You meticulously exclude certain ad placements. Maybe you’ve tested them, maybe they didn’t work, maybe you just have your reasons. Facebook Feed? No thanks. Threads? Pass. Right-hand column? Hard pass.

But that’s how Meta responded in their latest Marketing API update, announced October 8th: “That’s adorable. We’re going to spend 5% of your budget there anyway if we think it’ll work.”

To be fair, they’re framing this as a feature, not a bug. Their AI-powered system believes it can spot opportunities you’re missing. If Meta’s system is right, you could discover placements that perform better than expected. The 5% test budget is small enough that it won’t tank your campaigns if it’s wrong.

This feature isn’t automatically enabled. You have to explicitly configure it through API endpoints. So if you’re using third-party platforms to manage your Meta ads, you’ll need to actively designate which placements should have these “spend restrictions.”

The bottom line: Meta is betting big on AI-powered advertising, and they’re willing to gently (or not-so-gently) push advertisers in that direction. They clearly want everyone using Advantage+ placements, their AI-powered, “trust us, we’re smart” approach to ad placement. They’ve even started deprecating legacy APIs that don’t play well with Advantage+.

Whether you see this as innovation or overreach probably depends on how much you trust Meta’s algorithms with your ad budget.

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