Major advertising platforms have released new product features and capabilities over the last few months, focusing on increasing advertisers’ efficiency and equipping them with tools to better tailor their outputs, from creative to targeting. Our team recently attended Meta’s Performance Marketing Summit, where we gained firsthand insights into their latest developments and how they will impact advertisers.
Meta’s announcements emphasized themes like the importance of data quality, the power of automation, and the evolving role of creative in targeting. They also released tools and product enhancements intended to optimize performance. Here is what advertisers and brands need to know to maximize their Meta strategies moving forward.
Key Themes
- Importance of Data Quality: In the age of automation, the algorithm is only as strong as the data that feeds it. For advertisers, this means optimizing the Conversions API integration, event-match quality, and catalog match rates to ensure that campaigns are being fueled with the highest volume and quality of data.
- Automation to Drive Success: Meta continues to invest in physical framework and product development to support businesses and advertisers in an AI-powered future. Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns and Advantage+ App Campaigns are one of the most impactful tools that an advertiser can use to drive performance on the Meta platforms, contributing to a +32% increase in ROAS on average.
- Creative is the New Targeting: The algorithm uses creative inputs to identify and reach new users, driving serendipitous discovery and taking the guesswork out of targeting. Successful creative sets are visually diverse, platform-native, and provide value to the user. This allows the algorithm to reach more users with higher relevancy and less creative fatigue, driving higher impact for advertisers.
- Tailor Video for Reels: Video consumption continues to grow, now making up over 60% of time spent across Facebook and Instagram. This is largely driven by the Reels placement, which now makes up over 60% of time spent on Instagram. The likelihood of an ad serving in the Reels placement doubles when the asset Is built to meet the 3 creative essentials – vertical 9:16 specifications, audio for sound-on consumption, and with key information confined to the safe zone.
- AI as a Creative Development Tool: With high volumes of diverse creative needed to drive performance, Meta continues to develop and launch tools to help advertisers use AI to fill this need. This currently includes image enhancement, text generation, background generation, and more through the always-evolving Advantage+ Creative suite of products. In the future, this is expected to expand to include prompt-based text and image generation, shifting the way creative teams approach asset development. While creative will be automated, creativity will not be.
- Testing is Critical: Measuring success has never been more important, or complex. No individual measurement source or methodology is perfect, so advertisers should adopt a 360-degree approach to measurement. Using multiple measurement sources in a connected framework allows brands to track all components of a marketing strategy. Controlled, structured experiments (such as A/B tests and lift tests) are critical to measure causality and incrementality. Organizations that invest in measurement are 44% more likely to exceed revenue goals, and Meta advertisers that run 15 experiments in a year see 45% higher ad performance.
New Product Focuses
- Reminder Ads: This ad feature allows advertisers to re-engage with people who have already expressed interest in their products or services but haven’t made a purchase yet. They remind potential customers about the product or service they viewed, prompting them to take action. This approach helps businesses stay top of mind and drive conversions by targeting warm leads with personalized messages tailored to their previous interactions.
- Promotion Highlights: This tool highlights promotion codes that are available, either by sourcing them automatically from an advertiser site, or via manual input. When consumers are driven to site with these ads, the promo code can be automatically applied or easily copy-pasted to be applied at checkout.
- Product Level Video for Advantage+ Catalog Ads: Videos will be able to be uploaded directly into the catalog at the product or SKU level for increased ad volume, diversity, and relevance.
- Budget Scheduling: This tool allows advertisers to plan budget surges in advance and is ideal for promotions or other peak sales periods. By priming the algorithm with the budget change data in advance, programs will be less impacted by the algorithmic learning phase.
- More Customizations in Advantage+ Creative Enhancements: Additional creative levers will continue to roll out, with new controls over text, color, backgrounds, and more.
- Creator Marketplace Enhancements: Machine learning fuels new tools to recommend creators that brands should consider for partnership.
- Product Level Boosting: (In Alpha Testing) Solution that will enable advertisers to apply a multiplier within the catalog to amplify service of specific products across catalog ads.
Remaining up-to-date with these advancements is crucial for advertisers seeking to leverage Meta’s platforms effectively. The integration of high-quality data, automation, and creative tools will be pivotal in driving performance. Our team is committed to continuous learning and adaptation in this dynamic landscape. As Meta continues to innovate, advertisers must remain agile and informed to maximize their impact.
