How to Run Meta Ads in 2026: The Andromeda Method Explained for Trade Businesses

Published by Kelly Worrall | Meta Ads & Google Ads Specialist for Trade & Home Improvement Businesses

If you’ve been running Meta Ads in 2026 the same way you were a couple of years ago – stacking interest audiences, running multiple ad sets, and tweaking your targeting every five minutes – there’s a good chance your results have taken a hit recently. And it’s not just you. The entire way Meta delivers ads has fundamentally changed.

In late 2024, Meta rolled out something called Andromeda – a completely new ad retrieval engine – and by October 2025, it was fully live across all placements and objectives. The businesses that understood this shift early? They’re getting more leads for less money. The ones still running the old playbook? Stuck in learning phase, burning budget, scratching their heads.

This guide is going to break it all down for you. No jargon. No waffle. Just a plain-English explanation of what’s changed, why it matters if you’re a trade or home improvement business, and exactly how to structure your Meta Ads in 2026 to make the most of it.

What Is Meta’s Andromeda Update (And Why Should Tradespeople Care)?

Andromeda is Meta’s new AI-powered ad delivery system. Before it came along, Meta’s ad platform worked in a pretty straightforward way: you told it who to show your ads to (plumbers aged 35–55 within 20 miles, interests in home improvement, etc.), and the system went off and found those people.

That system no longer exists.

Andromeda replaced the old audience-based targeting model with a creative-based one. Instead of routing ads using interests, demographics, and lookalikes, it now reads your ad creative – the visual format, hook, tone, and subject matter – and predicts who should see it based on real behavioural signals.

In other words, your ad IS your targeting now. The creative you put out tells Meta who to show it to. Not the other way around.

For trade businesses running local lead generation campaigns – whether you’re a roofer in Manchester, an EV installer in Bristol, or a kitchen fitter in London – this matters enormously. Because it means the days of endlessly tweaking your audience settings are over. The work has shifted somewhere else entirely.

The Old Way vs. The Andromeda Way

Let’s be honest about what most trade businesses (or their agencies) were doing before this:

• Multiple campaigns running at once
• Several ad sets, each targeting a different interest or audience
• 2–3 ads per ad set, usually slight variations of each other
• Constant tinkering with audiences, budgets, and targeting layers

That approach made sense when Meta’s algorithm needed you to guide it. But today, when you fragment budget across dozens of campaigns and ad sets, you dilute the signals the AI needs to learn and optimise.

One case study showed a Media Buyer auditing an account running 14 campaigns, 42 ad sets, and endless interest stacks – performance was unstable. When everything was collapsed into one campaign, one ad set, and 10 creatives, the learning stabilised and costs dropped within two weeks.

That’s the Andromeda method in action.

The Andromeda Structure: 1 Campaign, 1 Ad Set, Multiple Creatives

This is the structure that’s working right now for local lead generation businesses, and it’s a lot simpler than what most people are used to.

1 Campaign

One acquisition campaign. That’s it. For many accounts, a single acquisition campaign is sufficient to drive performance, provided the underlying creative strategy is robust.

For a trade business, this might be your “Boiler Installation Leads” campaign, or your “Garden Room Enquiries” campaign. One objective. One campaign.

1 Ad Set

Inside that campaign, you run a single, broad ad set. No stacked interests. No tight geographic + interest layers. Broad targeting, or Advantage+ audience – let Meta do the legwork of finding who’s ready to enquire.

With Andromeda, broader audiences and simplified campaign structures give the AI more room to find high-value users, and it can do it all in a single ad set. Essentially, we hand Meta control over who to target.

This feels uncomfortable at first, especially if you’ve been obsessing over your targeting settings. But the data backs it up – consolidating into one ad set gives the algorithm more conversion signals, faster, which means it gets smarter quicker.

Multiple Creatives (Your New Secret Weapon)

Here’s where the real work happens. Inside that one ad set, you run multiple genuinely different creatives – different hooks, different formats, different angles, different visual styles.

A controlled test by Five Nine Strategy showed that a single ad set with 25 diverse creatives produced 17% more conversions at 16% lower cost versus a traditional 5-ad-set structure.

That’s not a small improvement. That’s a meaningful difference in cost per lead – which for a trade business charging £3,000–£10,000+ per job, compounds very quickly.

Why Creatives Are Now Doing the Job Your Targeting Used To Do

This is the part that trips most people up. Meta’s data science team has stated that creative quality now accounts for 56% of all campaign performance outcomes – more than targeting, budget, placement, and timing combined.

Think about what that means for your ads. Over half of whether your campaign works or not comes down to the actual content of the ad itself. Not what postcode you targeted. Not what interests you layered. The creative.

The old system rewarded finding one winning ad and scaling it. Andromeda rewards having 20–30 genuinely different creatives per ad set, mixing formats like UGC, studio shots, testimonials, product demos, and more.

For a trade business, that might look like:

• A short video of a recent job, filmed on your phone, walking the viewer through the before and after
• A simple graphic showing your cost per installation vs. what homeowners pay elsewhere
• A client testimonial – ideally filmed, but even a screenshot of a WhatsApp message works
• A “problem/solution” hook – “Tired of waiting 3 weeks for a roofer to even call you back?”
• A direct offer – “We have 3 slots available in [your area] this month”

Each of these creatives speaks to a different person, a different moment, a different emotional trigger. And Andromeda uses that diversity to find the right match for the right person – automatically.

Understanding Hooks: The First 3 Seconds Decide Everything

The first 1–3 seconds of your ad decide whether users stop or scroll. Andromeda rewards creatives that grab attention quickly. Weak hooks cause the algorithm to stop promoting your ad.

For trade businesses, the most powerful hooks tend to fall into these categories:

Problem hooks – speak directly to the frustration your ideal customer is experiencing:

• “Still waiting for a quote that never came back?”
• “Sick of paying an agency and getting zero quality leads?”
• “Your last electrician cost you £4,000 and the job still isn’t signed off?”

Result hooks – lead with the outcome, not the service:

• “47 plumbers across the UK are getting 30+ enquiries a month using this exact approach”
• “How one kitchen fitter went from 2 jobs a month to a 6-week waiting list”

Direct hooks – sometimes the simplest approach works best, especially for warm audiences:

• “Looking for a reliable EV charging installer in Bristol? Here’s how we work.”

Test at least 3–5 different hooks per concept. The percentage of viewers who watch your first 3 seconds is called your hook rate. Target 25–35%+. Campaigns reaching 30–50% hook rate see roughly a 20% improvement in cost per lead. If your hook rate is below 20%, the creative isn’t stopping the scroll – test a new opening.

What “Creative Diversity” Actually Means (And What It Doesn’t)

This is a common mistake: people hear “more creatives” and think changing the headline or swapping a colour is enough. It isn’t.

Meta uses advanced computer vision to look past ad creative headline or hook changes, focusing instead on the raw visual DNA of your content. If the algorithm detects significant overlaps in composition or style, it consolidates your ads into a single Entity ID.

That means two ads filmed in the same room, with the same person, in the same format get treated as one ad. You’re not giving the algorithm variety – you’re just giving it duplicates.

Genuine creative diversity for a trade business looks like this:

These are genuinely different creative approaches. Different locations. Different formats. Different emotional tones. That’s what gives Andromeda the variety it needs to match your ads to the right people.

How Often Do You Need New Creatives?

More often than you think. Under Andromeda, ads burn out in weeks, not months. At minimum, aim for 3–5 genuinely different creative concepts every 2–4 weeks.

For most trade businesses spending £500–£1,500/month on ads, a realistic creative rhythm might look like:

• Week 1–2: Launch with 6–8 diverse creatives
• Week 3–4: Identify what’s working (hook rate, click-through rate, cost per lead)
• Month 2: Pause weak performers. Introduce 3–5 fresh concepts inspired by what’s working
• Ongoing: Refresh creative every 3–4 weeks to prevent fatigue

You don’t need a film crew or a full design agency. A phone, good lighting, and something genuine to say will outperform a polished corporate ad almost every time. Short-form videos and UGC-style content often outperform polished ads. They feel more natural, build trust quickly, and create stronger engagement signals.

What to Stop Doing Right Now

If you want to give Andromeda the best chance to work for your trade business, stop doing these things immediately:

❌ Running multiple ad sets with different interest stacks – you’re fragmenting the signal and slowing learning down

❌ Editing campaigns mid-flight – every significant change resets the learning phase. The minimum hold period is 7 days. Ideally 14. Watch, don’t touch.

❌ Running the same ad for months on end – creative fatigue hits faster now than it ever has. Refresh regularly.

❌ Using tiny lookalike audiences – narrow 1% lookalikes restrict the algorithm’s ability to find new buyers

❌ Judging performance in the first 48 hours – let concepts run for at least five to seven days before calling a winner. The risk is misinterpreting early variance as insight.

The Good News for Smaller Trade Businesses

Here’s something worth knowing if you’re a sole trader or a small team: Andromeda is structurally good for small businesses. You no longer need massive first-party data sets, hyper-complex audience segmentation, or enterprise tech stacks to compete. What you need is clear messaging, strong offers, and a steady flow of varied, high-quality creative.

That’s genuinely good news. A boiler installer in Leeds with a good phone, a happy client willing to give a testimonial, and a clear offer can compete with a national brand – if the creative is right.

The playing field has shifted in a way that rewards authenticity, directness, and specificity. Which, as trade businesses, you have in abundance. You just need to get it in front of the camera.

Putting It All Together: A Simple Andromeda Setup for Trades

Here’s a practical starting structure for a local trade business spending £600–£1,200/month on Meta Ads:

Campaign: Lead Generation – [Your Main Service] Objective: Leads (or Website Conversions if you have strong pixel data) Budget: Set at campaign level (CBO)

Ad Set: 1 x Broad / Advantage+ Audience Targeting: Location (your service area), no interest stacking, Advantage+ audience ON Budget: All of it, here

Ads: 6–10 creatives minimum, genuinely different:

• 2–3 short videos (on-site, testimonial, or talking head)
• 2–3 static graphics (problem/solution, offer, before/after)
• 1–2 Reels with direct hooks
• Mix of formats: 4:5 for feed, 9:16 for Reels/Stories

Review: After 7–14 days. Pause what isn’t working. Scale what is. Introduce fresh creative every 3–4 weeks.

That’s it. It’s genuinely that simple – but simple doesn’t mean easy. The work is in the creative, not the settings.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do I still need to set a target audience at all, or do I just leave everything open?

A good starting point is to set your service area (city or radius) and use Advantage+ audience, which lets Meta expand beyond your initial settings if it finds better-performing users. For local trade businesses, keeping your location targeting sensible is still important – you don’t want enquiries coming in from 200 miles away. But beyond location, the less you restrict, the more room the algorithm has.

Q: How many creatives do I actually need to start?

Start with at least 6 that are genuinely different – different visual approaches, different hooks, different formats. This gives Andromeda enough variety to work with without overwhelming you on production. Build from there as you identify what’s working.

Q: Does the Andromeda method work for Google Ads too?

Not directly – Google’s system works differently. But the principle of creative-first thinking absolutely applies to your Google Ad copy and landing pages. The campaigns we run for trade businesses combine Meta Ads for discovery and Google Ads for high-intent searches, and both benefit from clear, specific messaging built around real client problems and results.

Q: My results dropped recently – is this because of Andromeda?

Possibly. If you’ve been running the same structure since 2023 or earlier and results have declined, the Andromeda shift could absolutely be a factor. An ads audit can usually identify whether the issue is structural (too many ad sets, fragmented budget), creative (fatigue, lack of diversity), or tracking-related (pixel issues affecting the data Meta receives).

Q: Should I use Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) for lead generation?

ASC is primarily built for eCommerce. For trade service businesses focused on lead generation, a standard Leads or Conversions campaign with a broad ad set typically performs better. The key principles are the same though: consolidated structure, diverse creative, and don’t touch the settings too often.

Q: How long before I see results with this structure?

Give it a minimum of 4 weeks before drawing any real conclusions. The first 7–14 days are the learning phase – the algorithm is gathering data and you shouldn’t be making changes. By weeks 3–4, you’ll start to see patterns in which creatives are performing. By month 2, you’ll have enough data to properly optimise.

Ready to Get More Leads From Your Meta Ads?

The Andromeda shift has changed the game – but it’s changed it in a way that actually favours businesses with something real to say. Authentic, specific, straight-talking ads from trade businesses perform brilliantly in this new system. You just need the right structure, the right creative approach, and someone who knows how to read the data.

If your Meta Ads aren’t generating the consistent enquiries your business needs, or if you’re not sure whether your current setup is built for the way the platform works in 2026, I’d love to take a look.

👉 Apply to work with Kelly Worrall Marketing – fill in a quick application and if we’re a good fit, we’ll get a 15-minute intro call booked in.

Or if you want to get started yourself, the LeadBuilder Programme is a 90-day 1:1 training and support programme built specifically for trade businesses – covering Meta Ads strategy, campaign setup, and lead generation from the ground up.

No jargon. No fluff. Just leads. 🏗️

Looking to understand more about how paid advertising works for local trade businesses? Explore our Meta Ads management service or read more about Google Ads for tradespeople.

External resources: Meta’s official Advantage+ guidance | Meta Business Manager