Meta documents what replaces ad set placement controls for Sales, Leads, Engagement and App campaigns

Meta has published a Business Help Centre page, What's new in placement settings in Meta Ads Manager, confirming that campaigns using the Sales, Leads, Engagement and App promotion objectives no longer let advertisers choose placements manually at the ad set level, while Awareness and Traffic campaigns keep manual placements. The page lists what advertisers can use instead: per-placement creative customisation, placement value rules that raise or lower bids for specific placements, and account-level placement exclusions that can now be set by objective. It also covers partnership ads, and it repeats Meta's claim that ad sets using Advantage+ placements delivered a 10% lower cost per result on average in an experiment.

Social Media Today drew attention to the page on 12 October 2026. The help page itself carries no publication date, and it opens with a note that the feature "is being rolled out gradually and may not be available to you yet". So some ad accounts will still show the old ad set placement controls on these objectives for a while.

What is new since the August alert

Relevant Audience covered the first signs of this change on 23 August 2026. At that point the only evidence was an in-product notification that some advertisers had seen and that Social Media Today reported on 20 August. There was no help centre page, no list of affected objectives and no timeline. That post noted that whether Meta would offer any other way to express brand suitability constraints after the change was not addressed in the reporting.

The new Meta page answers several of those open questions:

• The scope is now defined. The removal applies to four objectives (Engagement, Leads, App promotion and Sales). Awareness and Traffic are explicitly unaffected, and Meta says manual placements can still be set for those two.
• The removal is documented by Meta itself, not only shown in an in-product alert. The page states plainly that for the four objectives "you no longer choose placements manually at the ad set level".
• There is a documented route for constraints that are not about performance. Meta's account controls section names "legal or policy or business requirements" as the kind of constraint they are meant for.
• Account-level placement exclusions can now be set by objective, which Meta describes as a new option.

Some things from August remain unconfirmed. The August alert, as reported, also mentioned removing the option to exclude platforms. The new help page does not mention platform exclusions at all, so it neither confirms nor rules that out. It also gives no end date for the gradual rollout.

The four alternatives Meta lists

Meta groups its guidance under one heading, "How to manage placement settings", with three bullet points: customise media for each placement in ad creative, use placement value rules, and set account-level placement exclusions by objective in account controls. Partnership ads get their own section further down the page. The table below summarises what each one does, using only what Meta's page says.

Per-placement creative

Meta describes multi-media ads and media customisation as features in "a new creative workflow" in Ads Manager. An advertiser can upload up to ten images and videos into a single ad. Asset customisation then lets the advertiser tailor those assets to each placement with different crops, text or links. For each asset, Meta says, aspect ratios, text, URL and delivery settings can be customised, and the delivery system can help match creative to placement.

Two details on the page matter more than the feature description. First, Meta says "at least one media is required for each placement". Second, ads "won't deliver in placements where the media assets aren't supported", and Ads Manager shows warning indicators when a different image or video, aspect ratio or video length may be needed.

This is analysis rather than something Meta states. Read together, those two lines make creative a practical lever, though Meta does not present it as an exclusion tool. Creative control decides how an ad looks in each placement. It also affects whether the ad is eligible for that placement at all, because unsupported assets do not deliver there. Meta does not say advertisers should use asset gaps as a way to block placements, and this article does not suggest it either. The point is that creative coverage now has a direct bearing on where conversion-objective ads can appear, because the ad set setting that used to decide that is gone.

Placement value rules

Placement value rules are the performance-side replacement. Meta's wording is that advertisers "can create rules to tell us how much more (or less) the conversions from a placement are worth to your business", and Meta "will then optimise for outcomes based on these rules". This replaces the old practice of reading a placement breakdown and switching off a weak surface with a pricing signal. The placement stays in the mix, but the advertiser can tell the system it is worth less.

The help page does not say how large the adjustments can be, whether a rule can reduce a placement's value to the point where it effectively stops delivering, or how value rules interact with each bid strategy. It links to a separate article on value rules for that detail. An advertiser planning to rely on this lever should read that article before assuming a value rule can do what an exclusion did.

Account controls and exclusions by objective

This is the section that matters most for brand suitability. Meta says account controls are for businesses with "specific advertising constraints", and gives legal, policy or business requirements as common examples. Account controls apply at the ad account level and "affect all campaigns in your account".

The page lists four placements for which account controls can already be set: Audience Network native, banner and interstitial; Audience Network rewarded videos; Facebook Marketplace; and the Facebook right column. It then adds that account-level placement exclusions can now also be set by objective, "available for all objectives": Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App promotion and Sales.

Exclusions by objective are a middle option. Before this change, an advertiser had two choices: exclude a placement for one ad set, or exclude it for the whole account. Objective-level exclusions let an account block a placement for its Sales campaigns, for example, without touching its Awareness campaigns. The help page does not list which placements can be excluded under the objective-level control. It is also not clear from the page alone whether that list is the same four placements named above or a wider set. Check the account controls screen in your own account to see what is offered.

Partnership ads

Partnership ads are the least obvious item on the list. Meta describes partnerships as running ads and marketing messages with creators, brands and businesses, combining "signals from both profiles". When Advantage+ placements and partnerships are used together, Meta says advertisers keep control at the ad creation step to select the media and text, and to manage the placements the partnership appears in "if it's limited to specific placements after you've selected a post".

That last clause is narrow. It describes a case where the selected partner post is itself only eligible for certain placements, rather than a general-purpose placement picker. Social Media Today's summary calls partnerships "another way to manage ad placement", but the help page wording supports a more limited reading. It is a control over a partnership ad's placements in specific circumstances, not a way to bring back ad set placement selection for every campaign.

The 10% figure is Meta's own claim

The page opens with a performance argument. Meta says that "in an experiment, ad sets using Advantage+ placements delivered an 10% lower cost per result on average compared to ad sets using manual placement settings". That is the only performance figure on the page.

The page gives no further detail about the experiment. It does not say when it ran, which objectives, regions or verticals were included, how many ad sets were compared, or how "cost per result" was defined across different objectives. The figure is an average, so individual accounts may land above or below it. It is Meta's claim about Meta's own product, made on the page that announces the removal of the alternative. Treat it as a reason to test, not as a forecast for any particular account.

Meta also says that using Advantage+ placements "with a diverse set of assets" helps ensure media is compatible with each placement for optimal delivery. The 10% figure is reported for ad sets using Advantage+ placements, and Meta's advice is to pair those placements with assets that fit each placement.

What Social Media Today added, and what is opinion

Social Media Today's 12 October article adds context that is not on Meta's page. It says Meta has been removing manual placement options "over the past few months". It gives two examples of exclusions advertisers could previously make: keeping ads out of Facebook search results, and out of in-stream ads between Reels. It also says it is likely that "all Meta ads will lose this control" soon.

That last point is the outlet's forecast, not Meta's statement. Meta's page says Awareness and Traffic are not affected and that manual placements can still be set for them. Nothing on the page says that will change. Plan for the documented state, and treat a wider removal as a possibility to watch for, not a fact.

What to check in your own account

The steps below follow directly from what the help page says. They are not drawn from any outside benchmark.

1. List every Sales, Leads, Engagement and App promotion ad set that currently relies on manual placement exclusions. Note why each exclusion exists: performance, brand suitability, legal or policy, or format.
2. For suitability, legal or policy exclusions, open account controls and check whether the placement can be excluded at account level or by objective. Remember that account-level controls affect every campaign in the account.
3. For performance exclusions, read Meta's value rules documentation and decide whether a placement value rule can express the same priority.
4. Audit creative coverage. Meta says at least one media is required per placement and unsupported assets will not deliver, so check the warning indicators in Ads Manager on each new ad.
5. If you run partnership ads, check which placements the selected partner post is limited to, since that is where the documented placement control applies.
6. Keep Awareness and Traffic campaigns in mind as the objectives that still accept manual placements, and check whether that remains true when building each new campaign.

What this means for Thai marketers

Any Thai account that kept these campaigns out of Audience Network or Facebook Marketplace through ad set settings needs to move that rule into account controls, either for the whole account or for the relevant objective.

The creative point also applies directly. Meta says ads will not deliver in placements where the media assets are not supported, so creative coverage now affects where these campaigns can appear. Meta does not give a Thailand-specific rollout date, and the gradual rollout means two accounts managed by the same team may show different interfaces for a while. Teams that want help restructuring Facebook ads campaigns around these controls, or planning creative across placements as part of broader social ads management, should do the audit above before the old setting disappears from their own accounts.

FAQ

Which Meta campaign objectives lost ad set placement controls?

Engagement, Leads, App promotion and Sales campaigns no longer let advertisers choose placements manually at the ad set level, according to Meta's help page. Awareness and Traffic campaigns are not affected, and manual placements can still be set for them.

Can I still exclude placements for Sales or Leads campaigns?

Yes, through account controls rather than the ad set. Meta says account-level placement exclusions can now be set by objective, including Sales and Leads, and existing account controls cover Audience Network native, banner and interstitial, Audience Network rewarded videos, Facebook Marketplace and the Facebook right column. These controls apply to all campaigns in the account.

Is the 10% lower cost per result guaranteed?

No, it is Meta's own figure from an experiment it did not describe in detail. Meta says ad sets using Advantage+ placements delivered a 10% lower cost per result on average compared with manual placements, but the page gives no dates, sample size or breakdown by objective.

Has Meta removed the option to exclude platforms?

The new help page does not say. The in-product alert reported in August mentioned platform exclusions, but Meta's placement settings page only covers placements, account controls, value rules, creative customisation and partnerships.

Is this change live in every ad account?

Not necessarily, because Meta says the feature is being rolled out gradually and may not be available to every advertiser yet. The page gives no completion date, so check each ad account individually.

The short version

For four of Meta's six campaign objectives, placement decisions have moved out of the ad set and into three other places: the creative, value rules and account controls. Meta points businesses with legal, policy or business constraints to account controls, including the new objective-level exclusions, while value rules handle performance trade-offs. Advertisers who relied on ad set exclusions for suitability or legal reasons should move those rules to account level before the rollout reaches their accounts.