Do Advantage+ creative enhancements improve performance? What Meta has published, what practitioners report, and how to test it yourself

Every guide on this topic quotes a number. Most of those numbers cannot be traced to a source. Here is what Meta has actually published, what independent tests exist, and the one method that answers the question for your account.

Adlio team4 min read

What Meta has actually published

Sorted by how much weight it can bear, all fetched or cross-checked on 31 August 2026.

The 4 percent (2022). Meta's Newsroom post of 10 August 2022 introduced Advantage+ creative with a test across 154,000 ad accounts (2 to 30 May 2022) that produced "4% lower cost per result". Meta's developer post of 14 April 2023 restated it: ads "opted-in to standard enhancements delivered a 4% reduction in cost-per-result in campaigns optimizing for link clicks, landing page views, and offsite conversions." Notes: one month, the old bundled feature set, three objectives, and an average across accounts that had already opted in.

Product-page figures (undated). Meta's Advantage+ creative page lists "2-3%" more conversions for background generation in catalogue ads, "2%" more conversions on Facebook Reels with video expansion, and "+13%" more conversions using related media. The footnotes with methodology could not be retrieved from the page.

Case studies (2023 to 2024). An Italian retailer with "56% lower cost per purchase", Fresh with "5x incremental return of ads spend" from a combination of shopping campaigns, Shops ads and text variations, Casetify with "a 13% increase in our return on ad spend" from background generation. Case studies are selected, not sampled.

Campaign-level figures that are not about enhancements. "9% improvement in cost per conversion" for Advantage+ sales campaigns and "10% lower cost per qualified lead" for leads campaigns are about campaign automation, not creative enhancements. They get quoted in enhancement articles anyway.

The numbers you should stop quoting

  • "12% higher CTR for campaigns using Advantage+ creative", attributed to "Meta Marketing Science 2025" or "Meta's own research". No Meta page with that number exists as far as we can find; a benchmark aggregator uses 12 percent for AI-generated ads versus human-made in general, which is a different claim.
  • "22% increase in ROAS, 17% more conversions at 16% lower cost." Circulates in search snippets and 2026 blog posts. No primary source.
  • "Up to 44% lower cost per result." Refers to the whole Advantage+ suite in the source that cites it, not to creative enhancements.

If an article quotes one of these without a link to a Meta page, it is repeating another article.

What practitioners report

  • Metalla (agency, August 2025): "In one account, we tested disabling text improvements, which resulted in a 26% increase in ROAS when A/B testing the same ad with and without the enhancement." One account. Repeated by others as if it were general.
  • Jon Loomer (2022 to 2026): the most consistent independent voice, and he publishes no lift numbers. His 2022 take: "slow to blindly trust some of these automatic adjustments", but worth testing. His 2024 per-enhancement guide recommends leaving most on and switching off overlays, with the explicit note that no test results are provided.
  • HyperFX (May 2026), a pattern rather than data: "Accounts with strong creative production typically see neutral or negative impact from enhancements" while "Accounts with limited creative resources often see positive impact."
  • Ads Uploader (June 2026): "Meta claims a 4% lower cost-per-result on average, but individual results vary significantly by enhancement and account."

The honest reading

Three things are true at once:

  1. Meta's evidence is one 2022 average over a bundle that no longer exists in that form, and it is positive but small.
  2. Enhancements do the most for advertisers with the least creative resources, because a crop and a brighter image are improvements on a weak file and degradations on a finished one. That pattern is reported, not measured.
  3. Nobody can measure it from standard reporting, because Ads Manager does not split enhanced from original variants: performance is reported "including all variations" (Flighted, July 2026), and Meta's own note on background generation says results "cannot be broken down by creative variation".

Which means the only useful number is the one from your own account.

How to test it yourself, cleanly

  1. Pick one creative that is finished to your standard, exported in the ratios each placement needs (so expansion and crops have nothing to do).
  2. Create two identical ads in the same ad set, same copy, same file: one with every enhancement on, one with every enhancement off. Name them so the split is visible (see naming conventions), and treat the pair as a single-variable batch (how to structure a creative test batch).
  3. Verify the settings on both before they run: Enhancements panel, or the API read in how to audit enhancements via the API. "Off" has to be explicit.
  4. Run for at least seven days and until each ad has a meaningful number of results for your objective; do not read it at 20 conversions.
  5. Compare cost per result, not CTR. Enhancements often raise CTR (a moving image, a text bar) without moving the result you pay for.
  6. Repeat with a different concept before generalising. One test tells you about one creative.

If enhanced wins, turn that enhancement on for that account. If original wins, you have your answer and it cost one week. Either way you replace a quoted number with a measured one.

Adlio's position

Off by default, per account and per creative type, because a bulk tool's job is to run the ad you approved, and because the published evidence for enhancements is small, old and averaged over accounts unlike yours. Every toggle is one click if your own test says otherwise. How the opt-out works, and where it cannot reach, is in how to turn off Advantage+ creative enhancements.

The launch flow that applies that default on every batch, from a folder to paused ads, is on bulk upload Facebook ads.

Frequently asked questions

What does Meta claim enhancements are worth?+

The headline figure is 4 percent lower cost per result, from a test across 154,000 ad accounts between 2 and 30 May 2022, on campaigns optimising for link clicks, landing page views and offsite conversions (Meta Newsroom, August 2022; restated in Meta's April 2023 developer post). Newer per-enhancement claims on Meta's product page (2 to 3 percent, 2 percent, 13 percent) come without retrievable methodology.

Where do the "12 percent higher CTR" and "22 percent ROAS" figures come from?+

We could not find a primary source for either. The 12 percent is attributed in 2026 blogs to "Meta Marketing Science 2025" or "Meta's own research" without a link; the 22 percent circulates in search snippets with no origin. Treat both as unverified.

Is there any independent measurement?+

One published A/B result: Metalla, an agency, reported a 26 percent ROAS increase in one account after disabling Text improvements (August 2025). Jon Loomer, who has tested enhancements since 2022, publishes recommendations without numbers. Everything else is anecdote or vendor claim.

Why can I not just compare enhanced and non-enhanced versions in reporting?+

Because Ads Manager reporting does not split them: performance is reported for the ad as a whole, "including all variations" (Flighted, July 2026), and Meta's own note on background generation says results cannot be broken down by creative variation. A holdout test with two ads is the only clean measurement.

Sources

Adlio team

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