Meta Releases Their Holiday Planning Guide
As of the day of writing Meta has only released their ANZ version, and although further regions of the guide are expected to be released soon, the undermining principles are universal.
Meta currently boasts over 5.9 billion monthly active users across Facebook and Instagram, and with the newly released Threads app, their market share continues to increase. It’s safe to say their data insights are nothing short of gold.
In this blog, we will break down our key takeaways from the holiday planning guide that you need to be aware of to maximise your chance of success this holiday period.
It’s Never Too Early For Christmas
Meta starts off by addressing concerns around the festive period, stating that 3 in 4 shoppers surveyed are on the lookout for sales and bargains.
For e-commerce brands, crafting a compelling offer to reduce CPA (cost per acquisition) while also trying to increase AOV (average order value) is going to be crucial for success this holiday period.
Previously, Christmas campaigns were heavily centred around impulsivity and urgency. The diagram (shown above) supplied by Meta now shows just how much more planning customers do prior to purchasing, 12% now start planning their Christmas shopping before October, a 33% increase compared to 2020. From this, Meta advises brands to create a ‘3 month runway’ into Christmas with their advertising campaigns.
The Rise Of AI
Over the past year, Meta has been pushing advertisers to lean into their machine learning on their advertising platform, boasting lower CPA’s and increased profitability. This was amplified in the summer of last year, when Meta announced the release of their Advantage+ shopping and leads campaigns.
Here at Edison Media, we’ve also found this to be true, our early A/B tests show machine learning often out-performing traditional interest stacks.
Why is this?
Strict interest targeting drastically limits audience size, and in doing so, could potentially limit conversions.
Meta states “AI improves when given a larger pool of opportunities.” The chart below demonstrates how the social media giant’s AI seeks out buyers by cross-referencing potential interests. This is why maximising audience size is important, as ‘when AI has more data to work with, it helps find more connections to optimise holiday performance.
Content Is King
If you are an avid marketeer like the team here at Edison Media, you’ll already know and stress the importance of creatives. The recent rise of short-form content is no anomaly, with Meta sharing that 93% of people surveyed shared Reels with friends or family.
One of the key areas of focus for our organic social media team at Edison Media is short-form content. It’s personable and helps brands/creators create genuine, intimate connections with their audience. It’s no surprise that 1.6x more people want content that is real/authentic than high-production advertisements.
Meta then finalises their content section with a list of creative and audience recommendations, which may shock you.
Best practices from Meta include creating upwards of 150 creatives for the Christmas period. Be sure to test different offers, colours, taglines, short-form content, hooks and much more. A hot tip from the team here at Edison, don’t forget to re-purpose your best-performing organic content into paid media.
Meta’s holiday planning guide also includes case studies, tips on audience targeting, A/B testing, and conversion tracking to maximise your data available.
You can head over to Meta and download the guide here.
If there’s anything in the guide you don’t understand or require some assistance with, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team today!
