Meta Placement Update 2026: Value Rules Settings Guide (Step by Step)

To keep control of placements after Meta removes ad set exclusions, do four things: review Account Controls, create placement value rules that decrease unwanted placements by 90 percent, create a second rule that increases Instagram Stories and Reels by 1,000 percent, and save the rule set as your preferred setup so every new ad set uses it.

By the song.so team

Before you start: what you need

Value rules are available for Sales and App promotion campaigns on an automatic bid strategy. They are not available with manual bid strategies such as ROAS goal or bid cap. Not every ad account has the new setup yet, so first open one of your ad sets and see whether the placement selector is still there. If it is missing, or you see a notice that excluding placements, platforms, devices and operating systems is no longer available, continue with the steps below. If the selector is still there, you can prepare the rule set now and use it as soon as the change reaches you.

Step 1: check Account Controls at ad set level

Open the ad set, scroll to the placement area and open Account Controls. Review the placement options shown there and make sure the additional options that would let Meta widen delivery beyond what you chose are unchecked. This is the step people skip, and it decides whether your value rules start from a clean setup or fight against a wider default.

At the ad account level you can also restrict the whole account to specific placements. In the account settings, placement controls can remove Audience Network, Facebook Marketplace and the Facebook right column for every auction campaign, and that setting overrides what an ad set says. If you never want Audience Network, set it there once instead of relying only on a bid cut.

Step 2: create the decrease rule

Open Value rules in Advertising settings and create a new rule set. Add a rule, choose Placement as the criterion and select the placements you want to avoid: Audience Network, Facebook Feed and Facebook Reels. Add Instagram Feed as well if your creatives are native 9:16 videos, because automatic cropping can cut off on-screen captions, hooks and other important parts of the image. Set the adjustment to decrease the bid by 90 percent.

The selectable placements in a value rule are Facebook Feed, Facebook Stories, Facebook Reels, Instagram Feed, Instagram Stories, Instagram Reels and Audience Network. You can check as many as you like in a single rule, so one decrease rule can cover all the placements you want to suppress.

Step 3: create the increase rule

Add a second rule to the same rule set. Choose Placement again and select Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels, then set the adjustment to increase the bid by 1,000 percent. This gives Meta a much stronger incentive to deliver through the placements you prefer, instead of distributing budget evenly across its network.

Rule order matters. When rules overlap, Meta applies only the first applicable rule in the list. Because the decrease rule and the increase rule target different placements they do not overlap here, but keep this in mind if you later add rules for age, gender, location, operating system or device platform on top.

Step 4: save the rule set and apply it

Give the rule set a clear name such as Reels and Stories only, save it and mark it as your preferred setup. Then open every new ad set and every duplicated ad set and confirm that the rule set is actually selected. Duplicating a campaign does not always carry the setting you expect, so make this a fixed item in your launch checklist.

How to check that it works

Value rules influence delivery, they do not guarantee it. After a day or two of spend, open the placement breakdown and the value rules breakdown at ad set level. Look at two things: the share of spend per placement, and the quality of the traffic that came from each. A suppressed placement can still receive a small share because the 90 percent floor never reaches zero.

Quality means real listeners, not link clicks. Compare what Meta reports with what your own tracking sees, using the approach from tracking Meta ads for Spotify and smart link tracking for music marketing. If the clicks are cheap but the listeners are missing, the placement mix or the traffic quality is the problem, not necessarily the pixel. Bot and low quality traffic is covered in fixing bot traffic and fake clicks.

For developers: value rules in the Marketing API

Value rule sets can also be created through the Marketing API with a POST request to the value_rule_set endpoint of the ad account, which needs the ads_management permission. A rule set contains a name and a list of rules, and each rule has an adjustment sign (increase or decrease), an adjustment value (1 to 1,000 for an increase, 1 to 90 for a decrease) and its criteria. If a tool builds your campaigns, ask the vendor whether it supports value rules yet, because placement settings it sets at ad set creation may no longer be honored on accounts in the test.

What to do when the change reaches your account

Do not rebuild your whole strategy. Keep the campaign structure, apply the saved rule set, and spend your effort on creatives. A vertical video with the hook inside the safe zone performs on Reels and Stories and degrades gracefully when a small share of budget leaks to other placements. The background and reasoning are in the full article on the value rules workaround.

FAQ

Where do I find value rules in Meta Ads Manager?

You can create value rules in Advertising settings or directly inside an ad set, then apply a rule set within each ad set. The feature is not active in every ad account yet.

How much can a value rule change the bid?

A value rule can increase a bid by 1 to 1,000 percent or decrease it by 1 to 90 percent. Because of the 90 percent floor, a placement can be suppressed but never fully excluded.

How many rules fit in one rule set?

A rule set holds up to 10 rules, and each rule can combine up to 2 criteria such as placement, age, gender, location, operating system or device platform.

Which placements can I select in a value rule?

Facebook Feed, Facebook Stories, Facebook Reels, Instagram Feed, Instagram Stories, Instagram Reels and Audience Network.

Do I need to apply the rule set to every ad set?

Yes. You apply a rule set within each ad set, so check new and duplicated ad sets to confirm the saved rule set is actually selected.

How can I remove Audience Network completely?

Use the placement controls in the ad account settings. They can remove Audience Network, Facebook Marketplace and the Facebook right column for every auction campaign in the account and override ad set settings.