In the digital ads world, artificial intelligence is far from new.

For years, these platforms have been using Machine Learning and AI to identify user behavior patterns, target consumers with greater potential to purchase certain products or services, optimize campaign results, among many other functions.

However, in recent months, with the popularization of platforms such as ChatGPT, MidJourney, and others, the topic has become widely discussed and we have seen the emergence of countless new solutions, as well as a “new look” for tools that already used Intelligence. Artificial indeed, but they did not highlight this nomenclature as a differential.

In this context, Big Techs in advertising have accelerated the launch of resources and tools that can make life easier for their advertisers and improve the results of their campaigns.

With Meta it was no different. Last week the company shared several new features that promise to improve the performance of your campaigns, as well as simplify the processes of creating and optimizing your ads.

These new Meta features undoubtedly show a new perspective into the future of advertising in conjunction with generative AI. Let’s see them now?

Understand the pros and cons and learn how to use AI efficiently with this interactive ebook.

Introducing the AI Sandbox

If you work with ads, I can bet you’ve been through at least one of the situations below:

• You lacked creativity when writing copy for your ads;
• You wanted to test new versions of your creatives and needed to ask a designer to create them;
• Your image format was not compatible with all placements on the platform and, again, you needed a designer to recreate them.

The above situations happen very often to me and, most likely, to you too.

To help you with these problems, Meta has announced the new AI Sandbox!

According to the company itself:

“The AI Sandbox will act as our testing playground for early versions of new tools and features, including generative AI-powered ad tools. Our goal is to learn what works for advertisers and make these features easy to use in our ads tools.”

Let’s discover the first 3 features announced by Meta:

• Text variation: the tool uses Artificial Intelligence to generate different versions of copy for ads, helping advertisers to test different messages and improve the performance of their ads;

• Background Generation: With this tool, advertisers will be able to insert background images based on simple text inputs, speeding up the experimentation process and allowing advertisers to diversify their creatives more quickly.

• Image Outcropping: This feature automatically adjusts creatives for different placements, such as Reels and Stories, allowing advertisers to optimize their time and resources by more conveniently repurposing their creative assets.

Currently, the features are only available to a small group of advertisers for the purpose of collecting feedback. In July, Meta will begin expanding access to more accounts.

Improving Meta Advantage

Alongside the features shown, Meta has also announced new AI features for the Meta Advantage Suite.

For those who don’t know, the Meta Advantage Suite is Meta’s portfolio of automation products that use Machine Learning and AI to improve campaign results. These solutions allow you to customize ads to the right audience at the most convenient time, saving advertisers significant time and resources.

Now, let’s see the new features that Meta has announced for Meta Advantage:

• Switch manual campaigns to Advantage+ shopping in one click: now you can leverage AI quickly and easily. When you click on “duplicate” a campaign, this setting will already be available to you.
• Video creative in catalog ads: now, catalog ads will be able to import videos of your brand or products and use them as creative assets in your campaigns. In addition, Meta will use Artificial Intelligence to dynamically show the best video to users in Feed, Reels, Watch and Stories.
• Performance Comparisons: in order to understand the differences in results between manual and Advantage+ shopping campaign, Meta created a new automatic report within the platform. Therefore, you can have concrete data of the true impact of this feature on your campaigns.
  
• Better performance with Advantage+ audience: now, instead of using strict audience targeting, advertisers using audience Advantage+ will add their entries as a suggestion to the platform. With this, the system will also find people outside these suggestions if it understands that there is a good possibility of conversion in the campaign.

AI Infrastructure and Modeling Investments

Along with all this news, Meta reported that it has been investing tens of billions of dollars annually in its infrastructure. An ever-increasing portion is being reallocated to developing their AI and machine learning capability in their ads.

A recent big step was the construction and implementation of Meta Lattice, a new model architecture. This architecture is designed to acquire knowledge in forecasting the effectiveness of advertisements, encompassing diverse datasets and optimization objectives that were formerly addressed by multiple isolated models.

The implementation of Meta Lattice into Meta’s ads system can bring about improvements to ads performance, AI efficiency and to the shifting market landscape adaptability.

My opinion on new Meta features and what we should expect going forward

Artificial Intelligence is not a fad. It is already increasingly present in our lives and has facilitated the work of professionals around the world.

Meta’s new features show a big step forward for the company in developing technologies that leverage machine learning and AI to:

• Improve the performance of your campaigns
• Bypass data loss suffered by updates from Apple’s iOS 14
• Make life easier for advertisers when creating campaigns and implementing optimization tests
• Stimulate and help advertisers to create even more creative campaigns
• Reach new audiences with even greater purchasing potential

I believe we are just experiencing the beginning of a new era of online advertising.

The constant improvement of these technologies will bring even greater possibilities to revolutionize the way we advertise today, showing even more personalized advertisements for each user, improving their online experience and, consequently, the results of their campaigns.

Do you want to continue to be updated with Marketing best practices? I strongly suggest that you subscribe to The Beat, Rock Content’s interactive newsletter. There, you’ll find all the trends that matter in the Digital Marketing landscape. See you there!