Meta ads bid strategies and Advantage+ campaign budget explained

What a Facebook ad campaign bid strategy is

A bid strategy is the instruction you give Meta about how to bid in ad auctions, given what you want to spend and what a result is worth to you. You do not place bids one at a time. Meta's page about bid strategies sorts the options into three types: spend-based, goal-based and manual.

Everything below is from Meta's Business Help Centre as it read on 13 October 2026. The pages carry no publication date, so treat names and numbers as current on that day.

The bid is one of three parts of an ad's total value in the auction, alongside the estimated action rate and ad quality. Our guide to how Meta ranks ads covers that; this post is about the bid part only.

Meta ads campaign bid strategy: the five options

The five are highest volume, highest value, cost per result goal, ROAS goal and bid cap. The table gives what each one tells the delivery system and when Meta's pages suggest it.

On the bid cap page, Meta explains that the cap applies to the bid per estimated action, which it multiplies by the estimated action rate to get a bid per impression. That is why a cap and a reported cost are different numbers. Meta's own example is a company that wants to avoid conversions costing more than USD 40 and, after testing, settles on a cap of USD 50.

How Meta says to choose between them

Meta does not name one strategy as the right one. Its pages frame the choice as a question about what you will give up: the full spend, or the target.

• Results, no target. Meta's pages on highest volume and cost per result goal put it as a pair: choose the goal if holding a specific cost matters most, and highest volume if spending the full budget matters most.
• Purchase value. The same pair exists for value. The highest value page says it tries to spend the entire budget, while the ROAS goal page says a ROAS goal is less likely to spend in full because Meta cannot always meet the target.
• A hard ceiling per auction. Bid cap. Meta adds that if what you want is to control cost, cost per result goal may suit you better, because it handles more of the calculation.

Where you set it depends on where the budget sits. Meta's page on cost and bid controls says that with ad set budgets you enter a control amount in the Performance goal section of the ad set, and that if you enter none, Meta uses highest volume. With a campaign budget you pick the strategy on the campaign.

The numbers Meta attaches to goal-based strategies

Cost per result goal and ROAS goal come with more published guidance than the others. The 10 to 20% and 5 to 10% figures for a cost goal are already in our post on the learning phase; the full set is here.

• 50 to 100 or more conversions a week. Meta says both goal-based strategies work best at that volume. Below it, the pages suggest a broader audience, a larger budget or a looser goal.
• Daily budget of at least five times the cost goal. Meta's minimum budget guidance gives USD 25 a day for a USD 5 goal. The page states this for cost per result goal only; it gives no equivalent multiple for a ROAS goal.
• A starting value with room in it. Start a cost goal 10 to 20% above your recent average cost per result, and a ROAS goal 10 to 20% below your recent average ROAS. A ROAS goal of 1.00 is break-even.
• No history? Run without a target first. Meta's best practices for the cost per result goal suggest running highest volume for at least two weeks and using the cost that comes out as the starting goal. The ROAS page says the same with highest value.
• Judge by the week. Meta says daily figures move around, so use weekly averages and wait at least seven days after changing a goal. It suggests three weeks of running before scaling, then gradual budget increases and goal changes of 5 to 10%.
• Three full days. If the ads will reach people on iOS 14.5 or later, Meta says an ad set using either goal should be scheduled for at least three full days.

What is Advantage+ campaign budget in Meta ads?

Advantage+ campaign budget is one budget set on the campaign, which Meta distributes between the campaign's ad sets in real time towards the ones with the best opportunities. It is the feature formerly called campaign budget optimisation; Meta's page about Advantage+ campaign budget also calls it campaign budget, or budget with Advantage+ on. Anyone searching for Meta ads campaign budget optimisation or Facebook ads campaign budget optimisation is looking for this setting.

When Meta suggests a campaign budget over ad set budgets is covered in our post on how a Facebook ad campaign works. What matters here is how it meets the bid strategy.

• One bid strategy per campaign. The bid strategies page says the same strategies work with and without a campaign budget, but each campaign uses a single one. To use a different strategy, Meta says to set up a separate campaign.
• Strategy on the campaign, amount on the ad set. You pick cost per result goal, ROAS goal or bid cap as the campaign bid strategy, then enter the amount inside each ad set.
• Matching ad sets. Meta's setup page requires the same bid strategy on every ad set and, with highest volume, the same optimisation event. Its list names highest volume, bid cap and cost per result goal; the ROAS goal page separately describes choosing ROAS goal at campaign level.
• Go easy on stacked limits. Meta's best practices for Advantage+ campaign budget warn that a cost or bid control combined with ad set spend limits can leave an ad set delivering less than it should, or not at all.
• Read results at campaign level. With highest volume, Meta's reporting explainer says the aim is the most results for the campaign as a whole, so an ad set with a higher average cost can still receive more of the budget. In its worked example, switching that ad set off cuts the campaign from 12 results to 11 on the same USD 30.

What changing a bid strategy does to the learning phase

Changing bid strategy restarts learning. Meta's page on significant edits and the learning phase lists it as a significant edit, which sends an ad set back into the less stable period described in our learning phase post.

• With Advantage+ campaign budget, Meta says switching the campaign bid strategy might send several ad sets back into learning at once.
• Changing the amount of a bid cap, cost per result goal or ROAS goal may or may not be significant, depending on the size of the change. Meta gives no threshold for these amounts.
• Advantage+ campaign budget moving money between ad sets does not restart learning.

Facebook ad campaign optimisation tips from Meta's own pages

Put together, Meta's pages describe a sequence. The order is ours; each step is Meta's.

1. 01

   Get a baseline before setting a target

   With no history, run highest volume or highest value for at least two weeks and read the cost or ROAS that results.
2. 02

   Set the goal with room, and fund it

   Start 10 to 20% looser than your average, and for a cost goal keep the daily budget at five times the goal or more.
3. 03

   Leave it for a week

   Evaluate on weekly averages and wait seven days after any change to a goal.
4. 04

   Make campaign changes in one batch

   Meta says changes entered one at a time may each send a campaign back into learning.
5. 05

   Do not pause low-delivery ad sets under a campaign budget

   Meta says doing so stops the system finding later opportunities there and can raise the cost per action of the ad sets left running.

When a goal still limits delivery after a budget increase, Meta lists three things to try: loosen the goal, expand the audience, or update the ad creative.

Sources

All pages were read on 13 October 2026. Meta's help pages carry no publication date.

• Meta Business Help Centre: About bid strategies, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: About highest volume, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: About highest value, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: About cost per result goal, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: About ROAS goal, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: About bid cap, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: Best practices for bid cap, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: About cost and bid controls, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: Best practices for cost-per-result goal, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: Best practices for ROAS goal, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: Best practices for minimum budgets, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: About Advantage+ campaign budget, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: Set up Advantage+ campaign budget, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: Best practices for Advantage+ campaign budget, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: Understand Advantage+ campaign budget reporting when using the highest volume bid strategy, undated
• Meta Business Help Centre: Significant edits and learning phase, undated