For years, DTC brands have battled the same two challenges: rising customer acquisition costs and the relentless demand for fresh creative. Competition has intensified, organic reach has evaporated, and performance marketing has become both more expensive and more complex.
Then came Meta's Andromeda update - one of the most significant changes to ad delivery in recent years, with major implications for how DTC brands structure campaigns and produce creative.
The evolution of Meta advertising
To understand why Andromeda matters, it helps to see how we got here. Meta's advertising platform has evolved through several major shifts:
- 2007: Facebook Ads launched - basic targeting, manual optimisation
- 2012: Power Editor gave advertisers more control and granularity
- 2016: Pixel Advancements enabled better tracking and retargeting
- 2018: Automation arrived with Campaign Budget Optimisation (CBO)
- 2020: iOS disruption and signal loss forced the industry to adapt
- 2021: Broad targeting became the recommended approach
- 2023: Creative-first strategies emerged as the competitive advantage
- 2024: AI-powered ad dominance with tools like Meta's Advantage+ suite
- 2025: Andromeda - where performance depends on strategic volume, speed, and iteration of creative
The pattern is clear: we've moved from manual audience targeting to automated optimization, and now to a system where creative quality and velocity are the primary growth levers.
What is Andromeda and when did it roll out?
Andromeda rolled out gradually across late 2024 and early 2025, quietly replacing Meta's previous retrieval model with a more advanced, AI-powered system using the Grace Hopper Superchip and Meta's custom MTIA hardware.
The retrieval stage is the part of the system that decides which ads a user could be shown before ranking and serving the final choice. Andromeda increases the complexity of this stage by more than 10,000 times. Put simply, it massively expands Meta's ability to understand people, understand creative signals, and match both together in real time.
Because of this, the factors that drive performance have fundamentally shifted. Audience micromanagement matters less. Creative quality and creative variety matter far more.
Key changes you need to know
1. Creative signals carry more weight
Meta now relies heavily on the content of your ads rather than manual targeting. Distinct ideas, hooks, formats, and messages help the retrieval system find the right user and drive better outcomes.
2. Broad targeting becomes the default
The update rewards broad audiences, automatic placements, and simplified campaign structures. Over-targeting limits Andromeda's ability to learn.
3. Simpler setups perform better
Most high-performing accounts are now running one campaign, one ad set, and a larger volume of creatives - rather than splitting into dozens of micro-segments.
4. Andromeda is not magic
It improves efficiency, but it cannot fix weak creative or a broken user journey. It amplifies what's already there.
The single biggest implication for DTC brands
DTC brands have spent years wrestling with rising acquisition costs and shrinking attention spans. Many have also struggled to scale because they cannot produce creative fast enough to stay ahead of fatigue.
Andromeda has made creative velocity and creative variation the biggest performance levers on Meta.
How much creative do you need in Meta Ads?
This is one of the most common questions we hear from DTC teams and founders. The short answer: far more than before.
The ideal quantity of creative testing
The strongest performing DTC accounts in 2025 are typically testing 15 to 20 distinct creative concepts every week. Some brands need more depending on spend.
The important word here is distinct. Meta does not reward twenty light edits of the same video. It wants different angles, different hooks, and different messages - because that gives the algorithm more signals to work with.
Creative volume based on spend
- £5k to £15k per month: 5–8 new creatives per week
- £20k to £50k per month: 8–15 per week
- £50k to £150k per month: 15–20 per week
- £150k+ per month: 20–30 per week
The higher the spend, the faster creative burns out. The faster it burns out, the more you must refresh.
A realistic production mix
Most successful brands now use a mix that looks like this:
- 50% UGC or low-lift content
- 30% mid-production content (demos, testimonials, cut-downs)
- 20% high-production brand work
This makes the volume achievable without exhausting your team or budget.
The new weekly rhythm
High-performing Meta accounts now operate on a simple cycle:
- Launch a batch of new creatives
- Let Andromeda test for 3–5 days
- Kill losing creatives
- Scale the winners
- Replace the underperformers with new ideas the following week
Creative velocity is now the growth engine.
What you should do right now
1. Build a structured creative pipeline
Plan your creative output the way you plan your financials. You need a calendar, weekly production slots, and a bank of angles ready to test.
2. Simplify your campaign structure
Move to fewer campaigns with broad targeting and more creative inside each ad set. This allows Andromeda to work properly.
3. Stop over-optimising audiences
Narrow targeting restricts learning and kills scale. Use broad targeting, automatic placements, and let the algorithm find the right people.
4. Strengthen your website and funnel
The algorithm can bring the click, but your UX, product pages, subscription flow, and messaging must convert the visitor. DTC brands with weak PDPs and confused propositions will not see the full benefit.
5. Focus on lifetime value
Acquisition is expensive for everyone. Retaining customers, improving subscription offers, and increasing returning customer rate are essential for protecting margins and making paid social sustainable.
The bottom line
Meta's Andromeda update signals a major shift in how performance marketing works. It rewards brands that produce a high volume of strong, varied creative - and penalises those still relying on narrow audiences and outdated best practices.
For DTC brands, this is an opportunity. If you invest in creative velocity, simplify your account structure, and strengthen your funnel, you can offset rising acquisition costs and put yourself in a strong position for scale.
The brands that treat creative as infrastructure, not an afterthought, will be the ones that win in 2025 and beyond.