As the high street starts to get busy in the run-up to the holidays, so do the digital channels, where competition for customer attention is high. The stakes are high too, yet marketing professionals have finite budgets and time resources to get their performance marketing strategies right. AI tools can enhance efficiency for businesses in their busiest periods, free up time for professionals to think strategically, and alleviate some of the pressure of competing for attention during the all-important Black Friday and Christmas period.
Mobile, and specifically social platforms, are crucial for brands during the holiday season. According to Meta’s “Festive Season Performance Guide”, . But these shoppers have diverse needs and behaviours that businesses need to be aware of if they are to optimise ads and stay relevant. At this make or break time for brands, AI can step in by becoming a creative partner, a source of audience insight, and a base of new formats that keep your brand and products fresh in the minds of consumers and help avoid ad fatigue.
An added Advantage for meeting demand
One helpful tool is Meta Advantage, which uses AI to optimise each step of your campaign, including audience, creative, destination, placement and budget to efficiently run your campaigns.
Meta Advantage includes Advantage+ shopping campaigns, which automates targeting, delivery, and placement of ad campaigns to find new customers. To better optimise their budgets for moments in time when they anticipate higher sales, marketers can also use budget scheduling when setting up their Advantage+ shopping campaigns. It’s an approach that works. Tests showed that on average,
Additionally, Advantage+ catalogue ads automatically provide product recommendations within carousel ads based on a person’s interests. Advertisers can provide people with more engaging product information with product level videos in their campaigns. Advantage+ catalogue ads also make Reels shoppable, allowing people to easily swipe through multiple products at once. These features help marketers drive sales for the best products from their catalogue along with their hero creative.
The use of these tools is already more widespread than you might think. and they’re seeing it pay for itself. We published some research with the National Bureau of Economic Research and found that every pound spent on our ads by businesses in the UK drives on average £3.46 in revenues for advertisers. This means that ad spending on our platform directly supports over £15.5 billion in business revenues every year in the UK.
A fast track to targeted ad designs
Indeed, understanding and adapting to rapidly shifting behaviours, such as last-minute gift shopping or impulse buys, requires precise targeting but it also needs a bold and proactive approach to creative assets too. However, time-poor marketers become increasingly stretched during the holiday season, and with the large number of different formats to create assets for, it can become a complex and demanding task to stay afloat.
Generative AI tools can help marketers create new ads faster with messages tailored for customers, enabling them to diversify creative at scale. For instance, businesses can use Background Generation to add variety to the background of product images so they can target different audiences. Similarly, Image Expansion seamlessly adjusts creative assets to fit different aspect ratios across multiple surfaces like Feed or Reels, while Text Variations generates multiple versions of ad copy to be relevant to specific consumers.
Advertisers using these types of creative diversification have seen a .
Building for new formats
The holiday season extends beyond just one day and one opportunity to engage with consumers. That’s why it’s important to leverage a broad range of formats that help you tell a story in new and exciting ways.
Reels have become a format that drives interaction and purchasing decisions by leaning into the power of video with creators to drive improved performance. In fact, when surveyed by Meta, 79% of respondents say they’ve purchased a product or service after watching Reels. In addition to this, there are reminder ads which help advertisers build awareness, anticipation and consideration during holiday sales on Instagram by reminding people to shop at the start and before the end of promotions.
It’s also possible to directly engage with consumers through messaging on various Meta platforms to build relationships and move them through the purchase funnel. Click-to-message ads send people directly into conversations in Messenger, Instagram, or WhatsApp when they click on an ad.
Growth opportunities
Some see the holiday season as a time of year when the surge in demand for media buying, optimisation, and reporting seems insurmountable. Others see it as an opportunity to use the biggest cultural moment of the year to be seasonably relevant to customers and ready to capitalise on enhanced brand visibility, market share and customer retention. With AI tools, it’s now easier than ever to be there when, where and how customers need you, while still having the resources to plan strategically for future campaigns.