Receiving urgent emails from CMOs is just part of everyday life for agency executives, but one memo recently caught one agency manager’s attention more than usual.
The client was angry because his entire Meta account team had been reshuffled and downsized without his word. They felt they should have been consulted, given their significant advertising spend, which the agency director refused to share. Once the CMO calmed down, they confided in the agency director that they had never even worked directly with their former account manager at Meta.
The agency director’s response was blunt: they said that talking to a human living at Meta wasn’t necessary for every problem – just something that would be nice to have.
“They felt like they deserved this team (Meta) because of everything they spent with Meta, but they had to admit that they didn’t really need it,” the team director said. agency, which preferred to remain anonymous to protect its customer relationship.
It is safe to say that these 20,000 job losses at Meta last year This definitely upset the marketing team of this CMO, a brand that the agency director refused to name. As the agency director explains: “The client was really upset by the change, even though the team (Meta) was not fully automated (but reduced).”
But a number of marketers share the same frustrations with Meta; that they are not getting the premium service they think they are paying for. Meta continues to dominate other social platforms and capture the lion’s share of their dollars. Despite, Advertising executives continue to encounter bugs on the platform, while teams and departments are phased out and replaced by AI and chatbots. Marketers have have resigned themselves to the fact that until another platform surpasses Meta, they must stop and shut up.
“I’d be lying if I said everyone on our (Meta) account team had an impact on our business,” confessed a marketing executive at a CPG company.
So when this marketer was informed that his account team would be more automated, any frustration gradually gave way to quiet resignation.
“Our account was full of people who we weren’t sure what they had done or who hadn’t responded to requests,” the marketer continued. “Now we have a handful of executives on the account and a chat service to get the rest of the support.”
Ultimately, of course, these advertising execs were happy when Meta had full teams at their disposal, but most of them probably weren’t essential. It makes you think how inflated these teams arguably once were.
In early versions, account teams could grow to five to ten people across local, regional and global marketing divisions for the same advertiser. Now, according to executives interviewed for this article, those teams have been reduced to just two or three people at most. Even for marketers fortunate enough to avoid downsizing, like those at advertising agencies, the pressure on Meta to do more with less is tangible. They are well aware that their Meta account managers are under pressure, taking on additional responsibilities, from account management to advertising operations.
“At Meta, we’ve experienced a lot of this stuff,” said Elijah Schneider, CEO of Modifly. “Both representatives are replaced as well as the data team. The biggest one we’ve seen is their elevator studies. They (Meta) automated them instead of being managed by them.
Two other advertising executives confirmed this assertion. They all said it’s rare these days for Meta to do anything other than automate the process, regardless of the size of the advertiser’s coffers. This is the current trend, given that Meta clearly wants to automate as much advertising as possible in its ecosystem – just look at the rise of Avantage Plus — the product allows advertisers to automate much of their campaign process, saving time and effort. But in doing so, advertisers effectively cede control to Meta and have restricted access to analytics and derived insights.
How AI can affect measurement
But it’s also a sore spot for marketers who feel like they’re losing control of measurement. Relying solely on AI removes the need for holistic measurements, shifting trust to algorithms. This is a reality that Advantage Plus advertisers know all too well.
“They literally said (via email) that we no longer offer this as a managed service, but here is basically a meta-learning platform with links from where you can download our software,” Schneider said .
And it got worse.
“The unfortunate thing is that we communicated this (product) to our customers, because we have done it in the past with them,” Schneider said. “We would say, ‘OK, to solve this problem, here’s what we would do.’ But despite our discussions with our representatives once a week, no one has indicated that they no longer offer this. So I have to go back to my customers to say ‘hey, sorry’ and explain to them that Meta has just cut service.
This point about communication – or lack thereof – is important. Advertising executives have consistently raised this issue, whether it’s not having enough support to help marketers adapt to these changes or not even communicating them effectively. Advertisers feel that the way Meta has handled these cuts has been insensitive, to say the least.
Here’s an example, courtesy of an agency director earlier: “A US brand, which spends little money on Meta, has seen its reputation change seven or eight times in the last year and a half alone. Every email and tip from a rep is about awareness and engagement ads.
Such changes and the resulting challenges for advertisers are indicative of a platform that continually strives to optimize itself to maximize advertising revenue opportunities at all times.
“We have not seen any significant change in the way our customers are treated and the level of support they receive,” said Kevin Goodwin, vice president of performance marketing at New Engen. “What we’re seeing is these people are helping us more in the larger strategic areas and handing us over to general support for tactical needs.”
For years, Meta’s account teams have been in constant flux, restructured repeatedly, sometimes as often as twice a year or quarterly, to keep pace with the company’s efforts to grow advertising revenue. Gone are the days when these teams simply handled customer support tasks such as troubleshooting system bugs or campaign issues. Discussions are now focused on strategic ways for advertisers to optimize their investments on Facebook and Instagram. Automation is gradually taking on more and more responsibilities, and its role is set to expand further as Meta seeks to balance costs, profits and investor satisfaction to maintain a strong stock price.
“I think a lot of people looked at what we (Meta) were doing (laying off staff and replacing them with AI and systems) as if it was some sort of short-term thing, that which is never really our goal.” Zuckerberg continued his recent earnings conference call. “The part of making the business leaner, I think, is the most important part to move forward with, because obviously we’re in a place now where the business is running well.”
Having hordes of dedicated account teams is no longer conducive to this balance. To be fair, this probably never was the case, but it’s a problem that undoubtedly became more acute once Meta found a renewed taste for operational efficiency, especially given how whose advertising activity is wired. Its growth relies on the long tail of smaller, regional advertisers, not the Fortune 500. To be able to serve these smaller customers and not the larger advertisers, Meta must turn to automation and AI to make its business more profitable advertising, regardless of what marketers think of the service they get in return.
“It’s something where you take insertion orders for large advertisers first and you don’t have any self-service model,” said Jeremy Goldman, senior director of commerce marketing and technical briefings. at Insider Intelligence. “Then you have a self-service model because you also open it up and then you try to move more and more things into this self-service model that you improve. Nobody’s goal is to have bad customer service, but you want to make it more effective. »
On that note, it becomes clearer why some marketers have felt the impact of these changes more than others. The main differentiator? Usually it comes down to the amount of money spent. Those who have seen their account teams shrink are often those who have reported reduced or missed spend commitments with Meta over the past year. That’s not to say that these issues won’t bother marketers more, sooner or later. Remember, Meta’s long-term goal is to automate its advertising activities as much as possible. It’s just the last step in a long and winding road that leads there.
Last year was dubbed by Zuckerberg as “the year of efficiency” as the company reduced its overall workforce by 22% to 67,317 people, according to the recent earnings report.
“Everyone says it was the year of efficiency, but it’s the year of right sizing,” Schneider said. “If a company only needs 40 people and you have 70, but nothing has changed in your company, it’s just that growth has slowed down due to macro factors, you need to scale it otherwise it is not healthy. When you look at a company the size of Meta, 90% of revenue is automated.
As Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s recent earnings conference call: “Last year (2023), not only did we meet our efficiency goals, but we also returned to strong revenue growth, saw strong engagement in our applications, delivered a number of exciting products. new products… and of course, we have built a world-class AI effort that will form the basis of many of our future products… Going forward, a major focus will be on creating the products and services of Most popular and advanced AI. Meta-advertising revenue reached $40.11 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to the company’s latest earnings report.
Meta declined to comment for this story.
