A platform update can be real and still leave out the detail that determines whether it affects you. For an author working with a modest daily budget, that missing detail can mean hours spent changing a campaign that didn’t need changing.
What the current evidence says
In his August report, Meta advertising specialist Jon Loomer described notices warning that some ad sets would lose exclusions for placements, platforms, devices, and operating systems. His updated account says the test applies to Sales and Leads, with other objectives retaining placement control. He also labels those rollout details as information awaiting official documentation.[1]
Meta’s publicly indexed placement instructions still include manual selections for Traffic, Awareness, and Engagement.[2] That is useful supporting context, but neither a help-page excerpt nor someone else’s screenshot establishes exactly what is available in your account.
A placement is where your ad appears, such as Facebook Feed or Instagram Reels. When you read about changes to placements, look for both the affected campaign objective and the specific control being changed.
There are two different placement issues here
Losing the ability to exclude a placement is one issue. Allowing some spending in a placement you have excluded is another.
Meta has separate guidance for “limited spend on placements,” and its publicly indexed text includes Traffic among the eligible objectives.[3] If that setting appears in your account, check what it allows and whether it is enabled. The presence of manual controls alone does not answer that question.
This is why a broad statement such as “Traffic campaigns are unaffected” needs a named update attached to it. The reported Sales-and-Leads test and the limited-spend feature are different changes.
Why the Amazon destination matters
Your business goal may be to sell books, while the campaign’s selected objective is Traffic. Those are different levels of the decision.
Meta itself describes Traffic as an option when it is difficult to connect the final action to the ad, including when selling through a third-party website.[4] That is relevant to an author sending people to an Amazon book page. Choosing Traffic still leaves you with a business question to answer: are those visits helping sell books at a sustainable cost?
At Adverley, much of our Facebook advertising for authors uses Traffic campaigns. We therefore need to know which campaign settings a change affects before applying advice written for a different setup. An author collecting newsletter signups or selling through a directly tracked store may need a different assessment.
A practical review before you change anything
- Confirm the objective and performance goal. Read the actual settings. A campaign named “Book Sales” may still use Traffic. Record what the ad set is optimizing for and where the link sends the reader.
- Read the notice in your own account. Check whether it describes your existing campaign, a new setup, or a feature being offered. Save the wording and date. If there is no relevant change or performance problem, keep monitoring instead of rebuilding on speculation.
- Inspect where the money is going. Use the available delivery breakdowns to review spend and traffic by platform and placement. For an Amazon destination, look at outbound clicks where available; an “all clicks” total can include actions that never take someone to the book page. Review any limited-spend setting separately.
- Connect traffic to the best sales evidence you have. Eligible KDP authors can use Amazon Attribution to measure activity from off-Amazon marketing, including social campaigns. Use distinct tags for the campaigns or tests you need to compare.[5] A single shared tag will not tell you which placement generated a purchase.
Amazon currently documents a 14-day attribution window.[5] Allow reporting to mature and keep comparison periods consistent. Attributed purchases are not the same as incremental purchases or newly acquired readers. Overall KDP sales and page reads provide context, but they cannot identify which placement caused the result.
Cheaper clicks can still mean more expensive purchases
Here is a fictional example using the same spend and comparable reporting periods. These are teaching numbers, not client results or expected benchmarks.
| Metric | Campaign A | Campaign B |
|---|---|---|
| Ad spend | $100 | $100 |
| Outbound clicks | 1,000 | 400 |
| Cost per outbound click | $0.10 | $0.25 |
| Attributed purchases | 10 | 20 |
| Cost per attributed purchase | $10 | $5 |
Campaign A wins on click cost. Campaign B costs half as much per attributed purchase. Neither result establishes profit until you account for royalties and other costs, and neither tells you how many buyers will continue through a series.
That is the standard a placement decision should work toward: stronger evidence about the readers and purchases your budget produces. A cheap placement deserves investigation when the quality looks weak; a higher click cost needs to be judged against what happens after the click.
Make the next change for a measurable reason
If your Traffic campaign still has the controls you need and the results are acceptable, there is no reason to overhaul it solely because a change is being reported elsewhere. If you find a real problem, state what you expect an adjustment to improve and change one variable where practical.
For an author running a small budget, daily fluctuations can make that judgment difficult. Keep a dated note of changes, allow enough activity to evaluate the result, and avoid calling a placement a winner after a handful of clicks.
Adverley’s recommendation is to check the scope first, then the campaign, then the evidence. That gives you a useful response to an update while keeping your attention on the books and readers you are trying to reach.
For the economics behind that decision, read our guide to Low ACoS or Better Reader Acquisition.
Sources and research notes
- Jon Loomer: Meta Is Removing Placement Controls From Ad Sets. Published August 20, 2026; updated August 24, 2026. Reporting on the test and its stated scope.
- Meta Business Help Center: Choose Ad Placements in Meta Ads Manager. Placement-selection guidance, including the Traffic workflow.
- Meta Business Help Center: About limited spend on placements in Meta Ads Manager. Separate guidance on limited spending in excluded placements.
- Meta for Business: Traffic Ad Objective. Context for campaigns sending visitors to third-party websites.
- Amazon Ads: Amazon Attribution. Eligibility, off-Amazon measurement, campaign tags, metrics, and the attribution window.
Source-access note: the Meta references were checked through publicly indexed excerpts; full pages redirected to sign-in during this review. The Sales-and-Leads scope remains attributed reporting, not a confirmed universal Meta policy.
