Holiday Accelerator Webinar

Q4 2022 Trends and Strategies

 01 Introductions
Agenda
02 Auction Strategy

03 Creative Strategy

04 Seasonal Activation Strategy

05 Q&A
MEET THE TEAM

Eddie Bennett Valerie Rodden Tori Copper Nikisha Vashee Andrew

Creative Strategist Data Scientist, Auction Senior Account Senior Account
Wolfley-Payán
Expert Manager, Global Manager, Global Senior Account
Business Group Business Group Manager, Global
Business Group
“Brands need to make shopping simple
for busy holiday customers. This year,
that means showing up where
customers are online. It means
delighting them at unexpected times.
And it means leveraging the trust of
creator partnerships and cutting
friction from the shopping experience
at every turn.” Brooke Ramsey
Director, Global Business Group, North
America
‘TIS THE SEASON FOR SCALING WITH
AUCTION DYNAMICS

Drive efficiency during

the holiday season
01
Holiday auction
CCCC

dynamics
How does the ad auction work?
“Total value” determines your ad’s priority in the auction.

Maximizing advertiser value Optimizing consumer experience

= +

+
TOTAL VALUE ADVERTISER BID ESTIMATED USER VALUE

The ad with the highest ACTION RATES

Your bid for the event
total value wins the you selected as your
auction and is shown optimization goal,
to the individual. i.e., your desired result
What’s the likelihood that
an impression shown to this
person will lead to your
desired result?
How interesting do we
think this individual is
going to find this ad? Is
this a high-quality ad?
Why are CPMs rising?
CPM (cost per 1K impressions) = Total spend/Total impressions x 1,000

ADVERTISER-LEVEL SYSTEM-LEVEL EFFECTS

EFFECTS

Increase in CTR Increase in spend from other advertisers

Increase in CVR Decrease in impression opportunities
SUPPLY (FROM USERS) AND
DEMAND (FROM ADVERTISERS)

S0
Holiday season:
S1
Impact on cost per purchase

Consumers are doing their holiday shopping,

so supply of purchases is rising.

COST
Advertisers want to spend more during the
holiday season, so demand also rises. D1

This leads to more purchases on our platform D0

and relatively flat prices

(in terms of CPAs). Q0 Q1

PURCHASES
SUPPLY (FROM USERS) AND
DEMAND (FROM ADVERTISERS)

Performance trends during the holiday season

CPM and CVR moved
Values normalized so October 1 = 1 for each metric
in tandem during the holiday
season, leading
to relatively flat CPA rates for
1.8

purchase-optimized
1.6

advertisers.
1.4
• On Black Friday, CPM rates were up
77% and CVR was up 81% compared 1.2

to October 1 rates. 1

• CVR and CPM rates hit their lowest 0.8

point on January 1, -30% and -28%

0.1
4 Oct 11 Oct 18 Oct 25 Oct 1 Nov 8 Nov 15 Nov 12 Nov 29 Nov 6 Dec 13 Dec 20 Dec 27 Dec 3 Jan 10 Jan 17 Jan 24 Jan 31 Jan
compared to October 1 rates.

• In January, CPM rates were on average CPM CPA CVR

Blue Green
-13% below their Oct 1 levels while CVR was Purple

only down -4% and CPAs were down -8%.

Source: Meta Auction Expert Analysis, May 2022.
Be mindful of shipping
cutoff.
Shipping cutoff usually starts ~10
days before Christmas (around
December 15).

CPMs trend down due to decreased

demand from advertisers.

With shipping cutoff, the spend on

offsite conversions goes down since
we see the CPA for offsite conversions
increasing.

Retail advertisers can use this

opportunity to target in store sales
while competition from e-commerce is
lower
Source: Meta Auction Expert Analysis, May 2022.
02
Key considerations
for Cyber Five
Mid-funnel optimization
Delivery constraints
Economic Uncertainty
What is
UPPER FUNNEL Brand Objectives:

mid-funnel? Reach, Brand Awareness,

Video Views

Mid-funnel is best defined by the MID-FUNNEL

business objective a campaign is Mid-Funnel Objectives:

designed to drive. Engagement, Traffic, Leads, etc.

LOWER
FUNNEL

Lower Funnel Objectives:

Conversions, Sales
 CPA for advertisers during Cyber Five with different mid-funnel spend:
Use mid-funnel strategy before
Cyber Five to get cost-efficient
performances.
• 13% decrease in CPA and 56% increase in CVR
was observed when businesses invested more
than 30% of spend in mid-funnel optimizations
before Black Friday.

• Global rates across all purchase optimized ads and Prospecting Retargeting

all verticals; spending on mid-funnel between

2021-10-01 and 2021-11-24 and looking at <30% spend on mid-funnel CPA >30% spend on mid-funnel CPA

performance from 2021-11-25 to 2021-11-29

Source: Meta Auction Expert Analysis, May 2022.

 TIP:
Leverage cost cap bidding
to maximize conversion
Bid- vs. budget-constrained volume while controlling
your cost. If you want to
further increase spend, try
increasing the target CPA
to your business goal

BUDGET-CONSTRAINED BID-CONSTRAINED

• Maximize conversions at a • Maximize conversions at given

given budget. bid/CTR/CVR.

• Occurs when budgets • Occurs when budgets aren’t

are exhausted exhausted since bid is limiting factor

• Budget determines bid. • Bid expresses per action value.

• Spend stays constant as • Spend adapts as performance changes.

performance changes.
 TIP:
Big opportunity for Cyber Week Leverage cost cap bidding
to maximize conversion
advertisers using volume while controlling
your cost. If you want to
capped bidding further increase spend, try
increasing the target CPA
Oct
strategy to use an to your business goal

inflated budget 0 2.5 5 7.5 10 12.5 15 17.5 20 22.5 25 27.5 30 32.5 35 37.5 40 42.5

strategy
• 43% of investment from capped-bidding Budget-constrained share of speed
50%
strategies were constrained by their
budget during cyber5 period in 2021 40%

• The share of spend constrained by 30%

budget was 14pp lower for cost cap than

20%
bid cap during cyber Five period.
10%
• During October, only 24% of capped
spend was constrained by budget so 0%
Bid Cap (Max Bid) Cost Cap

there is a heightened occurrence during Oct share spend Cyber Week share spend

cyber week. Source: Meta Auction Expert Analysis, May 2022.

The price of pulling back
When there’s uncertainty in the business environment, companies often look
to their marketing team and marketing spend as they seek to manage costs.

We completed a statistical analysis using the performance of 3,211

purchase-optimized Meta advertisers during the pandemic. We found that
advertisers who dropped spend by 75% or more during the first two months of
the pandemic experienced

higher costs when they resumed spending, compared to

43% maintaining a steady investment.

Source: Performance of 3211 purchase optimized Meta advertisers in the US from Sep 2019 to Oct 2020
The price of pulling back
Determinants of better performance during periods of economic uncertainty

% Change in Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Spend in Learning Phase

21%
Costs rise 21% with more time spent
in the learning phase

Spend on Broad Targeting

-2%
Costs decrease when you
spend on broad targeting

Spend on Autobid
-2%
Costs decrease when you
spend on autobid

-5% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

Source: 5. Performance of 2863 purchase optimized Meta advertisers in the US

from March 2020 to April 2020
Holiday season takeaways
AUCTION DYNAMICS
On Black Friday, CPM rates
were up 77% and CVR was
up 81% compared to
October 1 rates, leading to
relatively flat CPAs for DR
advertisers.
MID-FUNNEL OPTIMIZATION
13% decrease in CPA and 56%
increase in CVR was observed
when businesses invested more
than 30% of spend in mid-funnel
optimizations before Black
Friday.
DELIVERY
CONSTRAINTS
43% of investment from
capped-bidding strategies
were constrained by their
budget during the Cyber Five
period in 2021, highlighting
the opportunity for
inflated budgets.
ECONOMIC
UNCERTAINTY
Advertisers who dramatically
reduced spend experienced
43% higher costs when they
resumed spending. Key
determinants of performance
during these times are less
spend in learning phase and
more spend on broad targeting
and autobid.
Creative Strategy
Feed/Stories Video Poll Ad
Seasonal Activation
& Promotion Prep
 2-3 Weeks Prior:

● PROSPECT. Advertisers should start building out consideration, bringing in

new prospects and bulking up upper funnel campaign strategies.
● Begin ramping spend to stay ahead of competition and gather additional
learnings.
● Leverage creators and branded content to inspire gifting. Add product tags
where applicable.
● Utilize IG shops and checkout. Create personalized holiday collections

Seasonal ●
within IG shop.
Make sure video is part of your strategy (Reels, Stories, In-Stream Auction)

Activation 1-2 Weeks Prior:

● Start increasing budgets to scale in advance of peak moment

● Create broad LAL audiences off of seasonal peak purchasers from year prior
○ Ex. 2021 holiday / Q5 purchasers LAL for 2022 campaign
○ [Buildout seasonal LALs] Holiday 2021 Purchasers (excluding sale
converters)
 Week of Seasonal Moment:
● Push the strongest performing creative and continue to include a ‘Shop
Now’ call to action, if Last Ship date has not passed yet, to drive home
sales!
● Focus on mobile optimized creative, especially your strongest video assets
● Last Ship Date: For the last minute shopper, have relevant clients push gift
card messaging when last ship date has already passed
● Increase your overall investment on FB to attract new acquisition, but also
consider shifting investment from 70/30 prospecting/RT to 60/40 or even
Seasonal 50/50 prospecting/RT

Activation Additional Audience Recommendations:

○ [Gifting] New audiences who may not be typical purchasers but

may be gift givers
○ ASC+ Campaigns
○ Site visitors last 180 days
○ Past purchasers who haven’t purchased last 30 days
○ Email list that hasn’t opened and/or opened but hasn’t clicked
○ Page engagers last 180 days
○ Think about optimizing for a high-funnel event like VC or ATC for
broad audiences to maximize reach
○ Consider grouping these audiences by intent level in a separate
campaign from main campaigns to control investment
 Build the future for performance advertising with
Advantage+ shopping campaigns.
Advantage+ shopping campaigns leverage machine learning to help you reach valuable audiences with less setup time and greater efficiency. It is
designed to be the most efficient solution for performance-focused advertisers looking to drive online sales.

Better performance Deeper personalization Simpler and

Machine learning enables broader Connect more powerfully and more efficient
reach, optimizing the search for campaign setup 
reduce customer fatigue by
qualified customers while capturing By having less inputs
intent from new shopping surfaces. combining all your creative and automation in the campaign, ads are
Plus, you’ll get less audience and delivering across all given a greater opportunity to compete
saturation by delivering beyond your placements. in the auction, which allows our systems
core audience. to better maximize outcomes.

Which leads to performance potential:

-17% CPA +32% ROAS

Sources: “Report: Over a third of shoppers plan to return a gift this

season” by RetailDive, Jan 2022.
Q&A