In short
- Meta now selects ads with three AI systems. Andromeda looks at every eligible ad, GEM learns who responds to what, and GenRecs reads what your ad says.
- Your audience shifts from your settings to your ad itself. Whoever writes a separate message per buyer gives Meta more chances to find the right person.
- Meta says it itself: the system still needs to hear from you what winning is. So optimise for sign-ups and conversations, not clicks.
In this article (6)
You put an ad for your masterclass live. You pick an age, a region, a few interests. And then you hope. That worked reasonably well for years. But Meta has just explained why what you fill in there matters less and less.
On 28 October, Meta published an explanation of three AI systems that decide which ad someone gets to see. It is technical. But the lesson underneath is simple, and for anyone who wants to fill a room, rather important.
What Meta explained on 28 October
Three systems, in plain language:
Andromeda
Makes a shortlist for one person out of tens of millions of ads. According to Meta, more than a billion ads per second. Every eligible ad gets a score.
GEM
Meta's largest ad model. It learns who responds to what and passes that on to the models that rank your ads in real time. A sort of teacher for the whole class.
GenRecs
Reads the text and images of your ad and understands what it is about. So a new ad reaches the right people faster, even without history.
And the numbers? According to Meta, the improvements in the second quarter of 2026 delivered 8.3 percent more ad clicks and 15.7 percent more conversions on Facebook. Mind you: those are Meta’s own numbers, without any explanation of how they were measured. Read them as a direction, not as a promise for your campaign.
What it means: your audience is in your ad
Here is the shift. You used to tell Meta who should see your ad, through settings. Now Meta looks at what your ad says for itself, and searches for the people who respond to that.
Your audience is less and less in your settings, and more and more in your ad itself.
That has a consequence. One generic ad that appeals a little to everyone gives the system one chance. And a vague signal: who is this actually about? Five ads, each written for a different buyer, give five chances and five clear signals.
Plenty of marketers call that working with personas. We put it more simply: write for the buyer, not for the room. That is exactly what we already do at OMB. An ad that appeals to everyone fills the room with viewers. An ad for your buyer fills it with buyers.
One masterclass, three buyers
An example, made up but recognisable.
You are a leadership trainer. You give a free online masterclass: “Leading without burning out”. You have one ad: a photo of yourself, the title, the date.
Who is actually in your ideal room? Look at your last ten clients and they are three kinds of people:
- The new team leader, just promoted, still answering emails in the evening.
- The HR manager, who sees absence rising across the teams and has to do something.
- The business owner with their first ten employees, who notices everything still runs through them.
One ad for all three says: “masterclass on leadership”. Three ads each say something different:
Factory bread
"Free masterclass: leading without burning out. Sign up."
True, but it tells nobody it is about them. Meta doesn't know who to show it to either.
Fresh from the baker
"Just made team leader and still in your inbox at 10pm? In one hour you learn to let go without your team grinding to a halt."
The new team leader recognises themselves in the first line. Meta immediately understands who this is for.
Factory bread
The same ad, for HR too.
HR isn't looking for tips for themselves. HR is looking for something for the teams.
Fresh from the baker
"Absence rising across your teams? Show your managers in one hour how it can be done differently."
A different problem, a different promise. A different buyer.
Factory bread
The same ad, for the business owner too.
A business owner with ten staff does not see themselves as a "manager".
Fresh from the baker
"Ten people on the payroll and everything still runs through you? This is how you build a team that runs without you."
Their words, their situation. They click because it is about them.
The same masterclass. The same date. Three different first lines. And three different signals for Meta to find the right people.
How to write ads for the new Meta
Choose your buyers, not your audience
Look at your last ten clients. Which three to five kinds of people are among them? Not "business owners aged 30 to 55", but people with a recognisable problem.
One ad per buyer
A separate first line and a separate image per buyer. Name their situation in their words. Whoever recognises themselves stops scrolling.
Say it out loud
GenRecs reads what your ad says. Vague writing gets vague reach. Say clearly who it is for and what it delivers.
Let Meta search
Keep your settings broad and let the system test. The work is now in your ads, not in your targeting.
Refresh in time
Meta says new ads start performing faster. Use that: make new variants as soon as you see which buyer responds.
Tell Meta what winning is
The most important line in Meta’s own explanation may be this one: the system “still needs you to tell it what winning looks like for your business.” It still needs to hear from you what winning is.
And that is where it often goes wrong. Optimise for clicks and Meta finds people who click. Optimise for sign-ups and it finds people who sign up. But a sign-up is not yet a buyer.
For a masterclass or workshop, winning means: the right people in the room, people who actually show up, and conversations afterwards. So make sure Meta sees those steps. With the pixel and the Conversions API set up properly, with the visitor’s consent. And look further than Meta yourself: how many of your sign-ups came, and how many conversations did it produce?
A full room is the start, not the finish. That goes for the algorithm just as much as for you.
What Meta doesn’t say
Let’s be honest. Meta’s explanation is about how the systems work, not about what you should do. There is nothing in it about personas, about how many ads you should make or about your targeting. The translation to “one ad per buyer” is ours. Not because Meta says so, but because it fits how the system works: it reads your ad, and searches for the people who match it.
And the numbers are Meta’s own numbers. Nice, but without a control group. What works for you, you only see when you measure it. All the way to the counter.
Want to know where your room is leaking right now: at reaching the right people, at showing up, or only at the offer? Take the free leak test. Or read how we use Facebook advertising to fill a masterclass with buyers.
Don’t write for everyone. Write for who you want in the room.
Rubin is the founder of Online Marketing Bakery in Roermond. You take the stage, we fill the room. And we make sure it buys.
[email protected] · More about the bakers
Further reading: Facebook advertising agency · A webinar that sells · How to reduce webinar no-shows · Event marketing · Take the free leak test
How we work: first the offer, then the room. Want to get going with a brief like this? We do that in the Sold-Out Session: your offer and your event structure in one half-day.