In the ever-changing world of social media, it seems like there’s always a new feature or setting for running ads. It can be difficult to keep up and know which ones to prioritize.
In 2023, Meta (Facebook/Instagram) rolled out Advantage+ creative optimization, a group of settings that allow you to apply creative optimizations to your ad including music, image brightness, and contrast, and Standard enhancements, which optimize ad performance based on the individual viewers’ preferences and behavior.
The goal with Advantage+ is to improve campaign performance, but what exactly do Standard enhancements do? These changes can include:
By enabling this feature, Meta can make edits in terms of where your ad copy and text appears in the ad. For example, your primary copy may show as the description, or the headline may show as the primary copy. Essentially, Meta may rearrange the ad text into different combinations based on who is viewing your ad and their preferences.
With this optimization, Meta adjusts your creative assets based on what viewers are likely to respond to. These adjustments can include changes to the image brightness and contrast, adding artistic filters, adjusting the aspect ratios, adding templates or using ad copy as text overlaid on creative.
This modifies how your ad and its components are displayed, such as displaying relevant Facebook comments or adding labels to your ads.
With Advantage+, Meta’s system then dynamically chooses which version it suspects a user is most likely to respond to and delivers that version to them. There are benefits and drawbacks to utilizing Advantage+. If the client or brand needs or prefers specific creative control over their messaging, Advantage+ may not be appropriate for that campaign. However, through testing, our social team has confirmed the improved performance that Meta notes as the primary benefit of these optimizations.
For example, an education client ran a social media campaign with us. Advantage+ was turned on but the client requested it be disabled partway through to maintain their creative control. A comparison of the campaign performance showed a significant decline in all metrics after it was disabled, with a 44% decrease in impressions, 29% decrease in reach, 22% decline in frequency and clicks, and an increased Cost Per Click of 21% and Cost Per Thousand of 69%.
The following is a trend chart that shows what happened to the Cost Per Thousand (CPM – the cost for 1,000 impressions) when Advantage+ was disabled. A properly optimized ad should have a fairly steady Cost Per Action over time, not the fluctuations seen at the end of September when the optimizations were turned off.
While Advantage+ is a good use of AI to help improve campaign performance, it may not be appropriate for every client or every campaign. We’re here to help further develop your social marketing and utilize available tools to meet your goals!
