When should I use the targeting skill?
Triggers on phrases like:- “Audience”
- “Lookalike”, “LAL”
- “Retargeting”
- “Interests”
- “Exclude”
- “Custom audience”
- “Broad targeting”
- “Audience size”
- “Who should I target”
- “Estimate reach”
- “Build a lookalike”
What is the right Meta audience hierarchy in 2026?
For prospecting:
For retargeting (layered funnel):
How do I build a Meta lookalike audience that actually works?
The skill’s seed-quality hierarchy, best to worst:- LTV-tier customer list (top 25% by lifetime value)
- Repeat purchasers (2+ orders)
- All purchasers (180-day)
- High-engagement video viewers (75%+ completion)
- All-page-view (worst seed. Resembles broad.)
Which exclusions should every prospecting ad set use?
Cannibalization is the silent killer. The skill enforces exclusions:Exclude purchasers (30 to 90 days) from all prospecting
Exclude purchasers (30 to 90 days) from all prospecting
Otherwise you bill yourself to serve ads to people who already bought. Use
excluded_custom_audiences on every prospecting ad set.Exclude existing email subscribers from prospecting
Exclude existing email subscribers from prospecting
Same logic. Customer-list audiences from CRM go in the excluded list.
Exclude active retargeting audiences from ASC
Exclude active retargeting audiences from ASC
Otherwise ASC and manual retargeting bid against each other.
Exclude cart abandoners from broad retargeting going elsewhere
Exclude cart abandoners from broad retargeting going elsewhere
Avoid conflicting messaging from two different retargeting flows hitting the same person.
What audience sizes work for prospecting, retargeting, and lookalikes?
The skill uses
adadvisor:estimate_audience_size to validate any new targeting spec before committing.
What is the AdAdvisor targeting MCP workflow?
/reachestimate validation and auto-fixes deprecated interest IDs (up to 3 retry attempts) before applying the change. If it cannot fix, the skill surfaces the exact validation error.
What anti-patterns does the targeting skill prevent?
Stacking 8 interests as detailed targeting on prospecting
Stacking 8 interests as detailed targeting on prospecting
Dead since June 2025. The skill defaults to broad with Advantage+ Audience on.
Building a 100K-person retargeting audience and treating it like prospecting
Building a 100K-person retargeting audience and treating it like prospecting
Retargeting is tactical, not scalable. The skill keeps prospecting on broad and lookalike.
Forgetting excluded_custom_audiences=[purchasers] on prospecting
Forgetting excluded_custom_audiences=[purchasers] on prospecting
Always exclude existing customers. The skill enforces this on every prospecting
create_adset call.Pasting interest IDs from a different account
Pasting interest IDs from a different account
Interest IDs are account-scoped per Meta. The skill always re-queries via
search_targeting in the current account.Setting advantage_audience: false to 'control' targeting
Setting advantage_audience: false to 'control' targeting
Advantage+ Audience finds buyers outside your spec. That is the point. The skill leaves it on unless there is a regulatory reason.
Building a lookalike on a 50-person seed
Building a lookalike on a 50-person seed
Meta requires 100+. The skill flags any seed below 1,000 as statistically thin.
How do I install the targeting skill?
Claude Code
Ships with the full plugin install.
Claude.ai & Desktop
Download adadvisor-targeting.zip and upload via Settings, Capabilities, Skills.
Frequently asked questions
Should I use broad targeting or interest targeting for Meta ads in 2026?
Should I use broad targeting or interest targeting for Meta ads in 2026?
Broad targeting with Advantage+ Audience ON, for almost every account. Lebesgue’s 2025 data and Meta’s own case studies converge: broad plus strong creative outperforms interest stacking at virtually every budget level. Detailed-interest stacking has been dead since Meta’s June 2025 detailed-targeting consolidation. The targeting skill defaults to broad.
What is the best seed for a Meta lookalike audience?
What is the best seed for a Meta lookalike audience?
LTV-tier customer list (top 25% by lifetime value) gives the best lookalikes. After that: repeat purchasers (2+ orders), then all purchasers within 180 days, then 75%+ video completers. All-page-view is the worst seed since it resembles broad. Meta requires 100+ people in the seed. Under 1,000 is statistically thin.
What is the difference between 1%, 3%, and 5% Meta lookalikes?
What is the difference between 1%, 3%, and 5% Meta lookalikes?
The percentage is the share of the country’s population that resembles your seed audience. 1% LAL is the most similar but smallest (about 2 million people in the US). 3% and 5% trade similarity for reach. Use 1% for precision when you have proven creative, 3% to 5% for scale. 10% LAL essentially equals broad targeting and is usually skippable.
Why should I always exclude existing customers from prospecting?
Why should I always exclude existing customers from prospecting?
Otherwise you are paying Meta to serve ads to people who already bought. Cannibalization inflates CPA and tanks measured ROAS. The targeting skill enforces
excluded_custom_audiences=[purchasers] on every prospecting create_adset call. Use a 30 to 90 day purchaser audience as the exclusion.What is Advantage+ Audience and should I keep it on?
What is Advantage+ Audience and should I keep it on?
Advantage+ Audience lets Meta find buyers outside your targeting spec when it sees high-value signal. It is on by default on most objectives in 2026 and the targeting skill leaves it on unless there is a regulatory reason to disable it. Disabling it deliberately limits Meta’s ability to find buyers and almost always hurts performance.
How big should my Meta prospecting audience be?
How big should my Meta prospecting audience be?
1 million to 50 million people. Below 500K means slow learning (Meta cannot collect 50 conversions per week to exit the learning phase at a healthy budget). Above 50 million, Meta over-delivers poorly because the signal-to-noise ratio drops. The skill uses
adadvisor:estimate_audience_size to validate before committing.Related skills
Launch
Pairs with launch when targeting is part of a new campaign.
Scale
Horizontal scaling = audience expansion via new LAL tiers or geos.
Audit
Audit surfaces audience overlap and missing exclusions. This skill fixes them.