The AI revolution has been rolling through digital marketing for some time now, but tech platforms are still finding new ways to implement powerful algorithmic insights into their advertising offerings. Recently, Meta announced a slew of additional features that should allow marketers to get even more out of their digital media ad spend on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta’s Advantage+ suite is its most potent AI-powered offering. Something like the social equivalent of Google’s vaunted Performance Max technology, Advantage+ uses reams of data to automate many campaign functions, helping advertisers zero in on the right audiences with less manual tailoring.
Creative has always been important on social media, but with algorithm-driven targeting becoming the norm, it’s even more vital to deploy a diverse array of video and image content that will allow the AI to find which assets perform best. To that end, Meta has announced key new features that impact how advertisers deploy their creative.
In addition, Meta also announced additional advertising features like engagement-focused Reminder ads and tools to make it easier for advertisers to measure success. Read on to learn about all the new additions to Meta Ads.
Advantage+ creative optimizations
TikTok’s popularity has put short-form, portrait format video at the forefront of social advertising, and Instagram’s Reels functionality is an important part of the app’s lasting appeal. But most video content created by advertisers isn’t shot in the 9:16 aspect ratio that these popular video streams use.
Meta’s new Advantage+ creative optimizations can automatically optimize video content you upload to those dimensions for better mobile viewing through Facebook and Instagram. This functionality can also be used to create variations of your ads and deliver them, based on Advantage+ learnings, in whatever format that it determines will best appeal to each individual user.
Videos and “hero” images in Advantage+ catalog ads:
Catalog ads are a powerful Advantage+ feature, allowing brands to display multiple products that may appeal to specific users rather than just one. Catalog ads will now be able to deploy video in their catalog ads instead of just static images.
A smaller addition, too, is the ability to upload set “hero” images to catalog campaigns, while Advantage+ dynamically populates the other products that display around them. This could be useful for advertising something like a sales while still allowing the algorithms to assemble the specific products that the user sees.
Updating Reminder Ads to Keep Users Engaged
Reminder ads allow users to opt-in to reminder messages in advance of something you’re advertising, like a product release or an upcoming sales event. In its announcement, Meta mentioned a few key updates to their functionality:
- Reminder ads can now include external links
- Coming this summer, brands will be able to alert followers when events begin or are about to end
- Reminder ads will also be integrated into reels, though the Meta announcement does not specify how or when
New Integrations for Collaborative Ads
Retail media networks (RMNs) are a relatively new phenomenon: The term equates to retail brands selling ad space on their own digital properties to other sellers. The intriguing part is that big retail brands, like national hardware stores or large regional grocery chains, have access to a large inventory of customer purchase data—which the brands sold in those stores covet.
As RMNs are a relatively new phenomenon in marketing, there isn’t a great way to track their success across digital and in-person sales. Meta, with its own expansive data capabilities, announced that it will now allow retailers and brands to run collaborative performance marketing campaigns on its platforms, with Advanced Analytics functionality meant to track sales whether they happen online or in-store.
The full announcement from Meta can be found here. And if you’re looking for a social media marketing agency that always stays ahead of the latest new tools and marketing techniques, consider reaching out to the ADM team today.
