Meta Value Rules, officially launched in June 2025, allow advertisers to increase or decrease bids for specific audience segments based on age, gender, location, mobile operating system, and placement. Meta explicitly warns that using Value Rules may increase your overall cost per result by 20-1,000%. Early adopters report mixed results: beauty brand Laura Geller saw a 46% increase in ROAS using value optimization, while others experienced cost increases without improved performance when applied incorrectly.
What Meta Value Rules Actually Are
Meta Ads Manager has a new "Value Rules" option in Advertising Settings. This is surprising because Meta has spent years removing manual controls and pushing advertisers toward AI-powered Advantage+ campaigns. Value Rules buck that trend.
You can now tell Meta's algorithm that certain audience segments are worth more (or less) to your business. Instead of letting the algorithm distribute your budget evenly, adjust bids based on five criteria:
- Age range (25-34, 45-54, etc.)
- Gender (women or men)
- Location (countries, regions, or states)
- Mobile operating system (iOS or Android)
- Placement (Instagram feed, Audience Network, Facebook feed, etc.)
Combine up to two criteria per rule and create up to 10 rules total in a single rule set. Example: bid 60% more for women aged 25-44 in California using iOS devices.
Launch Timeline
Meta announced Value Rules on June 4, 2025, initially for Sales and App Promotion campaigns. By August 2025, Meta expanded the feature to all campaign objectives. Meta's advertising revenue hit $41.39 billion in Q1 2025 (16% year-over-year growth), driven partly by AI-powered advertising tools. Value Rules arrived when advertisers were pushing back against losing manual control.
How Meta Value Rules Work
Navigate to Advertising Settings in Meta Ads Manager. If eligible, you'll see "Value Rules" at the top.
Meta shows you a warning screen: "When you use value rules, you may see more conversions from your preferred audiences, but your overall cost per result may increase." This isn't buried in fine print, they tell you upfront that costs will go up.
Setup Process
- Select criteria (age, gender, location, mobile OS, or placement)
- Define your audience (ages 25-44, iOS users, etc.)
- Add a second criterion if needed
- Adjust the bid: increase by 20-1,000% or decrease by up to 90%
- Name your rule (50 character limit)
- Add more rules (up to 10 per rule set)
Default bid increase is 20%. You can push it to 1,000% if data justifies it.
Rule Priority Matters
When someone matches multiple rules, Meta only applies the first rule in your list. Order determines everything.
Example:
- Rule 1: Increase bid 20% for women in California
- Rule 2: Increase bid 10% for women using iOS
A California woman with an iPhone only gets the 20% increase from Rule 1. Rule 2 never applies. Structure rules from most specific to least specific.
Application
Apply rule sets at the campaign level for any objective (as of August 2025). You can't apply different rule sets to different ad sets within the same campaign.
Why Meta Value Rules Increase Costs
Value Rules will almost certainly increase your costs. This isn't a bug, it's how bidding works.
When you increase your bid for a specific audience segment, you're entering a more competitive auction. If Meta normally bids $2.50 to show your ad to a woman aged 35-44 in New York, and you create a Value Rule increasing bids by 60%, Meta now bids up to $4.00 for that person. You're literally paying more per impression, click, and conversion.
The cost increase shows up three ways:
- Higher CPM: More aggressive bidding = higher cost for ad space
- Higher Cost Per Result: Better-quality conversions cost more
- Reduced Volume: Budget gets spent faster on preferred audiences
Jon Loomer found that when he decreased bids by 65% for certain countries, cost per conversion dropped to $0.07 for Brazil and $0.12 for Mexico. But when he increased bids for target countries, costs went up even though conversion quality improved.
When Higher Costs Make Sense
If men aged 25-44 have 60% higher lifetime value than your average customer, paying 40% more to reach them still generates positive ROI. You're spending $140 to acquire a customer worth $160 instead of spending $100 to acquire a customer worth $100.
The key is having actual data. Beauty brand Laura Geller used Value Optimization and saw a 46% increase in ROAS by focusing on first-time purchasers with higher lifetime value potential.
When Value Rules Waste Money
Applying Value Rules without data costs money. If you assume iOS users convert better and increase bids by 50%, but Meta's algorithm was already finding the best converters across both platforms, you just pay more for the same results.
Jon Loomer emphasizes: "Make sure that you first have a problem that needs to be solved. Otherwise, using Value Rules may only increase your costs without doing much of anything to the value of results."
When to Use Meta Value Rules: Real Scenarios
Geographic Value Disparity
Problem: Lead gen campaigns targeting tier 1 and tier 2 countries. Meta spends 70% of budget on Brazil and Mexico ($0.15 per lead) but these leads rarely convert. US leads cost $8 but convert at 5x the rate.
Solution: Create a Value Rule decreasing bids by 40% for Brazil and Mexico.
Real result: Music promoter Brian Hazard used this strategy in July 2025. After adjusting bid decreases from 65% to 40% for lower-value countries, he achieved balanced geographic distribution while maintaining conversions at $0.07-0.12 in emerging markets.
Age-Based Lead Quality Issues
Problem: B2B software product. Meta spends 60% of budget on people over 54 ($3 per lead). Analysis shows 90% never respond, they're retired, not decision-makers.
Solution: Decrease bids by 50% for ages 55-65+. You don't exclude this age group, just prevent budget waste.
Known Customer Lifetime Value Differences
Problem: E-commerce store. Data shows women aged 25-44 have average lifetime value of $850 over 12 months. Overall average is $530. Current cost per acquisition is $45 across all demographics.
Solution: Increase bids by 60% for women aged 25-44. You're willing to pay up to $72 per acquisition because their lifetime value justifies it.
Real result: Latico Leathers targeted women aged 45-54 with a 75% bid increase. CMO Ben Schreiber: "This allowed us to put more focus on an audience that we know typically has higher purchase value, while also maintaining broad targeting that would unlock additional sales."
Placement Performance Gaps
Problem: Audience Network generates 40% of clicks but only 5% of conversions. Meta still allocates 30% of spend there.
Solution: Decrease bids by 70% for Audience Network placement.
Important caveat: When optimizing for conversions (not link clicks), Meta often skips Audience Network automatically. Value Rules might be unnecessary and just increase costs elsewhere.
Meta Value Rules vs. Traditional Ad Set Segmentation
Before Value Rules, advertisers solved these problems by creating multiple ad sets with different budgets. Let's compare the two approaches:
Comparison Table
The main advantage of Value Rules is consolidating budget into a single learning algorithm. When you split campaigns into multiple ad sets, each one needs to accumulate data independently. With Value Rules, your campaign benefits from shared learning across all segments while still prioritizing high-value audiences.
The disadvantage? Less direct control. With separate ad sets, you know exactly how much you're spending on each segment. With Value Rules, you're giving Meta's algorithm guidance but not absolute control.
Measuring Meta Value Rules Performance
Meta provides a dedicated breakdown to analyze Value Rules, but interpretation matters.
Accessing Reporting
In Ads Manager, select your campaign and click "Breakdown" → "By Value Rule." This shows:
- Which rules trigger most frequently
- Cost per result for each rule
- Conversion volume by rule
- ROAS by rule (if tracking purchase value)
Key Metrics Beyond CPA
Track these four:
- Customer Lifetime Value by Rule: Are high-bid segments delivering higher LTV customers?
- Blended Cost per Acquisition: Overall campaign CPA with vs. without Value Rules
- Conversion Volume: Are you losing volume by focusing on specific segments?
- ROAS by Cohort: Follow purchases over 30-90 days for true value
A/B Testing Value Rules
Create two identical campaigns. Apply Value Rules to one, standard optimization to the other. Run both for at least 14 days (preferably 30) with equal budgets. Compare not just immediate metrics but 60-day customer value.
Early data suggests advertisers using value optimization see a 12% average increase in ROAS compared to volume optimization, but this varies by business model.
Tracking at Scale
If you're managing Value Rules across multiple campaigns, manual reporting becomes impossible. You need to consolidate:
- Campaign performance with vs. without Value Rules
- Rule-specific breakdowns across all campaigns
- Customer lifetime value by segment over time
- Geographic and demographic spending distribution
You can pull this manually through Meta's Breakdown reports and export to spreadsheets. For teams managing multiple accounts or pulling Meta Ads data alongside Google Ads, LinkedIn, TikTok, and other platforms, automated connectors can
streamline this into unified dashboards in Google Sheets, Looker Studio, BigQuery, or Power BI.
Create a monthly Value Rules scorecard:
- Blended CPA with vs. without Value Rules
- 60-day LTV by Value Rule segment
- Percentage of budget spent on priority audiences
- ROAS by rule
- Volume of conversions from deprioritized segments
Meta Value Rules Limitations
Not every advertiser can use Value Rules, and not every campaign supports them.
Campaign Eligibility
Available: Sales campaigns, App Promotion, all campaign objectives (expanded August 2025)
NOT available: Special Ad Categories (Housing, Employment, Credit), Shop campaigns, Web+Shop, cross-channel conversion optimization, healthcare, pharmaceutical
If you're running Special Ad Categories, you can't use Value Rules due to Meta's anti-discrimination policies.
Technical Requirements
- Access in your ad account (still rolling out)
- Eligible campaign objectives
- Advantage+ Catalog Ads disabled
- Admin access to Advertising Settings
Data Requirements
For Value Rules to work:
- At least 50+ purchase events in the last 7 days for value optimization
- Historical data showing actual value differences by demographic
- Conversion tracking via Meta Pixel or Conversions API
- Purchase value parameter passed for each transaction
Without solid historical data, you're making expensive guesses.
Best Practices for Meta Value Rules
Start With Data, Not Assumptions
Pull actual customer data showing:
- Average order value by demographic
- Lifetime value over 6-12 months
- Conversion rates by segment
- Return rates or churn by cohort
Don't guess which audiences are more valuable.
Start Conservative
Begin with 20-30% bid adjustments, not 100%+. Monitor for one week, then adjust. One advertiser started with 100% bid increase and saw cost per acquisition jump 150% overnight with no improvement in customer quality.
Use Decreases More Than Increases
Decreasing bids for low-value segments often works better than increasing for high-value ones. The algorithm already tries to find your best customers. Sometimes you just need to stop it from wasting money on cheap, low-quality conversions.
Order Your Rules Strategically
Only the first matching rule applies. Structure from most specific (two criteria) to least specific (one criterion). Put highest-value combinations at the top.
Don't Use Value Rules When You Don't Have a Problem
If campaigns are performing well and Meta is distributing budget effectively, adding Value Rules might just increase costs. Value Rules solve specific problems, make sure you have one first.
Test One Variable at a Time
When implementing Value Rules, test a single criterion (age OR location OR OS), not complex combinations. Makes it easier to identify what works.
Meta Value Rules and Advantage+ Campaigns
Advantage+ campaigns give Meta maximum flexibility to find converters. Value Rules add constraints. In Meta's Q2 2025 performance update, AI-powered recommendation models drove a 5% improvement in ad conversions on Instagram and 3% on Facebook.
When you add Value Rules, you're telling the algorithm: "I know better than you about these specific segments." Sometimes you do. Often you don't.
When to Choose Each
Use Advantage+ Without Value Rules when:
- Less than 3 months of conversion data
- Product appeals broadly across demographics
- No clear data showing value differences by segment
- Already hitting ROAS targets
Use Value Rules With Advantage+ when:
- 6+ months of customer data showing clear LTV differences
- Geographic spending badly misallocated (80% Brazil, 20% US)
- Age groups generating cheap, low-quality leads dominate spend
- Specific placements consistently underperform
Hybrid Approach
Some advertisers run two campaigns simultaneously:
- Advantage+ campaign with no Value Rules (60% of budget)
- Value Rules campaign targeting known high-value segments (40% of budget)
This lets the algorithm explore broadly while applying strategic pressure toward valuable customers.
The Future of Meta Value Rules
Meta continues expanding Value Rules capabilities:
- June 2025: Initial launch for Sales and App Promotion
- July 2025: Added placement-based bidding
- August 2025: Expanded to all campaign objectives
This rapid expansion suggests Meta is committed to the feature despite its contradiction with full automation.
Integration With Other Value Tools
Value Rules are part of Meta's broader value optimization suite:
- Value Optimization: Bidding to maximize conversion value (12% average ROAS increase)
- Incremental Attribution: Focusing on conversions that only happen because of ad exposure (46% lift)
- Custom Attribution: Integrating external measurement from Adobe, Northbeam, Triple Whale
- Profit Margin Optimization: Testing ROAS based on profit margins, not just revenue
As these tools mature, advertisers will combine them. Imagine Value Rules that adjust bids based on predicted profit margin, not just demographic factors.
Common Mistakes That Cost Money
After watching advertisers implement Value Rules for six months, these mistakes cost the most:
- No Historical Data: Setting Value Rules based on gut feel. One B2B advertiser increased bids by 80% for ages 25-34 assuming younger buyers were more tech-savvy. After 30 days, CPA was up 120% with no improvement in trial-to-paid conversion rates.
- Too Many Complex Rules: Creating 10 rules with overlapping criteria makes it impossible to understand what works. Start with 2-3 simple rules.
- Adjusting Too Quickly: Changing bid percentages every few days doesn't give the algorithm time to stabilize. One advertiser made 15 rule adjustments in three weeks and ended up worse off.
- Ignoring the Warning: Meta explicitly warns costs may increase. Many advertisers enable Value Rules then panic when CPAs go up by 30%. If you're not prepared for higher acquisition costs in exchange for higher customer value, don't use Value Rules.
- Using Value Rules to "Fix" Bad Creative: No amount of bid manipulation fixes weak ad creative or poor product-market fit. Value Rules won't save bad ads, they'll just make you pay more to show them to specific people.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do Meta Value Rules work for small budgets?
Value Rules can work with budgets as low as $500/month, but you need enough conversion volume for the algorithm to learn patterns. Meta recommends at least 50 purchase events in the last 7 days for value optimization to be effective. If you're only getting 10-20 conversions per month, Value Rules probably won't have enough data. Start with standard optimization until you have sufficient volume, then layer in Value Rules.
Can I use Value Rules with Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns?
No. Value Rules are not compatible with Advantage+ Catalog Ads. You must disable Advantage+ Catalog Ads to use Value Rules. This is because Advantage+ Shopping relies on Meta's algorithm automatically selecting which products to promote to which users, adding Value Rules would conflict with this automation. You can use Value Rules with standard Sales campaigns that feature products, just not the Advantage+ Catalog ad format.
How long does it take to see results from Value Rules?
Give Value Rules at least 7-14 days before evaluating performance. The first 3-7 days are a new learning phase as Meta's algorithm adjusts to your bid modifications. Costs might spike initially, conversion volume might drop, or performance might be erratic. After two weeks, patterns should stabilize. For measuring lifetime value improvements, wait 30-60 days since you need to track whether customers acquired through Value Rules deliver higher long-term value.
Will Value Rules increase costs even if I only decrease bids?
Yes, using only bid decreases can still affect overall campaign costs. When you decrease bids for certain segments (like low-value countries), Meta redirects that budget to other segments where you haven't decreased bids. This concentration of spend on remaining audiences can create more competition and potentially higher CPMs. However, if you're decreasing bids on genuinely low-quality audiences, you should see improved efficiency overall. The key is ensuring the audiences where budget shifts to actually convert better, not just cost more.
Can I use Value Rules without customer lifetime value data?
Technically yes, but you're making expensive assumptions. Value Rules work best when you have concrete data showing Segment A generates 50% more revenue than Segment B over time. Without this data, you have three options: wait 3-6 months to collect LTV data before implementing Value Rules; use Value Rules conservatively based on clear quality signals (leads that respond vs. leads that never reply); or run A/B tests with modest bid adjustments (20-30%) to discover which segments deliver better value. Starting with strong assumptions but weak data usually ends with increased costs and no improvement.
Do Value Rules work differently across Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network?
Value Rules apply consistently across Meta's entire platform, Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Audience Network. When you set a Value Rule to bid 40% more for women aged 25-44, that adjustment applies regardless of where the ad shows. However, Meta added placement-specific Value Rules in July 2025, letting you adjust bids for specific placements like Instagram feed or Audience Network. You can now combine demographic and placement rules, though only the first matching rule applies when someone meets multiple criteria. The placement option solves the problem where certain formats like Audience Network deliver lower-quality traffic for specific campaign goals.
Are Value Rules available for B2B campaigns or just e-commerce?
Value Rules work for both B2B and e-commerce, though the application differs. E-commerce typically uses Value Rules based on purchase value data, customers who spend more, have higher repeat rates, or buy higher-margin products. B2B applications focus more on lead quality since the sales cycle is longer and actual revenue happens offline. B2B advertisers commonly use Value Rules to decrease bids on age groups or locations that generate cheap leads with poor qualification rates. For example, if analysis shows leads from people under 25 rarely result in closed deals, you can decrease bids by 50% for ages 18-24 while maintaining broad targeting. The key for B2B is connecting ad data to your CRM to track which demographic segments actually close into revenue over 6-12 months.
The Bottom Line on Meta Value Rules
Meta Value Rules give you a tool to tell the algorithm which customers matter most to your business. They work best when you have solid data showing clear value differences by demographics, when you start conservatively, and when you actually have a problem that needs solving.
But costs will go up. Meta warns you explicitly. The question isn't whether costs will increase, it's whether the value you get from prioritizing high-LTV customers justifies paying more to reach them.
If women aged 35-44 deliver 60% higher lifetime value, paying 40% more to acquire them makes sense. If you're guessing based on assumptions, you're probably just burning money.
The smartest approach? Run split tests. Create identical campaigns with and without Value Rules. Track not just immediate conversion costs but 60-day customer value. Let data, not assumptions, determine whether Value Rules belong in your toolkit.
Meta's platform continues evolving toward more automation with periodic features like Value Rules that offer strategic control. Use them strategically, measure rigorously, and remember that the default bid might be exactly what you need.
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