Meta has unveiled a significant expansion of its AI-powered advertising tools aimed at enabling marketers to optimize for the business outcomes that matter most—whether it’s profit margin, customer lifetime value, or incremental conversions. The new enhancements are part of a broader push to help advertisers achieve higher return on ad spend (ROAS) in an increasingly complex, cross-channel marketing environment.
At the center of this expansion are key product updates and rollouts: Value Optimization, Incremental Attribution, and Value Rules. Each tool empowers brands to tailor their campaign strategies based on custom KPIs and unique methods of success measurement.
Rethinking ROAS: Beyond Just Volume
Recognizing that not all conversions are created equal, Meta is encouraging advertisers to optimize for the value of conversions, rather than simply the number. Recent tests show that advertisers who adopted the “maximize value of conversions” goal saw a 12% higher ROAS on average.
Advertisers can now guide Meta’s AI by answering two fundamental questions:
- What is the key performance indicator (KPI)?
- How do they measure success across channels?
Meta’s Value Optimization tool supports this by enabling marketers to prioritize revenue, profit margin, or even the lifetime value of new customers. For example, in a pilot phase, brands that provided profit-margin data through Meta’s Conversions API were able to shift campaign optimization toward more profitable—though not necessarily more expensive—product sales.
The tool is also expanding globally to support non-purchase event values. Marketers can now assign value to custom events, such as first-time subscriptions or sign-ups, and optimize their campaigns accordingly.
Beauty brand Laura Geller used Value Optimization to target high-value first-time purchasers. The result? A 46% lift in ROAS compared to standard acquisition campaigns.
Measuring What Matters: Incrementality and Attribution
With advertisers relying on various attribution models to assess ROI, Meta is offering two distinct paths:
- Incremental Attribution: Now globally rolled out, this industry-first solution lets advertisers toggle on real-time optimization for incremental conversions. Campaigns using this feature achieved a 46% increase in incremental conversions, underscoring the impact of measuring what truly drives growth.
- Custom Attribution: For brands using third-party tools like Adobe, Northbeam, Rockerbox, and Triple Whale, Meta is enabling deeper analytics integration. This allows marketers to share click-level data and inform Meta’s optimization engine with external attribution insights—expected to be fully tested and expanded over the next year.
Steering AI with Value Rules
Meta is also scaling Value Rules, a tool that enables advertisers to assign greater value to certain customer segments directly within Ads Manager. This helps guide Meta’s AI to prioritize demographics or audiences that align with higher business value.
Latico Leathers, for instance, boosted bids by 75% for women aged 45-54—a group they identified as high-value repeat purchasers. “Value Rules have been a game changer for us,” said Ben Schreiber, CMO at Latico. “We focused on what drives our bottom line, while still maintaining broad targeting to explore new segments.”
A Smarter Future for Digital Advertising
Meta’s overarching goal is to give advertisers the flexibility to define success on their own terms—and then guide Meta’s AI systems to deliver on those goals.
“At a time when AI-driven campaigns perform best when given strategic flexibility, these tools offer advertisers the clarity and control they need,” a Meta spokesperson said. “From profit-focused optimization to real-time incrementality, we’re helping businesses make advertising work harder for them.”
With continued product expansion, Meta is positioning itself not just as an ad platform—but as a business growth partner for brands navigating an increasingly outcome-focused marketing landscape.
