Meta has outlined some new ad tools, primarily guided by its evolving AI targeting, which are designed to help marketers “sleigh” their sales goals this holiday season.
I will also note that this is not my pun, Meta actually included this within its overview of these new features. But average pun work aside, there are some handy elements here, which could help in your holiday promotions.
First off, Meta’s adding more ways for brands to work with creators, through improved creator search parameters in Instagram Creator Marketplace.
As per Meta:
“We’re adding more language and region filters to cater to a businesses’ geography, as we onboard more creators globally to Instagram’s creator marketplace.”
That’ll give you more capacity to find the right creators for your products, and your target audience, which could also help you expand into new regions and audience subsets.
Meta’s also giving brands a new way to work with creators via partnership ads, by combining partnership promotions with Advantage+ catalog matching.
“This now includes the option to add a partnership ‘intro card’ from a new or existing partnership ad onto a catalog carousel ad.”
So you’ll be able to use the expanded power of partnership promotions in combination with Meta’s evolving AI product matching, ensuring that the right product gets displayed to relevant audiences via partnership campaigns.
Which you’ll also be able to expand even further by showcasing more products in your Partnership Ads via the “Show Products” optimization in Advantage+ creative.
As you can see in the first example above, by using “Show Products,” Meta will automatically turn single media partnership ads into a catalog display when the system detects that it will increase performance.
“Advertisers who tested the ‘show products’ optimization in Advantage+ creative with partnership ads saw a 4% higher click through rate and 3% higher conversions compared to partnership ads without this optimization.”
So it could be effective, providing another means to showcase the right products to the right people across both Facebook and Instagram.
And as you can see in the second example above, advertisers will also be able to include creator testimonials in partnership ads on Instagram, which are now available to advertisers globally.
“With testimonials marketers can increase the performance of their partnership ads by providing product endorsements as a featured comment within the ad.”
Meta’s also adding some additional video ad options, in order to align with increased video consumption in its apps. Indeed, Meta says that time spent with video content on Facebook has increased 20% year-over-year, and these new ad options will help brands tap into this behavioural shift.
First, Meta’s testing a new “show products” optimization for Facebook and Instagram Reels ads, which will automatically turning a single media Reels ad into a shoppable ad format, populated with products from a brand’s catalog.
That’ll give you another way to showcase more of your products, with less manual effort, while Meta’s also looking to give people more information about an advertiser through a new details option, that will be accessible by swiping up on a Reels ad.
Meta’s also expanding its catalog listing in carousel ads available on IG, which will enable those using Advantage+ catalog ads in carousel format to display catalog product videos on Instagram Reels
“The addition of video to the new scrollable carousel grid format on Instagram Reels is driving improved performance for brands, with a 7% increase in conversion rates on average for advertisers who tested adding video to their Advantage+ catalog campaigns on Instagram Reels compared to images only.”
So more ways to use Meta’s evolving automated ad formats, with more engaging, interesting promotions in-stream.
Meta’s also encouraging advertisers to tap into its new Flexible Media offering, which enables Meta’s ad system to deliver ads into new placements when it predicts that such will help performance.
“Advertisers that tested this solution saw a 23% increase in conversions and businesses globally can now tap into these performance gains.”
So essentially, this will enable Meta’s ad system to expand your placements as it sees fit, though that will still be confined by your set budget parameters.
Meta’s also adding new “creative insights” in ads manager, to provide more insight into the creative approaches that are driving the most impact, while it’s also introducing “related media,” which recommends existing media to include in newly created ad sets.
“By adding these media suggestions to their new campaigns, advertisers can easily increase the volume and diversity of available creatives, which can help improve performance by reaching new and previously untapped audiences in placements across Meta.”
Meta’s also expanding its omnichannel ads to all advertisers globally, which are designed to drive sales activity based on wherever customers are more likely to buy, while it’s also expanding its Shops Ads to new markets (Mexico, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Japan).
Finally, Meta’s also giving more Facebook advertisers access to email sign up offers, which enables marketers to offer promotional discounts in exchange for customer email addresses.
That could be a valuable option to help build your email lists, with Meta reporting that ads with email sign-up offers drive an average increase of 4.6x emails submitted over a 14-day period.
Some handy options for your holiday planning, which could help to drive better response to boost your end-of-year push.
You can read more about Meta’s expanded holiday ad offerings here.
