Optimizing Meta Ads for Q4

Hey everyone, 

Welcome back for another bite to chew on.

Black Friday is two months away. So we know the holiday shopping season is on your mind. 

We’re going to share a lot of stuff to help you prepare for BFCM over the next little while, and today we’re going to start with the Meta Holiday roadshow. 

Our team attended this last week and came away with a handful of tactics that Meta recommends heading into Q4. 

Let’s get right into it…

On the Menu

• (Ad) Diversity is your strength

• Reels best practices

• Optimizing for the holiday season

Yup, diversity matters

We’ve said this before, but Meta confirmed it during this roadshow.

More diverse creative creates more value in your ad account.

They emphasized that “creative diversity” does not mean minor iterations on a winning concept by merely switching up headlines or body copy.

You need to vary your creative widely across concepts and formats in order to find new audiences and increase user actions.

We’ve mentioned before we think of Obvi’s Meta creative strategy according to this grid:

It’s a simple way for us to tally our polished vs organic (or lo-fi) ads and static vs video. 

Of course, within that grid, we then test different concepts and angles, optimizing them for the format in question. 

Meta confirmed you should look at your ad account and determine where you might be lacking when it comes to certain formats. 

So the takeaway here isn’t just “make a whole bunch of ads!”

More that you should understand the constellation of ad formats and concepts in your account. Take note of what might be over-indexed or underrepresented.

Then find ways to fill in the gaps → 

BTW - this is all straight from Meta, so they emphasized all of their recommendations are backed by data to improve performance:

• 50% increase in user actions w/ more diverse creative

• 10% increase in user value

In partnership with Icon

Speaking of creative diversity…

In DTC, if you’re not staying current, then you’re not keeping up.

The world moves fast. Things evolve. 

Like - if you’re advertising on Meta in 2024 like you used to in 2022…you’re probably not going to make it. 

We used to test 10 new FB ads per month. 

Now? 50 per week. 

Changes to the environment and algo meant we had to up our game in order to thrive. 

That’s why one thing we look for in our tools and platform partners is relentless innovation. 

Icon is a new AI platform that ticks the boxes for us → 

✅ Helps us massively increase our ad creative volume

✅ Already launching valuable new features

We started out testing their creator AI feature → where we turn 1 influencer video into 20 iterations as easily as editing a document. 

But recently Icon CEO Kennan Davison announced they are adding the ability to effortlessly generate b-roll footage:

So all you need is an asset library and your imagination to create an endless stream of product placement vids. 🤯

Creative volume and diversity is a huge challenge that Icon is helping us tackle, so we’re looking forward to getting our hands on this new feature. 

Need help creating winning ads at scale? Get your free Icon demo here.

Reels best practices

Meta spent a lot of time emphasizing the importance of making ads for the Reels format.

Things to remember when designing for Reels:

• Make it vertical (9:16)

• “Sound on” production

• Understand the “safe zone”

• Work w/ creators

• You want your Reells ad creative to seem native to the format and ensure all of your valuable imagery and messaging is displayed properly. 

• For years, FB marketers had to design “sound off” ads because most videos on social were muted. But with the rise of TikTok and consumable shorts, that trend has been reversed. 

• Meaning these days most “quick bite” video content is watched with the sound on, so you need to consider audio as a factor in your production. 

• The highlighted area in the above image shows the “safe zone” for Reels, where your video is sure to be consistently visible. 

  • Keep this in mind when creating new (or editing existing) creative so you don’t lose context or messaging. 

• Working w/ creators to develop Reels creative should be a no-brainer at this point. Be sure to find and work with people who intuitively understand the format and how to tell stories/get the message across using it. 

Reels Concept testing

Meta also suggested 5 concepts for brands to test using Reels:

• The listicle

• The product demo

• The before & after

• The transition sequence

• The photo dump

“The listicle” described here is not the classic advertorial landing page, but a method to break down a video into bite-sized chunks using a series of stickers and clips to tell a story or provide information → 

Product demo = unboxing or “demotainment” of how a product works.

Before & after = dramatize your product’s benefits.

Transition sequence = Use jump cuts and swipe cuts to bring attention-stopping momentum to a series of video clips.

Photo dump = sync a series of photos or clips to music.

Some of these may not work for your brand, but the list may give you some idea of where you can start your new concept ideation.  

Optimizing for holiday shoppers

Okay, so far a lot of this is fundamental stuff that could apply to your business-as-usual (BAU) campaigns. 

But Meta also talked specifically about diversifying your ad creative with a holiday shopper’s top considerations in mind. 

How? Emphasize a mix of “rational benefits” and “product benefits” in your account.

Rational benefits → promotions, offers, and convenience

Product benefits → benefits, quality, and product availability

Most of these are self-explanatory except maybe convenience and product availability.

For convenience, you need to make the shopping experience as frictionless as possible, from the post-click destination down to the shipping or pick-up experience. 

This is always important, but especially during the holiday season when customers are actively looking for reasons to buy - or not buy - as they spend their holiday budget. 

So think about stuff like: 

• Can you offer a guaranteed or expedited shipping option?

• Do you offer a gift-wrapping service?

• Can you personalize the product?

• Can you lower perceived risk by offering easy or free returns?

• Can you offer special bundles for different customers/personas?

“Convenience” = The more you can make your product or offer a no-brainer, the more likely you are to grab that share of wallet over a competitor. 

The other thing to consider (outside of the obvious stuff) is product availability. 

Now this mostly comes down to your inventory planning and supply chain, but you may be able to leverage urgency and scarcity in your ad creative to drive people to buy now rather than later. 

“Last day for guaranteed arrival before Christmas” or “this product sells out fast”, for example. 

Meta also revealed a couple of ad options that can help brands communicate rational benefits → “highlight your promotion” and Instagram “reminder ads”.  

Caveat: The reminder functionality is being gradually rolled out and may not be available to your account yet. 

It is also available only in the “engagement” campaign objective, so you can’t just add it to your conversion campaigns.  

Sum it up

Are you planning your BFCM Meta campaigns? 

Here’s what you need to think about (according to Meta):

• Up your creative diversity

• Optimize for Reels

• Understand holiday shopper triggers

Nothing earth-shattering in the holiday roadshow, but it did help confirm a lot of our existing tactics while giving us some ideas for messaging, placements, and formats as we spin up our holiday campaigns. 

Hopefully, this rundown will help you as well.

All the best, 

Ron and Ash