Last month I had the amazing opportunity to visit the Dublin Meta office for their peak season summit. It was a great day for learning and networking with agencies and brands who are all gearing up for Q4. As there was a lot of learnings and insights given on the day I’ve chosen to share 4 Key points that stood out to me that will enhance your campaign strategy.

1. GWI Consumer Behaviour 

People are starting to search for Christmas related products earlier and earlier each year. We’ve noticed the same shift in behaviour with client competitors and the search terms relating to advent calendars and Christmas gifting as early as August! While you might think August is too early, this is the perfect time to start filling up your database with emails through Lead Generation campaigns. Create a buzz about your products and even offer early bird discounts to build engagement and increase eventual conversion rates. 

2. Audiences 

According to their GWI research, global consumers are still spending more, especially Gen Z who are planning on purchasing non-essential products this year. It was also stated that there’s a 15% increase in those more likely to make impulse purchases. So what does this mean for us marketers? We should ensure Gen Z is included in our target audience and keep them in mind when making social content. 

While you might have your target audiences planned out, Meta has advised brands to look into audience automation which creates a broader pool to target. Audience automation includes detailed targeting, lookalikes and custom audiences generated through their AI. 

Through their AI tech, the platform to drive greater performance by uncovering new audiences that you might not have considered. Don’t get too attached to the current settings you might have, try something new this month ahead of peak sales for some much needed testing.

3. Campaign Structure

If you’re on the platform a lot you will know about their newest product, Advantage Plus Shopping campaign otherwise known as ASC.  It’s an AI based campaign structure that combines prospecting and existing audiences into one ad set. It aims to drive better results than the traditional campaign set up you might know. They’ve seen a 17% improvement on cost per conversion and a 32% increase on ad spend cost. Furthermore, according to Meta it’s best to use at least 30% of your media budget on this campaign type. 

4. Creative Diversification 

Creative is very important when it comes to ad targeting and diversifying the format, messaging and content type is crucial to getting audiences to engage in a meaningful way.The key is to create content digestible and entertaining while also engaging the community  through content they’d expect to see on your organic channels. 

In the campaign, ensure advantage placements are on so that you can have the best chance of showing up where your customers are.