How-to

Do Advantage+ enhancements turn back on? Meta's saved preference vs "on by default", checked for 2026

Meta told Marketing Brew in April 2026 that an advertiser who opts out keeps that preference. Meta's own help page still says some enhancements are on by default. Both are true: the preference lives in your Ads Manager login, the default lives on every new creative, and only one of them reaches an ad built by a tool, an import or an AI agent.

Adlio team5 min read

The short answer

Two statements from Meta look contradictory and are both true. In April 2026 a Meta spokesperson said that an advertiser who opts out of Advantage+ creative now keeps "that preference saved for future campaigns rather than returned to a default opt-in". Meta's help page on turning the enhancements off, fetched on October 24, 2026, still says "some enhancements are turned on by default but you can turn them off at any time."

The preference is a setting of your Ads Manager login. The default is a property of every new ad creative. If you build ads by hand, in Ads Manager, under the login that opted out, the preference carries. If anything else creates the creative (a spreadsheet import, a duplicate made by a script, an AI agent on Meta's MCP, or a tool), the creative starts from Meta's defaults unless that path writes the opt-out into the creative itself. That is the whole mechanism behind every "but I turned them off" ticket in 2026.

What Meta changed in March 2026

Marketing Brew's report of April 7, 2026 is the only public statement we found. Meta spokesperson Alisha Swinteck said that as of March, Meta "added features" so that advertisers who opt out of Advantage+ creative keep "that preference saved for future campaigns rather than returned to a default opt-in". She also said advertisers are not penalized for declining AI features.

That is a real improvement for the person who builds campaigns by hand. Before March, agencies described the opposite. In the same article, Hayley Owen (SVP and group media director at Deutsch) said her team is "constantly having to go through and play Whac-A-Mole to figure out what's the new thing they didn't tell us about."

What Meta's help page still says

Meta's instructions for switching the enhancements off (fetched October 24, 2026) contain three sentences that matter here:

  • "You'll also find that some enhancements are turned on by default but you can turn them off at any time."
  • "If you want to prevent these enhancements from automatically altering your ad creative, remember to check what enhancements might be on by default before publishing your ad."
  • "Note: some enhancements can only be turned off in advanced preview, and won't be visible in the ad creative. To review the status of all enhancements, check both sections."

So Meta's own position in October 2026 is: defaults exist, check them before you publish, and some of them are not where you would look. The saved preference did not change that text. The Advanced preview article covers the third sentence.

Why both are true: a preference is not a creative

An Advantage+ enhancement is stored on the ad creative, in a field the Marketing API calls degrees_of_freedom_spec. Each enhancement is a key with an enroll_status of OPT_IN or OPT_OUT. The saved preference changes what Ads Manager pre-fills into that field when you, logged in, create a new ad. It does not change what the API does when a creative arrives without the field.

We tested the second half in August 2026 by reading creatives back from the API: a key that was not sent came back as OPT_IN. In other words, "not mentioned" means "on" at the API level. On October 24, 2026 we re-ran our probe on Graph v26.0 against a real account: all 69 keys we send were accepted for image, video and carousel creatives, and asset_feed_spec.audios: [] was accepted alongside them. Nothing has changed in Meta's acceptance of the explicit opt-out.

Four paths create creatives without your Ads Manager preference:

  1. Spreadsheet import. Every imported row becomes a new creative. The import has no column for the enhancement state.
  2. Duplication by script or by a tool. A duplicate is a new creative object. Whatever copied it had to copy the opt-out explicitly.
  3. An AI agent on Meta's ads MCP. The agent sends what the conversation told it to send. Our read of the tool schemas on October 24, 2026: opting out is possible only by passing degrees_of_freedom_spec as a JSON string; absent keys get Meta's default. Details in Meta's ads MCP vs a bulk uploader.
  4. Any third-party tool that does not send the full opt-out on every creative.

The reports The Keyword collected on October 23, 2026 (translated copy, sitelinks, AI images on ads nobody enabled them on) are consistent with this. We cannot verify those accounts, and Meta did not say whether its new terms cover features an advertiser never turned on. The mechanism, however, is not mysterious: somewhere in the chain a creative was created without the opt-out written into it.

What to do

  • If you build by hand: opt out once in Ads Manager, then check one freshly created ad, including Advanced preview, because the preference covers what the interface shows.
  • If anyone or anything else creates ads in your account: require the opt-out in the creative payload. Ask the vendor or the agent operator which keys they send and how they verify. "We respect your account preference" is not an answer; the preference is not readable by the API.
  • Audit after the fact: request the creative with fields=degrees_of_freedom_spec and look for keys that are missing or OPT_IN. The API audit guide has the calls.
  • From November 20, 2026, this stops being a hygiene question. Meta's updated Commercial Terms make you "solely responsible" for AI features and their output; see the AI Features clause.

How Adlio handles it

Adlio never relies on the preference. Every creative it creates carries an explicit OPT_OUT for all 69 keys the live API accepts, plus an empty asset_feed_spec.audios list for music, whether the ad was started on /upload or by an assistant through Adlio's MCP. The list is public, with method and date, at /advantage-plus-keys, and every ad lands paused so you can read the state back before it spends. How a folder becomes that batch is on bulk upload Facebook ads.

Frequently asked questions

Did Meta stop turning Advantage+ enhancements back on?+

For ads you build yourself in Ads Manager, Meta says yes. Spokesperson Alisha Swinteck told Marketing Brew (April 7, 2026) that as of March, advertisers who opt out of Advantage+ creative keep "that preference saved for future campaigns rather than returned to a default opt-in". For everything created outside that flow, Meta's help page still applies: "some enhancements are turned on by default". A creative made through the API without an explicit opt-out gets the default.

Why did my agency still find enhancements switched on?+

The Keyword reported on October 23, 2026 (citing Adweek) that the agency Exverus found sitelinks, translated copy and AI images on ads where nobody had enabled the feature, and that Bookshop.org found an AI illustration on a human-made ad after an account update. We cannot check their accounts. What we can say from the API: a saved preference is an interface preference. Any path that creates creatives outside that interface (an import, a duplicate made by a script, a connected agent, a tool) starts from Meta's defaults unless it sends OPT_OUT per key.

Is there a penalty for opting out?+

Meta says no. Swinteck told Marketing Brew that advertisers are not penalized for declining AI features. We have no independent evidence either way; what the performance evidence does say is in our separate article on whether the enhancements help.

How do I make the opt-out hold on every ad, whoever builds it?+

Write it into the creative. Through the Marketing API that is degrees_of_freedom_spec.creative_features_spec with enroll_status OPT_OUT for every key, on every creative, plus asset_feed_spec.audios set to an empty list for music. Adlio sends that for all 69 keys the live API accepts, verified on August 31, 2026 and again on October 24, 2026 on Graph v26.0.

Sources

Adlio team

Built by media buyers who launch Meta ads in volume. Questions or corrections: support@adlio.ai.

Topic cluster

Defaults you did not choose

What Meta switches on for you, where it hides, and how to make the opt-out hold on every ad.

Start here

All 69 Advantage+ creative_features_spec keys, verified live

Related guides