Joseph B. Kent · 14 October 2026
We rebuilt one partner brand's account after exactly this kind of drop and scaled it to £150k months. This guide covers what changed, how to tell if it's hitting your account, and the system we use to fix it.
What is Meta Andromeda?
Andromeda is the system Meta uses to decide which ads are even considered for each person. Meta announced it in December 2024 and rolled it out across Advantage+ through 2025.
Ad delivery happens in two stages. First, retrieval: Meta narrows millions of eligible ads down to a shortlist for one person. Then ranking: it predicts which of that shortlist is most likely to get a result and runs the auction. Andromeda is the retrieval stage, and it's far bigger and smarter than what came before.
That matters because an ad that doesn't make the shortlist never gets ranked. It doesn't lose the auction. It never enters it. And Andromeda builds that shortlist largely from what's in the ad itself: the visual, the copy, the hook and who it seems to be for.
Why your ads stopped working
Your ads look the same to Meta
The old playbook was one winning concept and twenty variations: new colours, new headlines, a different first line. To Andromeda, a lot of those are the same ad. In practice, near-duplicates end up competing for the same delivery. One gets the spend and the rest barely deliver, so twenty ads behave like one.
The creative is now your targeting
Meta has said plainly that creative diversification is now the main lever for reaching the right audiences. If every ad in your account speaks to the same person with the same reason to buy, Meta can only find that person. When that pocket is used up, costs rise and nothing replaces it.
Split accounts starve the system
Lots of campaigns and ad sets, each with a few ads and a slice of the budget, means none of them gets enough data. Andromeda works best with more distinct ads in fewer places.
Winners wear out faster
Because delivery concentrates on the strongest ad, a winning concept now burns through its audience quicker. If you're not replacing it with something genuinely new, performance drops off a cliff when it fatigues.
Signs Andromeda is hurting your account
- Spend piles onto one or two ads while the rest sit near zero.
- New ads launch and barely spend, even when they're good.
- CPMs and frequency creep up on your best ad set.
- ROAS dropped and nothing changed in the account to explain it.
- Most of your ads share the same hook, format or face.
How to fix it: the creative system we use
1. Audit for sameness
Group every live ad by concept: the desire it sells, the person it speaks to, the format and the hook. If ten of your twelve ads share one concept, you're effectively running one ad. That number is usually lower than founders expect.
2. Build around desires, then variations
Each new concept should give a different person a different reason to buy. For one paint-by-numbers partner, that meant moving past "relaxing hobby" to Girls Night: the kit as a night in with friends. That one desire scaled the brand to new heights. A new colourway of the old ad would never have found those buyers.
3. Change the format and the face
Mix UGC, founder-led video, product demos, before and afters and statics. Use different creators, settings and opening lines. Shoot in 9:16 with a safe zone for 4:5 placements. The goal is ads that look and sound clearly different, not ads with a different background colour.
4. Simplify the account
Consolidate into fewer campaigns with broad targeting and more distinct ads in each. Advantage+ shopping campaigns work well here because they give Andromeda room to match each ad to the right people.
5. Feed it every week
New concepts into the account every week. Judge them on whether people stop scrolling, keep watching and buy. Cut near-duplicates early so spend goes to ideas that bring in new buyers.
6. Judge on profit
Platform ROAS will look noisy while Meta rebalances delivery. Track total revenue against total ad spend and what each new customer costs you. Scale when those move, not when one ad has a good day.
What recovery looks like
The partner brand we mentioned at the start had the classic setup: a handful of tired winners, lots of near-identical variations and a budget spread across too many ad sets. We audited it, rebuilt the creative around distinct desires, consolidated the structure and put new concepts in every week. The account recovered, then scaled to £150k months.
None of that was a trick or a setting. It was more distinct reasons to buy, made properly and tested every week. That's the job now.
Ads fallen off since Andromeda?
We’ll go through your account, show you where the creative is holding you back and what we’d change to scale you past £100k a month.