Some advertisers are seeing a new video engagement custom audience window in Ads Manager. Instead of picking an exact watch threshold such as ThruPlay or 75%, you now choose between three broad viewer groups. Meta has not announced the change, and its own help guide still describes the old menu, so the rollout looks uneven.
What changed in the audience window
Under Audiences, Create audience, Custom audience, Video, the old menu offered seven thresholds: 3 seconds, 10 seconds, ThruPlay, and 25%, 50%, 75% or 95% of the video. Meta Business Partner Davide Cosmai reported on November 4 that his account now shows a field called Include with three options instead.
Only the first group comes with a number. The other two are described in qualitative terms, and Meta notes that the top group will shrink audience size.
- All video viewers: watched at least 3 seconds
- Engaged video viewers: watched a meaningful portion of the video
- Highly engaged video viewers: watched most or all of the video
Why the vague definitions matter
A meaningful portion has no stated length, so it is unclear how it scales with video duration. Three seconds is 30% of a 10-second clip but only 3% of a 100-second one, which means a mixed-length audience can mean very different things from video to video.
The Engaged name is also misleading. The descriptions only refer to watch time, not likes, comments or saves. If you want interaction-based audiences, Instagram account and Facebook Page engagement audiences are still the right tools.
Who is affected
Anyone running tiered video retargeting, for example warming cold traffic with a hook video and then retargeting 50% or 75% viewers with an offer. Exact thresholds can no longer be chosen in the new window, although Meta's video metrics still report ThruPlay and 25/50/75/95% plays, so you can see the gap between reporting and audience building.
Audiences you already built with exact thresholds appear to keep working, which makes them worth protecting. Retention still goes up to 365 days and videos still have to be added by hand.
How to adapt your setup
Group videos of similar length into the same audience so the vague middle tier behaves consistently. For tiers, include the broader group and exclude the narrower one using the exclude custom audiences option.
When an audience stops growing while its videos still collect views, check whether it is still populating. If your accounts are cycling fast during Q4 and you need replacement agency accounts, Power Ads supplies them on corporate cards for 4% of each top-up, but rebuild audiences inside the same business portfolio where possible so the pixel and engagement history stay with you.
What it means for you
- Do not delete existing video audiences built on exact thresholds; rename them with the threshold, e.g. Video 75% 30d.
- Keep video lengths similar inside one audience so Engaged viewers means one thing.
- Build tiers with include plus exclude instead of relying on a single vague group.
- Re-check audience sizes weekly through BFCM to catch audiences that stop filling.
Sources
- Davide Cosmai: Video retargeting in Meta Ads, three groups replace the thresholds
- Meta Business Help Center: How to create a video engagement custom audience
