An agency media buyer opens a client's Meta account in September to set up the holiday campaigns. For years, this client, a financial services brand with strict rules about where its ads appear, has had Audience Network switched off in every ad set. Today the checkbox is gone. In its place is an option to lower bids on Audience Network by up to 90%. The buyer sets the maximum reduction, launches, and a week later finds a small but real amount of spend on the very placement the client had banned.
That scenario is playing out across many accounts. Since late August 2026, Meta has been removing the ability to exclude placements at the ad set level for several campaign objectives, and the replacement works very differently from the control it replaces. The single most important thing to understand is this: a value rule is a discount, not a door. It can make a placement much less attractive to Meta's delivery system, but it cannot shut it. Anything you genuinely need blocked has to move somewhere else.
Meta's controls and interface change often, and this rollout has been staggered, so check your own account's current options. A similar shift towards automation in Google's search campaigns is covered in AI Max is now the default.
What changed
From late August 2026, Meta began removing ad set level exclusions for placements, platforms, devices and operating systems. Meta has now documented the change publicly, in its help page on placement settings, and as Jon Loomer's 27 October update details, it applies to campaigns using the Sales, Leads, App Promotion and Engagement objectives. Awareness and Traffic campaigns keep manual ad set placement selection. The campaign objective decides this, not the performance goal: a Sales campaign optimising for link clicks loses the controls, while a Traffic campaign doesn't. For affected campaigns, that means no more unticking Audience Network, the right-hand column, in-stream video or Messenger inside an individual ad set, and no more restricting an ad set to, say, iOS only or mobile only. Meta says the change is rolling out gradually, so some accounts still show the old checkboxes, and it hasn't given a completion date.
Two sets of controls remain. Placement value rules let you adjust bids for select placements, device platforms and mobile operating systems, from increases of up to 1,000% to decreases of up to 90%. Value rules currently offer seven placement choices, as Jon Loomer's 27 October update notes: Facebook Feed, Stories and Reels, Instagram Feed, Stories and Reels, and Audience Network as a whole. These are the options in the current value-rules interface, not every placement Meta offers, so not every placement can be adjusted individually. And account-level placement controls, in the ad account's advertising settings, block a short list of placements, such as Audience Network and the Facebook right column, and still apply when Advantage+ placements is on. Meta has added the option to set these exclusions by campaign objective, which is more flexible than the earlier all-campaigns setting. Meta's brand safety and suitability tools, such as block lists and inventory filters, sit alongside them.
The change follows a clear pattern. Meta removed detailed targeting exclusions in early 2025 and has steadily expanded Advantage+ automation since. Meta reports that in its own experiment, ad sets using Advantage+ placements delivered an 11.7% lower cost per action on average than manual placements; that's Meta's figure, not independent research, and results vary by campaign, audience, creative and optimisation goal. The direction of travel is not in doubt, and it mirrors what Google has done with Performance Max; the question is how to keep control where it genuinely matters.
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Why a 90% cut is not a block
It's tempting to treat the maximum reduction as an exclusion by another name. It isn't, because it still leaves a bid in the auction.
Suppose your ad set would normally value an opportunity at the equivalent of $10.
→ A 90% decrease on Audience Network lowers that to about $1.
→ If some Audience Network inventory clears at $0.80, your adjusted bid can still win.
Result: a much smaller share of spend on that placement, but not zero. For a performance preference, that's fine and may even find cheap wins. For a brand safety or compliance rule, it's a breach.
A practical testing path for soft preferences: start with around a 50% decrease on a weak placement, run it for about two weeks, then read the placement breakdown. If its cost per result is still poor, move to 75% or 90%. If it performs, you have found inventory you were needlessly blocking.
Real auctions and delivery are more complex than this, but the principle holds: a value rule changes how much Meta wants a placement, not whether it's allowed.
The key distinction A value rule is a discount, not a door. It makes a placement less attractive to Meta's delivery system, but it cannot shut it. Anything you genuinely need blocked has to move to account-level controls.
Sort every old exclusion into one of two buckets
The most useful thing to do now is audit why each existing exclusion exists. Many accounts carry exclusions nobody can explain, often set up years ago, before the current tracking and conversion setup. Each one belongs in one of two buckets.
Hard rules are requirements that must never be broken: a brand safety policy, a regulatory restriction, a client contract, or a category rule. These cannot become value rules. Soft preferences are exclusions added because a placement seemed to perform worse, or because creative looked poor there. These can become value rules, and in some cases should be removed entirely to let the system test.
| Why you excluded it | Bucket | Where it goes now |
|---|---|---|
| Brand safety or compliance, everywhere | Hard rule | Account-level placement controls and brand safety tools |
| Hard rule for some campaigns only | Hard rule | Objective-level account controls first; a separate ad account if they can't cover it |
| Placement seemed to underperform | Soft preference | A moderate value rule, only if placement data shows a real problem |
| Cheap but junk clicks or leads | Soft preference | Fix the optimisation event first |
| Creative looked poor there | Soft preference | Placement-specific creative; check previews |
Hard rules: move them to the account level
If a restriction applies to everything the account runs, set it in the account-level placement controls and review the brand safety tools alongside it: block lists for publishers you won't appear on, and inventory filters for the kinds of content you'll accept. Because account controls apply across campaigns, including those using Advantage+ placements, they're the right home for genuine non-negotiables, though they only cover the placements Meta lists there.
If a restriction applies only to some campaigns, first check whether an objective-level account exclusion covers it, for example blocking Audience Network only for Traffic campaigns. If campaigns with the same objective need different restrictions, or one brand or agency client needs its own governance, a separate ad account is the cleaner answer. Account structure is now doing work that ad set settings used to do, so treat it deliberately, and keep account access and governance tight, as covered in protecting your Meta and Google Ads accounts. Document why each account-level block exists, so the next person to inherit the account knows it's deliberate.
Soft preferences: test instead of assuming
For exclusions based on performance, start by checking whether the original reason still holds. Many were set when tracking was weaker; with the Conversions API and cleaner data, placements that once looked poor may now perform acceptably. If the placement breakdown still shows a real problem, use a moderate value rule rather than the maximum reduction, give it a couple of weeks, and read the placement breakdown before tightening further.
Pay particular attention to optimisation events. Placements such as Audience Network are more likely to cause problems when campaigns optimise for link clicks or landing page views, because those goals reward cheap interactions whatever their quality. Optimising for real outcomes, such as purchases or qualified leads, protects you far better than any placement setting. That depends on accurate measurement, covered in setting up conversion tracking you can trust and server-side tracking.
Creative now has to work everywhere
When you could exclude placements, you could get away with creative made for one format. Now your ads may run anywhere, so make sure each ad has versions that work in feeds, Stories, Reels and smaller placements: vertical and square cuts, legible text at small sizes, and key messages in the first seconds. Use placement asset customisation and check previews before launch. A 4:5 video squeezed into a placement it wasn't designed for wastes money whatever your bids say. The formats are covered in Instagram Reels ad formats explained, and testing discipline in ad creative testing. Strong, specific creative also acts as a filter, attracting the right people and discouraging accidental clicks wherever the ad appears. Creator content run as partnership ads, covered in creator-licensed ads, tends to travel well across placements.
What to do before and during peak season
The timing is awkward, with holiday campaigns under way. A short checklist helps. First, note which campaigns use affected objectives and record your current setup while you can: every existing exclusion and the reason for it, plus spend and results by placement. Second, move hard rules to account-level controls now, by objective where that's enough, before campaigns scale. Third, use moderate value rules only where placement data shows a real problem. Fourth, check creative covers every major format. Fifth, review the placement breakdown weekly through the season, watching for spend drifting into placements you'd rather avoid.
Avoid making big structural changes in the middle of your most important sales days, when learning resets are most costly; the planning principles in peak-season paid media and setting and scaling ad budgets apply. And if Meta's direction conflicts with your requirements, balance your mix across channels where you keep more control, including newer inventory such as Threads ads. Brands that want an account audit and restructure done carefully often work with a specialist performance marketing team.
The short version
Since late August 2026, Meta has been removing ad set level exclusions for placements, platforms, devices and operating systems. The change applies to Sales, Leads, App Promotion and Engagement campaigns, while Awareness and Traffic keep manual placement selection; the objective decides, not the performance goal, and the rollout is gradual, with no announced completion date. The replacement, placement value rules, adjusts bids from up to 1,000% higher to 90% lower, but a value rule is a discount, not a door: even a 90% cut can still win cheap auctions. Account-level placement controls, now settable by objective, and brand safety tools still offer genuine blocks for the placements they cover, including with Advantage+ placements. Audit every old exclusion and sort it into a bucket. Hard rules, such as brand safety, compliance or client requirements, go to account-level controls, by objective where that's enough, or to a separate ad account if not. Placement problems proven in your data get moderate value rules, starting around 50% and tested for two weeks, alongside optimising for real outcomes rather than clicks. Build creative for every format, record current placement results, and review the placement breakdown weekly through peak season.
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Explore Performance Marketing →Frequently asked questions
Is Meta removing placement exclusions from ad sets?
Yes, for some objectives. From late August 2026, Meta began removing the ability to exclude individual placements, platforms, devices and operating systems at the ad set level. The change applies to campaigns using the Sales, Leads, App Promotion and Engagement objectives, while Awareness and Traffic campaigns keep manual placement selection. The objective decides this, not the performance goal. The rollout is gradual, so some advertisers still see the old controls, and Meta hasn't given a completion date. In place of ad set exclusions, Meta offers placement value rules, which adjust how much you bid for a placement, device or operating system rather than switching it off. Account-level placement controls, found in the ad account's advertising settings, still block a short list of placements, now optionally by campaign objective, and apply when Advantage+ placements is on; brand safety tools such as block lists and inventory filters remain available. Check your own account.
What are Meta placement value rules?
Placement value rules let advertisers tell Meta's delivery system how much more or less they value certain placements, devices or mobile operating systems, by adjusting bids up or down. Meta allows increases of up to 1,000% and decreases of up to 90%. They are useful for expressing performance preferences, such as bidding less on a placement that tends to produce weaker results, while still allowing the system to find good opportunities there. The important limitation is that a value rule is not a block. Even a 90% reduction still leaves a bid in the auction, and if inventory on that placement is cheap enough, your ad can still appear there. For requirements that must never be broken, such as brand safety or compliance rules, account-level placement controls are the appropriate tool rather than value rules.
How do you block Audience Network on Meta now?
Use account-level placement controls. In your ad account's advertising settings, Meta provides placement controls that apply across the account, including when Advantage+ placements is on, and these can block Audience Network's native, banner, interstitial and rewarded video placements. Meta now also lets you set these exclusions by campaign objective, so you could, for example, block Audience Network only for Traffic campaigns, and objectives that still allow manual placements can also remove it at the ad set level. If campaigns with the same objective need different restrictions, or one client or brand needs separate governance, separate ad accounts are the cleaner solution. Alongside placement controls, use Meta's brand safety tools, such as block lists and inventory filters, to manage the types of content and publishers your ads can appear next to. Review these settings regularly, since Meta's interface and options change often.
Will removing placement exclusions hurt my Meta ad performance?
Not necessarily, and for some advertisers it may help. Meta reports that in an experiment, ad sets using Advantage+ placements delivered an 11.7% lower cost per action on average than those using manual placements; that is Meta's own average, not a guaranteed result, and outcomes depend on the campaign, audience, creative and optimisation goal. The risk depends on why you excluded placements in the first place. Accounts with accurate conversion tracking and optimisation for real outcomes, such as purchases or qualified leads, are usually well placed to benefit. Accounts optimising for clicks or landing page views are more exposed, because some placements can deliver cheap but low-quality clicks. The best approach is to record your current results by placement, move genuine hard rules to account-level controls, use moderate value rules only where placement data shows a problem, check that creative works in every format, and review the placement breakdown weekly for a few weeks.
