Meta is ever evolving, are you evolving with it?
If you’ve been advertising on Meta, you’ve probably noticed that things are changing. And fast. The days of targeting your audience with pin-point precision using traditional interests, behaviours and demographics have been pushed to the side in favour of Meta’s growth in powerful data-led machine learning and ad delivery. Meta has shifted the focus towards letting your creative content, the actual ads you’re showing, do the heavy lifting when it comes to targeting.
Let’s break down what this means for your business and why mixing up your ad creatives is more important than ever.
Creative is the new targeting
Meta has always been good at using data to show the right ads to the right people. But now, instead of relying solely on the audience targeting settings you choose, Meta’s machine learning systems are increasingly focusing on how people interact with your creative content.
If someone engages with one of your ads; watches a video, clicks a link, or even just pauses to look, that information is fed back into the system. Over time, Meta figures out which types of people are most interested in which types of creatives and adjusts who sees your ads accordingly – this means Meta is dynamically forming your audience pools in real-time using engagement and conversion data from your creatives.
Meta themselves spoke about how ‘creative is the new targeting’ at the 2023 Performance Marketing Summit, with a key segment on how this is a primary focus moving forward on the platform, so it’s important this information is used and adapted toward.
The creative assets you use are becoming a major factor in deciding who your ads get shown to. So instead of spending hours fine-tuning your targeting settings, you should be thinking about how your creative content is connecting with different types of people.
The right creative at the right time
To make the most of this new approach, you need to serve up a variety of ad creatives that match the 5 stages of awareness your audience are at in their journey with your brand. Some users may not be aware of the problem your product or service can solve, some are but don’t know how to solve it, and others simply need strong offerings to convert them. By serving a range of creative, you are aligning ads to wider audience pools.
This variety of creative alignment helps Meta’s algorithms understand who should see which ad, increasing the likelihood that different types of users will convert from your ads.
Ad hooks are your key driver
Not everyone reacts to the same type of ad, so it’s important to switch up your creative approaches, or hooks. Different hooks speak to different people. This could be introducing an emotional hook, pain-point focused narrative, product features, entertainment factor, or just a really strong offer or discount to get those already engaged over the line.
The more variety you offer, the more data Meta has to work with, helping the platform find the perfect match between your creative and your audience.
Meta’s Broader Approach to targeting with Advantage+ formats and tools
Meta is slowly stepping away from the super-specific interest-based targeting we’ve relied on for years and are rolling our broader AI targeting tools with the theory they encompass more efficiency and longevity.
For example, Advantage+ Shopping campaigns take a much broader and automated approach, especially to targeting. Meta uses its machine learning and account data to find and reach your best-performing audiences. Campaigns form targeting direction by basing it on conversion data and creative performance, allowing you to focus more on creating great ads and less on tweaking your audiences. Essentially, Meta is saying, ‘Trust us to find the right people for you’. This can cause some unease with advertisers, however, with the correct data tools setup, strong conversion signals, and a focus on creative testing, it can work extremely well.
Whilst activating options such as Advantage+ Audiences enable the expansion of user targeting inputs, allowing Meta to expand outside of these parameters when it believes it can drive better efficiency and results; think of it as a hybrid between your specific targeting parameters and Meta’s wish for broad, flexible audiences.
We don’t have to spend time fine-tuning every little detail of your audience settings. Secondly, it scales better. Whether you’re targeting a local audience or trying to reach a global one, Meta can adjust in real-time, especially with the Conversion API implemented for richer and real-time optimisation.
The Meta AI Shift
With the heavy leaning into the ever-advancing machine learning and creative-driven targeting as the future of their advertising platform. Advantage+ tools are all about automating the setup and delivery processes. Meta’s machine learning takes control, finding the best combinations of assets, placements, budget distribution, and delivers ROI. We are also seeing these tools implemented across other platforms, like LinkedIn’s Accelerate campaigns and TikTok AI campaigns.
So what next?
Staying up to date with platforms like Meta is more important than ever. What worked for you as an advertiser a few years ago, may not work as successfully now, especially with the advancement in machine learning and AI.
Creative is more important than ever to optimise and test. Instead of spending hours fine-tuning targeting parameters, spend the time fine-tuning your creatives, aligning them to your audiences wants and needs instead. It’s important to test what works on your account. Every account and offering are different, and each ad account reflects this.
As Meta shifts towards broader tools like Advantage+ audiences and relies more on creative-driven targeting, the focus should be on creating high-quality, diverse content. Taking your time to plan and create a mix of creative tests is your key to successful, scalable campaigns.
Ready to evolve your Meta activity? Get in touch with the team by filling in the form below.
