optimization requires balancing automated platform capabilities with strategic human oversight to achieve specific business objectives while maintaining cost efficiency.