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After a somewhat fallow period, Meta is regaining its footing with marketers.
Three agency and brand sources told Adweek they are reallocating funds back toward Meta, especially compelled by the performance of Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, an AI-driven tool that optimizes ads across audiences and ad formats, leaning on automation and machine learning to make up for signal loss.
This is a shift from the beginning of this year when sources said they were not planning on increasing their Meta investment in 2023, partly spurred by poorer performance and more enticing platforms like TikTok and connected TV.
After decreasing spend on Meta over the course of 2022, Matt Gehring, CMO at telehealth vet firm Dutch started putting his growing marketing budget back into Facebook and Instagram.
“We’re growing spend,” he said, “I’m taking those incremental dollars and I’m pushing them back into Meta rather than some other channels,” he added, noting that prior to the success of ASC campaigns, he would not have directed the funds toward Meta.
Katya Constantine, founder of DTC agency DigiShopGirl said the agency is seeing 5-7% of budgets shift toward Meta incrementally.
“In regards to budget allocation, we are seeing strong conversion performance coming from Meta in Q1,” Constantine. “We are seeing media spend from other paid social channels being shifted to Meta as other paid social channels (including TikTok) are a bit softer.”
Since February, when the agency noticed greater efficiency on Meta relative to TikTok, David Herrmann, president of DTC-focused agency Herrmann Digital, said his agency has been directing more spend from his TikTok budget towards Meta.
“I can run an ad on Facebook, and it will consistently work,” Herrmann said, noting clients can go months without changing ads and rely on Meta’s algorithmic creative optimization. “The same ad on TikTok; you’ll usually get three to four days out of it before you have to rebuild it.”
Meta winning an AI race
Part of Meta’s allure for advertisers comes from its superior automation and AI tools.
TikTok introduced a tool similar to Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns called Smart Performance Campaigns, which automates the audience targeting and creative optimization processes, among others. But the tool hasn’t produced dramatically improved results compared to traditional TikTok campaigns, three buyers told Adweek.