The way we manage audience targeting and exclusions has fundamentally shifted because the ad platforms themselves are changing the rules. We're seeing a major split in approach, especially between Meta and Amazon. Your old playbook might not just be outdated, it might be actively working against you right now.
On Meta, the rise of automation through Meta's Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns has made the old, hyper-granular approach less effective. Yarden Shaked pointed out on Ecommerce Playbook that advertisers used to build complex campaigns with layered exclusions at the ad set level to 'ruthlessly exclude existing customers.' That's not the game anymore. Now, Meta wants you to define your customer list at the account level and then trust its algorithm to find new prospects. As Cody from The Bottom Line: Ecommerce Tactics for Profitable Growth emphasized, you must set up 'hard exclusions'—your pixel purchasers, your Klaviyo email lists, your Shopify audiences—to ensure you're not paying to show prospecting ads to people who have already bought from you. The job has shifted from manual segmentation to feeding the machine high-quality data and letting it run.
Amazon is moving in the opposite direction, offering more sophisticated tools. As Destaney Wishon explained on the Serious Sellers Podcast, the growth of Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) allows for a new level of precision. You can now overlay audience data on top of your search campaigns. For example, you can keep your standard bid for a generic term like 'toothpaste,' but bid much higher if the person searching has previously added your product to their cart or watched your brand's video ad. This is a powerful new way to focus your spend on the highest-intent shoppers. Vince Montero confirmed on a later episode that this is part of a larger trend toward more audience-driven targeting on Amazon, so it’s critical to start testing these features.
This doesn't mean the core principles of good media buying strategy are gone. They've just been reframed by new technology. You still need to separate your efforts. As Tony Chopp from Ecommerce Playbook advises, you should have distinct campaigns for remarketing (targeting website visitors who haven't purchased) and retention (targeting existing customers). The key is to be smart about defining those audiences and then using exclusions to keep them from bleeding into your new customer acquisition campaigns.
Across all platforms, sloppy segmentation is a costly mistake. On Google, for instance, Daryl Mander noted the common error of lumping all website visitors from the past 60 days into one bucket and showing them the same ad. He strongly recommends breaking them into more specific groups, treating cart abandoners completely differently from, say, people who just browsed a blog post. Similarly, on YouTube, Dougie from the DTC Podcast warns against wasting spend on irrelevant placements like gaming channels or kids' content, which requires actively building exclusion lists. Your goal is always to prevent overlap and ensure the right message reaches the right person, without paying for redundant impressions.
