Oh Meta. It can be a complicated landscape to navigate full of options, audience types, functionalities, and ever changing rules. But on the other hand, it’s also a very necessary and important platform in your performance marketing mix. Luckily for you, it’s literally our job to navigate those changes. So we interviewed one of our Performance Strategists, Raneesha Peiris, to get her best advice on how to work in the Meta platforms.
Santana Blanchette: Hi Raneesha! It’s great to sit down and chat with you about a constantly changing platform like Meta. But let’s start with the basics. What verticals or types of clients are Meta ads appropriate for?
Raneesha: Meta is a very versatile platform. There's literally a campaign type and objective for any and every industrial vertical you can possibly think of but in my experience, if you're not taking over-attribution into account, it is definitely a suitable platform for e-commerce merchants. Think baby products, apparel, bedding, etc. but it also works for lead gen based verticals, like real estate education insurance too. I personally think that it boils down to a couple of other factors, like for example, how much budget does the client have, what are their KPI’s and their goals, but also what stage of the marketing funnel are they focusing on at the moment?
To clarify, what do you mean by over attribution?
Raneesha: Facebook can be known to over attribute data. So for example within the platform, you would probably see an 80 times return on ad spend. But if you go into Google Analytics or the back end, you will typically see it's far lower. So Facebook does have a way of sort of taking credit for sales or over crediting. This is why causal impact testing is so important in order to understand the true revenue impact of Meta (and other channels).
How has the meta landscape changed in the e-commerce space in the last 1-2 years
Raneesha : Yeah, I would say that there's a myriad of ways. How brands, consumers, and advertisers use meta has definitely evolved in the last one to two years. But something significant that I am seeing is branded content, or ugc, is more at play now than it was probably three four years ago. So much so it has enabled creators to actually use Meta and Instagram as their primary source of income or even a very lucrative side hustle which has simultaneously forced brands to step up and be a lot more creative.
Psst... want to learn how to make more effective e-comm ad creative? Check out our blog on that here.
The second thing is that everything is so automated with commerce accounts now. We have Advantage Plus shopping campaigns in the mix now which allow you to create a campaign within a matter of minutes. So in some ways it’s gotten even easier for advertisers.
The third one (though highly debatable) is that there's less visibility into who we are actually targeting because of personally identifiable information (PII) concerns and privacy concerns in general. So I feel like it's a little more “black boxy” than it used to be probably three or four years ago.
Finally, there’s a lot of emphasis on producing more engaging content like reels now. Video content has never been more important.
What is a common misconception about advertising on Meta?
Raneesha: Definitely the idea that you need a lot of money to start advertising on Meta. Not true. Meta is one of those platforms that can really make every penny work.
The other common one is this idea that meta doesn't really work for B2B. Again a highly debatable topic, and also a case-by-case basis, but there are tools within Meta that you can leverage for B2B businesses. For example, there are lookalike audiences, custom audiences, and there's also title targeting (if in the future that's not wiped out as well with pii changes). But there are lots of different ways. You can actually leverage Meta for B2B.
Are there any ways that marketers can easily improve their Meta ads?
Raneesha: It is very important to keep the structure concise and simple as advertisers and strategists. Our brains are sort of geared to overstatement or deep segments but in the last one to two years, I have definitely learned that less is always more and the algorithm is so strong you don't actually have to over segment or deep segment.
The second one I would say is to pay attention to creative audience match. I cannot stress this enough. Creative is important but at the same time paying attention to what sort of creative resonates with your target audience is also super important. For example, if you’re selling an anti-aging cream on Meta but your creative is more around your younger audience, that's not going to necessarily resonate with your actual, true potential target audience. So that's something to keep in mind.
Lastly, use Meta for brand storytelling. Often we sort of forget the reason people are on Meta is because they're scrolling probably because they're bored, not necessarily because they want to buy something (unless they're on Facebook Marketplace). So just keeping that top of mind and using messaging to actually talk to the heart rather than the mind. The mind is more Google and the heart is more Meta. Use it to actually leverage brand storytelling.
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Santana Blanchette
