Advantage+ / PMax vs manual campaigns — the black-box tax

Advantage+ / PMax vs manual campaigns — the black-box tax
Advantage+ (Meta) / PMax (Google) → algo controls placements, audience, budget split. Spins up fast, scales clean, BUT you lose granular data and it'll waste spend on branded/retargeting you'd already win for free.
Manual → full control, better for tight margins and learning what actually works, slower to scale.
Use the black box once you have a clean pixel + proven creative to feed it. Use manual while you're still figuring out the offer.
Handing a cold account to Advantage+ = paying tuition with no homework done.