Signal loss means Meta must get creative with its approach to targeting and measurement, including boosting its investment in artificial intelligence.
On Wednesday, Meta released new products available within Meta Advantage, its newly consolidated suite of automated advertising tools, and the global rollout of Advantage+ shopping campaigns, which was in beta since earlier this year, with additional features to support Advantage+ app campaigns.
Meta combined all of its automated and machine learning-powered ad products under one roof in March, including lookalike audiences, automated app ads and automatic placements.
There are two main types of products housed within Meta Advantage. The first are tools that advertisers can use to help automate specific parts of manual campaign setup, like lookalikes. Meta refers to these as “Advantage” products. The other are tools that advertisers can use to automate an entire campaign type, which Meta calls “Advantage+.”
Advantage+ app campaigns (formerly known as automated app ads, which is Meta’s answer to Google’s app campaigns product) is one example of a “plus”-style product.
More with less
During Meta’s latest (and less-than-stellar) earnings call for Q2 in July, Mark Zuckerberg told investors that AI is one of the company’s top priorities and will continue to be a big investment area.
One example of how Meta uses AI is to nudge more people to watch more Reels. Short-form video is another of Meta’s top priorities.
But AI is also a cornerstone for how Meta plans to adapt its ads system “to do more with less data,” as COO Sheryl Sandberg put it on the company’s Q2 call.
Meta is also developing privacy-enhancing technologies, such as its Conversions API and Private Lift Measurement, to try and minimize the amount of personal information it processes while still being able to show relevant ads and measure the performance.
“It did get harder to measure performance on our platforms,” Nicola Mendelsohn, VP of Meta’s global business group, told AdExchanger. (Mendelsohn succeeded Carolyn Everson in October.)
“What we’re harnessing here,” she said, “is the power of AI and automation for our ad products while at the same time thinking about our work around privacy-enhancing technologies – that is the backdrop.”
What’s new
The most noteworthy addition to the automated ad suite is a product called Advantage+ shopping campaigns, which uses AI to optimize the full process of a shopping-focused campaign, including automating the ad creative, the targeting, the ad placements, the budget and any other campaign parameter.
Meta plans to release the tool to ecommerce and retail advertisers on August 15.
“Businesses today use and test a whole variety of different strategies and creative to ensure they get the best ROI,” Mendelsohn said. “What this does is help advertisers get smarter faster about which campaigns are actually converting by eliminating the manual steps of ad creation.”
Advantage+ shopping campaigns can automate more than 150 different creative combinations at once, she said. And cutting out the grunt work gives advertisers more time to think strategically and uncover new insights.
Rothy’s, for example, the DTC recycled plastic shoe brand, historically only targeted women for its women’s products. But using an automated approach, Rothy’s discovered that male audiences also performed well for female-focused products, perhaps because they were buying stuff for the women in their lives.
“When testing into new demographics in the past, we’ve been limited in reach and resources,” said Cameron Aroz, director of user acquisition at Rothy’s. “Advantage+ shopping campaigns enables us to expand our scope, reaching new audiences efficiently.”
Eventually, Meta plans to give businesses in the US the option to add their Shop (the on-platform purchasing product) as a destination for Advantage+ shopping campaigns. Meta will use AI to send people either there or directly to a seller’s website depending on which is more likely to convert.
Beyond the general release of its automated shopping product, Meta is also making a few tweaks to Advantage+ app campaigns. It’s expanded to a seven-day click attribution window and added reporting on ad delivery and creative data.
The new reporting includes spend data by state or region, which helps advertisers meet internal or legal budget reporting requirements, as well as the ability to understand how multiple elements within a piece of creative perform together, such as headline, text and asset type.
The purpose of all these products is to automate as many manual functions as possible, give advertisers better tools to understand their performance and encourage them to embrace a test-and-learn mindset, Mendelsohn said.
“It feels instinctual to ask, ‘If I do less, am I going to get more?’” she said. “And the answer is, ‘Yes, that is exactly what’s going to happen as a result.’”
