Meta Adds a Range of AI-Powered Ad Updates for Facebook and Instagram

Meta’s announced a heap of new AI-powered tools to help advertisers maximize the performance of their campaigns, utilizing insights from overall ad response on the platform in order to drive more engagement, and ultimately conversions.

As explained by Meta:

“To help each business grow profitably we continue to invest in AI models like Andromeda that analyze tens of millions of ads and find the right message for the right person at the right time, making the most efficient use of advertising spend. Now, we’re also introducing new tools and placements that can be used with the AI-powered Advantage+ sales campaigns to maximize performance, giving our ad systems more options while driving sales online and in-store.”

The most important note here is the use of Meta’s Andromeda system, which assesses ad performance across both Facebook and Instagram (and soon Threads) in order to help Meta’s ad delivery server predict which ads each user will find most interesting. That means that Meta’s ad targeting process is getting much smarter at displaying ads to the people most likely to respond, across all categories, driving better performance through AI-enabled targeting.

And now, you have even more options to consider on this front.

First off, Meta’s expanding its Advantage+ Catalog ads to partnership promotions, providing another way to reach audiences by collaborating with influencers.

Meta announced Advantage+ catalog ads last March, and it’s now building on their capacity via these collaborative elements.

On a similar note, Meta’s also adding a new option that will enable its Advantage+ ads to display additional products from your product catalog when promoting a preferred product set.

“With this feature a fashion brand could choose to highlight jackets from their spring collection and give our system the option to serve a dress that we think a shopper might also be interested in. In initial tests, advertisers saw a 14% increase in ROAS when using this optimization on average.”

Meta’s also trying out a Google-style AI model display for clothing, which will show how different items look on different sized, AI-generated characters.

The idea is that this will provide more context before making a purchase, by seeing how each item will likely look on your body type.

As noted, Google Shopping has had the same available since 2023, and recently expanded it to more styles and sizes.

Meta’s also adding a streamlined check-out process for its Advantage+ Shop Ads, which will enable advertisers to gather contact info and other details within the sequence.

The updated process will guide interested ad viewers to the advertiser’s website to complete their purchase after building their cart in a Facebook Shop, which will provide more capacity for brands to control the sales process.

Meta says it will begin testing this in Australia and Taiwan.

Meta’s also experimenting with AI text generation for catalog ads, along with more AI image generation tools (in addition to background editing) to provide more promotional considerations.

Aside from AI updates, Meta’s also testing expanding access to its location-based ad extensions, which display local stores that have the advertised item in stock.

As you can see in this example, Meta’s “omnichannel ads”, which it first began testing with selected partners last fall, highlight nearby store locations, and include links to maps to guide potential shoppers.

The ads also include relevant discount codes, and Meta says that they’ve been delivering value for test partners thus far:

“Advertisers that used omnichannel ads had a 15% lower media omnichannel CPA and a 12% higher media ROAS when compared to their business as usual campaigns. With this feature becoming globally available this summer, advertisers can hone new omnichannel strategies in time for holiday.”

Also coming soon, ads in Facebook notifications:

“This spring, we’ll begin to test ads in notifications on Facebook. This new placement will give advertisers a new place to engage people and drive discovery and reconsideration for their products.”

It’s the first time that Meta’s displayed ads within its notifications stream, and I would hazard a guess that many people are going to be pretty annoyed when they tap on that little red alert on their notifications stream, only to get an ad.

Though they won’t be random, as such. Notification ads will only be displayed to people who have previously engaged with an ad, or “shown interest” in the brand’s content.

That could soften the annoyance a little. But I don’t think these are going to be a popular Facebook ad addition.

Meta’s also going to give advertisers the capacity to request a users’ email info to apply promo codes from promotion ads.

So if you want to get an advertised discount, you’ll need to essentially sign-up for emails from that brand, similar to in-store pushes to get you onto their contact lists.

It’s also similar to the above update to its Advantage+ shopping ads, providing more ways for brands to gather contact info direct, and build their own client database, as opposed to purely relying on Facebook connection.

I mean, a lot of the time online retailers do this anyway, by using the contact info you enter with your order to automatically include you in future email sends. So it’s really just a simplification of this process, using the info that you’ve included on your Facebook profile to power this connection.

And used well, that could be a big benefit for brands.

Finally, Meta’s also making site links available within Instagram promotions.

“Site links allow marketers to highlight multiple landing pages in a single image or video ad, helping people navigate to the content they’re most interested in. By adding site links to ads marketers have realized a 4.5% decrease in CPA on Facebook Feed and a 3% increase in click-through rates.”

That could be a valuable addition for your IG promotions, providing direct linkage through to specific products in-stream.

These are some handy refinements, which will make your Facebook and IG ads more effective, and likely more valuable, especially given the performance that many brands are seeing with Meta’s AI targeting tools.

Either way, some additional considerations for your promotions.

You can read more about Meta’s latest ad updates here.