Irene Pessala travelled to Dublin to find out more

This year’s Meta Mobile Marketing Summit was held at Meta’s newly unveiled Dublin EMEA HQ. I’ve put together the key insights and points as inspiration for Q5 and beyond. But hang on, what’s Q5? It’s Meta’s name for the Christmas to mid Jan peak period...

The secret’s out: high demand and low CPMs make Q5 unmissable

By Christmas Day, most e-commerce advertisers have done all they can for the season and exhausted their budgets, meaning ad auction competition drops on Meta and CPMs become very attractive.

Q5 - the period from late December to New Year’s, and extending to mid January - therefore presents an opportunity to all kinds of advertisers: firstly, people will be spending their gift cards, making returns of unwanted gifts, and looking to treat themselves to a present they didn’t get, which makes keeping the lights on worthwhile for e-commerce brands. Meta’s data also reveals that 41% of shoppers are already saying that they are looking to continue shopping after Christmas before the year is out.

Secondly, advertisers that may be less focused on driving sales can still make sure their brand stays top-of-mind for their audience, as social media usage increases during the quiet week spent at home with family. Low CPMs can help you get more bang for your buck (= more impressions against flat spend) during this time.

Top 3 Tips for Q5

Quick-fire testing came up as one of the best ways to make the most of Q5. Lower CPMs allow you to think outside of the box: what have you always wanted to test but haven’t had the chance? Use this time to gain valuable, data-backed learnings for a new and improved campaign strategy.
Don’t forget your upper-funnel campaigns. While Q5 also has potential for growing customer LTV via retargeting efforts, keeping awareness-optimised campaigns in the mix ensures you keep introducing new people to your brand while growing the engaged audience pool to retarget. This critical upper part of the funnel is neglected if you’re only focusing on performance campaigns, and going all-in competing for sales may also lead to unnecessarily high costs across the board.
Mobile app advertisers listen up: app installs peak in Q5, and the biggest lift is seen in mobile game installs - with Roblox still topping those charts! Health, fitness, and lifestyle apps start to see an increase in installs too, as people start thinking about their resolutions for the brand new year ahead. The Q5 effect also touches on shopping apps with many people still in a shopping mode.

Creative is the new targeting

The smartest advertisers ensure that their creative is diverse enough to appeal to everyone in their target audience: “creative is the new targeting” was heard a few times during the Summit. This essentially means going broad with targeting and letting the algorithm decide which creative to match with each user, rather than targeting separate smaller audience segments with creatives you think will work for each.

This usually only puts unnecessary limitations on the algorithm and its ability to learn who your ideal target persona is. Similarly, your creative variations should be distinctive enough to really cater to as many people in your target audience as possible.

Meta has very recently introduced new AI-powered features designed to improve ad diversification and personalisation. AI-generated copy variations, static image expansion (think expanding a square image into a 4:5 for Instagram feeds or full-screen 9:16 for Reels or Stories), image enhancements, and highlighting relevant comments under ads are some of the latest releases that are worth testing in your campaigns.

Diversifying and refreshing your creative is also one of the easiest ways to truly maximise the opportunity provided by the Q5 period. One of the breakout sessions at the Summit focused solely on this, providing useful tips on diversifying your content to cater for various purchase triggers: to one customer paying in instalments may be the most important thing they’re looking for, while another is after free or next-day delivery.

Taking a moment to identify these motivators or barriers and then ensuring your copy provides an answer or a benefit of choosing your product or service is valuable not only for Q5, but as an ongoing process to avoid ad fatigue.

Reel them in with relatable and digestible content

Reels from users you don’t follow are now an essential part of most people’s Instagram experience, and they’re also taking up more and more space in Facebook newsfeeds: unsurprisingly, Reels is Meta’s fastest growing format overall.

This means that ad inventory in Reels is also growing, and part of the afternoon was dedicated to tips on how to create engaging, native Reels, even if your creative resources are limited. Investing in native-style Reels is going to help you drive engagement among your potential audience, and an engaged audience will drive further, tangible results.

Videos that look native, like they ‘belong’ on Reels, were also shown to drive a +13% increase in ROAS compared to non-native content. This being said…

The Language of Reels

Here are seven creative elements to help you create Reels that resonate:

Audio: Reels are very much a sound-on experience (80% are watched with sound on), so music, sound effects, and voiceovers are key
Editing techniques: snappy cuts and different transitions will help capture and hold the audience’s attention
Filters and effects, like using a ‘green screen’, will add to the relatability of your content
Hooks: your video must start with a strong hook introduced in the first 2 seconds - you must then maintain and finally reward that attention
Text stickers make your Reel thumbnail more digestible with overlaid text. Use them to highlight main points as well as amplify your storytelling
Human presence: we pay much more attention to other humans in comparison to settings with no humans or just product-focused footage
Lo-fi/UGC: a polished video with high production value will likely look out of place - Reels demand the opposite!

Reconnecting

The day finished with a round of ‘speed networking’ - expert tips and opinions being exchanged on all things digital advertising across industries and markets.

Most of all the conversations saw everyone across agencies, brands, and partners agree on how valuable live events such as the Summit are. The pandemic disrupted the workings of our industry to an extent that is still very evident, fragmenting networks and opportunities to share knowledge. So if you get the chance to go and meet your industry peers in person - and let’s face it, probably learn a lot more compared to sitting through a webinar whilst multitasking at home - go for it!