● Media Buying Course · Day 9 of 20 · Week 2: The Levers

Placements: where your ads actually show

A placement is a specific spot in Meta's ecosystem where your ad can appear. Same ad, very different contexts - a full-screen vertical Reel vs a small right-column desktop unit. The modern answer: let Meta choose.

Key idea

Let Advantage+ decide where your ads show — your job is deciding what shape they show in. Placements stopped being a targeting lever; they are now a creative-production checklist.

1The four platforms, many surfaces

The formats that matter most today: Feed (the workhorse) and Reels/Stories (full-screen vertical, where attention and growth concentrate).

2Advantage+ Placements (automatic) vs Manual

🤖 Advantage+ (automatic)
The recommended default. Meta shows your ad wherever it expects the best result per unit of budget, shifting in real time. Maximizes the auction's freedom and your efficiency.
🎛 Manual
You hand-pick placements. More control, but you're constraining the auction (echo of Day 7: every constraint is a brake).

Why automatic usually wins: the same way broad targeting beats narrow (Day 8), letting the algorithm pick placements finds cheap impressions you'd never select. Restricting to "just Instagram Feed" because it "feels premium" cuts the system off from cheaper, equally-converting inventory.

3The real consideration: creative fit

Why creative fit is the one legitimate concern

Not control - different placements need different creative shapes. Feed → square (1:1) or portrait (4:5). Reels/Stories → full vertical (9:16) with safe zones so text isn't hidden behind UI. A horizontal video built for Feed looks broken squeezed into a 9:16 Reel.

Modern best practice: keep placements automatic, but supply creative in multiple aspect ratios so your ad looks native everywhere. Placement strategy is really a creative-production question now - a bridge into Week 3.

Analogy · a billboard vs a phone screen

A message designed for a wide highway billboard fails on a vertical phone screen and vice versa. You don't refuse to advertise on one - you produce the right shape for each surface and let the system place them where they perform. Constraining placements to avoid reformatting is solving a creative problem by throwing away reach.

▤ In Ads Manager · the placements section (ad-set level)
Advantage+ placementsdefault (all eligible)
Manual placementsfull checklist by platform/format + device
Customize per placement (ad level)9:16 for Reels, 4:5 for Feed
Placement breakdown (reporting)see where results came from

Illustrative · Placement breakdown after 5 days

Facebook Feed142 conv · €19 CPA
Reels38 conv · €23 CPA
Audience Network9 conv · €31 CPA

9 conversions is noise, not a verdict — and the system buys those impressions cheap. Cut the placement and your blended CPA usually goes up, not down. (Illustrative numbers; your results will vary.)

Resist hard-cutting placements purely on short-term CPA - the algorithm balances them as a system.

⚠ What people get wrong

(1) Switching to manual and excluding Audience Network or Reels on instinct - usually just raises costs. (2) One square creative everywhere, so it looks amateurish in Stories/Reels. (3) Excluding placements on a noisy short-term breakdown. The pro move: automatic placements + properly formatted creative per surface.

Do this now · 5–10 min, no spend

See the full placement map with your own eyes - all in a draft ad set, nothing published.

1In a draft ad set, open the Placements section and switch to Manual. Scan the full checklist by platform and device - count how many surfaces you'd be buying with one campaign. Most people have never actually looked.
2Untick Audience Network, then Reels. If your right-hand panel shows Estimated daily results (set any placeholder budget first), watch it shrink with each cut. If your objective doesn't show estimates, just count the surfaces disappearing from the eligible list — either way, that's the inventory a "feels premium" instinct throws away.
3Switch back to Advantage+ placements. Notice the default was the wide-open setting all along.
4At the ad level, find "Customize per placement" and flick through the previews (any image handy will do). Note exactly where a square creative leaves dead space in a 9:16 Story - that's your Week 3 to-do list forming.

Recap - 30 seconds

Day 9 · Week 2: The LeversTomorrow → Day 10: The signal layer — Pixel & Conversions API, or why the algorithm you just freed up is flying blind without them.