This is the second part of the Meta Holiday Performance Playbook series and the first blog can be found here.
Creative Opportunities
Test Out Reels
Reels are vertical short-formed videos found on Facebook and Instagram. Similar to TikTok videos, users can add music, AR effects, voiceovers, and other fun details to make them more engaging.
One of the reasons Meta recommends utilizing Reels in your holiday strategy (organic and paid efforts) is because the vertical video fills up the screen for a better viewing experience and has been proven to perform better than horizontal videos.
Keep in mind that it’s important to use people in Reels because it gives potential customer’s someone to relate to.
[TIP] If your company is pressed for time, there are a multitude of Reels templates available to use for free.
Types of Reels to Utilize
The Photodump
Source: Meta Holiday Performance Playbook
Brands can create a mini story synched to music with a collection of images and videos. Some examples of themes include ‘New Products for the Holiday’ or ‘Top Gift Ideas for 2024.’
The Listicle
Source: Meta Holiday Performance Playbook
The Listicle is a concept that you’re probably familiar with because it’s been used on websites, blogs, magazines, and talk shows for decades. It is a more editorial approach to showcasing products and usually sounds something like ‘10 incredible holiday gifts for the busy mom,’ or ‘5 ways to impress your in-laws.’
The Q&A
Source: Meta Holiday Performance Playbook
Brands can use Reels to answer commonly asked questions. Some ways to execute this is to make it a series like ‘Commonly asked questions part X,’ or answer multiple questions in one Reel to make it seem like an interview. This can showcase a brand’s personality and highlight a sense of authenticity.
The Tutorial
Source: Meta Holiday Performance Playbook
Brands can show real customers using their products. If someone genuinely loves a product, it builds credibility and relatability. One way brands can achieve this is to have a customer show a step-by-step demo on how to use the product.
The Behind the Scenes Look
Source: Meta Holiday Performance Playbook
This can help with a brand's personality and highlight their unique selling points. Consider showing how a certain product is made or how something is ethically sourced.
Experiment with Advantage+ Creative
When advertisers apply Advantage+ creative in Ads Manager, their images and videos are optimized in ways to increase the likelihood of audience interaction.
These enhancements can be found at the ad level and advertisers can select or deselect different options.
[TIP] Ads Manager automatically applies some enhancements. If you do not want to use these or any enhancements, make sure they’re not selected.
Source: Facebook Ads Manager
Meta will have different statistics highlighted in Ads Manager to try and get advertisers to use Advantage+ Creative.
Additional Ways to Drive Stronger Sales and Roas
Keep Campaign Structure Simple
Standard best practice is to have a maximum of five ad sets per campaign. If there are too many ad sets in one campaign, it takes longer for the audiences to exit the learning phase. This could lead to delayed or missed learnings for the most cost-efficient conversions.
What is the learning phase? It is when the algorithm gathers data to optimize ad delivery. For Facebook Ads Manager, the learning phase is 50 conversions. Performance is more consistent and more cost-efficient once campaigns exit the learning phase.
If more than five ad sets were planned for a campaign, Meta recommends consolidating and regrouping similar audiences and objectives.
As for creative, it’s important to have at least three different creative options, but no more than five. If there are very minor differences between ads, the algorithm will not see it as unique creative.
Don’t Make Significant Edits During Important Sales Periods
A significant edit can include any changes in targeting, creative, optimization, and additional ad sets. Meta recommends not making any of these edits during crucial sales periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday because it will send the campaign back into the learning phase.
Frequently Check Performance
During Q4, advertisers should check performances often. Meta recommends creating a weekly custom report to make sure campaigns are performing well and driving results.
These custom reports can give insight to possible performance improvements like turning off low-performing ads. This can help with short-term performance. When campaigns are finished, advertisers can look for any seasonal trends and implement them into future planning.
Tips from a Seasoned E-commerce Marketer
When I did e-commerce marketing in-house, October kicked off our fiscal year. October through December made up our highest volume of revenue and the performance during this period impacted our overall strategy and tactics for the rest of the year. Here are some tried and true tips that worked for us:
Get Strategic with Single Day Campaigns
It’s pretty common for retailers to do one-day sales during the holiday season, oftentimes as a “12 days of Christmas” or advent calendar promotion. It’s fun for the customer but a nightmare to set up for digital marketers.
This is how we survived: We worked with our development team to build a singular landing page showcasing the calendar of one-day promotions. This served as our landing page for all ads (this campaign lasted 21 days).
During this campaign, we tested various ad types that had more general ‘21 days of deals’ messaging and highlighted a new deal every day. We also tested carousel ads that had a different promotion and image on each carousel tile.
Know Your Skeleton Team & Protocol Before Time Off
Without fail, there’s usually something that happens during Cyber Five or the weekend of big holiday sales. This is where the skeleton team comes in. I recommend having different members of the e-commerce and digital marketing teams take shifts to check website health, inventory, and messages.
Once while I was on duty, one of the e-commerce merchandisers told me that inventory for specific SKUs was at less than 10%. This was our signal to turn off the ads associated with that campaign.
In another instance, my director sent a text to notify us that there were comments on our ads that a link didn’t work. Since we already had a website point person during this period, we didn’t have to panic and scramble to find someone to fix it. We paused the ad temporarily until the web development manager gave us the okay that all was working again.
Conclusion
Meta’s Holiday Playbook gives really good tips on how retailers can help improve and increase performance during the holiday. However, following the tips from this playbook alone isn’t a set guarantee for peak performance. It’s important for retail brands to work with agency partners with applicable experience during this crucial time of year.
If you would like to see how our social media team can help strategize, monitor, and improve performance during the holiday season and beyond, contact us!
