Meta Andromeda Update 2026: What It Means For Your Ads

Meta Andromeda is the part of Meta's ad system that chooses which ads each person on Facebook and Instagram could be shown. Historically, targeting was done through what we told Meta: an age range, a list of interests, a lookalike audience. Now Andromeda does the targeting through your content, reading each ad and working out who to send it to. In October 2026, Meta published details of a rebuilt version that checks over a billion ads a second.

The team at The Launch Agency have managed $250 million of ad spend across Meta and Google, and the first version of Andromeda has already changed which ads win in the accounts we run. In most of our trades, construction and clinic accounts, the ad Meta puts the most money behind is now a static graphic. The October rebuild is only weeks old, and it's too early to see its effect in our accounts.

If you'd rather watch than read, the video version is below.

What Is Meta Andromeda?

Andromeda builds a shortlist of ads for each person. Every time someone opens Facebook or Instagram, it narrows the tens of millions of ads that could run down to a few thousand that fit that person best. If your ad doesn't make the shortlist, it doesn't go any further.

Meta rolled Andromeda out in late 2024 and has since said that creative variety has replaced narrow targeting as the best way to find the right audience. At Launch we put it as creative is the targeting: Meta reads your copy, video, photos and graphics to work out who each ad is for.

How Andromeda And GEM Pick The Ad Someone Sees

Meta picks the ad a person sees in a split second, and Andromeda is only the first stage.

1. Andromeda builds the shortlist. It looks at every ad that could be shown to that person and keeps the few thousand that fit them best, based on what each ad shows and says.
2. GEM ranks the shortlist. GEM is the central model behind Meta's ranking, and it learns from activity across Facebook and Instagram. Using what that person has been doing recently, it predicts how likely they are to click, enquire or buy from each ad.
3. The auction picks the winner. The highest-scoring ads go into the auction, and the winner is the ad that gets shown.

Andromeda decides whether your ad is considered for someone, and GEM decides whether it gets shown to them.

What The 2026 Andromeda Update Changed

Meta set out the changes in a run of engineering and business posts in October 2026.

1. More computing power. Meta rebuilt Andromeda so it can check over a billion ads a second, about 100 times more than the 2024 version, and it now scores every ad that could be shown to each person. It needs the power because Meta's own AI tools have helped advertisers make hundreds of millions of new ads.
2. Every ad gets a label. Meta reads each ad's words and images and labels it by what it's about. A brand-new ad can be matched to people straight away, before it has any results, because Meta already knows how similar ads have performed. What your ad shows and says on day one shapes who sees it first.
3. A fuller picture of each person. Meta's models now take in several interests at once, how those interests change over time and what someone is doing in the moment.
4. A new way of searching. On the Facebook feed, Meta starts by picturing the ideal ad for a person and then finds the real ads that come closest to it.

Meta says Andromeda has delivered a 2.4% increase in conversions on Facebook since 2025. You don't need to change any settings to get the rebuilt version, and every advertiser gets it, including your competitors, so any edge has to come from the ads you give it.

I'd start by auditing your creative and making sure each ad is very specific to one ideal customer. Meta keeps getting better at matching each ad to the right person, and an ad that tries to speak to everyone gives it very little to match on.

Nearly 10 million advertisers used at least one of Meta's AI creative tools between July and September 2026. Those tools make it easy to produce a lot of ads quickly, but every ad they make still represents your brand, so check each one before it runs.

Why Static Ads Are Getting More Spend

In many of the accounts we run, a static graphic is one of the two ads Meta puts the most money behind, and in most of our trades, construction and clinic accounts it's the top spender. Our own account is the same: over the last month, a client testimonial graphic has had more spend than any of our videos.

Video still takes most of the spend in larger ecommerce accounts, so keep making it. My view is that feeds are so full of video that a clear, well-designed static stands out. A static works when it has one message that's easy to take in at a glance and it's obvious who it's for.

For video, mix higher-produced brand videos with rougher styles like podcast clips, split screens and phone-shot videos, each made for a specific customer. Meta tries to show people the kind of ads they already engage with, so a polished video is less likely to reach someone who mostly watches rough, phone-shot content. Our guide to creative diversity on Meta goes further into the mix.

Is Interest Targeting Still Worth Using?

Interest targeting and lookalike audiences are still worth using, but only in certain circumstances. With Advantage+ audience on, Meta treats them as suggestions and shows your ads to people outside them when it predicts better results. Our default is broad targeting, with location and minimum age as the only hard limits.

Interests and lookalikes still earn a place in these situations:

• A new account with little data. When Meta hasn't seen many enquiries or sales yet, an interest or lookalike suggestion gives it somewhere to start while it learns who converts.
• A small, specific customer base. If your customers are a small slice of the population, such as farm owners or medical specialists, a lookalike can help Meta find them sooner. Build it from your highest-value customers, because a list of everyone who has ever filled in a form teaches Meta the wrong thing.
• Leaving out people who already know you. Excluding existing customers, or people already in your sales process, stops you paying to reach them again. A business that relies on repeat customers may do better leaving them in, so we decide this account by account.
• When the data says broad isn't working. If broad targeting keeps bringing in the wrong people, test a suggestion against it and see which one brings in better leads.

Meta has been removing and combining detailed targeting options for several years, so an interest you relied on two years ago may not exist any more.

How We've Changed The Way We Run Ad Accounts

Andromeda has changed what we spend our time on. Setting up an account has become simpler, and most of the work now goes into the creative and what the data says about it.

Broad targeting instead of interest stacking. The biggest change is that we no longer build ad sets around stacks of interests and lookalikes. Most accounts now run one broad audience, with each ad written for a particular type of customer so Meta can match it to the right people.

Going deep on the creative. Cost per lead still matters, but on its own it tells you very little about why an ad worked or didn't. Our rule is that money decides and the ratios explain. Spend and cost per qualified lead decide whether an ad stays on. How many people stop scrolling in the first few seconds, how many keep watching, how many click and what happens on the landing page explain why it's winning or losing. Those ratios are what we use to brief the next round of creative.

Reading ads as a sequence. Someone might see one of your ads first and enquire through a different one later, and the lead gets credited to the ad they enquired through. We look at where each ad sits in that journey before we judge it. An ad Meta keeps spending on is usually doing a job, even when it's credited with few leads.

Letting the data decide. You can't tell whether an ad is right for Andromeda until it has run. We take ideas from a lot of places, including the styles working in the best ad accounts around the world and the organic content TikTok and Instagram keep showing you, because there's a reason it's being shown. We turn those ideas into a varied set of ads and let the results pick the winners.

Telling Meta which leads turned into work. Meta only knows what you tell it, so if all it hears is that a form was filled in, it finds more people who fill in forms, whether they're good leads or not. When your CRM tells Meta which enquiries became qualified leads, and enough of them come through, it can start finding more people like them.

How Many Customers Should Your Ads Speak To?

How many customer profiles you make creative for depends on your budget. On a small budget, start with the 80/20 rule: the 20% of customers who bring in 80% of your revenue. Make your creative for them first, get a good cost per lead, cost per qualified lead and pipeline value for that one group, and then add the next.

If you're spending less than about $2,000 a month on ads, I'd go narrower still and focus on one vertical. At any budget, don't have all your ads talking to everybody, because your campaigns won't do anywhere near as well.

The same goes for a business with more than one service. Say a builder does renovations worth around $40,000, kitchens worth $20,000 and decks worth $5,000. If one cost per lead is the only measure across all three, a deck enquiry and a renovation enquiry look the same. Make content for the customers behind each one, and check your spend is going to the work you want more of. Our guide to measuring marketing ROI explains how we track that through to pipeline value.

The concepts behind Andromeda are the same for a business spending $2,000 to $5,000 a month. On that budget I'd be careful about testing too many concepts at one time, and about going too broad with the creative. Broad targeting works best now, but each ad should still be narrow about who it's for.

Why Your Meta Ads Might Be Getting More Expensive

If your Meta ads have got more expensive in the last few months, Andromeda is rarely the only reason. These are the first things I'd look at:

• The time of year. Costs usually rise heading into the fourth quarter, as more businesses compete for attention before Christmas.
• What's happening around you. An election, the economy and big news events all change how people respond to ads. Talk to other business owners and look at how other accounts in your industry are tracking.
• How often people see your ads. If the same people keep seeing the same ads, results drop and costs climb.
• How fresh your creative is. Ads wear out, and Meta treats ads that look or feel alike as versions of one creative, so a new headline on the same video may not count as new creative.

Meta Andromeda FAQs

What is Meta Andromeda?

Andromeda is the part of Meta's ad system that chooses which ads could be shown to each person on Facebook and Instagram. Targeting used to come from the audiences advertisers set, and now Andromeda reads the content of each ad and works out who to send it to.

When did the Andromeda update happen?

Meta rolled out Andromeda in late 2024 and published details of a rebuilt version in October 2026, which people are calling Andromeda 2.0. The rebuilt version can check over a billion ads a second.

Do I need to change my settings for Andromeda?

You don't need to change any settings, because the changes happen inside Meta and apply to every advertiser. The most useful thing to do is audit your creative so each ad is clearly made for one ideal customer.

What's the difference between Andromeda and GEM?

Andromeda builds a shortlist of a few thousand ads that fit a person. GEM, Meta's central ranking model, predicts how likely that person is to act on each ad on the shortlist, and the highest scorers go into the auction.

Do static ads still work on Meta?

Static ads are doing well on Meta: in many of the accounts we run, a static graphic is one of the two ads Meta spends the most on, and in most of our trades, construction and clinic accounts it's the top spender. Video still takes most of the spend in larger ecommerce accounts.

Is interest targeting dead after Andromeda?

Interest targeting and lookalikes still work in certain circumstances, such as a new account with little data or a small, specific customer base. Meta treats them as suggestions, so for most accounts broad targeting with varied, specific creative is the better default.

Does Andromeda affect small businesses differently?

The concepts are the same at every budget. Smaller budgets should test fewer concepts at once, and under about $2,000 a month we'd focus all the creative on one vertical.

Written by Ben Langton Burnell, CEO and Founder of The Launch Agency.