Over the last year or so, we’ve seen huge growth in AI technology, with tools such as ChatGPT becoming a household name in a very short space of time. Now in daily use for many individuals, AI is no longer just for the early adopters, and companies are doing what they can to stay ahead of the competition to deliver the latest in cutting edge AI tech. Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, is no exception: having recently announced their new Generative AI tools.
What are Generative AI tools?
Generative AI tools are software that use models or algorithms to create brand-new output, including copy, images, videos, code, data, or 3D renderings, from the data they have accumulated from training and programming. As some of you may know, ChatGPT is a generative AI tool, along with numerous others, including DALL-E.
So why does Meta think this will save marketers time?
Meta announced in early October 2023 that they are working on a new generative AI tool, Meta Lattice. The idea is that it will predominantly be used for Meta Ads Manager, helping creatives with background generation, image expansion, and text variations. Meta is hoping to have this complete by the end of 2024. During the testing phase of the new tool, Meta ran a survey where the results showed brands were saving more than five hours a week! Something I know we could all do with.
So, how is Meta getting AI involved in Ads?
Meta Lattice is a system that can better predict the outcomes of ads and improve optimisation without relying on multiple, siloed models. Meta is also continuously building out Meta Advantage suite of ad products, focused on automation that launched in August 2022. Now if you are wondering what Meta Advantage is, let us break it down for you…
Basically, Meta has created all of these AI systems which we feel makes the lives of us marketers 80% easier. The Meta Advantage Suite is broken down into two different product lines; Advantage Features and Advantage+ Products. Advantage Features are designed to harness the full potential of AI in ad campaigns, amplifying performance benefits and boosting the value of each ad impression. By leveraging these features, you can achieve better results with fewer, highly optimised campaigns, effectively reach a larger portion of your target audience, provide personalised customer journeys that drive action, and ultimately save precious time for focusing on other important tasks – yes please!
Advantage+ shopping campaigns help marketers to see which campaigns are converting. It saves time by having 150 creative combinations at once automated for ad creation. This helps us marketers learn which ads are working while utilising the advertising budget sufficiently. It was stated in the presentation by Meta that Advantage+ Shopping improves cost-per-action by 17% and return on ad spend by 32%! In the next few months, we expect to see a lot of marketers testing out Advantage+ on their campaigns.
In addition, there are ongoing discussions about the introduction of automated reports for marketers to review and compare the outcomes of Advantage+ campaigns with manual sales campaigns. Having these automated reports will be highly beneficial for us marketers, saving us that extra time to focus on digging deep and analysing the data. Meta Advantage is actively assisting marketers in expanding their audiences through Advantage+. How? By allowing companies to input their target audience preferences, Meta can efficiently identify individuals beyond those parameters who may be potential converts. Moreover, the AI capabilities include the convenience of editing creatives, such as adjusting brightness, text placement, and the selection of optimal videos for catalogue ads.
I don’t know about you, but we are already sold.
Now which apps are these AI tools being rolled out to?
We can see that Meta is bringing more focus on WhatsApp but they will also be rolling out these features to Facebook and Instagram, which is unsurprising as Facebook and Instagram have been Meta’s ‘golden children’ while Whatsapp took a backseat.
So how will this work? Through Facebook and Instagram ads, people can click to start a WhatsApp chat directly between the consumer and the business. This lead-driving feature mirrors the feature already available on Messenger and Instagram direct messages and will also allow certain marketers to be able to add Q&A flows in Ads Manager. By using this feature on Instagram and Facebook, businesses will be able to connect with potential customers and drive sales through ad products that prompt customers to fill out forms, start chats, and receive calls. Meta already has features for Instagram Direct including having vouchers added to click-to-message ads which tests instant ad formats that are relevant to the target audience and Meta is also working on instant forms for Facebook that can gather content from an Advertisers website.
Meta may be ahead when it comes to rolling out these Generative AI tool features but competitors are stepping up to the challenge including Google which has launched a beta version of its Performance Max ad product using an AI generative tool. I’m sure this is just the start of Generative AI tools and soon we will be bombarded with options.
Interested in knowing if this works? Our team at Clockwise are going to run a series of tests through Meta Advantage ads on Instagram to see what results we achieve and if it is indeed saving us time and if the efforts are effective… We’ll keep you updated!
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