Meta's new Describe Your Audience text box inside Advantage+ replaces interest-based targeting with natural language descriptions. AI handles the rest.
When the interface changes, the skill required to use it changes. Media buying just became more about brief-writing than button-clicking.
Meta has introduced a natural language text box inside Advantage+ Targeting called Describe Your Audience. Instead of selecting interests from dropdown menus, advertisers now write a plain-text description of their ideal customer and Meta's AI builds the audience.
The text box accepts up to 2,000 characters. Type phrases, keywords, hashtags or descriptive sentences. Meta's AI cross-references the description with its behavioural and interest data and builds a working audience that matches.
Of Meta advertisers are now scaling campaigns through Advantage+
Why it matters
This is the logical endpoint of a process Meta started in June 2025 when it consolidated detailed interest categories into broader groupings and removed detailed targeting exclusions entirely. The old approach of scrolling through hundreds of interest options is being replaced by a system where the algorithm does the matching.
For Australian advertisers, the practical impact is significant. Small businesses without dedicated media buyers can now set up campaigns that would previously have required an agency. Enterprise teams can test audience hypotheses faster by writing descriptions rather than building complex audience stacks.
The risk is real too. Natural language inputs are inherently less precise than structured targeting. An advertiser who writes "small business owners in Melbourne interested in accounting software" is trusting Meta's AI to interpret that correctly. Early testing suggests the system works well for broad targeting but can miss niche segments that structured interests would have captured.
What to do about it
Test Describe Your Audience alongside your existing Advantage+ campaigns before fully committing. Run identical budgets with structured targeting in one ad set and natural language in another. Compare cost per acquisition over a two-week window.
Document your audience descriptions the same way you would document targeting settings. When the algorithm is doing the work, your brief becomes the only audit trail.