Absolutely — you can still target by specific age ranges and gender on Meta, and those settings are respected when you set them manually. The confusion usually comes in with Meta’s Advantage+ features, which can override some targeting if you’re not careful.
To keep control:
When creating your ad set, make sure you manually set your desired age range (e.g., 50–65+) and select “Women” as the gender.
Be sure to turn off “Advantage Detailed Targeting”, which lets Meta expand your audience beyond what you selected — that’s where things often go off-track.
Avoid using Advantage+ audience or Advantage+ shopping campaigns, which give Meta more freedom to broaden targeting automatically.
If you do all this, Meta won’t override your gender and age group preferences. This setup works best for products like yours that are clearly intended for a very specific demographic — it helps prevent wasted spend on clicks that won’t convert. Just keep an eye on delivery and frequency to ensure your ads are staying efficient.
