With Black Friday and Christmas just around the corner, time is of the essence for advertisers to fine-tune their Meta ad strategies. Here are essential tips to maximise your holiday sales, even if you’re racing against the clock.
1. Harness the power of automation and machine learning
Similar to Google, Meta is charging full speed into automation, encouraging advertisers to simplify their account setups and fully embrace the capabilities of machine learning. This approach offers exceptional opportunities to scale, reach new audiences, and optimise your budget allocation.
Plus, with the holiday season being a particularly dynamic and competitive time, streamlining your campaign setup can be hugely beneficial for those working with limited budgets, resources and time.
Meta now offers end-to-end automation through their Advantage+ product range. You can choose to automate your entire setup or select specific campaign components.
For performance-driven advertisers aiming to boost online sales, Advantage+ shopping campaigns are the most efficient solution. With Advantage+, you can consolidate both prospecting and existing customer audiences into a single campaign. This enables personalised product offerings and automated testing of up to 150 creative combinations. Meta’s data reveals that users of Advantage+ shopping campaigns saw a 17% decrease in cost per conversion and a remarkable 32% increase in return on ad spend.
2. Simplify your account structure
At the start of a campaign, Meta enters a “learning phase” to determine the optimal target audience. While it’s common practice to test multiple audiences within one campaign or segment placements, demographics, and age groups, this complex setup can hinder Meta’s machine learning and extend the learning phase.
Simplifying your account structure accelerates AI systems, resulting in faster, more accurate campaign results. This is particularly valuable during the holiday season when campaigns often run for shorter durations and may involve smaller budgets. Combining broader audiences with a straightforward account structure opens the door to new customer opportunities, extending your reach beyond those already familiar with your ads.
3. Perfect your timing
While high CPMs during the holiday season can be discouraging for advertisers, Meta’s research shows that CPMs and CVRs tend to move in sync during this period, resulting in relatively stable CPAs. With a larger online audience, the holiday season therefore becomes an opportune time for advertising.
However, with price concerns on the rise among consumers, many individuals are likely to seek discounts during the Black Friday period for their Christmas shopping.
To maintain a robust CVR, we recommend offering some form of discount over the Black Friday weekend and using the period leading up to it to create anticipation and build retargeting pools through email sign-ups and traffic campaigns for when the sale goes live. Countdown ads or website messaging can also prove to be a highly effective strategy.
4. Elevate your data game with the conversions API
The success of Meta Ads hinges on your ability to capture and utilise data, especially in an evolving digital landscape. As we transition into a cookieless world and pixel-based tracking becomes less reliable, it’s crucial to complement the Meta Pixel with the Conversions API.
For those not yet familiar, the Meta Conversions API is a server-to-server solution that communicates directly with Meta’s servers, bypassing many of the privacy regulations and browser-based tracking limitations that affect the Pixel. This offers real-time data transmission, custom event tracking, and the ability to integrate various data sources. The result? More precise data for optimising campaigns and reporting.
Summary
In conclusion, by embracing automation, simplifying your account structure, optimising timing, and harnessing the Conversions API, you can elevate your Meta ad campaigns and make the most of the holiday season, driving success during this competitive period.