Meta Ads Automation Problem: When Algorithms Fail Your Strategy

[00:00:12] You have to be really careful with meta. They have a lot of automations that are sort of under the hood, I would say. Um, whether it be within the creative or even at the audience level, they have, um, you know, expansion, you know, expand my audiences beyond these specific demographics. So that's something you really have to be careful about, um, because you don't wanna have cannibalization between audiences.

[00:00:34] You wanna make sure that each one is targeting a different area and.

[00:00:42] So for your clients, are you using automated campaigns that prevent demographic creative targeting? Yeah, I think, um, meta really has started to rely on their algorithm with everything that they do currently, whether it be additional features on their ads, but at the very base of it is their use of automation use utilizing the algorithm.

[00:01:04] Pardon, when it comes to the campaign level. And while those campaigns can do very well, I wouldn't recommend putting your entire strategy in it because it really does limit the amount of creative, um, tailoring that you can do to your specific audiences. So, um, the algorithm based campaigns, the Advantage plus shopping campaigns really limit the control you have.

[00:01:26] And so it's sharing it to whoever it deems as important. So if you have a wide range of demographics and you need to speak to them a little bit differently, it's really going to lean into a certain demographic or for. Rather, it has a tendency to really skew the results, um, into one way or another. And it can be difficult to expand your audiences and speak to those specific demographics.

[00:01:50] Um, I have a one client, I have one client who has, um, their tour, their core. I have one client whose, um, core target audience is around like 30 to 35, and they are mainly females and they're really focused on health and wellness. But when I found that we launched an Advantage Plus shopping campaign, um, this.

[00:02:12] Spend in that Advantage Plus shopping campaign was really skewing to this really tiny niche audience that's 60 plus that they typically don't see as their highest customers. Um, and the ads that they were showing them really weren't what was speaking to what they were looking for from that specific company.

[00:02:28] Um, so we had to really, you know. Split that out and, and really focus our creative targeting and splitting out the demographics to tailor each of those ads to the demands of each of those demographics. Whether it be, um, just age, but even beyond that, you can look into specific interests. Um, and if people, you know, are looking for.

[00:02:48] For example, if they're looking for coffee, maybe we speak to that a little bit more. If someone's looking for a health, we speak to that a little bit more. So, um, an advantage plus shopping campaign just really doesn't give you that control, and I think that can be really important to not spend your ad dollars, um, insignificant.

[00:03:05] Yeah, I think that's great. For your clients, how do you go about balancing the automation efficiency with the demographic charting precision? Um, I definitely, I like to use Advantage Plus shopping campaign sort of as a supplementary approach. We put most of our, um, focus and our budgets into those specific targeting, um, the audiences.

[00:03:28] And then we have sort of the Advantage Plus shopping campaign as that catchall campaign that might find those niches in the market that we didn't necessarily think of at the beginning. Um, but that is definitely. I, like I said, I wouldn't necessarily put all of my strategy and budget into those advantage push shopping campaigns 'cause it can, it can go very wrong and it's hard to control once it starts to skew the wrong way.

[00:03:53] And for those campaigns that you do have split by demographic, how do you structure those to enable demographic specific creative testing? Um, I definitely, well we first started to think about the client and the, the different core targets of their, or core target audiences of those clients, and whether it be just demographics or interests as well, and start to build out what those clients look like, what are their purchasing triggers, and then we create audiences.

[00:04:19] Based off of that, um, I typically, you obviously wanna make sure audiences are large enough so that you're not, um, having too small of an audience and the CPMs are too high. But you also wanna make sure that, um, if you are tailoring creative, that's talking to a very specific problem that the audiences reflecting that.

[00:04:38] So it definitely is something that you wanna tailor with. Each and every client and with each and every, um, you know, product or service or anything like that, and see which, um, demographics or which interests are most important to them, and then focus your attention there. And then, like you said before, you use Advantage Plus shopping kind of as broad and supplemental to those hearted campaigns.

[00:05:03] How do you really go about measuring performance? And success between those, more demographic specific and also broad advantage plus campaigns. Mm-hmm. When it comes to looking at the campaign level, I do typically look a little bit more bottom of funnel, so whether it be lead or purchase, but when you're looking to the effectiveness of each creative, that's where you wanna look a little bit whole.

[00:05:26] Like more well rounded. So you wanna look at the engagement levels, whether it be click through rate, cost per click, um, but then you also wanna keep in mind, if we are targeting this person and they are engaging, are they actually quality? Are they actually converting to the bottom of funnel? So it takes a lot of insight and I think that's why it's so great that we have, um, you know.

[00:05:47] Different cha or different features that we have to be able to track and, uh, look at the, the performance of all the creative. 'cause it can be a little bit daunting 'cause you can't really narrow in on a single paint, um, point. And then when you do have those broad campaigns and also segmented campaigns, how do you prevent algorithm automation from destroying your segmentation strategy?

[00:06:15] So you have to be really careful with meta. They have a lot of automations that are sort of under the hood, I would say. Um, whether it be within the creative or even at the audience level, they have, um, you know, expansion, you know, expand my audiences beyond these specific demographics. So that's something you really have to be careful about, um, because you don't wanna have cannibalization between audiences.

[00:06:37] You wanna make sure that each one is targeting a different area and you're not. Fighting against yourself with the out or within the, the, the testing or the auction. That's why within the auction. Um, so definitely make, keep an eye out for those. Um, so those expansion targeting, making sure your age groups and your interest are very separate from one another.

[00:06:58] Um, and then even going to the audit or the ad level, um, there's a lot of automation. Options available. Um, and it can be a little bit tedious to go into each ad and make sure that they're not, um, hiding anywhere. 'cause meta really does wanna push algorithm and algorithm based features a lot, which isn't a bad thing.

[00:07:19] But if it's not in line with who you're branding and who you're talking to, I think it's important to turn them off and, and stick to your creative strategy. Awesome.

[00:07:41] Which is Advantage Plus Custom Audience. Advantage Plus has kind of thrown around in so many different contexts now on meta, but in this specific use case, it essentially gives meta the option to expand your given audience if it feels that it will perform better.