Detailed targeting
Interest targeting is not what it used to be, and clinging to it is how budgets quietly leak. Detailed targeting still narrows an ad set by interests, behaviors, and demographics, but Meta has pruned the catalog hard since 2022 and keeps steering advertisers toward broad, AI-managed audiences. Here is how to use it without fighting the platform.
Three buckets
Interests: declared and inferred topics like 'yoga' or 'small business owner.' Mostly inferred from on-platform behavior, not explicit user declarations. Accuracy varies widely by category.
Behaviors: digital actions like 'frequent travelers' or 'recent device upgraders.'
Demographics: education level, job title, life events, household composition.
What's been removed
Starting January 2022, Meta removed thousands of targeting options related to health causes, sexual orientation, religious practices, political beliefs, and social issues. Ad sets still using those options stopped delivering on March 17, 2022.
In March 2025, detailed-targeting exclusions were removed from Ads Manager. In June 2025, exclusions were removed from boosted posts. On January 15, 2026, legacy ad sets that still used discontinued interests stopped delivering entirely.
Advantage detailed targeting
Advantage Detailed Targeting (audience expansion) became opt-out for most objectives in 2022 and 2023. Your interest list is treated as a starting hint, not a hard boundary.
Advantage+ Audience uses your detailed targeting selections as 'audience suggestions' and lets Meta expand beyond them based on conversion signals. In Q2 2025, roughly 35 percent of US retail ad spend ran through Advantage+ campaigns.
Audience size estimator
Ads Manager shows a green, yellow, or red 'audience definition' indicator and a numeric reach range. Meta no longer publishes a single point estimate.
The estimator does not reflect iOS App Tracking Transparency opt-outs. Actual deliverable reach on iOS is lower than displayed.
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