If your Facebook and Instagram ads keep getting more expensive, it might not be your budget or your audience. You might be talking to Andromeda the wrong way — the Meta AI that decides who sees each ad.
In this guide I’ll explain how it thinks, the mistake almost everyone makes and the free prompt that gets you 5 different ads for your business.
What happens every time someone opens Instagram
Tens of millions of ads
Every ad that could, in theory, be shown to that person.
Andromeda filters
In an instant it keeps a few thousand candidates.
It looks at your ad
It uses signals from the image, video and copy to guess who it’s relevant to.
Auction and final ranking
Meta’s other systems choose which one actually gets shown.
What Andromeda is
Andromeda is Meta’s ad retrieval system. According to its engineering blog (December 2, 2024), it’s the first cut: out of tens of millions of possible ads for a person it keeps a few thousand, and only those go on to the auction.
What matters for you as an advertiser:
- You don’t turn it on or off. It runs under the hood in every campaign.
- It reads your ad. It uses signals from the creative itself (what you see, what you hear, what it says) to decide who to show it to.
- Your ad is your new targeting. Meta has summed it up this way since 2025: creative diversification is the new targeting.
The mistake that costs you
Take the example of a dental clinic.
Don’t: ten ads with the same photo of a smile, changing only the copy. “20% off”, “Book today”, “Top quality”.
To Andromeda they’re almost the same ad, and none of them says who it’s for. The result: they reach the same people over and over, frequency climbs and every click costs you more.
Do: each ad speaks to a different customer.
| Who it’s for | What you see | Hook |
|---|---|---|
| Moms | A mom in the waiting room | “Does your kid need braces?” |
| Executives | Someone right before a meeting | “Hate smiling in work photos?” |
| Over 60s | A man eating what he loves | “Eat what you love again” |
| The undecided | Short video of the treatment, start to finish | “Here’s how it works, step by step” |
In the first few seconds, the image and the words say who it’s for and what problem you solve. That way Andromeda knows who to show it to, and each ad opens a different door for you.
Tip
The quick test: if you cover the copy on your ads and they all look the same, to Meta they are the same. Change the person, the place, the problem or the format — not just the line.
The prompt to get 5 different ads
Copy it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and fill in the brackets:
Act as a Meta (Facebook/Instagram) ads strategist who understands Andromeda: Meta distributes ads based on what they show and say, not on manual targeting.
My business: [what you sell]
Where: [city / online]
Price or average order value: [price]
1) Give me 5 VERY different types of customer who could buy from me (person, moment in their life, specific problem).
2) For each one, design a different ad:
- Format (photo, short video, carousel, UGC…) and what appears in the first 3 seconds.
- Hook (max. 8 words) that says who it’s for and what problem it solves.
- Primary text (max. 3 lines) and call to action.
- Image idea to generate with AI (no text inside).
3) They must NOT look alike: another person, another place, another problem or another format. If two look alike, change one.
4) Finish with how to set it up: 1 campaign, broad audience (Advantage+), all 5 ads inside, and when to add new ideas.When it replies, keep going in the same conversation: “generate the image for ad 2” or “write me the 15-second script for ad 4”.
How to set it up in Meta
- One campaign, with the objective you actually want (sales, leads, messages).
- Broad audience (Advantage+): country or city, minimum age if needed, and not much else. Let the ad do the targeting.
- All 5 ads inside the same ad set, each with its own image or video.
- Let it learn for a few days before touching anything. Turn off what clearly doesn’t work, not what’s doing slightly worse.
- New ideas all the time. When an ad gets tired (frequency and cost go up), add a new one for another type of customer — not a copy of the winner with a different line.
Note
What we don’t know. Meta doesn’t publish how much each signal weighs or how long Andromeda takes to decide. Saying it “looks at” the image and copy is the simple way to explain it: the system uses signals from the creative along with many others. The clinic example is illustrative.
Pre-launch checklist
- 5 different types of customer, each with a specific problem.
- One ad per customer, with another person, another place or another format.
- The first 3 seconds say who it’s for.
- One campaign, broad audience, all 5 ads inside.
- A new idea ready for when the first one gets tired.
Summary
You no longer hunt for the customer with filters: your ad finds them. Give Andromeda ads that are genuinely different and a broad audience, and stop paying to show the same ad to the same people.