Jani KahukiwaLearn how we optimized Advantage+ Shopping campaigns that resulted in a 22% increase in sales, a 275% rise in conversion rates, and a noticeable increase in new customers.
Our Meta Ads Manager, Nick Ewing, reveals the truth about Advantage+ campaigns and the strategies that help boost overall campaign performance.
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Dramatic Improvement In Performance Within A Short Period
Dramatic Improvement In Performance Within A Short Period
Dramatic improvement is a phrase that makes us prick up our ears. Tell us your digital marketing secrets, I hear you say. Advantage+ is a relatively new tool from Meta Ads promising to improve ad performance with AI. There is an “advantage” of using this tool in conjunction with various campaigns. These upsides include:
- Improving the average cost of acquisition
- Increased return on ad spend (ROAS)
- More incremental purchases per amount of spend
- A 5X increase in reach
With Meta Ads Advantage+, you can get the best results with fewer, more efficient campaigns, reach more potential customers, and save time and effort.
So what do the experts at Solutions 8 think about Advantage+? Let’s check out what Nick and the team have to say. We have a new client we took over recently—so recently, that the ink on the contract is still wet—and we have seen a dramatic change in the account.
Under previous marketing management, a lot of money was poured into Advantage+, up to $7,300. Whatever budget was left went toward two remarketing campaigns and a top-of-funnel campaign.
The old company was using the advice Meta Ads had recommended, namely the Advantage+ Creative, which entails taking a dozen or so different creatives and putting them all into one ad. Along with this single ad, the tool integrates it with a variation of primary texts and headlines, allowing the algorithm to pair it up, not unlike what Google Ads does within the PMax structure.
As our analysis shows, the results are less than desirable: a 0.8 ROAS on $2,100 spent over 12 days is unacceptable to any business. And that is something our Meta Man Nick Ewing will confirm. It doesn’t work well.
So. What did Solutions 8 come up with when we took over the account? We did indeed keep a few of the Advantage+ campaigns. That’s because they work exceptionally well with top-of-funnel, effectively turning them into remarketing campaigns. And we’ll expand on that shortly.
The Truth About Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns
A nugget of truth for all of you out there: Advantage+ does not realistically work when it is forced to prospect. When you are not delivering quality top-of-funnel traffic for it to remarket, there’s little benefit to it. Don’t be surprised if Meta Ads does not tell you this!
Separate pure top-of-funnel campaigns working alongside Advantage+ can help it perform better. As soon as Nick took over, the online store sessions dropped by a whopping 72%! The conversion rate skyrocketed by 275%! While the conversion rate is still quite low at 0.28%, it did increase substantially.
Take a look at our store sessions here below.
It would be fair to say that these Advantage+ campaigns were previously forced to prospect and the outcome was pitiful. Poor traffic is being delivered to the website in copious amounts! As we are coming to realize, digital marketing is not as traffic-based as it once was.
L1, L2, L3 Approach
As mentioned earlier, Solutions 8 left the existing Advantage+ running. We intended to introduce a ton of new traffic along with the L1, L2, and L3 structures. Let’s run through the differences between the three for this specific client.
L1 is top-of-funnel targeting where we excluded all website visitors, past purchasers, social engagers, and anyone who had interacted with the brand in the last six to twelve months. We needed the coldest of cold traffic through exclusions by Meta Ads. It was a straightforward targeting campaign.
L2 captured 25% of those who had viewed videos shown in L1.
L3 aimed at bottom-of-funnel and retargeted website visitors in the last 30 days who did not purchase. There are different offers spread across the various ads we’re showing. For example, the middle-of-funnel received an email sign-up offer of 15% off for first-time purchasers. Bottom-of-funnel got a free shipping offer for purchases over a certain amount.
Overall, the general results are impressive. Sales increased by 22%, total orders are up, and the average order value (AOV) has gone up ever so slightly.
Increase In First-Time Customers
The biggest impact comes from first-time purchasers, which will hold the client in good stead for the foreseeable future. They gained 58 new customers since they came over to Solutions 8. Please note that spend increased substantially, going from $1,000 in the previous period to $1,700 BUT scale has been maintained.
On the Meta Ads platform, ROAS has gone from 1.8 to 1.92 which isn’t a huge leap but if you couple that with an additional $7,000 spend, and compare it with first-time buyers, that’s how you profitably scale a business like this. When you have a high AOV, first-time purchasers are essential.
And this is where we part. We hope Solutions 8 has given you food for thought regarding Meta Ads Advantage+. If you have any observations to share on this topic, please do! We’d love to hear from you!
