An Advantage+ Shopping Campaign (ASC) is Meta’s AI-automated campaign type built specifically for e-commerce sales. Unlike traditional Meta setups where advertisers manually define audiences, placements, and creative combinations, ASC hands control to Meta’s machine learning, which decides who to target, where to serve ads, and which creative assets to show, based on what’s most likely to result in a purchase. In 2026, ASC is the default campaign type when selecting the Sales objective in Meta Ads Manager.
Setting up an ASC is intentionally minimal. Advertisers provide a product catalogue or specific product set, upload a set of creative assets (images, videos, copy variations), set a budget and optimization goal (typically Purchase or Value), and let Meta’s system take it from there. The algorithm simultaneously tests creative and audience combinations across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Audience Network, identifying which combinations drive conversions and scaling budget toward them automatically.
ASC supports both new customer acquisition and retargeting within a single campaign, with a budget cap that limits how much can go toward existing customers, giving advertisers control over the acquisition-to-retention spend split. Attribution relies on the Meta Pixel or Conversions API for purchase signal data; without clean event tracking, ASC performance degrades significantly because the algorithm loses the feedback loop it needs to optimize.
The campaign-level controls that remain available: daily or lifetime budget, conversion location (website, app, or shop), and an optional minimum ROAS target. Beyond these parameters, the system operates autonomously.
Meta reported over 1 million advertisers actively running ASC by the end of 2025, with the format consistently outperforming manually structured shopping campaigns on ROAS in internal studies. The efficiency advantage comes from ASC’s ability to test combinations at a scale and speed no human team can match.
The main trade-off is control. ASC offers less granular audience segmentation and creative management than manual campaigns, a disadvantage for brands with strict requirements around who sees their ads or how creative is presented. The approach most advertisers are settling on in 2026: run ASC for core sales volume, maintain a small number of manual campaigns for specific audience segments or creative tests that need tighter control.