Tips and trends from industry experts to help grow your brand.
Ten years ago, Terry Whalen and I took the leap and started Sum Digital. We had a vision, deep expertise in media buying, and a passion for helping e-commerce brands grow—but let me tell you, building an agency is a whole different ball game. It's challenging, but the rewards have far exceeded our expectations.
As someone deeply involved in digital advertising, I've seen firsthand how crucial it is to understand Meta's ads algorithm. Whether you're running campaigns for e-commerce, services, or any other industry, grasping how Facebook and Instagram decide which ads to show can make or break your campaigns. Let's break it down in simple terms.
At its core, Meta's ad system is like a super-smart matchmaker. It's constantly trying to pair the right ad with the right person at the right time. But how does it make these decisions? It boils down to three main factors:
1. Advertiser Bid
2. Estimated Action Rates
3. Ad Quality and Relevance
Think of it as a contest where these three factors compete. The ads that perform best across all three are the ones that get shown.
Here's where it gets interesting. Meta uses advanced machine learning to predict how likely a person is to take the action you want (like making a purchase or signing up for a service).
This system looks at tons of data points - past behaviors, interests, and even how people similar to your target audience have interacted with ads. But don't worry, it's not looking at individual user info. Instead, it's finding patterns in behavior to make smart guesses about who might be interested in your ad.
As advertisers, we need to play to these strengths. Here's how:
1. Quality is King: Create ads that people actually want to see. The algorithm rewards engaging, relevant content.
2. Know Your Audience: The better we understand our target audience, the more effectively we can set up our targeting.
3. Test, Test, Test: Meta's system learns from performance. Running A/B tests helps the algorithm (and us) figure out what works best.
4. Embrace the Algorithm: Instead of fighting the system, work with it. Use tools like Advantage+ campaigns to let Meta's AI find the best audience for your ads.
5. Stay Up-to-Date: Meta's constantly updating its systems. What worked for your campaign last month might not be the best approach this month.
Meta recently introduced a new AI architecture called Meta Lattice. It's designed to make ad delivery even smarter and more efficient. For advertisers, this means potentially better performance across different ad placements (think Feed vs. Stories vs. Reels) and possibly more bang for your advertising buck.
Meta Lattice: A model architecture that’s greater than the sum of its parts (source: Meta)
With all this talk of data and machine learning, you might be wondering about privacy. Here's the good news: Meta emphasizes that they don't share personally identifiable information with advertisers. They're trying to walk the line between relevant ads and user privacy.
Understanding Meta's ad algorithm isn't just about technical know-how. It's about creating strategies that work with the system, not against it. As we continue to run campaigns across various industries, keeping these principles in mind will help us stay ahead of the game.
Remember, the goal is to create win-win-win situations: ads that users find relevant and engaging, that deliver results for businesses, and that make efficient use of ad spend. By aligning our strategies with how Meta's algorithm works, we're setting ourselves up for success.
What are your thoughts on Meta's ad algorithm? Have you noticed any strategies working particularly well lately? Let's discuss in the comments!
Last week, I had the privilege of attending the Meta Performance Summit, an exclusive event for top digital advertising agencies. The summit brought together industry leaders to share the latest trends, strategies, and best practices for driving ecommerce growth through Meta's advertising platforms. Here are some of the key insights I gathered:
High-quality data is critical. As the saying goes, "better input equals better output." By leveraging diverse creative assets and leaning into automation, advertisers can iterate quickly to optimize performance.
AI is transforming advertising. One speaker declared that "AI is the death of targeting" - meaning manual audience targeting is becoming less effective compared to letting AI algorithms find the right users. The focus should be on compelling creative that the AI can learn from.
Reels are the top priority on Meta platforms right now. Short-form video, entertaining content tailored specifically for Reels is essential. Grab attention quickly with hooks that highlight pain points.
Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) allow advertisers to optimize for value by factoring in the value of each conversion, not just volume. Use value-based bidding and dynamic scheduling to maximize return on ad spend.
Build creative muscle in-house with a consistent feedback loop on what's working. Influencer partnerships can provide diverse, authentic content. Meta's AI tools like the Instagram Creator Marketplace can help find the right creators for your brand.
Incremental conversion tests, in partnership with measurement providers like Northbeam, help quantify the true impact of campaigns like Google Ads Brand on incremental growth. Make sure to feed new customer data back into Meta for optimization.
Creative trends are evolving quickly. In 2022, creative was the key growth driver. In 2023, creative has become the new targeting. By 2024, generative AI will allow brands to create at the speed of culture. Tools like Meta's AI ideation tool can help.
As digital marketers, maintaining a holistic, full-funnel approach and staying on the cutting edge of these trends will be critical for driving profitable ecommerce growth. I'm excited to put these insights into practice for our clients at Sum Digital. If any of these strategies resonated with you, let's connect to discuss how we can level up your brand's ad creative and supercharge growth.
In the age of mobile-first short form video it is key to know how to quickly convey important information through video editing. Unfortunately, Premiere Pro is tricky and not very user friendly. I have often found myself saying "I know what I want to do, I just don't know where to look" while looking at the myriad of menus. Here are 5 Premiere Pro tips and tricks that I wish I knew sooner in my career.
In the ever-evolving landscape of advertising, one thing remains constant: the power of storytelling. Whether it's a thirty-second commercial or a series of social media posts, storytelling has the ability to captivate audiences, evoke emotions, and leave a lasting impression. In this blog post, we'll explore the art of storytelling in advertising and provide practical tips on how to create compelling narratives that resonate with your audience!
In 2018, Kindred Bravely found themselves at a crossroads. They needed to get to their paid channels program to the next level. Sum Digital was brought in to help KB scale their paid channels program effectively and efficiently, leveraging years of experience in media buying and creative optimization.
Do you want to optimize your paid TikTok strategy but don't know where to start? Sure, TopFeed ads get you all of the exposure, but that requires a hefty budget. No need to fear, we will tell you how our conversion-based campaign structure led to solid results in 2023. Plus, these top 4 buckets are available to everyone, no allowlisting or large investments necessary.
We wanted to test whether one of our client’s Google Ads Brand Search campaigns was driving incremental Shopify revenue or if we should allocate this relatively small spend elsewhere. Our hypothesis was that since competitor ads were not appearing on brand search results pages for our client’s brand terms, we could afford to forgo paying Google to help users navigate to their intended destination; organic clicks to the website would take the place of paid clicks.
We recently began handling Meta Ads for a new client, including all creative production and ad copywriting. A week in, the CEO asked how we planned to capture their brand voice in our ads. He said, "We have a copywriter on staff but she's too busy." This sparked an idea I'd been eager to try, involving automation and efficiency.
At Sum Digital, our in-house creative team leverages cutting-edge technology in order to produce the highest-quality content for our clients. This includes the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence (AI). Using Midjourney—a generative AI program, we're able to craft stellar Meta platform ads by merging product photography with AI-generated backgrounds.
Within the dynamic landscape of social media, a revolutionary force has emerged - User-Generated Content (UGC). UGC refers to any content—such as text, images, videos, reviews, etc.—created by individuals who are not necessarily professional creators but rather users or consumers of a product, service, or platform.
Sum Digital, a San Francisco digital advertising agency, spotted an opportunity in TikTok's evolving platform for a high-end accessories brand. This two-year journey (2022-2023) was not just about amplifying a brand; it was about escaping the duopoly of digital advertising to deliver cost-effective sales.
Let’s be honest and admit that using Facebook Ads Library is a pretty clunky and unintuitive process. Between expired links and screenshots of ads in slack messages there has got to be a better way. This is the exact opportunity that the folks at Foreplay.co saw and committed to making this process so much smoother!
