August, 2022 - Mason Interactive

Introducing Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns

It’s no secret that Meta platforms’ performance is impacted by Apple’s iOS 14.5. Apple’s relentless focus on user data privacy resulted in signal loss, changes to targeting capabilities, and most critically, measurement.

Our view: Instagram and Facebook aren’t broken, they’re different. As industry standards evolve, so do the platforms we use, whether for social connections, community and brand building, or business growth and development. This makes the landscape more uncertain, the data more difficult to read, and the insight more challenging to articulate.

Meta has rolled out Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns globally. ASC use artificial intelligence to enable e-commerce and retail direct-to-consumer brands to potentially achieve better performance, greater personalization and more efficiency through advancements in AI + machine learning. These campaigns provide greater flexibility to control creative, targeting, placements and budget, and more opportunities to optimize campaigns that drive conversions.

What are Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns and how does it work?

Simply put, ASC falls under Meta’s new suite of Total Advantage tools. While Advantage tools are designed to automate a specific part of a manual campaign, Advantage+ focuses on automating a campaign from beginning to end or part of a manual campaign (e.g., placements or creative).

Here’s a simple overview:

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns offer end-to-end automation and support dynamic and static ads

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns combine Prospecting and Remarketing strategies in one campaign

Meta does not see ASC replacing existing products, and it is recommended to test and learn across current Business as Usual (BAU) campaigns

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns are designed for Broad reach, removing campaign restraints

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns are designed to automate creative, resulting in less audience saturation

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns can test up to 150 creative combinations, reducing creative fatigue

If you’re looking to make your advertising operations more efficient and drive performance at the same time, Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns are worth looking into. If you’re not already a Mason client, book a consultation with our team and we’ll work on a tailored approach for your brand, together.

I spent about a month and a half as a summer intern for Mason Interactive. Mason Interactive is a digital marketing company that uses holistic strategies to help brands grow. With amazing strategists, innovators, creatives, data wizards, digital natives, growth marketers, and analysts, it was an experience to see everyone working together to help bring satisfaction to our clients.

First Day

The moment I stepped into the DUMBO, Brooklyn office, I felt at home. The furniture and decorations gave the office a biophilia theme. The window and private patio had amazing views of the Manhattan skyline, as well as the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge. Medina Shareef, the director of HR, introduced me to the office as I settled in. I proceeded with adjusting to my workspace and working on my Google Ads Search Certification.

Team Projects

I worked alongside Ashley Bruzas, the director of Business Development and leader of Team Killer. She taught me about the team’s goals and outlined how I would collaborate on projects over the summer. I was given an overview of how the brand strategy process works for an agency, which includes researching direct-to-consumer brands, creating competitive analyses, and providing them with opportunities to improve. Additionally, Ashley gave me a Photoshop tutorial which was fun to watch because you are able to customize logos or create anything that your mind wants to.

I attended a Meta Webinar which gave me insight into how companies can prepare for the upcoming holiday shopping season through key strategies which includes connection, interactivity, and community. In addition, I was also given the task of working on a project called the Q4 Outreach. Working on this project was my favorite because I got to research targeted brands and create analyses to uncover what they are doing well, and how Mason Interactive could help them improve. This project allowed me to see how big companies differ from smaller companies in terms of their SEO, digital advertising, and creative approach. Overall, the summer internship was an exciting and accomplishing learning experience.

Internships give students valuable on-the-job experience. If you’re interested in exploring internship opportunities at Mason Interactive, contact us today.

The economy is slowing, and it costs more to advertise online, but we do have clients who are successfully navigating this environment.

July’s GPD report shows that the United States Economy is slowing. Consumer spending grew at its slowest pace since the first initial months of the pandemic, as Americans bought fewer cars, couches and other products.

At the same time, the Cost to Advertise online is rising. Our Aggregate Client portfolio CPM is up by 16% Year over Year, and Cyber-Five Week was up close to 40% in ’21 vs ’20.

So there is no doubt that we are in a challenging space.

Here are three commonalities we see across winning brands in our portfolio:

For a longer description of this, please check out YouTube channel.

Winning clients are using Promotions to entice new users. Nobody wants to be in a promotional environment, and not all successful clients are relying on promotions, but every client leveraging promotions, is closer to hitting their goals. It is true that given A) the rising CPM’s and B) the economic environment, consumers are searching for promotions.

Winning clients are Bundling their products to increase AOV (Average Order Value). Clients are bundling starter kits, bags, curated selection of sets, treatments, and more. By increasing Order size, these clients are driving more profits.

Winning Clients use Product Launches to give the impression of “Newness.” The clients we see with the most success, have either A) a cadence of new launches or B) the impression of a cadence. By which I mean, it’s best to have a monthly or quarterly new product launch. But if you don’t have this cadence, you can give the impression. For example, you could bundle your red and brown shirts in the fall as a Seasonal Launch. Or a heartier flavor soup in the winter, the same way.

So while we do face strong economic headwinds in the face of rising CPM’s and a decline in consumer spending on goods, the clients who are being most successful leverage all three of the above tactics: Promotions, Bundles, and Newness.