Struggling to gain traction on Meta and want some tips to reinvigorate your ad account? Keep reading. ✅
With visibility into 170+ Meta accounts, the Pilothouse Meta team is seeing an increase in cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and decreased conversion rates (CVR) in their top four geographics (USA, CA, UK, AUS).
While cost-per-click has only increased by 4%, click-through-rate has increased by 10.4%. Together, they bring a higher overall cost-per-acquisition (CPA).
Here’s the top four things the team thinks are impacting high CPAs and decreased conversion rates:
- Higher ad costs. It’s no secret that ad costs are increasing – from iOS 14 to skyrocketing prices in Q4.
- Reduced tracking. Visibility into your audiences and ad accounts isn’t what it used to be. Across the board, we’re seeing brands with 10-50% visibility.
- Less qualified users. With less data to go on, your brand (and Meta) has less data to leverage qualified audiences.
- Decreasing purchase intent. With fears of a looming recession and increased cost of living, shoppers are less likely to click ‘buy now’ on a whim.
So how can brands win? Let’s find out 👇
🧨 It’s time to get scrappy
When looking at winning trends across accounts, one thing is incredibly clear: scrappy content is working!
People are looking to social media for entertainment, and scrappy content interrupts the scroll pattern and invokes audience curiosity.
For example, reaction style, BeReal-esque, TikTok trends, and reveals are very hot right now! 🔥
Pick a theme, match it, and create an ad that doesn’t stand out as an ad. Additionally, look at what your target audience is looking for in terms of entertainment and mimic it.
Two simple formats to test right now (that are consistently top performers in Pilothouse ad accounts):
- 3 reasons why video – record a video of your product being used, tell your audience the top three reasons why they need your product, and overlay text using native formatting on Instagram.
- Product in packaging shot – this one is timeless and 100% worth a test, especially heading into BFCM. Take a product in it’s packaging (box included) and run that image without any editing.
🤓 1 creative test? No thanks
If you’ve got the resources… test, test, test!
Pilothouse’s highest-performing Meta accounts are deploying remarkable numbers of creatives all the damn time.
The market is becoming more and more saturated, so ensure your product, offer, and creative strategies are on lock. 🔒
Here’s what the team suggests:
1️⃣ If you’re on a tight budget ($500 ad spend/day):
Build a pilot test, take your ad set budget, and segment! Think 20-30 ad sets per campaign with low budgets on each. Generally, this looks like approximately $10 of spend on each ad set per day optimized for conversions.
Look for front-end metrics (and hopefully some conversions!), but really what you’re finding is what works with your audiences.
Only test one ad per ad set. This way, you see which variation works best for your brand!
2️⃣ If you’ve got cash money
Run evergreen campaigns and test pretty thoroughly. The team suggests testing across the entire funnel with a combined campaign (three top-performing ad sets that are prospecting and one that is retargeting).
Once you figure out what’s performing best for your accounts and audiences, build the creatives into your scale campaigns!
👀 Whatcha looking for?
Don’t just look at view data to understand how your campaigns are doing! Optimize your campaigns to the data you’re actually getting back from campaigns.
Test 7 day click, 1 day click, and use Google Analytics to look at your click data. Relying on only in-platform reporting isn’t going to get you far these days.
Remember, lean into where you’re getting clicks, not view attribution!
For more information on building campaigns that scale on Meta for your brand, third-party brands, and darkposting listen to the full episode here!
