Creative Diversity vs. Creative Volume: Why Diverse Ads Win on Meta

Meta’s latest changes confirm what many advertisers have suspected for some time: the era of manual targeting is ending. As the platform removes more detailed targeting options and leans on AI to decide who sees your ads, the focus for marketers is shifting. Success is no longer about how precisely you define an audience, but how effectively your creative can capture attention. In this new landscape, creative has become the most powerful form of targeting.

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The Rise of AI and “Creative as the New Targeting”

Meta’s advertising ecosystem is evolving at speed and advertisers need to adapt just as quickly.

Over the past two years, Meta has steadily reduced and consolidated detailed ad targeting options in Ads Manager. While the official reasoning is to remove categories that are too granular, rarely used, or linked to sensitive topics, the bigger picture is clear: Meta is pushing brands toward broad targeting powered by AI.

From January 15, 2026, even more detailed targeting options will disappear, and campaigns that rely on them will stop delivering. This shift reflects Meta’s confidence that its AI systems are better than marketers at finding the right audience. In its latest earnings report, Meta revealed that AI-driven recommendations have already lifted Instagram conversions by 5% and Facebook conversions by 3%. Removing targeting exclusions also drove a 22.6% reduction in cost per conversion.

For advertisers, the message is clear. Manual targeting is no longer the lever for performance. Creative is.

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Why Volume Alone Won’t Deliver Results

It’s easy to assume that simply increasing the number of ads in a campaign will improve outcomes. But Meta’s data suggests otherwise: creative volume without meaningful diversity is a flawed strategy³⁴.

When dozens of ads all look and sound alike, you’re effectively serving the same message on repeat. Audiences become disengaged, leading to creative fatigue and wasted spend.

In contrast, true creative diversity – using different formats, visuals, headlines, tones and angles – keeps content fresh and engaging. It helps reach multiple audience segments while minimising fatigue.

Meta’s research found that brands using a varied mix of creatives, refreshed regularly, achieved up to a 32% reduction in cost per acquisition (CPA) and a 9% increase in incremental reach compared to less diverse campaigns³⁵.

The conclusion is clear: a handful of well-varied, high-quality creatives will consistently outperform a large volume of near-identical ads.

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Creative Testing: The Key to Scaling Success

Embracing creative diversity does not mean abandoning volume altogether – it means combining volume with variation.

The most successful advertisers produce multiple assets that each test distinct ideas. According to Meta, the top 1% of advertisers test ten times more creative iterations than their competitors, using this velocity to achieve significant performance gains⁶.

This is not about overwhelming audiences. It’s about adopting a test-and-learn mindset:

• Experiment with different hooks or themes in video content
  
• Vary imagery and copy to explore alternative approaches
  
• Run structured A/B tests to identify top performers
  

This iterative process not only identifies winning creatives but also combats wear-out. Since new ads often perform strongly early on but decline over time, refreshing creatives weekly or fortnightly helps sustain results¹.

Scaling Creative Diversity with AI Tools

For busy marketing teams, the challenge of producing diverse creative at scale is real. Fortunately, AI isn’t just optimising who sees your ads – it’s also helping to create them.

Meta reports that over four million advertisers now use its AI-powered creative tools each month. Campaigns employing AI-generated visuals have seen an 11% uplift in click-through rates and an average 7.6% increase in conversion rates⁵.

However, as marketers lean on AI for speed and scale, brand protection must remain a priority. While AI tools like dynamic templates, generative design and automated video editing can accelerate production, they still require careful oversight. Brands must ensure every asset reflects their tone of voice, visual identity and quality standards.

Think of AI as a creative assistant, not a replacement for creative direction. It can help you multiply ideas and adapt concepts into multiple formats efficiently, but marketers need robust review processes to prevent off-brand messaging or low-quality outputs. Protecting brand integrity while scaling creative diversity is crucial, particularly for premium and lifestyle brands with strict guidelines.

The result, when managed well, is not merely a higher number of ads but a collection of effective, varied and brand-safe creatives designed to resonate with different audience triggers.

At Bravada, we help brands unlock Meta’s full potential with creative diversity, our strategies drive better performance and keep audiences engaged. Email us at hello@bravada-uk.com to start building campaigns that win on Meta.

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Sources

1. Meta Advertising Creative Diversity. Reshift Media. https://www.reshiftmedia.com/meta-advertising-creative-diversity
2. Creative Diversity Is the New Targeting in Paid Advertising. Gain. https://www.thisisgain.com/post/creative-diversity-is-the-new-targeting-in-paid-advertising
   
3. Do More Ads = Better Results? Vervaunt x Meta Report. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vervaunt-london_do-more-ads-better-results
4. The Importance of Creative Diversity: A Meta Report. PDF.
5. Meta AI Creative Tools Impact Data. House of Marketers. https://houseofmarketers.com
6. Why the Top 1% of Advertisers Test 10x More Creatives. Aura Ads. https://auraads.co 
7. Meta Is Consolidating More of Its Detailed Ad Targeting Options https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/meta-removes-more-detailed-ad-targeting-options-facebook-instagram/757856/

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