How AI Can Help Small Businesses on Meta

It's 4:30 on a sunny Thursday afternoon and you are looking forward to closing your laptop, pouring a glass of Rosé, and sipping it in the last rays of sunshine on the porch. You are nearly there but you hear that oh so familiar *bing* of a new email in your inbox, ugh. Since you are such a good employee, you open the message and see it’s a new folder of assets for a campaign that needs to be trafficked and launched before the weekend. Doesn’t sound like too big of a task, but the issue is the assets provided are 1:1s, no 9:16s. You need both sizes to run across Meta properly. Normally you would have three options:

·       Run the ad as a square, only in feed.

·       Run the ad in all placements but have it load wonky with color-blocked banners above and below.

·       Go ask the creative team to resize it all, which could take more time and delay the launch.

 None of these are ideal.

 This is where AI and the tools available are improving (although not quite there all the way) in platforms like Meta. For example, they have a new AI solution in the works, and it’s called “Expand Image”. This solution shows more promise than other “enhancement” options that usually lead to bizarre text overlays, mismatched copy, or added music that doesn’t fit with the creative. When the “Expand Image” tool is fully flushed out it will dynamically expand your 1:1 asset and create a cohesive 9:16 version so you can run in feed and stories seamlessly. This could be an awesome time-saving tool for any brand running on Meta. Imagine only having to create one ad and Meta could do all the heavy lifting of generating perfect versions with the correct dimensions for all the placements. This is a tangible benefit to AI tools being built that can save time and money.

Beware of the Pitfalls

We talk about the need for a “human fingerprint” when using AI because while platforms like Meta are automatically adding them to your campaigns, you need to make sure a human reviews it. Right now, the tools Meta is pushing are moving in the right direction, but it can still be wonky from time to time. If you just auto-adopt them, you will notice some ads will look a little off just don’t feel right or you will regret just letting Meta do what it wants.

We encourage everyone to test the new opportunities to enhance your ads and automate the process but also review the options the system selects to make sure it matches the brand aesthetic.

We have a screenshot with examples of add-ons Meta has right now, many of which are auto-selected when you create the ad. We see value in the options, but it’s important to review and make sure they are what you want.

Summary

AI tools are quickly moving into the most popular ad platforms in the world. While not all hit the mark, we see that some are very close to saving time and money for brands. Platforms saving brands time on the creative development front is a large opportunity and we think Meta is close to getting that right.  That said, we recommend being diligent in managing the options as sometimes it doesn’t get it right. AI tools are not slowing down, and they are getting better and better. While it’s natural to push back on them because you lose some control, it’s also a potential time and money saver.

But, Why?

The speed at which the marketing world is moving right now is so fast. Yes, I sound like an old man (I am getting there), but marketing technology is moving at warped speed.  Take AI, where 12 months ago it was a buzz word in the marketing community and now it’s something we have all explored and implemented.  Every agency and brand are leaning on ways to become more efficient with AI being an answer to a lot of that, layered with nearly every ad platform moving towards greater automation/AI intelligence, the media landscape is evolving quickly.

At DNW, we work with primarily small to medium sized brands that spend almost 100% of their budget on digital, so using things that produce more content efficiently is extremely valuable. But there is an undercurrent happening as more money moves to digital and additional tools are used (often AI) to save time and money. You would believe that with more data and digital spending, we should get greater visibility into what’s going on with a campaign, but the opposite is happening - and we are sprinting towards a world of less clarity.

One of the most important traits I look for in interviews is curiosity.  Does the candidate show curiosity about their profession and how things work?  A lot of skills can be taught, but someone who has an inquisitive nature is so important because they will do what’s necessary to find out why things are the way they are and what it all means in the context of their work.  If a CTR looks too good to be true, it might very well be.  There could be a glitch or something random happening we didn’t account for.  For all of the marketing world, people who continue to ask questions will succeed because they want to understand why things are happening which will lead to new insights and better ways forward.

Current technology in media is moving us in the opposite direction of an inquisitive nature.  Meta, Google, and others are forcing Automation/AI on campaigns with little insight on why things are going as they do.  Yes, it’s great our CPA was 10% lower than benchmark, but shouldn’t we strive for why that is happening?  Well, if you run a Performance Max (PMAX) campaign in Google, you may get the first question, did we hit our benchmark, but you are almost certainly not getting your second question answered, why did it do well? PMAX is literally Googles answer to – throw it at the wall and see what sticks.  Put a bunch of assets out there and let a system get the best results with no insights into why.  Not a trend I am that thrilled with.

Its frustrating seeing this trend because Automation without insights shouldn’t be the goal or direction we go in.  For more junior employees starting their careers in media and marketing, we should be teaching the skills needed to triangulate data to turn into meaningful insights.  Sadly we are moving quickly to an advertising world where data that leads to actionable insights is not available. The best marketers will be able to fake it a bit and use all their experiences to make sense of the limited data you get back, but we are staring at a future with less data and we should question that now.

Its our job as marketers to be questioning a lot of things and the loss of data is here and only going to become more prevalent.  Lets push for a work-world where insights and understanding exceed the need for just results for results sake.

Dunks & Threes.  How Advertising Should Model Basketball

While it is still the middle of NFL season, the NBA is back in a couple weeks. For anyone that watches basketball at the NBA level knows the game has evolved (for better or worse). The mid-range jumper has vanished as the game leans further into either aggressively attacking the paint or tactically scoring three-pointers.  For the fellow data nerds, there is even a blog out there called Dunks & Threes that analyzes performance by team at how well they do on both fronts. 

The idea behind this new wave of basketball is you need to run your offense efficiently – shots in the paint are very high percentage and 3s are worth more than 2s (duh). Simply put, shooting 33% with 3-pointers is the same as shooting 50% with 2-pointers over the course of a game. So, a team shooting 35-40% from the three-point arc is going to win a lot of games (assuming their defensive is strong too).

How the heck does this relate to advertising?

Performance media and low-hanging fruit media channels (Google, Meta, etc..) are the “dunks” while brand awareness marketing is the three-pointer. The problem is, many brands are seeing the high field goal percentage of dunks and neglecting the tactical three-pointers (awareness media) to help reach their brand goals. Over time, the three-point shooting of brand awareness can often be the differentiator in the success of a brand.

At DNW we often work with brands that have a $200,000 - $2,000,000 per year to spend on media. Many brands with this budget range tend to lean the majority, if not all, of their media budget on the dunks of performance media because it’s easier to attribute, can be highly successful, and looks good on paper.  But we would argue that just like basketball, there are only so many dunks of easy media and the reality is, three-pointers of branding are just as crucial to a strong offense and building a strong brand..

Too many brands are forgetting about awareness media because they don’t feel their budget allows for it and brand marketing can be risky. In any given game, one might shoot 25% from the three-point line and lose, leaving an empty feeling.  Just like teams shouldn’t let the poor performance of one game bleed into this next, brands shouldn’t focus solely on a single brand campaign. Awareness campaigns can be difficult to measure and tie back to key business indicators. Without the budget to run big, splashy plays (Super Bowl commercials, billboards in Times Square, etc.), the question always comes back - is it even worth it? As any NBA team would argue, yes, it is imperative to keep improving with the three-pointers of brand awareness.

“Trust the process” is another phrase said in basketball, and that is how we feel about Dunks & Threes. Every brand would love to focus purely on points in the paint to help strong brand growth, but the formula for success, regardless of budget, is to find ways to shoot 3s effectively in combination with efficiency in the paint to maximize performance and wins.

Case Study

It’s all good in theory, but we have been working with a client for 3 years and want to share how we have approached their yearly budget and how we find the right balance to grow their business.

The Client + Goal

A West Coast CPG beverage brand that is looking to gain market share while improving eCommerce across its website and Amazon.

Approach

Our annual budget is between $1-2 million digitally. We are pushed to focus more on “lower funnel” media to help drive direct sales and plan the year around 2 campaign pushes and some evergreen media that drives traffic to the site/Amazon.

Example channels per campaign type

Evergreen Campaigns are made up of direct revenue drivers.

• Platforms used: Google, Meta, TikTok, etc…

Campaign pushes (specifically a Q1 campaign) included a mix of awareness and conversion tactics.

• Platform/Partners used: Google, Meta, Publisher + Content Partners, Amazon Video, Podcasting

Results

We look for opportunities to get more efficient on the dunks with 12-month media to our core audience, driving direct clicks/engagement while still finding broader brand initiatives to hit some threes as well. Below are some results from the year.

• Content Partnership: Well & Good.

  • We utilized Well & Good for multiple campaigns, and by evolving our tactics from 2022, we saw a 3x increase in brand lift vs the previous year. 

  • On top of awareness, our revenue on Amazon increased 17% on days we did takeovers of the site.

• Expanding with Amazon to run CTV helped increase awareness by 13% vs the control group. Along with broader awareness, there was a nearly 100% increase in New to the Brand purchases YoY (Q1 2022 vs Q1 2023) showing that working with traditionally “low funnel” partners on more awareness campaigns can help your down funnel campaigns as well.

• Organic traffic to the site increased 31% YoY while transactions increased 26% and revenue increased 69%.

• Evergreen Meta: Traffic to Amazon.

  • Always on effort that drive traffic to their Amazon storefront for 2 product lines. Direct attribution is difficult, as tracking drops off on Amazon, but the client has seen a lift in Amazon sales when this campaign is live. The reverse is also true, when the campaign is off, there is a dip in Amazon revenue.

  • A consistent presence in the market along with incremental creative improvements resulted in CTR increases for both product lines YoY (Q1 2022 vs Q1 2023).

    • Product line 1: 187% increase

    • Product line 2: 260% increase

Summary

Regardless of your overall budget, finding ways to be more brand-centric with your media helps your lower-funnel media perform better. It helps tell the brand story in ways that you cannot just do in a Meta or Google ad, and although very difficult, you can tie back your broader media approaches to action on your site. Media is harder than ever and, at the moment, it may not always feel like progress is being made, but when looking back at YoY gains, you start to see the payoff nearly every time. Keep shooting those 3’s because its what’s going to win you the game.

Summer Internship - A DNW Perspective

When you are a small agency, every team member is valuable. At DNW we are a lean team of digital media professionals, and in the winter of 2023, we decided we wanted to add a summer intern to the mix. In full transparency, we didn’t need the day-to-day help, but on the recommendation of a trusted advisor to the agency, we utilized the Degrees of Change internship program to find an intern. The program goal is to invest in the future of the Puget Sound by identifying exceptional college students and recent grads from underrepresented backgrounds and matching them with top, local employers.

Often, we think of the experience of having an intern through their eyes, but it’s also important that we think about the long-term gains of having an intern for the full-time team too. The team will get opportunities to get hands-on, train, and mentor someone new. Upon reflection, we wanted to get anecdotes from our team on how having an intern impacted us along with what experiences did we learn along the way.

The future is a two-way street when bringing on an intern, and below is our team’s view of the experience, how it impacted them, and hopefully what they were able to learn during the summer internship program.

Ben Nussbaum

Overall, I would give our intern a 2/10 on coffee-getting skills, and 4/10 on lunch-order skills. Aside from that, it was a really great experience. It gave me time to reflect on not only how far I’ve come since I was a college student, and how far the intern will go in life. Taking the time to explain the basics of programs, workflows, strategies and beyond helped me continue to solidify my base understanding of digital marketing. The intern's willingness to learn was an 8/10 and ability to do sometimes seemingly unnecessary work for the sake of learning was a 10/10. I felt fortunate enough to get the opportunity to take a college student under my wing and give them real-life experience that will help shape their future career in this field.

Agam Jain

In an era where information is more accessible than ever before - not only through search queries, but also through AI-driven chatbots that answer questions in a conversational manner - challenging someone in an unfamiliar environment (i.e. our intern with tasks) is simultaneously both assuring, knowing help is available whenever needed, and frustrating, given the applied-nature of our work in digital media.

Helping mentor a summer intern provided me with the opportunity to learn myself, how to balance providing an appropriate level of guidance when working on something new, and allowing for failure and resistance to provide invaluable lessons. By the end of the program, I can say I had a reliable hand in trafficking campaigns, which in the world of media, is far more helpful than just getting us coffee. :)

Tanuja Apte

Playing the role of mentor for the first time was challenging and exciting for me but 10 mins into the new role made me realized it requires a different mindset to be able to give dedicated time to someone and within that your 100% focus in today’s remote/hybrid work culture space.

Finding a fine balance between mentoring and not overstepping or micromanaging is also an art that I am sure many managers/mentors must be facing in today’s work culture environment and more so in our field which is vast and needs more background information or I would a holistic perspective. I would say this experience as a mentor had an incredibly positive and valuable impact not just on my career development, but this finely structured DNW internship program was able to give an in-depth experience and overarching view of digital media world to our amazing Intern Alvin. This internship gave him hands-on practice/experience on researching keywords for search campaigns, formulating budget recommendations to building different types of campaigns in Google platform (Search, YouTube, Display). Lastly, I believe giving any person who is fresher in any field an opportunity to shadow other team members and an opportunity to sit in various meetings right from vendors to partner agencies to clients helps to gain a complete perspective and clarity on the ongoing projects/tasks at hand and ability to understand the industry and workplace in better fashion and more at a grassroots level.

Emma Scott

Over the past few months, I have had the privilege to work with Alvin, DNW’s first-ever intern, and it was such a treat. Being somewhat fresh in my career I haven’t had too many opportunities to take on training projects, so I was excited to get going and Alvin made it easy! His genuine desire to dive into the industry and learn anything I threw at him made training feel like a breeze. As much as I enjoyed seeing Alvin grow into his internship, I also selfishly enjoyed it because it was a great refresher of all the things I work on. Like many people, I have always felt I learn best by teaching others, it tests your knowledge and sometimes brings new perspectives from the fresh eyes of an intern who is not already knee-deep in the industry.

One particular day Alvin and I worked on analyzing the data from a small-scale brand lift study. This was interesting for me because I also have limited experience in this area, so I really had to make sure I knew the dang thing before trying to teach it to someone else haha. Having the responsibility of guiding another person through things like setting up a campaign, writing reporting notes, analyzing data, and everything in between makes you want and need to have your own processes dialed in. In a lot of ways, it feels like working with an intern is just as much training for you as it is for them! It was truly a wonderful experience that I hope to be able to take part in again and again.

But probably the most important factor of all is what objective you choose. We love to say, “Meta is a choose-your-own-adventure game, and each objective will take you down a completely different path”. It can be tricky navigating through all the options, so here is a sweet and simple guide so you can know what the heck you are getting into when selecting your objective! Let’s set you up for success from the beginning.