Last reviewed: October 2026. Ads Manager options vary by account, region, objective and conversion location, so your screen may differ from what is described here.
TL;DR
Dynamic creative optimization (DCO) on Meta is the ad set setting that takes your separate images, videos, headlines and text and lets Meta assemble and serve the best-performing combinations. As a standalone toggle it is shrinking unevenly. Since June 2024, Meta says advertisers may no longer be able to turn it on for new Sales and App Promotion ad sets, and its automation is moving into Advantage+ creative. Availability depends on your objective and account.
Quick answer
If you run a Sales or App Promotion campaign, you likely won't find the Dynamic Creative toggle on a new ad set. Look at the ad level instead, for the Flexible format, multi-media ads or Advantage+ creative options. If you run Awareness, Traffic, Engagement or Leads, the toggle is often still there, but Meta has not promised it will stay.
One naming trap first. When most people search facebook dynamic ads or meta dynamic ads, they mean catalog ads: ads that pull products from a feed. Meta now calls those Advantage+ catalog ads. They are a different mechanism from dynamic creative, and the table below separates them.
What is dynamic creative optimization in Meta ads?
Dynamic creative is a combination engine. You upload several versions of each ad element, and Meta builds complete ads from them, then shifts delivery toward the combinations that are likely getting better results for each person.
Meta's Help Center describes it as an Ads Manager feature where "multiple creative elements, such as images and headlines" are automatically combined into ad variations (Meta Business Help Center). Meta's setup steps allow up to ten images or videos, up to five text options such as headlines, and up to five call-to-action buttons per ad (Meta Business Help Center).
The mechanism matters for everything below. By default, dynamic creative only recombines the pieces you supplied, and it does that at the ad set level, which is why the toggle lives there and not on the ad. There is one exception: if you also turn on Optimise creative for each person, Meta says it may edit the creative too, for example by cropping media, swapping text between primary text and headline, creating videos from images, adding music or expanding image backgrounds.
Meta also lists hard limits. Dynamic creative doesn't work with ads in multiple languages, asset customisation or political content, it blocks WhatsApp Status as a placement while it's on, and an account can have at most 1,000 ads using it (Meta Business Help Center).
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Read moreWhat is the difference between Dynamic Creative, Flexible ads, Advantage+ creative and dynamic ads?
These are six different features that all change what a viewer sees. People mix them up because Meta renamed and merged several of them between 2024 and 2026. Here is how they compare, based on Meta's help pages as checked in October 2026. "Meta says" marks Meta's own wording; "reported" marks third-party observation.
| Feature | What it varies | Level | Status in 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dynamic Creative | Combinations of your supplied media, text options and CTAs, plus optional automatic edits if "Optimise creative for each person" is on | Ad set toggle | Meta says you may no longer be able to use it on new Sales and App Promotion ad sets (since June 2024). Often still available for Awareness, Traffic, Engagement and Leads, varies by account |
| Flexible ad format | Which format and media to show (single image, video, carousel) from up to 10 images and videos you upload | Ad | Meta's recommended alternative for Sales and App Promotion. Meta now says it "may not be available to you"; an earlier Meta help page reportedly dated its removal from Ad setup to March 2026 |
| Multi-media ads | Up to 10 images and videos in one ad, with per-asset cropping, text, destination URL and placement | Ad creative workflow | Meta says: if you no longer have access to the Flexible format, look at multi-media ads. Reported to be available in selected regions |
| Flexible media (Flex media) | One image or video delivered to more placements | Ad, inside Advantage+ creative | Meta says it is gradually moving into Advantage+ creative for non-awareness objectives and may be on by default. Single image or video ads only. Not the same as the Flexible ad format |
| Advantage+ creative enhancements | Edits to a single ad you built: crops, text variations, overlays, music, generated backgrounds | Ad, per enhancement | Live. Meta says some may be on by default. Each can be switched off individually |
| Dynamic ads (Advantage+ catalog ads) | Which products from your catalog feed fill the ad template | Campaign and ad, needs a catalog | Live. A separate mechanism, not DCO |
A useful shortcut: Dynamic Creative recombines your pieces, Flexible and multi-media ads choose among your media, Advantage+ creative edits your ad, and catalog ads swap in products. If you know which of those you are seeing, you know which setting controls it.
If you came here for catalog ads, the Meta catalog ad automation guide and the product catalog setup walkthrough cover feeds, product sets and setup.
Is Meta dynamic creative being discontinued?
Partly, and not officially. Meta has published one specific restriction, not a platform-wide sunset date.
The Help Center states: "As of June 2024, you may no longer be able to use dynamic creative when creating ad sets on Ads Manager when you select sales or app promotion as your objective." Meta adds that existing dynamic creative campaigns are unaffected "at this time" and points advertisers to the Flexible ad format (Meta Business Help Center).
Beyond that, the picture is mixed. Meta's own help pages and creation instructions for the feature are still live, and an August 2026 AdsUploader update notes that Meta has published no platform-wide sunset or formal deprecation notice (AdsUploader). We found no Meta primary source that announces a full deprecation either. The safe reading is that the toggle is shrinking unevenly, and your account may differ from someone else's.
Strategy & Planning
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Read moreWhat replaced dynamic creative for Sales campaigns?
Flexible format first, then an account-dependent mix of multi-media ads and Advantage+ creative. For Sales and App Promotion, Meta named the Flexible ad format as the similar alternative in 2024 (Meta Business Help Center).
The key difference is the level. Dynamic Creative is switched on for a whole ad set, while Flexible is chosen inside a single ad, where Meta picks the format and media to show each person from up to 10 images and videos you uploaded. Meta says you can also group media with different combinations of text. Flexible is limited to the Traffic, Engagement, Sales and App Promotion objectives, with specific conversion locations for each (Meta Business Help Center).
The Flexible format is now shrinking too. Meta's help pages say it "may not be available to you", and that advertisers who no longer have access to it in Ad setup should look at multi-media ads and creative customization (Meta Business Help Center). An earlier version of a Meta help page reportedly said that "starting in March 2026, the flexible format will no longer be available in Ad setup" (Showfolk). The live Meta pages we checked in October 2026 no longer carry that sentence, so treat the date as Meta-sourced but not current wording.
Multi-media ads are where many accounts now land. They allow up to 10 images and videos in one ad, with per-asset cropping, text, destination URL and placement, and they are reported to be available in selected regions through the creative workflow (Social Media Today).
Separately, Meta's Flexible media page says that for non-awareness objectives, flexible media is "gradually moving to Advantage+ creative", and that it may be on by default (Meta Business Help Center). It only works on single image or video ads with manual upload, and some conversion locations are excluded per objective. Flexible media is not the same as the old Flexible ad format: Flexible media delivers one image or video to more placements, while the Flexible format chose among several media assets.
Why don't I see the dynamic creative toggle in my ad set? (The Which-Engine Check)
Most missing-toggle cases come from the objective, the account's rollout, or looking at the wrong level. The Which-Engine Check starts from what you can actually see in Ads Manager and maps it to the engine behind it, where it is controlled, and which report reads it.
| What you see in Ads Manager | Likely engine | Where it's controlled | Report to read |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Dynamic Creative switch in the ad set settings | Classic Dynamic Creative | Ad set | Breakdown by Dynamic Creative Element |
| A "Flexible" option in Ad setup | Flexible ad format | Ad | Breakdown, Creative, Flexible format |
| Several media assets in one ad, no Flexible option | Multi-media ad | Ad creative | Check which creative breakdowns your account offers |
| Enhancement cards, including Flex media, under Advantage+ creative | Advantage+ creative | Ad, per enhancement | Ad-level results and the ad creative breakdown in Ads Reporting |
| Products pulled from a feed into one template | Advantage+ catalog ad | Campaign and ad | Catalog reporting, covered in the catalog guides |
Then confirm it in this order:
- Check the campaign objective. If it is Sales or App Promotion, expect no Dynamic Creative toggle on a new ad set, which matches Meta's June 2024 restriction. Skip to step 4.
- Open the ad set, not the ad. The Dynamic Creative switch sits in the ad set settings, typically near budget and schedule, and it has to be turned on before you publish the ad set.
- If the objective is Awareness, Traffic, Engagement or Leads and the toggle is still missing, your account is likely in a newer setup flow. Meta says it is rolling out a new recommended setup for Traffic, Awareness and Engagement, so steps may differ, and special ad category and pharmaceutical campaigns may not get every Advantage+ feature (Meta Business Help Center). Also check the hard limits: multiple languages, asset customisation, political content and the 1,000-ad cap all rule dynamic creative out.
- Open the ad and look at Ad setup and Advantage+ creative. This is where the Flexible format, multi-media options and automatic edits now live for most Sales accounts.
- Use Meta's own exclusion as a test. Meta says Advantage+ creative cannot be turned on for ads that use Dynamic Creative, or for the Awareness objective (Meta Business Help Center). If you can enable Advantage+ creative on an ad, that ad is not running classic Dynamic Creative.
To switch off individual enhancements on an existing ad, go to Ads, Edit, Advantage+ creative, Edit, then turn off the enhancement cards you don't want (Meta Business Help Center).
For API users, the objects behind dynamic creative still exist. The asset_feed_spec field on ad creatives is documented as the field "Used for Dynamic Creative" (Meta Marketing API reference), and Meta's official Business SDK still defines is_dynamic_creative on the ad set (Meta Business SDK). The same objective restrictions may also apply through the API, so test on your own account and objective before you build on it.
What to do if the dynamic creative toggle is gone
Rebuild the behavior you actually wanted, one engine at a time. The toggle was usually a means to one of three goals, and each has a current path.
| What you used DCO for | What to use now | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Finding the best image or video | Flexible format, or multi-media ads where Flexible is gone | Selection happens inside one ad, not across a whole ad set |
| Finding the best headline or primary text | Multiple text options in the ad, or separate ads in one ad set | Separate ads give cleaner reads but need more budget per variant |
| Letting Meta adapt creative per placement | Advantage+ creative enhancements, reviewed one by one | Meta edits your ad, so check each enhancement against brand rules |
If an ad looks "dynamic" when you never turned DCO on, the likely source is Advantage+ creative enhancements, not Dynamic Creative. Check the ad's Advantage+ creative settings first.
Why is Meta dynamic creative not working or not optimizing?
On an older ad set that still has the toggle, the usual causes are too many variations for the budget, weak assets, and reading results too early. Advertisers report this symptom often (r/FacebookAds discussion). The fixes below are practitioner heuristics, not Meta rules, and there is no universal asset count or budget threshold.
| Likely cause | What to check |
|---|---|
| Too many combinations for the delivery the ad set gets | Count the possible combinations against weekly results. Fewer, stronger assets tend to give Meta enough data per element |
| Near-duplicate or weak assets | Remove variants that differ only slightly. Distinct angles give the engine something to choose between |
| Judging too early | Let the ad set get through the unstable period right after launch or a major edit before cutting elements |
| Reading the breakdown as proof | Element reports show delivery, not cause. Rebuild apparent winners as standard ads to confirm them |
| The objective or account no longer supports classic DCO | Run the Which-Engine Check above to see which engine you actually have |
When does dynamic creative make results harder to read?
When you need to know why something worked. Dynamic creative is good at finding a combination that delivers, and weak at telling you which single element caused the result.
Meta itself is direct about this. It says dynamic creative results are shown "as the aggregate performance across all variations", so "using dynamic creative as a substitute for split testing is not recommended" (Meta Business Help Center).
For element-level reads on classic DC, practitioners use Breakdowns, By Dynamic Creative Element, which Jon Loomer documents as splitting delivery by image or video, text, headline, description, call to action and website URL (Jon Loomer, third-party). The newer reports don't cover DC: Meta says the ad creative breakdown in Ads Reporting "does not include results for dynamic creative ads" (Meta Business Help Center), and Flexible ads have their own Flexible format breakdown under Creative (Meta Business Help Center).
The catch is that element views show delivery per asset, not cause per asset. A headline may look like a winner only because Meta paired it with the strongest image and served it to the most responsive people. That is an attribution problem, not a creative problem, so treat element-level numbers as directional and confirm a winner in a controlled test. Our Facebook ad creative testing guide covers how to set that test up, and the Advantage+ creative vs manual A/B testing comparison explains when to let Meta adapt and when to prove a result.
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Meta Advantage+ Creative vs Manual A/B Testing: Which to Use in 2026
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Read moreWhat an AI agent can and can't see at the combination level
An agent can read Meta's asset-level breakdowns across many ad sets at once, if the tool it uses exposes them. In that case it can summarize delivery and results for individual images, videos, headlines and text options without you exporting reports by hand. Through the AdAdvisor MCP server, for example, an assistant like Claude can work with Meta ad data in plain language.
What no agent can do is rebuild Meta's internal combination-level decision log, and some breakdown combinations are not available through Meta's reporting at all. So an agent likely inherits the same delivery-versus-cause limit described above, and a controlled test is still the honest answer when a decision matters.
AdAdvisor's team brings more than 8 years in media buying, over $60M in managed ad spend, and an ex-Meta engineer to this kind of reading. For a broader process, see AI creative testing for Meta ads.
Frequently asked questions
Summary
Dynamic creative optimization on Meta is the ad set toggle that mixes your supplied elements into ad combinations. Since June 2024, Meta says you may no longer be able to use it on new Sales and App Promotion ad sets, and its creative automation is moving toward Flexible, multi-media ads and Advantage+ creative, but Meta has not announced a full shutdown. Run the Which-Engine Check to see what your account offers, and treat element-level results as directional until a controlled test confirms them. For how all of Meta's automation fits together, see the Meta Advantage+ guide.
Sources
- Meta Business Help Center, "About dynamic creative" (June 2024 Sales and App Promotion restriction)
- Meta Business Help Center, "Create an ad that uses dynamic creative" (element limits, new recommended setup, special ad categories)
- Meta Business Help Center, "About the flexible ad format" (availability note, multi-media pointer, objectives)
- Meta Business Help Center, "How to use the flexible format breakdown for reporting"
- Meta Business Help Center, "Understand creative-level performance in Meta Ads Reporting" (excludes dynamic creative ads)
- Meta Business Help Center, "About Advantage+ creative" (enhancement list)
- Meta Business Help Center, "Turn off Advantage+ creative enhancements"
- Meta Business Help Center, "Turn on Advantage+ creative" (not available with dynamic creative or the awareness objective)
- Meta Business Help Center, "About flexible media"
- Meta Marketing API reference, Ad Account Ad Creatives (
asset_feed_spec) - Meta Business SDK for Python, AdSet object (
is_dynamic_creative) - Social Media Today, Meta multi-media ads guidance (June 2026, third-party)
- Showfolk, Meta Flexible ads replacement (third-party; quotes an earlier Meta help page on the March 2026 change)
- Jon Loomer, "Breakdowns in Meta Ads Manager" (third-party practitioner)
- AdsUploader, Facebook dynamic creative (third-party, updated August 2026; notes no formal Meta sunset notice)
