Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out!
I had a look at the issue you're facing with your Facebook ads, and I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts. It's an incredibly common and frustrating problem, but the good news is that it's almost certainly not a bug. It's actually the platform working as intended, just not in the way you'd expect. The key is to understand *why* Facebook is doing this so you can take back control of your targeting and stop wasting money on the wrong audience.
In short, Facebook's algorithm is likely prioritising what it thinks are cheap conversions over the specific audience you've defined. This is usually down to one specific setting called 'Advantage+ Audience' (or its older name, 'Audience Expansion'). Below, I'll walk you through why this happens, how to fix it, and how to build a much more robust targeting strategy for the long run.
TLDR;
- Your problem is likely caused by a setting called 'Advantage+ Audience' (or Audience Expansion) being enabled at the ad set level. This allows Facebook to ignore your age targeting if it believes it can find cheaper results elsewhere.
- This isn't a bug; you're essentially paying Facebook to find the cheapest audience, not the right one. You need to change your campaign objective to focus on conversions to fix this.
- The most important piece of advice is to disable 'Advantage+ Audience' and restructure your campaigns to test specific, layered interests first before relying on broad targeting.
- Don't just fix the setting; you need to rethink your entire audience strategy. I've included a flowchart to help you diagnose the issue and an interactive calculator to show you the financial impact of poor targeting.
- A successful campaign starts with a deep understanding of your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), defined by their pains and problems, not just their age.
The Uncomfortable Truth: You're Telling Facebook to Ignore You
Let's get one thing straight right away: Facebook isn't broken. When you see your ads being shown to a 65+ audience despite setting a firm 25-45 age range, it's because a specific setting is giving the algorithm permission to do so. This feature is called Advantage+ Audience. On older accounts, you might see it as a simple checkbox labelled 'Audience Expansion'.
When this is switched on, you are giving the algorithm a very clear command: "Here is my ideal audience, but if you think you can get me cheaper clicks, leads, or purchases from people outside this group, please feel free to do so."
And the algorithm, in its relentless pursuit of efficiency, does exactly that. It often finds that older audiences are less competitive to advertise to. They might click on more things or engage more passively, making them 'cheaper' on a cost-per-click or cost-per-impression basis. So, it diverts your budget to them, completely ignoring the demographic you carefully selected. You are, in effect, paying Facebook to find you the worst possible audience for your product simply because their attention is cheap. This is a classic case of optimising for the wrong metric. A cheap click from an irrelevant person is worthless.
The solution isn't just to find and disable this one setting. The real solution is to build a campaign structure that forces the algorithm to prioritise quality over cost. It starts with having the right campaign objective.
We'll need to look at your campaign objective and settings...
The very first thing you need to check is your campaign objective. Are you running a 'Traffic', 'Engagement', or 'Brand Awareness' campaign? If so, you're telling Facebook your main goal is to get cheap clicks or views. This encourages the algorithm to seek out those 'low-quality' users we just talked about, making the age targeting issue even worse.
The best form of brand awareness for most businesses is getting a sale and having a happy customer. Awareness is a byproduct of performance, not a prerequisite for it. That's why, for almost every campaign, I'd recomend you optimise for a conversion event, like 'Leads' or 'Sales'. When you tell Facebook to find people who will *actually buy something*, it becomes much more disciplined. It knows that a 65-year-old who just randomly clicks on ads is highly unlikely to purchase your product aimed at 30-year-olds. The goal of a real conversion forces the algorithm to respect your targeting more closely because it's the only way it can succeed at the task you've given it.
Once you've confirmed you're using a conversion objective, you need to hunt down that pesky Advantage+ Audience setting. Here’s a simple process you can follow to diagnose and fix the issue at the ad set level of your campaign.
1. Open Ad Set
Go to the 'Ad Set' level of your campaign in Ads Manager.
2. Find Audience Section
Scroll down to the 'Audience' configuration section.
3. Check Setting
Look for 'Advantage+ Audience'. Is it turned on?
4. If YES: Disable It
This is your problem. Click to edit and turn it off completely.
5. Problem Solved
Your targeting is now fixed. Monitor results closely.
I'd say you need to define your customer by their pain, not their age
Fixing the technical setting is just the first step. The fact this happened suggests you might be relying too much on broad demographics. Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is not "a person aged 25-45". That's a meaningless statistic. Your ICP is a person in a specific state of pain or desire that your product solves.
Forget the sterile profiles. You need to become an expert in their specific, urgent, and expensive problem. What keeps them awake at night? What are they frustrated with? What do they secretly wish they could achieve?
For example, if you sell productivity software, your ICP isn't "millennials in office jobs". It's a project manager who is terrified of her best team members quitting out of frustration with a chaotic workflow. If you sell high-quality, sustainable clothing, your ICP isn't "women 25-40". It's a conscious consumer who is deeply frustrated with fast fashion and feels guilty about her environmental impact. Your ICP is a problem state, not a demographic bucket.
Once you understand this 'nightmare', you can build a targeting strategy around it. What podcasts do they listen to? What newsletters do they actually read? What influencers do they follow? What software tools do they already pay for? Are they in specific Facebook groups? These interests are a thousand times more powerful than a simple age bracket.
For a new account, you should always start by testing specific, detailed interests grouped into themes. Don't just throw "fashion" into the targeting if you sell sustainable clothing. Target interests like "Everlane," "Patagonia," "Slow Fashion Movement," or followers of specific sustainability influencers. You need to find pockets of the internet where your ideal customer congregates. Layering can also be powerful. For example, people who are interested in "Yoga" AND "Sustainable living". This ensures your audience is highly relevant.
You probably should calculate your numbers
Understanding the financial impact of your targeting is crucial. A low Cost Per Click (CPC) means nothing if the clicks don't convert. It's far better to pay a higher CPC for a visitor who is actually likely to buy. Let's look at the maths. A typical conversion rate for an e-commerce store is around 2-5%, while for lead generation it might be 10-30%. If you're getting clicks from the wrong age group, your conversion rate will plummet, and your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) will skyrocket.
For example, we ran a campaign for a childcare service where the cost per lead was around $10. For an HVAC company in a competitive area, it was closer to $60. Both were profitable because they understood their numbers. The HVAC company could afford a higher CPL because their customer lifetime value was much higher. You need to know how much you can afford to spend to acquire a customer. This is the math that frees you from the tyranny of cheap, useless clicks.
Use the calculator below to see how a small change in conversion rate can drastically affect your actual cost per result. Notice how a slightly higher CPC can be much more profitable if it comes with a better conversion rate from a more targeted audience.
You'll need a proper campaign structure
Once you have your ICP defined, your targeting interests selected, and your campaign objective set to conversions, you need to structure your account for success. A common mistake I see is lumping everything into one campaign and one ad set. This makes it impossible to know what's working.
I usually recommend a structure based on the marketing funnel: Top of Funnel (ToFu), Middle of Funnel (MoFu), and Bottom of Funnel (BoFu).
- ToFu (Top of Funnel - Cold Audiences): This is where you target people who have never heard of you before. You'll have seperate campaigns or ad sets here for each of your detailed interest audiences and, later, lookalike audiences. This is where you do your testing.
- MoFu (Middle of Funnel - Warm Audiences): Here you retarget people who have engaged with you but haven't taken a key action. This could be people who have watched your videos, visited your website, or engaged with your Instagram page, but haven't added a product to their cart.
- BoFu (Bottom of Funnel - Hot Audiences): This is for retargeting your most valuable prospects—people who have added a product to their cart or initiated checkout but didn't buy. These people are on the verge of converting and often just need a small nudge.
By seperating your audiences like this, you can tailor your messaging and budget to each stage of the customer journey. You can speak to a cold audience about their problems, and to a hot audience about a specific discount to complete their purchase. This level of organisation and strategic thinking is what seperates campaigns that struggle from those that scale profitably.
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below in a more actionable format. This is the main advice I have for you:
| Area of Focus | Actionable Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Immediate Fix | Go into each ad set, find the 'Advantage+ Audience' setting, and turn it OFF. This will immediately force Facebook to respect your 25-45 age targeting. |
| Campaign Objective | Change your campaign objective from Traffic/Engagement to 'Sales' or 'Leads'. This aligns the algorithm's goal with your business goal and improves targeting discipline. |
| Audience Strategy | Move beyond simple age demographics. Define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) by their specific pains and problems. Brainstorm and test specific, layered interests related to these problems. |
| Campaign Structure | Implement a ToFu/MoFu/BoFu structure. Create seperate campaigns for cold audiences (interest-based), warm audiences (website visitors/engagers), and hot audiences (cart abandoners). |
| Testing & Optimisation | Systematically test your new interest-based audiences against each other in your ToFu campaign. Turn off what doesn't work after it's spent 2-3x your target CPA and scale what does. |
Navigating the nuances of platforms like Facebook Ads can be complex. The algorithm is powerful, but it requires precise instructions to deliver the results you want. As you can see, a simple issue like incorrect age targeting can be a symptom of a much deeper strategic problem with your campaign setup, audience definition, and overall structure.
Getting this right involves more than just flipping a few switches; it requires experience in understanding audience psychology, crafting compelling offers, and building scalable campaign architectures. This is where professional expertise can make a significant difference, helping you avoid costly mistakes and accelerate your path to profitable advertising.
If you'd like to discuss your specific situation in more detail, we offer a completely free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can review your ad account together and provide some more tailored advice.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
