Welcome to ClickDose!
Last week we pulled 13,652 Black Friday ads. This week is about what happens to an ad after you publish it. Meta has been switching things on by default, so we opened our own account to see what was on.
In today's edition:
🥃 What Bookshop.org says Meta added to its ad.
🛬 The new screen Meta can put between your ad and your page.
🔎 What was switched on across our ads.
🥃 Bookshop.org Says Meta Edited Its Ad
Bookshop.org sells books online and sends part of the money to local bookstores. In October it posted on Threads that one of its ads was "'enhanced' (or ruined, really) by Meta without our knowledge." It says an account update opted it in. Adweek reports the result was an AI-generated illustration on an ad people had made, and that Bookshop has since turned off all of Meta's AI ad features.
The agency Exverus told Adweek something similar. It says Meta added sitelinks (extra links under the ad), translated copy, and AI images and carousels built from brands' own photos, sometimes on ads where nobody had switched the feature on. It pulled live client ads.
Meta says advertisers can turn off individual Advantage+ features in Ads Manager at any time. (Advantage+ is Meta's name for its automation tools.)
Meta also wrote new terms that would make advertisers "solely responsible" for what its AI features create or change. They were first due October 30. Meta paused them on October 28, and two days later the UK's competition regulator opened an investigation into its terms for publishers and advertisers. The regulator hasn't decided whether Meta broke the law. Meta says there are no grounds for an investigation.
Since October 28, the click may not go straight there. Meta's notice to advertisers says, "we'll add product browsing to your existing ads." When someone taps an ad, they "may see an experience on Facebook or Instagram with product info and personalized suggestions." That screen can show items you didn't advertise, and it can appear before your site.
Meta's case is one number. It claims about 3% more conversions on average, from a test across about 117,700 advertisers. It doesn't say which conversions or what they cost, and we couldn't find anyone outside Meta who has checked it. We also can't tell from the outside whether any Bookshop ad shows this screen.
🛠 How to Check Yours
Click Review defaults. Open an ad in Ads Manager and click Edit. The button sits above the ad preview and lists what's on by default.
Click Edit in that panel. You get each switch with an example. Our ad had five, plus three more further down.
Look for product browsing. Meta's notice puts it in your Advantage+ creative and destination settings. It didn't show up on the lead ad we opened, so we don't have a screenshot of it.
The Review defaults panel on one of our ads.
What did you find when you checked your ads?
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🔎 We Checked Our Own Ads
We pulled the settings on all ads in our account.
Meta's API (the data feed developers use) shows most of these switches. Across all ads, product browsing is off, and so are the AI overlays, text improvements and image touch-ups. Relevant comments, which displays the most relevant comment below your ad, is on for all.
The enhancement switches in Ads Manager.
One more we can't explain yet. A bundle called standard enhancements, which Meta is phasing out, is off on our older ads and on for the ones we've made since August 25.
🛠 What to Do With It
Pick each switch yourself. Keep the ones you'd choose anyway and turn off the rest.
Test product browsing before you decide. Run the same ad with it on and off for a week. Judge it by cost per purchase in your store's own numbers, since the numbers in Ads Manager come from Meta.
Check again when you copy an ad. One tracker reports settings can come back on duplicates. We haven't tested that.
Do it this week. Black Friday is November 27, and last year's brands started about 21 days early.
No ads yet? Open Review defaults on your first one before you publish it.
🧰 Tools We Use
Higgsfield for all AI generated creative
HQ is the harness we use to keep our team operating in sync
Both are affiliate links.
🎁 Refer One, Get The Machine
We put our whole process into one prompt. Paste in any ad and it does the teardown, rebuilds the ad for your brand, writes the creative brief, and tells you which landing page the ad needs.
It's called The Machine Prompt. Send ClickDose to one person who buys ads. When they subscribe, it lands in your inbox.
👋 That's A Wrap!
Reply with what you found on. We want to know what else Meta has been switching on.
See you soon,
Eric and Rob | The ClickDose Team
P.S. If you'd rather we checked your settings than ours, that's the Growth Review. It's free, and you keep the report.