Meta

Meta introduces AI chatbots

Meta has introduced 3 updates to chatbots/messaging tools:

1. Meta has introduced chatbots on Messenger that can chat with customers and provide support. It is built with a large language model (LLama 3). The change aims to save businesses money on service costs.

Meta says ‘We’re training AI on the most popular questions businesses receive on Messenger, built with Meta Llama 3, to understand and respond to customer messages about products in engaging and natural ways.’

A case study on the business ‘White Coat Manila’ showed this feature saved at least 20% of customer support costs.

Customers will still have the option to speak to a human and businesses can manually enter the conversation at any time.

2. Paid marketing messages are now on Messenger as well as WhatsApp for select advertisers. Advertisers with access to the feature can send paid marketing messages to opted-in customers.

3. Introduction of Threads API. According to Meta the supported features include:

• The ability to authenticate, publish posts, and fetch their own content via the API.
• Management capabilities so businesses and creators can retrieve and engage with replies to their posts, set reply controls and hide or unhide specific replies.
• Media and account-level insights, such as the number of views, likes and replies

Meta says their continuous investments and updates to AI features have helped increase average ROAS for advertisers by 12% since 2022.

Meta introduces ads for Instagram broadcast channels

Meta has introduced a new update that allows users to run ads to grow their Instagram Broadcast Channels.

If you’re unsure what Broadcast Channels are, they were released in September 2023 and are a way for creators and brands to share messages like announcements, content and any other information with others on Instagram. These channels are found in the direct messages tab on Instagram and are available to anyone. As Instagram put it…

“Anyone that joins your channel will be able to react and reply to messages you send or vote in polls you create in the channel, but they will not be able to send messages. Since your broadcast channels are public, they are discoverable by anyone on Instagram.”

To invite members to your broadcast channel, it’s simple. When you send the first message all of your followers will receive a notification inviting them to the channel. The other ways to invite people include:

• Sharing an invite link to your channel
• Adding the channel to your stories
• Sharing a message from the channel to a story
• Sharing a QR code for the channel

With that in mind, Meta recently launched an update that allows users to run ads to grow their Broadcast Channels. This option will allow marketers to increase awareness and membership while adding to their community.

Here’s how to set up an ad for Instagram Broadcast Channels:

1. Create an ‘Engagement’ objective campaign. Ensure your Instagram account is linked to Meta; you should see a message that reads, ‘Invite people to your Broadcast Channel’.
2. At the ad set level select ‘Broadcast Channel’ as the conversion location. Please note that any ads created in this ad set will invite users to join your channel.
3. At the ad level, select your Broadcast Channel as the ad’s destination.
4. Optimise the ad, as usual, filling out primary text and headlines, etc.

Meta introduces new creative enhancements

It’s no shock to see that Meta is adding even more creative enhancements to its Advantage+ creative section. When using this feature, Meta automatically optimises your images and videos to versions that it believes your audience is more likely to interact with. Depending on the format or placements of your ad, different enhancements may be available.

Advantage+ creative is a feature Meta wants users to utilise, and more often than not rewards you for trying things out–even if some of the options (looking at you “Music”) are a bit hit-and-miss.

Meta’s latest addition to creative enhancements is “Adjust text length”. The description of this is as follows…

“We will only show the first line of your primary text when it might improve performance.”

To make an impression on social media, marketers only have seconds, which is why the first line of copy is always the most important. This feature could be useful in improving the overall performance of certain ads. Our tip? Be sure to provide enough information and context in the first line of your primary text when this feature is enabled to make the most of it.

Meta: Dynamic ads are being replaced with Flexible ads

Dynamic Creative is no longer available and has been replaced by the ‘Flexible’ ad format.

Firstly, what did this feature entail? Dynamic Creative allowed you to submit multiple images or videos, primary text, headlines, descriptions, and call-to-action buttons for a single ad. Meta then had the power to mix and match these elements to generate better results.

Now Meta has announced they’re scrapping Dynamic Creative after 7 years and replacing the format with Flexible ads. When using the Flexible ad format, Meta will choose your ad format, based on where it appears and who sees it, to allow for improved performance.

This format was implemented as a creative option at the ad level in November last year. When this was introduced there was a “See What’s New” alert that read…

“Optimize your ad whenever it’s delivered with flexible formats. Use flexible formats to reduce creative fatigue and show your ad in the specific format we predict will perform best for each person.”

Similarly to Dynamic Creative, you can provide the following creative elements when using this format:

• Up to 10 images and/or videos
• Up to 5 variations of ‘Primary text’
• Up to 5 variations of ‘Headlines’
• Up to 5 variations of ‘Descriptions’

When this update was released last year, a lot of marketers wondered why was this necessary as it was pretty similar to Dynamic Creative. Now it looks like Meta was planning to phase Dynamic Creative out and replace it with the new Flexible format. As they could never be used together anyway, this update is one that we saw coming.

Presently, wherever you are using Dynamic Creative, Meta will enable this new feature so you won’t need to make any huge adjustments and your ad performance won’t be massively affected.

Meta: schedule individual ads with a manual sales campaign

A big update for Meta: marketers can now schedule individual ads!

Before this update, ads could only be scheduled at the ad set level on manual sales campaigns, which proved quite annoying if you wanted an ad to appear during certain times or days without creating one manually.

This quality-of-life update can be helpful for those who have a time-sensitive offer or promotion but don’t fancy creating a whole new ad set. It sounds perfect for those who have seasonal-specific discounts that happen over certain days as the individual ad can be scheduled for its original price to be replaced by the discount once the promotion begins. The specific ad can be set live to reflect the sale when it goes live and can be scheduled to end when the promotion is over.

This feature had previously been available for Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, but it’s being made available for manual sales campaigns, meaning more control over targeting.

Here’s how to schedule an individual ad at the ad level:

1. Create a manual sales campaign and choose ‘Website’ as the conversion location.
2. At the ad level, you may see a “Show More Options” under Multi-Advertiser Ads. If you don’t, the update hasn’t been rolled out to you yet. If you do, click it.
3. This will reveal a scheduling option and will give you the option to set a specific start and end date for the ad.

Meta: new tab suggestions for detailed targeting

Meta has introduced an update to its targeting options, allowing users to see and add detailed targeting suggestions based on “Relevance” or “Size”.

When you click on the suggestions button under detailed targeting two tabs now appear with recommendations based on the relevance of the size of different audiences. It’s currently available for both ‘original audience’ settings and ‘Advantage+ audience’ inputs.

Here’s an overview of what each tab suggests:

• Relevance: Suggestions relevant to the targeting options already selected. This is better for targeting niche audiences and getting inspiration for potential audiences.
• Size: Suggestions based on the audience size. Choosing audiences in this tab would be useful for broader campaigns.

Before this update, if you wanted to check for relevance or audience sizes it was a manual process. Now, this update makes life easier to see what Meta suggests and develop a more informed strategy.

Meta introduces site links in Facebook ads

Meta recently rolled out site links for Facebook ads which enables advertisers to display additional business and product information on their ads. The premise is fairly similar to Google ads with the addition of multiple landing pages featured.

Site links appear below the main asset whether that is an image or video. When users click the site link, they will be redirected to the appropriate landing page.

How to implement site links in your Facebook ads

• Go to Ads Manager.
• Click +Create.
• Choose your objective:
  • You can use either Traffic, Engagement, Leads, or Sales.
  • Site links aren’t supported on the app promotion objective.
• (If you have selected the sales objective:)
  • Toggle off use a catalogue at the campaign level. This won’t be necessary on other campaigns.
• Fill out campaign details:
  • At the campaign level, fill out the campaign details sections as needed.
  • Click next.
• Set the conversion location:
  • Select Website as your conversion location.
• Ad set level:
  • Fill in the sections on the ad set level e.g. budget, audience controls, and placements sections.
• Ad level:
  • After adding your creative, open the Advantage+ creative enhancements section where there will be an option to add site links card. Make sure you turn this feature on.
  • You can also preview how your ad will look here if any changes are required.
• Add ad sources:
  • Enter a website URL in the ad sources section. Meta will automatically add site links to your ad.

Please note that Meta will try to find useful site links automatically, but if it can’t, you can add them manually. Keep in mind that you will need to add at least 3 site links to display them on your ad.

Meta Introduces New Opportunity Score in Ads Manager

Meta has introduced a new Opportunity Score in Ads Manager. But what exactly does that mean?

In Meta’s own words: “In the Account Overview tab in Meta Ads Manager, you may see a campaign strength score between 0 and 100% that relates to the potential performance of your campaign. The higher the number, the more you are following best practices.”

This update reflects the effectiveness of all active ads within an ad account, rather than focusing on individual campaigns, ad sets, or ads. This score is based entirely on how many delivery recommendations you utilise. While it doesn’t directly impact your ad performance, a high score hints at strategies that could boost your results, and Meta is encouraging users to ensure their opportunity score is as high as possible.

How are campaign strength scores calculated?

• The campaign strength score is calculated from a blend of factors, including your campaign and ad settings, current campaign performance, and an assessment of performance potential for each recommendation that is aligned with your campaign.

Most of the time, when Meta encourages you to do something, whether it be Advantage+ related or Opportunity Scores, we recommend testing it. Usually, you’ll see a slight boost in results as a reward, and it could be a good roadmap for improvement, showing you where to focus your efforts.

Meta: Existing Customer Budget Cap No Longer Available

Meta is removing the option to set an existing customer budget cap in Advantage+ Shopping campaigns. Not only that, they are updating how advertisers control audience-related budgets by encouraging us to use two ad sets to achieve the same goal, which is also something new.

The existing customer budget cap feature allowed advertisers to set a maximum budget percentage to spend on existing customers. Now Meta is removing the option for setting a budget cap percentage, and instead, is encouraging us to control audience-related budgets by using different ad sets which hasn’t been possible before.

Here are a few options available for us to still allocate the budget effectively…

Option 1: Create a new campaign that doesn’t spend the budget on current customers.

In the Audience controls at the Ad Set level, choose More, then Exclude these custom audiences to remove existing customers.

Option 2: Create a new campaign that splits the budget between new and existing customers.

Make two ad sets in the campaign to set a limit for spending on existing customers.

Option 3: Using Custom audiences effectively.

Utilise Custom audiences to target individuals you recognise as your current customers. Use the same creative in both ad sets and duplicate them. In the second ad set, navigate to Audience controls, then choose More. Exclude these custom audiences to remove individuals you classify as existing customers from your targeting.

Meta Adds New Targeting Options for Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns

If you run Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, there’s been a big update, allowing you to target users who have shown an interest in your product or service but are yet to make a purchase.

Under the Engaged Customers Audience Segment in reporting, it reads:

“You can now define your engaged customers using custom audiences. This allows you to receive reporting breakdowns for this audience.”

Custom audiences are people aware of your business or have interacted with your product/service but haven’t made a purchase yet, so this is a great way to retarget engaged customers and encourage them to convert.

In terms of reporting, this update will give you access to a new segment to view in Ads Manager when using the Breakdown Menu. Select Demographics and Audience Segments to show three separate rows for New Customers, Existing Customers, and Engaged Customers.

Some examples of Custom Audiences to add to these segments include…

Existing Customers:

• People who purchased or signed up for your services.
• Custom Audiences would include people who purchased on your website shop.

Engaged Customers:

• Website visitors or Facebook/Instagram shop product views.

Meta: New Advantage+ Creative Add Catalogue Items Feature

Meta is constantly looking for new features to add to their Advantage+ technology. The newest addition applies to their Advantage+ creative where marketers now have the option to add catalogue items to their images and videos when creating an ad. 

This essentially looks like a different style of instant experience. The format of your ad will either look like a collection or a carousel depending on how this will be served to the end user. 

Image Source: SearchEngineLand.com

For the collection format, the creative asset chosen will be the main image and then underneath will be all of the product cards in your chosen catalogue set. Remember the images for the product cards are scraped from your website so if you don’t like the primary image then you’ll need to update these.

Now you don’t have to opt into this feature. When you’re creating your ad, the Avantage+ Creative window will pop up and from there you will be able to select the option to turn off all optimisations. You don’t have to keep them all off either – you can test the different features to see how they affect your performance and then make the judgement on which features to keep for your ads.

Top of Funnel Meta Campaigns Now Forced to use Audience Expansion – March 2024

Meta has started rolling out a new update that means that link clicks and landing page views campaigns will now automatically include audience expansion, with the advertiser being unable to turn this off.

Audience expansion is where your campaign will occasionally go beyond your specified detailed targeting (interests, age, gender etc.) if it believes it will drive better performance in doing so. This can be a fantastic tool when driving purchases, but falls down when looking at top of funnel campaigns.

If your ad is going after those most likely to click, outside of your set audience parameters, there could potentially be a lot of poor quality traffic coming through your ads. It might drive low cost clicks but they might be less likely to take an action after a click, may not fit your audience profile (think B2B businesses with specific industries) etc. The algorithm will go after the lowest cost action. 

This is quite a big change and will need to be factored into discussions around paid social as a tool for driving high quality website traffic.

Meta unveils five new lead generation ad tools for Facebook and Instagram – November 2023

Meta’s unveiling of five new lead-generation ad tools provides advertisers with powerful tools to drive business growth and foster meaningful connections with their target audience.

WhatsApp Lead Gen: Meta is expanding the lead opportunity to users via WhatsApp chats with businesses. This feature assists marketers in nurturing high-quality leads through messaging. Going forward, certain advertisers will have the opportunity to incorporate a Q&A flow directly within Ads Manager.

Instant form ad format. Allows users to explore and engage with multiple businesses simultaneously. For instance, upon registering for a bridal hair trial, users can effortlessly share their contact details with other businesses, such as a nail salon. This feature enhances convenience for users while expanding opportunities for small businesses to attract interested customers.

Calling leads on Facebook. Meta is currently experimenting with a new functionality on Facebook that enables businesses to directly contact leads, offering reassurance and showcasing their business details. Additionally, Meta is in the testing phase of Advantage+ for Lead Generation, a feature that enables full automation of lead generation campaigns through Meta Advantage. This empowers advertisers to employ AI across various campaigns which will help to improve performance. 

Hubspot. To assist businesses in efficiently generating high-quality leads, Meta is introducing HubSpot as a new CRM integration partner, providing a simple click-through setup which will help to streamline the process further.

Meta Launches Subscription Service For Instagram And Facebook – October 23

For consumers in Europe, Meta launched a monthly subscription service where users can pay to use Facebook and Instagram without ads being served to them, becoming an ad-free platform. 

What does this mean for advertisers? Your audience pool becomes smaller. You have fewer people to target, and now the platform becomes more competitive which could mean you see your costs increase across the board. However, this is all dependent on consumers buying into this subscription, if demand for this service is low then there will be little impact on your current performance.

For users, this means that their data will not be processed or collected by Meta as there is no need for tailored advertising.