In January I wrote that Ads Manager is more powerful than you know. That’s still true. Since spring, Meta has switched several AI features on by default, removed some manual controls, and changed what your reports show.

Let’s talk about the most important Meta ad settings I would review before BFCM.

Probably, if you haven’t turned it off. Meta updated the Advantage+ creative Text step so that it reads your uploaded image and rewrites the headline text inside it.

Previously, Meta only mixed and matched the text you had already written. Now, Meta may create new wording itself by reading the text in your image and placing a rewritten version directly onto the image.

Yiqi’s thoughts:

This is one thing I would NOT let AI touch especially this peak season. Your offer is the ad. If the image says “40% off sitewide” and Meta rewrites it into something your landing page doesn’t support, you pay for the click that won’t convert.

New BFCM ads start with zero likes. Combining engagement across similar ads means your holiday creative launches with the social proof your evergreen ads have already built.

Use percentage-based minimum spend to ensure new BFCM ads receive budget and testing instead of being overshadowed by existing winning ads.

Value rules let you tell Meta which customers are worth more to you. If a segment has a higher AOV or converts better, like women 35+ in my January example, raise your bid for it before auction prices climb.

Meta is removing ad set–level exclusions for placements, platforms, devices and operating systems, and replacing them with placement value rules.

Yiqi's thoughts:

A value rule can lower your bid for a placement, but it doesn't block it. If the placement is cheap enough, Meta can still win the auction, so unwanted placements can still take some of your budget.

If you truly want to block a placement, use Advertising Settings → Account Controls → Placement Controls. Just know it applies to your whole account.

When you're setting up your Sales campaigns: you’ll need to decide between the default "Reach new and existing customers" and "Acquire new customers." If you go with "Acquire," keep in mind it relies on your existing customer segments to filter out past buyers so if that data isn't set up right, it won't actually exclude them.

Yiqi's thoughts:

Verify your Existing Customers segments before enabling "Acquire new customers,” because Meta doesn't always respect exclusion boundaries. So this one doesn’t make much difference tbh.

As I wrote in April, engage-through attribution replaced engaged-view. Likes, comments, and shares no longer count as click-through. They sit in their own engage-through bucket.

Yiqi’s thoughts:

Before the sale starts, open Compare attribution settings and look at how much of your attributed revenue comes from 7-day click compared with 1-day view and 1-day engagement. If you have a big organic channel, a lot of returning customers, or subscription rebills, I’d consider removing view and engage attribution from your BFCM prospecting ad sets so the algorithm has to find click-based purchases.

If you run subscriptions, fix the source too. Automatic rebills shouldn't reach Meta as new purchases in the first place, or Meta will take credit for renewals it had nothing to do with. Aimerce has a built-in setting for subscription brands that removes system-generated renewals from Meta and sends separate One-Time Purchase, Subscribe, and Renewal events.

If you want a more conservative read, Incremental attribution is worth running alongside. In our testing, it usually lands between 7-day click and 1-day click.

Meta updated tracking in April by adding AI Pixel Enrichment and a one-click Conversions API setup that requires no developer work.

If you don't have server-side tracking yet, turning on one-click CAPI on before BFCM would help and is a good starting point.

If you already run the Conversions API or a partner integration like Aimerce, you don't need it.

In January I recommended automated rules for scaling budgets and pausing ads when frequency gets too high. That’s still good advice for BFCM.

What’s new is AI agents. If you’ve connected one to your ad account, check its permissions. Meta added a permissions panel for its ads MCP server at Business Settings → Integrations → Ads MCP Server. Connected agents can edit budgets, create campaigns, ad sets and ads, and edit targeting, creative and status.

Yiqi’s thoughts:

I’d be careful around giving full permissions. A reporting tool doesn’t need to create campaigns or change budgets.

By the way, this playbook is part of our BFCM Klaviyo & Meta Academy, a free series for DTC brands running through mid-December. New sessions drop every week.

Join here: https://www.aimerce.ai/bfcm2026

✌️Here to help you win,

Yiqi

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