The Algorithm Picks the Audience. What Are You Giving It?

You used to set up an ad by choosing age, interests and keywords one by one. Today Google and Meta offer solutions where the algorithm makes many of those decisions. That does not mean advertising has become automatic. It means the point where you win or lose has moved.

The algorithm can find whom to show your ad to. It cannot invent what you offer, why someone should trust you, or what counts as a result for your business.

What the platform now handles

Google AI Max for Search. It is not a new campaign type but a suite of features within Search campaigns. It can show your ad on relevant searches beyond your keywords, tailor headlines and descriptions, and choose the most relevant page of your website as the destination.

Google Performance Max. One campaign that combines the text, images and videos you provide and serves them across different Google networks.

Meta Advantage+. Since May 2025 Meta has offered a single Advantage+ setup for sales campaigns too. The platform allocates budget, looks for the most relevant audience and chooses placements across Facebook, Instagram and its other channels.

In all three cases the logic is the same: you provide a goal, material and limits. The platform tests combinations and keeps whatever delivers what you defined as a result.

What stays with you

1. A clear goal. What do you want people to do after seeing the ad? Send an enquiry, call, buy? If the goal is vague, the algorithm will optimise for something easy to measure, not necessarily something useful.

2. Data that tells the truth. The platform learns from whatever you record as a conversion. If every button click counts as a result, it will bring you more clicks. If you count completed enquiries, it will look for people who send enquiries. For what happens after the form, see also our article “What Happened After the Ad? Did Customers Come?”.

3. Creatives with real variety. The platform can only build ads from what you give it. For Performance Max, Google recommends at least 7 images and notes that more assets mean more combinations. Variety, however, is not the same photo in a different crop. It is different angles on the same message: one that starts from the service, one from the customer’s problem, one from how you work. And vertical video for mobile placements such as Shorts, Reels and Stories.

4. A page that explains. Since AI Max can draw text and pick pages from your website, an unclear site produces an unclear ad. Visitors need to understand quickly what you offer, where you serve and how to contact you.

5. Limits. Automation does not mean losing control. You still set the budget, locations, negative keywords and pages you do not want used as destinations. And no tool replaces your own decision about what your business should and should not say.

A hypothetical example

Say a restaurant wants more weekday lunch bookings. Instead of one video with the logo and the menu, it prepares two openings from the same footage. The first shows the dishes. The second starts from the customer’s need, e.g. “One-hour break and you want a proper meal?”. It runs both in the same campaign and compares not views but the bookings and calls each one brought. For that comparison to work, bookings must be recorded as conversions. The example is illustrative, not the result of a real campaign.

On a small budget?

Automation learns from data. The fewer results are recorded, the more slowly it finds the right audience. On a small budget it usually makes more sense to start with one service, one goal and one main channel, rather than spreading small amounts across many places. Give the campaign time before drawing conclusions, and change one thing at a time so you know what made the difference.

Where to start

Before switching campaign types, look at what you are already giving the algorithm: which goal, which data, how many and how varied creatives, which page. At Promoters we start from these questions before launching a campaign. If you would like to go through them for your business, book a free 60-minute online consultation. We start from your goals and finish with 2–3 concrete priorities.

Sources: Google Ads Help, AI Max for Search campaigns · Google Ads Help, Best practices for Performance Max creative assets · Meta for Developers, Advantage+ campaign experience for sales and app (03/06/2025)