Why Remarketing Is Dying on Facebook

In partnership with

Looking for unbiased, fact-based news? Join 1440 today.

Upgrade your news intake with 1440! Dive into a daily newsletter trusted by millions for its comprehensive, 5-minute snapshot of the world's happenings. We navigate through over 100 sources to bring you fact-based news on politics, business, and culture—minus the bias and absolutely free.

Subscribe to 1440 today.

Remarketing has long been a cornerstone of digital advertising, especially on Facebook.

It allowed marketers to target users who visited their website, engaged with their ads, or showed intent to purchase but didn’t follow through.

But times are changing.

Due to increasing privacy regulations, third-party cookie deprecation, and the rise of platform-driven optimization, the remarketing strategies we relied on for years are losing their effectiveness.

Meta’s data collection capabilities have been hit by policy regulations (especially in Europe), making it harder to build precise remarketing audiences.

By 2025, the death of traditional remarketing could be almost certain, forcing advertisers to rethink their approach.

Does this mean remarketing is no longer relevant?

Not quite.

But as awlays, it’s evolving.

Meta is prioritizing its machine-learning algorithms over advertiser-built strategies.

Features like Advantage+ and tailored audience segmentation are stepping in to fill the gap, pushing us, advertisers, towards greater reliance on platform automation.

Let’s explore why remarketing is shifting and how Facebook's audience dynamics and Advantage+ campaigns are redefining the game.

Why Remarketing Campaigns are becoming redundant

Traditional standalone remarketing campaigns are becoming increasingly unnecessary in Facebook Ads.

Why?

Meta’s Advantage+ campaigns are now doing a better job by efficiently integrating remarketing into broader audience targeting.

With Advantage+, Facebook’s algorithm handles the heavy lifting by automatically optimizing your ads to reach the right people at the right time—without requiring you to manually create separate campaigns for every audience segment.

This includes:

Reducing Ad Frequency

Meta ensures that engaged audiences aren’t overwhelmed with repeated ads, helping to avoid ad fatigue and maintaining relevance.

Optimizing Spend

Advantage+ automatically distributes the budget across new audiences, engaged users, and existing customers, ensuring no single group is over- or under-targeted.

More Effective Retargeting

Instead of focusing heavily on remarketing with standalone campaigns, Advantage+ leverages first-party engagement signals to retarget efficiently within the same campaign structure.

This integrated approach significantly reduces waste and eliminates guesswork, allowing businesses to focus more on their messaging and less on micro-managing audiences.

In order to Advantage+ Audience to work, you need to set up the audience manually, which is still a negative aspect of this Meta feature.

I expect that Facebook will automate this feature to with the data from the Pixel.

How to set up audience sewgments in the Facebook Ads Manager? Read DAS #23 - How to Define Audeince Segments in Meta Ads.

When Manual Remarketing Still Matters

Despite the effectiveness of Advantage+, there are still scenarios where manual remarketing campaigns remain crucial:

Encouraging Specific Actions

When your goal is to nudge a specific group toward taking a desired action, manual remarketing excels.

For example, if you want to convert free trial users into paid subscribers, a highly targeted ad with an exclusive offer can seal the deal.

Similarly, upselling to current customers (targeting exclusively Existing Audience Segment) through a tailored ad ensures your message resonates at the right moment.

High-Stakes Campaigns

For limited-time promotions, product launches, or events, manually retargeting warm audiences who’ve previously interacted with your content ensures the most relevant users see your ads during critical periods.

Granular Segmentation Needs

While Advantage+ optimizes broadly, it may overlook niche audience dynamics.

For instance, targeting users who downloaded a specific ebook, and now you are trying to up-sell them the new version of the ebook.

Ad Testing and Experimentation

When testing new messages or formats, a manual remarketing campaign targeted at existing customers or warm audiences can help gather actionable insights faster without risking budget inefficiencies on untested creatives.

Testing new ideas is always easier with customer or people who alreadt know your brand.

The bottom line

Meta’s Advantage+ campaigns are redefining remarketing by embedding it directly into smarter, automated campaigns that balance audience targeting and spend with unmatched precision.

This approach removes much of the hassle of standalone remarketing campaigns, streamlining the advertising process while achieving stronger results.

However, manual remarketing still holds value in scenarios requiring specific targeting, messaging, or objectives.

Successful advertisers will embrace both automation and strategic manual interventions to drive results.

It’s time to reassess your approach to Facebook Ads.

Are your campaigns keeping up with the shift?