Budgets and bidding

Can Meta value rules replace the placement and age exclusions I lost?

By The Tofu team ·

Not as exclusions. A value rule changes your bid for a segment, from up to 1000% higher to at most 90% lower, so even the deepest cut leaves that age group or placement able to see your ads. Meta itself recommends audience controls, not value rules, for hard requirements. For B2B, keep must-never rules in hard controls: account-level placement controls (Audience Network, Marketplace, right column), a minimum age up to 25, and locations. Then use value rules to pay less for segments that convert but are worth less to you, such as people 65 and over.

As of October 2026.

Value rules vs account-level exclusions vs ad-set exclusions

Value rulesAccount-level exclusions (account controls)Ad-set exclusions (where still available)
What it doesRaises or lowers your bid for conversions from a segmentKeeps every campaign in the ad account away from a placement or audienceRemoves placements, devices or audiences from one ad set
What it coversAge, gender, location, mobile OS, device platform (mobile or desktop), select placements, conversion location and audience labelsPlacements: Audience Network (two groups), Facebook Marketplace, Facebook right column, plus exclusions by objective. Audiences: locations, minimum age, some brand-protection exclusions, your own employeesPlatforms, placements, Mobile or Desktop; age, gender and custom audiences through Further limit the reach of your ads (one Meta page also lists detailed targeting there; another doesn't)
Hard limit?No. The deepest cut is 90%, so the segment stays eligibleYesYes for audience settings with Use as a suggestion unchecked. For placements, Ads Manager allows limited spend of about 5% per excluded placement by default for eligible advertisers
Advantage+ statusNot among the settings Meta lists as turning it offStays onTurns Advantage+ off
Where you set itAdvertising settings, Value rules; or Value rules and Placement value rules in the ad setAdvertising settings, Audience controls or Placement controlsThe ad set's Audience and Placements sections
Works withHighest volume or value, or a cost per result goal, optimizing for the number or value of conversions; not bid cap or ROAS goalAuction campaigns, except special ad categories such as employment, housing, and financial products and servicesPlacements: Awareness and Traffic; Leads, Sales, Engagement and App promotion only until Meta's placement change reaches your account
CostNo fee. Meta says your overall cost per result may riseNo feeNo fee. Meta says ad sets on Advantage+ placements averaged 10% lower cost per result than manual placements
Main limitOne rule set per ad set, up to 10 rules, and only the first matching rule applies. No Threads, Messenger or right column placementHits every campaign in the account, and changes can take up to 48 hoursNarrower delivery, and placement choice is going away for Leads and Sales

Meta's Marketing API docs say it plainly: to "comply with regulations," use audience controls, not value rules. Value rules are for when you're "willing to pay more for higher value audiences."

When value rules are the right pick

  • A segment converts, but its leads qualify less often. If your CRM shows people 65 and over, or 18 to 24, rarely become pipeline, bid them down. Meta's preset ranges include 55-64 and 65+. The API also accepts custom ranges such as "18-26" or "45+", but Meta says rule sets with custom ranges become read-only in Ads Manager.
  • You want to lean toward desktop, one OS or some regions. Device platform, OS and location (country, region, city or Comscore market) are all criteria. Meta's API docs say DMAs were replaced by Comscore markets starting June 22, 2026, and rules with DMAs are no longer active.
  • You have CRM segments. Label customer list, website or app custom audiences (for example QUALIFIED_LEADS or DISQUALIFIED_LEADS) and bid each label up or down. Exclusion-only audiences can't be used, even with a label; see what exclusion-only audiences are.
  • You want to keep Advantage+ on. Value rules aren't among the settings Meta lists as turning Advantage+ off.

Value rules can't use job titles or companies; see how to target job titles and industries on Meta. If you have no number in mind, Meta suggests starting with a 50% adjustment for your high-value audience, or ±20 to 30% for audience labels, then checking the Value rules breakdown (under Breakdown in Ads Manager, for ad sets and ads).

When account-level exclusions are the right pick

  • A placement must never run. Go to Advertising settings, Placement controls, toggle on My business can only advertise on specific placements and uncheck Audience Network native, banner and interstitial, Audience Network rewarded videos, Facebook Marketplace or Facebook right column.
  • You want different exclusions per objective. Meta's "What's new in placement settings" page says placement exclusions by objective are available for all six objectives. Its account controls steps don't show that option yet, so check what your Advertising settings offers.
  • Nobody under a set age, or outside some countries, may see any ad. Use Audience controls for locations and a minimum age, and exclude your own employees by employer.
  • You need to block specific publishers. Meta points to block lists and inventory filters in the Brand Safety and Suitability hub.

They apply to every campaign in the account, including existing ones, so agree on them before you set them.

When ad-set exclusions are the right pick

  • One campaign needs a hard audience. For example, an ABM ad set limited to a target account list. Use Further limit the reach of your ads and uncheck Use as a suggestion, and accept that Advantage+ turns off. Whether to turn off Advantage+ audience for B2B covers that trade-off.
  • You need an upper age limit, or a minimum above 25. With Advantage+ audience on, Meta's API fixes the maximum age at 65 and accepts a minimum age of 18 to 25 only. A harder age limit means limiting age in that ad set.
  • Your campaign can still choose placements. That's Awareness and Traffic, and Leads or Sales in accounts the change hasn't reached yet (why that choice is going away). For Sales, Leads, Traffic, Engagement and App promotion (not Awareness), Ads Manager turns on Allow limited spend to excluded placements by default for eligible advertisers; turn it off per placement in Manage excluded placements for a full block. Through the API, limited spend is off unless you set placement_soft_opt_out.

Does a 90% bid decrease exclude an age group?

No. Meta caps decreases at 90%, so people matching the rule still get a reduced bid, and your ads can still reach them. Meta's own advice on audience labels is to "consider including them with a reduced bid" instead of excluding them. PPC Land, reporting on the same cap for placements on August 26, 2026, wrote that "a placement can be made expensive to win but never made impossible to win." Jon Loomer said on his podcast in January 2026 that value rules let him lower his bid by 90% on Audience Network "without removing it entirely."

To truly exclude under-25s, set a minimum age of 25 as an audience control, which keeps Advantage+ on. Then drop any value rule for ages the control already removes: Meta says audience controls that conflict with your value rules cause an error, and the rule can't be applied.

How do I bid down Audience Network or Threads with placement value rules?

  1. Under Budget, choose Highest volume or value or Cost per result goal as the bid strategy.
  2. In the ad set, choose Maximize number of conversions or Maximize value of conversions, then your data source and conversion event.
  3. Under Placement value rules, create a rule set with placement criteria or edit an existing one. To use a rule set you made in Advertising settings, Value rules, select it under Value rules in the ad set.
  4. Select the placement, choose a decrease, and enter a percentage of up to 90.
  5. Order your rules. If a person matches two rules, only the first one in the list adjusts the bid.

Audience Network is on Meta's list of value rule placements, along with Facebook Feed, Stories, Reels, Marketplace, Search and Video, and Instagram Feed, Stories, Reels and Explore. Meta's API docs say rule sets using Marketplace, Search, Video or Explore can only be edited through the API. Threads isn't on the list, and it isn't among the placements in account controls either. Where ad-set placement controls remain, the Marketing API lists threads_positions among the positions you can set in placement targeting or opt out of with limited spend.

What else limits value rules?

  • Bid strategy. Meta's API docs allow auto bid (LOWEST_COST_WITHOUT_CAP) and cost cap (COST_CAP), except Leads ad sets that combine website and call conversion locations, and Sales ad sets that combine website and in-store.
  • Counts. Ads Manager allows 2 criteria per rule (the API allows 4, but such rule sets become read-only in Ads Manager), 10 rules per rule set, and one rule set per ad set. The API docs allow up to 6 rule sets per ad account.
  • Special ad categories. Age, gender and some locations are restricted. Meta says choosing them causes an error and the ad is rejected.
  • Bid multipliers. Meta says advertisers who use bid multipliers will have to use value rules by 2027.

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