Why does Meta do this?

I decided I wanted to leverage three different features in a test. I quickly realized how difficult — even impossible — that would be.

The Setup I Wanted

I’d create a campaign that…

• • Utilizes Flexible Ad Format
  • Can be broken down using Audience Segments
  • Has results that feature Ad Recall Lift

All perfectly reasonable, right? I’ve started to experiment with Flexible Ad Format recently. I’ve started to switch exclusively to Sales campaigns so that I can utilize Audience Segments (though it would make sense if they were available for other objectives). And now that Ad Recall Lift is available for more objectives, there’s another way to measure performance related to high quality traffic or engagement.

The Problem

But, there was a problem, and it’s due to how Meta specializes features by objective.

Flexible Ad Format is only available for Sales and App Promotion objectives. Audience Segments are only available for Sales. And Ad Recall Lift metrics are only available for Awareness and Engagement.

In other words, there’s no possible way to create one campaign that takes advantage of all three.

I could create a Sales campaign that utilized Audience Segments and Flexible Ad Format. Or I could create an Engagement campaign to take advantage of Ad Recall Lift. But there’s no crossover between them otherwise.

It would be one thing if any of these features were unique to those objectives, but they’re not. Flexible Ad Format is basically Dynamic Creative, but only for two objectives. Audience Segments simply breaks down performance by a defined group of people. And Ad Recall Lift is a metric that could hold relevance, regardless of your goal.

There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have access to any of these features for any objective we choose. But, we don’t. It feels completely arbitrary that their availability is limited by objective.

What do you think?