Why everyone is talking about Advantage+ Creative
Author:
Categorised In:
Share:
In the world of AI, our social media platforms are looking at ways to automate processes inside their systems and Meta has done so through their Advantage+ Creative enhancements on an ad level.
It’s no surprise that you will find all your favourite paid social advertising platforms looking at how they can improve their systems to take control of the advertiser and place it into their algorithm to enhance machine learning.
If we look back to how campaigns and targeting were previously built where it was recommended to be as granular as possible with 100s of different settings applied to the demographics, interests and exclusions. This has now completely reversed, you’re encouraged to trust the platform and make your targeting as broad as possible as the algorithm will know who to target and with what ad creative to get the best results.
Advantage+ Creative is just one of Meta’s AI products that it’s applied to their Ads Manager for advertisers to use. They continue to develop its offerings and you’ll often find new enhancements that weren’t there before.
Advantage+ Creative Overview
So, what does it mean when we say Advantage+ Creative? Well, the enhancements are there to help make your images, videos or other ad formats better and tailored to how the consumer will best engage with them.
The way Meta describes Advantage+ Creative is:
“When you apply Advantage+ creative in Meta Ads Manager, your images and videos are automatically optimised to versions that your audience is more likely to interact with.”
There are various AI enhancements available with Advantage+ some being unique to a specific ad format and others that are available across the different formats. Those that are more common Meta groups into a category called: standard enhancements.
Standard enhancements
As we said above standard enhancements are the more common features available across the different ad options on Facebook and Instagram advertising. In some eyes, they’re the more basic level adjustments such as implementing an image template or swapping the text used for the headline and main ad copy.
What are the standard enhancements?
- Vary aspect ratio
- Image template
- Text improvements
- Visual touch-ups
- Relevant comments
Should you use standard enhancements?
When they launched this advertisers and brands were sceptical at first, they didn’t know how the new features would affect performance. On the clients whom we have used the Advantage+ Creative features we have seen a similar range of performance, with some performing better than others. But again, it’s on a case-by-case basis. What works for you might not work for someone else.
One main issue I have found with the Image template enhancement is that the template used with the fonts chosen by Meta will not always align with your brand guidelines. So, this then comes down to:
Option one: run an AB test at an ad level testing the same creative with the same audience where one ad has the image template turned on and the other ad it’s turned off. If the data tells you that your audience is engaging better with this feature turned on then you may need to roll this out across your campaigns.
Or
Option two: as it does not align with the brand’s look and appearance you will need to unselect this feature when choosing your creative at an ad level. This option doesn’t allow you to test to see how this affects performance so bear that in mind.
The key thing to remember here is that unless you test how turning on Advantage+ Creative affects your campaign performance you will never know the uplift it could potentially bring. By testing each creative optimisation you will be able to understand how each one directly affects your results, which should then infer to you which ones to use in future.
Advantage+ Creative enhancements by ad format
Now, as we have mentioned above not every ad format will have the same enhancement options, some optimisations won’t be available for a carousel as they are for a single image. Detailed below is a list of the available options for each different type of ad format you can select in Meta Ads Manager.
Optimisations for the single-image format
Single images have the most available enhancements you can apply to your creative when building your ads. They range from the standard enhancements we talked about before and other tailored options like adding music to your static image which will suit those who are currently using the platform with sound on.
Other enhancements include turning your image into a 3D animation however this is massively restricted by the image, if your image is too detailed the system will not be able to apply this enhancement.
The types of enhancements on offer:
- Relevant comments
- Music
- Image template
- Visual touch-ups
- Text improvements
- Add catalogue items
- Expand image
- 3D animation
- Image filter
- Image expansion
Optimisations for video
For video, you’re more limited in the types of enhancements you can make, although that should be a good thing as you’ve spent all that time making the video in the first place you don’t want it to completely change.
Some of the creative optimisations include adding catalogue items to your asset. This can make it look like a collection ad as Facebook will display 3 or more products underneath your video for the consumer to scroll through.
The types of enhancements on offer:
- Relevant comments
- Visual touch-ups
- Text improvements
- Add catalogue items
Optimisations for a carousel format
For carousels, there are slightly more features available to you like applying dynamic descriptions which allows the ad delivery system autonomy to decide whether to include your carousel card descriptions to the user if they feel like it may better performance.
Other features include adding a profile card at the end of your carousels, this feature is not available with other formats and is only specific to a carousel ad format.
The types of enhancements on offer:
- Profile end card
- Relevant comments
- Music
- Dynamic description
- Highlight carousel card
- Info labels
Optimisations for collections
The enhancement that is available with this creative format is only the ‘Dynamic media setting’. What this means is it allows Meta to choose whether to show an image or a video for each product in your catalogue that is shown in your collection ad.
Verdict on Meta’s Advantage+ Creative
So, by now you’re very acquainted with what Advantage+ Creative means for your campaigns but also how to best approach testing them with your existing campaigns.
At Embryo, we recommend AB testing the features with your existing creative. It may or may not change your performance and therefore doesn’t matter if you have the features turned off or on.
On the other hand, you may find that it boosts your performance by 20%, but unless you test you will never be able to conclude what these enhancements can do.
If you want to delve into why paid social should be a part of your marketing strategy, get in touch with us today.
