Something fundamental has shifted inside Meta’s ecosystem.
Andromeda, its AI-powered ad retrieval engine, is reshaping how advertising works on the platform. This is one of the most significant changes since Meta moved away from granular targeting.
Creative is now the primary growth lever.
Today, creative drives performance more than audience targeting. Targeting still matters, but Meta’s systems are so advanced, and the signal density so rich, that the real differentiator is no longer who you reach. It is what you show them.
Here’s the catch:
This system only works if you give it enough creative diversity to learn.
Brands with rigid production calendars, under-resourced content engines, or one-note visual identities will fall behind. Quickly.
These are the four shifts marketing leaders need to make now, while creative has become the growth engine.
1. Build a Creative System Designed for Diversification, Not Just Production
Andromeda is built for scale. It evaluates tens of millions of ads in milliseconds, selecting the right creative for the right person using thousands of signals. It retrieves based on difference, not sameness.
When your ads look similar, they collapse into the same delivery pool.
When your ads are meaningfully different, they unlock new audiences and improve efficiency.
Meta’s own analysis shows diversified creative can drive:
- 32% improvement in CPA
- 9% incremental reach gains
Diversification in practice means building a system, not just producing assets.
A modern creative engine includes:
- High-volume AI variation across hooks, backgrounds, and formats
- Influencers and creators producing platform-native content
- UGC and lo-fi assets complementing hero creative
- Teams capturing content daily, often on mobile
- Multiple formats: static, 4:5 video, and 9:16 video with audio (Meta’s minimum of three formats is associated with 7% lower CPA)
This is not about making more ads.
It is about making more types of ads.
Different tones. Different angles. Different motivators. Different visual signals. Different product stories.
Brands that diversify creative with the same discipline they apply to media allocation will outperform.
2. Reallocate Resources, Because Diversification Is Not Free
Most marketing teams are already stretched.
Adding creator programs, lo-fi production, AI workflows, and always-on iteration does not fit into a 2020 resourcing model.
To diversify, something else has to give.
Creative diversification is not a bolt-on initiative. It is an organizational reallocation.
Marketing leaders should be asking:
- Which evergreen campaigns are no longer driving impact?
- Which legacy brand assets are protected but underperforming?
- Where are we over-invested in conceptual work and under-invested in performance creative?
- Are we building content for channels, or for algorithms?
- What operational barriers are slowing our teams down?
Data will show you what actually drives response. Product priorities will clarify what deserves amplification. Business objectives will determine where to invest and where to stop spending out of habit.
Diversification is not about doing more.
It is about doing what matters, at the right volume, and eliminating the rest.
The teams that make this shift early will accelerate both learning and growth.
3. Build a Culture of Acceptable Failure
There is an uncomfortable reality here.
When you increase creative volume and variation, most ads will underperform.
That is not dysfunction. It is how machine learning works.
High-velocity testing only works if leadership removes the fear of experimentation.
Jeff Bezos captured this well: If you are going to invent, you are going to fail. If you are going to fail, you have to do it quickly.
That mindset needs to exist inside modern marketing organizations.
A culture of acceptable failure looks like:
- Iterating daily instead of quarterly
- Running small, continuous tests
- Turning off underperformers quickly and without stigma
- Valuing insights as much as outcomes
- Measuring learning velocity, not just ROAS
Your next breakout ad will likely be something that felt too rough, too native, or not “brand enough” at first glance.
Speed, relevance, and performance require psychological safety. The era of slow, over-polished, consensus-driven creative is behind us.
4. Reinvest in Consumer Insight
Performance marketing’s rise came with a tradeoff. As we optimized execution, we often deprioritized deep consumer understanding.
Creative diversification without insight is just noise.
Meta’s creative frameworks are rooted in motivators:
- What problem is being solved?
- What emotion is being triggered?
- What functional benefit actually matters?
Same product.
Different motivation.
Different creative.
Different audience unlocked.
Effective diversification requires renewed focus on:
- What truly inspires someone to buy
- What differentiates your brand beyond price
- Which emotional and functional drivers prompt action
- How audiences naturally talk about your category
- Which creators they trust, and why
Without a strong insight engine, creative volume becomes clutter.
With insight, diversification becomes precision at scale.
And in the Andromeda era, that precision is what drives growth.
