Fashion and beauty brands are often early adopters of new technologies. Many are digital natives and are developing tailored D2C digital strategies. And with so many brands competing, any innovation can give one of them an advantage, especially as the holiday season approaches.
Clothing and home decor retailer Tuckernuck and beauty brand Kitsch have adopted AI-powered tools in Meta’s Advantage+ shopping campaign solution to improve campaign performance across social networks. Their customers are on Facebook and Instagram, and so are their prospects. The tools automate campaigns on these platforms while optimizing campaign targets. This means that instead of marketers cutting out segments they think are best for the campaign, AI automatically discovers these optimal audiences.
Why we care. Marketers are just beginning to integrate new AI tools into their campaigns. A recent study analysis and research use cases found genAI image creation is twice as popular with marketers as genAI image creation. Meta’s Advantage+ roadmap follows this trend. It includes optimization features that aim to improve performance automatically, doing the work of analysis. On the horizon, genAI features will also help marketers create and repurpose content in ads. Some enhancement tools are already available in Advantage+ creative enhancements.
Shopping Advantage+ campaigns. Advertisers who select Advantage+ creative in Meta Ads Manager can optimize their uploaded images and videos: the tool automatically eliminates the worst-performing versions of ads to find the best versions for audiences.
Shopping Advantage+ campaigns combine multiple Advantage+ creative optimizations into streamlined campaigns that deliver ads to existing customers and prospects based on Meta’s deep behavioral data about users and ad performance during the campaign.
The Shopping Advantage+ campaign solution currently allows marketers to test up to 150 creative combinations. It then delivers the best-performing ads to the most profitable consumers.
By measuring approximately one million campaigns, Meta found that the solution increased return on ad spend (ROAS) by an average of 22% when advertisers enabled AI tools.
Optimization. According to Yingying Kuang, vice president of growth and strategy, using Shopping Advantage+ campaigns replaces much of the segmentation work. e-commerce at Kitsch.
“Meta has really evolved a lot in terms of AI and removing a lot of manual processes to save time and focus on creation as a lever to move our business forward,” Kuang said during a virtual roundtable hosted by Meta.
Instead of segmenting audiences by geography and demographics before a campaign, Meta AI simply learns from campaign performance and targets groups where ads are likely to be successful.
Advertisers also have the ability to customize their campaigns with predetermined parameters. They don’t need to hand over all the controls to AI.
Focus on creativity and customers. “The hardest part about creating is that the percentage of winners is very low,” Kuang said. “Our creative process is all about listening to customers.”
Kitsch has a Facebook community of about 45,000 brand enthusiasts. They discuss common problems and the Kitsch marketing team develops creative solutions to these problems.
Kitsch has a full creative team that produces 50 to 100 pieces of content per week. The staff includes content strategists who develop ideas and scripts, as well as media buyers who look at data and determine what’s working and what’s not. The AI capabilities through Meta that improve campaign performance haven’t replaced any of Kitsch’s marketing roles.
Vacation. For the holidays, Kitsch will focus on creating image ads that can be quickly iterated using Advantage+ tools.
“I think the holidays are a really crazy time. The easier it is to get creative, the better,” Kuang said. “One of the biggest lessons I learned from this experience is that during the holidays, simple, static images and clear gift messages work well.”
Collaboration and search for new prospects. Tuckernuck thrives on creativity, according to co-founder September Rinnier Votta. The company has three in-house studios for product shoots and produces a new full lifestyle campaign every month. The brand partners with influencers to create content, and the company also draws inspiration from its employees.
“We have a test-and-learn philosophy that we apply every day, creating variety and attracting customers that we wouldn’t have if we were (entirely creative) alone,” said Rinnier Votta.
This philosophy fits perfectly with discovering previously unknown prospects on Meta platforms. Marketers never know exactly who these ads will attract.
“Analysis paralysis is not the way to win,” Rinnier Votta said. “Just have an open mind… Believe in what you’re doing, test and learn, and get better and better.”
GenAI. Currently, Advantage+ creative tools include visual retouching, text enhancements, and image templates powered by genAI. Users can add 3D animation to 2D images. Additionally, music can be added to image ads.
Advertisers can also use genAI to generate a background for an image containing a specific object, as well as generate multiple types of backgrounds to create multiple iterations of an ad. Users can also experiment with full-frame generation, which not only changes the background but also creates an entirely new image with similar elements based on a reference ad.
Meta is also testing genAI tools that create and deploy ads based on prompts, according to Karin Tracy, Meta’s head of retail, fashion and luxury. But she acknowledges that brands will want to get comfortable with AI before they walk or run.
“We’re still very early on and it will evolve over time,” she said. “Brand guidelines are extremely important. Your brand’s creativity and identity will be determined by the brands. Today, we’re helping to size ads, maybe backgrounds and some of the ads that show motion. That’s where we’re starting.”
Dig deeper: Meta rolls out genAI features for advertisers
