What's Got the World Talking?

Making Sense of Meta’s New Reality

• WPR • Season 1 • Episode 5

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In this episode of What’s Got the World Talking? Jane is joined by senior paid media director Rob Lewis to unpack potentially one of the biggest shifts in paid media – Meta’s rapidly changing ecosystem.  

For brands leveraging Facebook and Instagram for growth, Meta’s reaction to increasing regulatory pressures, the rise of ad-free subscriptions, and AI-powered ad tools are creating an uncertain future. 

Rob shares his perspective on the platforms challenging Meta, where paid now sits in the funnel, how marketers should prioritise spend as the platforms demand more content than ever, and answers the big question – whatever happened to the Metaverse?  

If you're fascinated by the topics that get the marketing world talking, make sure you don't miss an episode of What's Got the World Talking?

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SPEAKER_01

What happened to the metaverse?

SPEAKER_00

Metaverse who? Um, new number who's this. I'm of the belief that marketing itself hasn't changed that much in the last hundred years. The the kind of the fundamentals, what has changed is the media.

SPEAKER_01

It's just like wild how many different types of creative they have. It's almost inconsistent so much of it.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's really key for all brands to be thinking about how they generate first party data, what they do with the We're creatures of habit, aren't we?

SPEAKER_01

So if you've always like woke up in the morning and one of the first things you do is look at Facebook, you you you just still do that. You can't is there kind of code work behind that or just Yeah, I think it's a euphemism. Welcome to What's Got the World Talking, the podcast that delves into what's on the minds of the marketing, PR, and social media world. In this episode, we're turning our attention to one of the biggest shifts in paid media, Meta's rapidly changing ecosystem, and what it means for marketers who have traditionally looked to Facebook and Instagram for growth. Which platform is a challenging Meta? Where does paid now sit in the funnel? And how do you prioritize spend as a platforms demand ever more content? I'm joined by senior paid media director Rob Lewis to explain what's happening at Meta right now, from the rise of ad-free subscriptions and AI-driven ad tools to whatever happened to the metaverse. Keep listening for practical advice about how to future-proof your paid strategy and Rob's predictions for what we can expect from Meta in the coming months. Do you want to start by introducing yourself?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, sure. I'm Rob. I'm senior paid media director here at WPR. I'm responsible for all of our paid media output across B2B and B2C.

SPEAKER_01

Brilliant. So let's start with a really broad question. How is Meta doing right now in the face of pretty tough competition from TikTok?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I think what we're seeing is kind of a stagnation in engagement, particularly on Facebook. Um, engagement's been dropping and it's kind of um leveled off at pretty low levels, kind of 0.15.

SPEAKER_01

And that's on pay, not organic or across.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, yeah, that's kind of a general average for Facebook. Um, Instagram's doing a little bit better, but generally we're seeing a drop in um performance from a kind of engagement perspective.

SPEAKER_01

And just engagement, what about like just general reach? Are the numbers still there? Are people like leaving meta in their droves to flop to TikTok or are people just adding TikTok as another?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'd say I'd say that that's the case. TikTok's growing hugely. Um, TikTok's growth rate, they're at kind of, I think it's 1.9 billion users worldwide. So TikTok's growing, meta is stagnating, but Colin, from a paid perspective, Meta, it we're still seeing performance. There's definitely conversion in lead generation performance coming from Meta still.

SPEAKER_01

It still delivers. Well, we've I was discussed this with a client the other day. We're creatures of habit, aren't we? So if you've always like woken up in the morning and one of the first things you do is look at Facebook, you you you just still do that. You can't train yourself out of it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Even though the news feed experience is getting worse.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

From kind of a paid perspective, we're still seeing strong performance, I would say.

SPEAKER_01

And how is Meta responding to pretty stiff competition from TikTok?

SPEAKER_00

Lots of things. I think the key thing that you anyone could notice is kind of the that they're trying to imitate that move to video. So vertical video is being given primacy across the meta ecosystem in the same way as TikTok. But then there's been kind of a wholesale um re-engineering of the back end, which is is kind of the what what we're talking about, Andromeda, um, all of this um AI inputs. Um, and then the other big change I would say is this focus on creative. They've kind of they're they're pushing for um better inputs from advertisers. So um they're gonna fuel performance, fuel the algorithm, and give the end user a better experience.

SPEAKER_01

It's moved very much this from a user perspective, it's moved much more of a kind of for you page sort of concept, hasn't it? You don't I don't hardly ever see posts from family and friends. Maybe they're not posting. I don't know. Maybe they they don't they but unfollowed me. I don't know what the what it is, but it's much more of a sort of random eclectic mix of things.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, totally. Kind of trying to um guess what you are gonna respond to and the news feed experience, particularly on Facebook, has really changed to kind of mirror that for you page, Discover page, um, across across all of the apps. Yeah. So that I I suppose a way of summing it up is Meta is becoming more like TikTok from a user experience perspective. Um, yeah, they're imitating um the TikTok platform, and then LinkedIn is kind of another challenger platform. Meta are improving their B2B um offering from from um an advertiser perspective. So you can kind of use um job title targeting in the same way that you've you've got on LinkedIn. So they're they are doing various things, but the the key change um i is is their um wholesale take let letting the platform be um driven by AI, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01

And a question I just need to ask is what happened to the metaverse? Because we lost Workplace, which we loved as a kind of internal comms tool here at the agency. Loved it. And then Zuckerberg gave up on that because he was investing all his time and energy into the metaverse. What's not how things are going with the metaverse?

SPEAKER_00

Metaverse Who? Um, new number who's this. Um so the official word is the metaverse, although they're still creating kind of the 3D glasses, is it Oculus? Um, it's been strategically deprioritized in favour of AI.

SPEAKER_01

Oh.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Is there a kind of code word behind that?

SPEAKER_00

Or just yeah, I think it's a euphemism for um, yeah, kind of forget about it. Okay, well. I would say so.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but I'm still cross about losing workplace, so I'm not happy.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, agreed, agreed.

SPEAKER_01

So when you get to the crux of this podcast and what it's all about, is very recently Meta introduced a subscription model where you can have ad-free content. How is that going for Meta? And how is it going for you as someone that spends millions of pounds, all of their time, yeah, running ads on Meta?

SPEAKER_00

So initially, when it was kind of um started to be talked about, there was kind of that sense going back to um when iOS 14.5 was launched in 2021, and that was kind of Armageddon, and that really impacted performance from a paid perspective. So kind of um word in on the paid street, as it were, was okay, this is going to be really big, but the launch hasn't had a huge impact on performance, I wouldn't say, but there are some things to be concerned about. But from a user uptake perspective, I think we're at about one or two percent of users at the moment across Europe that have taken uh have decided to go ads free and subscribe.

SPEAKER_01

So it's definitely the minority still at this point.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely. And I think if we look at kind of say YouTube premium, they're sitting at around 5% uptake. So I think we could probably benchmark at roughly 5% of users are gonna um choose the ad-free subscription model.

SPEAKER_01

And what does that look like in terms of for users?

SPEAKER_00

It's complete just absolutely no ads. Um, you'll have no ads, and your user data is not used in any way to target target you at all. Um that no discovery, no, no additional content surfaced because of your personal data. I'm of the view though, and I suppose um I would say this because I'm a paid media professional. Um ultimately the internet's got to be paid for somehow, hasn't it? Um so if you're a person who's using the internet, why not be you're gonna be targeted with ads one way or the other? It might not be on meta, but you're gonna be targeted elsewhere. So why not be targeted with ads with that that are showing products that are potentially relevant and that you might be interested in purchasing?

SPEAKER_01

And what are the immediate effects that you're seeing? Are you seeing a reduction in numbers? I suppose it's one to two percent.

SPEAKER_00

You're not seeing at the moment, no, but it's something for us absolutely to keep our eye on. I think the biggest concern is the loss of kind of um higher spending individuals like those kind of uh wealthier segments. So if I if we were advertising for a business that's got particularly high-ticket items, then they're they're the people that are more likely to choose subscription, therefore they they become untargetable, as it were. So it's a concern from that perspective, I would say. And there's also a concern that ultimately, if more people do choose to subscribe to the ad-free option, um audience sizes shrink, costs go up, there's increased volatility. So it's something we're watching out for. But at the moment, there hasn't been a huge no, not with the numbers that you're that you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01

So there've been a lot of discussion around the impact of regulatory policy, such as GDPR and the Digital Services Act. So, to what extent is this shift being driven by policy, or do you think there is a strategic choice from Meta about the direction the business wants to head in the future in terms of monetizing?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I think it it feels as though it's absolutely a response to the regulatory environment. There's the the Digital Markets Act in Europe, um, GDPR in the UK, obviously, and then I think it's also driven by the consumer. We're just becoming more privacy conscious and privacy first. So it feels like it's a response to all of those things, and then also added to that, I would say it's a way for Meta to kind of protect their revenue stream. They're thinking, okay, if we're going to lose ads, then we can create a new revenue stream by making people pay. But this subscription model, actually, there's there's an argument, and I think this is something that's been looked at by um the regulators in Europe that the pay or consent to ads is is anti-competitive in itself. So that the cis the situation may change yet again. So it's a response to a complicated kind of regulatory environment.

SPEAKER_01

Do you think they're just trying to keep you on your toes and make you a job?

SPEAKER_00

A little bit, yeah. I mean as possible. You can't have a day off, can't you? Paid's always in flux and always changing. So yeah, this just feels like another step in that step on the road.

SPEAKER_01

So you met you mentioned meta Andromeda a few moments ago. Just explain what that is, what it does, why we should all know about it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, okay. So Andromeda's part of this new um AI re-engineering of the way ads are retrieved and sorted on the platform. It's it's basically a new brain, it's a new algorithm, essentially. Um, and there's there's a couple of parts to it. So Andromeda's what's kind of got the headlines, as it were, it's what's been talked about. Um, but Andromeda is actually the retrieval system, and there's another two parts. There's Gem, which stands for the generative engine modeling, and then there's Lattice. So Lattice is kind of the framework, the infrastructure. Not made this straightforward.

SPEAKER_01

They haven't out of ten on the usability of all that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, crazy names. Lattice is kind of the, I suppose, um, framework and infrastructure that recognises and reads ad content, the tax and and the taxonomy essentially. Um, and then Andromeda is the retrieval system that creates a short list based on what it thinks the user is going to respond to, and then Gem makes the final decision and surfaces the ad based on the user's um behaviour, previous behaviours, the data points the platform holds on them. Um I'm sure there's like a cool analogy for the human body in there, but I can't think of it exactly. Central nervous system, speech, nerve, something like that.

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's no wonder they've had to give up on the metaverse.

SPEAKER_00

It's overcomplicated.

SPEAKER_01

Have overcomplicated it really. Um and what does all that mean for advertisers and brands advertising on the meta platforms?

SPEAKER_00

So what it's done, I would say, has it shifted our focus away from audience segmentation and really put the focus back on creative. Um, I think again, there's been a lot of scaremongering. Oh my god, Andromeda's not, you know, Andromeda's come um and ads aren't working in 2026, people are pulling spend, all of these things. Actually, when you kind of delve into it and and you're working on the platform, um, it is probably a boon for advertisers. It it means that um creative is read more effectively, the machine learning's just got better. So, in essence, the brain that we're feeding as paid media specialists has has become better at doing its job. So I'm seeing the the the these um this new technology as uh as a positive, but a lot of um paid media or people that are trying to do paid media is like Andromeda's gonna ruin the world. But I don't think it is.

SPEAKER_01

You're saying positive. And how do you keep on top keep on top of just so many changes in the in your specialist field?

SPEAKER_00

I'm of the belief that marketing itself hasn't changed that much in the last hundred years. The the kind of the fundamentals. What has changed is the medium, the way we get the messages across. So as long as we've got good products, we've got strong messages, we've got strong creative, these platform changes are it's not a huge concern. As long as yeah, yeah, if we if we focus on the fundamentals, get those right, then our products services are gonna are gonna sell and we're gonna get conversions.

SPEAKER_01

So let's feel of course just a moment. I think something that I'm really fascinated by is the rise of AI in in social media creative and advertising creative. What's your what's your view on the role of AI in in social media creative?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, if David Attenborough or Oprah Wimpfy Winfrey are trying to sell you crypto run, it's you think I shouldn't be trusted. Yeah, don't trust.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, notice.

SPEAKER_00

They they can kind of split up your brand, make your brand look strange, appears, appear strangely. So what we've tended to do is have our designers create assets or our clients' designers create assets, and then we'll sit with the client and maybe go through because Meta will then take that asset and give you 30 more options, and we'll go through and go, okay, that doesn't work, that doesn't work, that doesn't work. It's getting better, but it's not. I still wouldn't trust it completely.

SPEAKER_01

It loses authenticity.

SPEAKER_00

I know the ones I've seen, yeah, they're just so obviously like an avatar trying to sell me the products, and then it switches to an audience and it's just yeah, giving um assets that have been created by a designer that are brand uh that are brand approved, giving those to um Meta's Advantage Plus image creation and allowing it to create variations, you're looking at around 50% might might be okay. But yeah, again, you've really got to there still needs to be that that that human eye making a final decision. I wouldn't let Meta's AI create assets for any of my clients off the bat.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, it's not there yet.

SPEAKER_00

No, and I no, I don't I don't think it'll ever will be um unless they really tighten up on kind of their understanding that uh a client's brand is it's their main asset, kind of their their brand infrastructure, their colours. You can't just hack that up and you know present it how the algorithm thinks it's gonna work, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, agreed. So, how important is first party data now that Meta's user level data is further constrained?

SPEAKER_00

So first party data's always been super important from my perspective. I think the use of it has changed. So first party data uh is in email addresses, customer customers agreed for that data to be shared with the brand. Um, previously we would have used it um to create lookalike audiences, remarketing audiences. Now I'm thinking first-party data, the importance of it is if we zoom out a little bit, is not necessarily just for the use on Meta's platforms, TikTok, or on paid social or across the Google ecosystem. It's more broad than that. It's kind of about owning the customer. Otherwise, as a brand, unless they own that customer data, they're essentially renting it from the platform. So I think it's really key for all brands to be thinking about how they generate first-party data, what they do with it, and kind of the the um engagement and nurture journeys that they have set up across platforms. So it's bigger than paid, I would say.

SPEAKER_01

And if creative is becoming a core uh performance lever, how would you advise brands to think differently about creative now? Volume, variation, personalization?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's I mean, it's always been key to have strong creative, but what we're seeing now with this new AI tech with Andromeda, Lattice, and Gem is the requirement for increased creative velocity. So you need more, yeah, more ads, and then diversity, but true diversity, so not 16 variations of the same image. You need to be really thinking through different personas, different pain points, different um proof points on your products, and creating assets that are really truly varied. So uh you could have ads for a single product that look really different. That's kind of the route we're going down.

SPEAKER_01

So why is that?

SPEAKER_00

It's to do with kind of the way this AI works. So, in order to drive real scale, you need to have the AI show your ads to different pockets of the audience, and it'll only do that if the creative is is truly differentiated. So we're still kind of testing this at the moment, but that's what we're seeing. A kind of way to unlock scale through through the AI is to have really different assets that go, okay, this is a completely different pocket of your audience, we'll we'll show them. We can't reach them without that creative. So creative is the lever for growth, but it's also uh a key to unlock new audiences so you can kind of scale, you can scale spend horizontally and then um vertically across audiences.

SPEAKER_01

So taking all of the changes that you've just talked us through into account, who do you think is doing a brilliant job of social media advertising at the moment?

SPEAKER_00

So I just want to caveat, I am slightly a Kardashian fan. I'm not I'm not uh um a worshipper, but I actually think that Courtney Kardashian's Lemmy they've won TikTok with their approach um in the US. Um what she did, or well, her team, I'm not gonna say it was Courtney. Um the the gummies, I mean they're um supplements, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Through aggressive gifting to to to micro influencers, micro creators, uh, plus a really strong paid strategy, she's appeared everywhere all at once. Um and and Lemmy's really kind of smashed TikTok. Um I think she she's they've done kind of I think it was ten million dollars in a day or something, um, through this kind of swarm approach.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

So I think um that's really clever. Kind of bringing together, and I think this is something that links back to all of these changes. Um the focus is back on creative. So I would say to some degree, what we're seeing is the the barriers um or the differentiation between organic and paid uh is falling down. So for for a few years, I I feel like paid was really in a silo separate to organic. Yes, organic fed audiences in certain ways, but I wasn't thinking about the two, how they can work in conjunction. I think all of these changes are bringing the focus back to. Creative and bringing organic creativity and content creation back to the fore. And so I'm really thinking about how organic can feed paid. And I think Courtney and Lemmy are a really good example of that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think organic should feed paid. I I'm not just a boosting thing. This post has done well, let's boost it. But in terms of the audience engages with this type of content, how can it be repurposed for paid?

SPEAKER_00

And kind of bringing in influencers, creators. So they're all one, really. That's what I'm starting to think of it more as how can paid feed your influencers? Which influencers are we going to put spend behind? How are influencers feeding your organic? Um, it's kind of breaking down those divisions that I feel like were definitely there. I think that's kind of an unexpected consequence of all these changes and something I wasn't predicting. Um, you know, I was thinking we'll continue creating paid-specific creative. But what's working really well is when organic content has worked well, then we'll think, how can we iterate this fought for paid, you know, add a hard as ETA, that kind of thing. Um, so that's really interesting. I think Courtney was kind of Courtney and Lemie. Um she's done a that's a really good example of that.

SPEAKER_01

What a drop down an orchard. I I I I've been sponsored an awful lot of ads from Heights. Have you heard of them? They do the like supplements, tablet supplements, vitamins, minerals, all that kind of thing. Yeah. Rylin is one of the faces there. And Ben, Ben Shepherd as well. Oh, yeah. So it's not Kardashian's Jenners or anything like that. But I think I can really see with the ads that they're serving me, it's just like wild how many different types of creative they have coming out. It it's almost inconsistent so much of it. But I can see then that it just constantly catches my attention because it just changes, it's like, oh, not them again. They look so different.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that inconsistency is kind of a good thing. It's strange, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01

You'd never have thought that before, but now I get it.

SPEAKER_00

It catches the eye, the platforms, the AI is seeing it as different, true diversity. And I think kind of because the platforms, it's a hungry beast, how how can brands create enough volume to feed the beast? And it is exactly through this, it's through having um creator partnerships, your regular paid creation, um, ad creation, and bringing them all together to really kind of drive up volume.

SPEAKER_01

So, what are the practical steps you'd be or practical advice you'd be giving marketers at the moment about how to just to go about approaching paid social campaigns, how to make the most of them, what pitfalls to avoid? That's an enormously long question. So um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I think, yeah, revisiting your creative approach, creative strategy, sit down and re-strategize kind of what your ads should look like and really start to think about true creative diversity. What are all the pain, map all of the pain points that your product or service serves, map every potential um ideal customer profile and create ads for each of these groups? So you really want to, instead of just talking about five, six ads that say how great your product are, really thinking about angles, thinking about offers, and you can see all of these things that I've mentioned, you can multiply that and have 30, 40 pieces of creative.

SPEAKER_01

Has that had an enormous impact on what your creative budget needs to be?

SPEAKER_00

Well, this is the thing, isn't it? I would say so. The the challenge is um it's driving up creative cost, people don't have the resource. It's me, it means that um the speed that you can optimize. So you see an ad performing well, we want to iterate on that, but then you need 30 different variations, and that's where Meta's AI is in platform options, but that goes back to that brand safety piece around okay, we might want a variation on this ad. Let's let Meta's AI do it, but then that is actually slowing us down because I'm having to sit on a call with our client and go, yes, to that one, no to that one. Why is she upside down? Why is she on a snow capped mountain? These kind of strange.

SPEAKER_01

So is there is there a guideline? Like what percentage of these ads you let through these AI?

SPEAKER_00

Um, I mean, our benchline is none unless the client is happy to test um existing assets being iterated upon by the AI.

SPEAKER_01

That has had an enormous impact on your creative costs overall.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely. And so that's why I think we're seeing that kind of collapse of the division between con um organic, creator, pattern more on organic, we'll certainly work closer hand to hand with the organic. How can you kind of maximise, sweat your existing assets and and and drive up creative production that way? And I think um if you've got if you're doing gifting, for instance, you've you've essentially got free creative production, and then how do you build that into your paid strategy? So it's it's really rethinking how you do create create paid content.

SPEAKER_01

And what's your view on um thumbstoppable content, I suppose. So you'll often see, I think, uh an ad that says we're sorry. So it looks like they're about to announce they're going bankrupt or something terrible has happened, but it's like we're sorry.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You're doing another 30% off this. So if you bought it a few weeks ago, you're not you could have saved even more if you'd waited. They make you look.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I mean, it works, kind of thumbstoppable scarcity. It does work, but is it gonna drive is is it sustainable? Is it gonna drive brand trust? And is it something that you want to be known for? Zooming out again from paid, because I I think we went through a period, and I definitely worked as a paid media specialist due in this era, where you could have a rubbish web website, a pretty bog standard product, and paid could scale your business.

SPEAKER_01

You could rely on the brute force of spends.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. Yeah, you can't anymore. That does not cut it. No, so if people won't pay full price for your product, look at your pricing strategy, like your positioning. What are you justifying the price? That so I think paid's a really good, it it can act as kind of a canary in a in the car mine. You can go, okay, people won't convert a full price, so let's go back and think about the product. But obviously, we don't necessarily, because we're working in partnership with brands, we don't necessarily have that control, but we can kind of point to these issues that potentially paid's throwing up.

SPEAKER_01

So, what is the principal role of paid social in the in the funnel, the sales funnel?

SPEAKER_00

It's I see it as a discovery engine, so it's driving acquisition, it's bringing new customers to your wider ecosystem, so your other paid channels, your website, driving people through to your email. It's probably the first place. Um people discover your brand. So, in that sense, discovery engine, top of the funnel. But that's not to say you can, and we do have great success running full funnel campaigns. So, top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel from new customers right the way through to retention. So, this is why I love paid social. It can do both.

SPEAKER_01

It used to be seen very much at the bottom of the panel, didn't it? It was a conversion.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it will pick up the the remarketing capabilities on Meta particularly were super strong. But now with increased privacy, I mean, we probably we don't even run that many remarketing campaigns anymore. What Meta's saying, the AI has got to a point where you're um, if you give over-targeting to the AI, we'll remarket, we'll hit people at the top of the funnel, we'll hit people at the bottom of the funnel. So again, we've moved away from kind of this segmentation of the funnel. I used to spend my whole life thinking right top, middle, bottom, where exactly where in the customer journey am I hitting this user with what message? That's less important now. It goes back to creative and creative as targeting.

SPEAKER_01

So only a few months into the year, while spring is here officially now.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, are you willing to take a stab at what you think the meta ecosystem will look like by the end of 2026?

SPEAKER_00

I think from a paid media perspective and a consumer perspective, um, the ads that are being surfaced are going to become even more scarily accurate. You're gonna basically the algorithm's getting to a point where it knows what you want before you even know what it wants. I think that's kind of the direction we're going at. I mean, there'll still be um errors, but it's gonna become more scarily accurate in terms of the ads that have been serviced to you based on your behaviours. Um, I think we're gonna see, hopefully, we don't see continued declines in organic engagement, particularly on Facebook. I think there's work underway to make the Facebook newsfeed experience better. I think that needs to happen.

SPEAKER_01

That's more of a wish than I know for quite a few of our clients on organic on Facebook, Reach is doing really, really well. I think the prediction was Facebook would be dead, but actually we're it's yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So that they are surfacing brands, aren't they? They they they they're driving Reach, but from a user perspective, I mean my personal Facebook news feed it's a bit of a junkyard.

SPEAKER_01

Mine's a junkyard as well. Very strange collection of things.

SPEAKER_00

So I think overall um the platforms are just are gonna just get better and better at um servicing ads to the right people at the right time, driving performance for brands.

SPEAKER_01

So when you're talking to CMOs or other senior marketers at the moment, what are the top three things you're telling them to do in response to the very significant changes over at Meta in recent times?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. The the first one is uh revisit your creative approach, rethink um how you ideate and drive ad production. You need to go for volume and diversity. So that's one. Um then two, going back to my point around paid media not being um a magic bullet is go back to the fundamentals, not necessarily product, but watch conversion rate on your website. You know, we can drive great traffic from great ads, but if they land on a site or a lead form that looks like it's from 2005 and your conversion rate is in the gutter. So I think we need to zoom out from just purely paid media and look at kind of the the whole customer journey. So website conversion rate is where I'd point to next. Um, and then the third one is thinking about getting getting a handle on the numbers. Um, what's your contribution margin? What's the unit economics of the product that you're selling, therefore, and you know, what's your profit margin? What do you need to make on each sale or or or each lead? And then really understand how much you can spend on paid media, because I think often what we find is it's just a budget. Oh, the last bit of the budget we'll just spend on paid, and paid's the part that gets taken from to plug the gaps in every other area you might take and 10 grand out to pay for this new creative, but then you've got no spend to actually serve that creative. So I think if you really spend time as a marketer understanding what you need to make per product or per sale or per lead, you can get a strong CPA target, you could cost per acquisition target, and then really know how much you can invest and can spend on paid, because then maybe paid can become um a magic bullet for your business again if you spend in the right amount, you've got the right creative. So it's kind of going back to fundamentals on that.

SPEAKER_01

And what would you say to a client that comes to you and says, Look, I've got this amount to spend, where am I best to place best to spend it? Is it going to be on with Google, with TikTok, with Meta?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. There's so many dynamics, isn't there? Um, I think the way we're approaching new briefs is um kind of as a rule of thumb, I want to be across more than well, two channels, two-page channels, basically. And then the on a case-by-case base basis, we're looking at what is the um where did your customer hand go, you know. So really think that through. Um I'm I was a meta first advertiser, but no, Meta isn't always the first channel that I'm gonna look at. I think you need to be on more than more than two channels, two, too minimum.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And it certainly was the case that TikTok had the best CPM.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. TikTok, TikTok is still cheap from a paid traffic perspective. Um it's not its functionality from a back-end perspective, kind of the ad build perspective. It's a lot more clunky. There's so many. Um, I mean, we all love a bit of two-factor authentication. I, you know, I recognise the need for it, but um, TikTok asks for 2FA on 2FA. You have to like do kind of a Krypton Factor puzzle to get into the platform.

SPEAKER_01

I'm not very good at those. Have to send me pictures of how many pictures of a bike in. I always get it wrong.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. How many spheres or how many uh dodecahedrons or whatever they are? I'm just like, I'm not today, I just want to get into the platform. Um, so yeah, TikTok is cheaper traffic, absolutely. There's less competition from an ads perspective, but that's going up. So I I think this year we'll see um CPMs leveling off, roughly, where you know, kind of in line with what we see on Meta and other channels.

SPEAKER_01

So, what does the future hold for your profession?

SPEAKER_00

I think AI is coming, it's here. Um, but I don't think it's gonna take away the paid media's specialist's ability to create strategy that really draws a lot, has that creates a red thread throughout all of your comms, you know, that that we we're gonna be needed for that strategic insight um to decide where the spend goes. We can't cede all that to the algorithm, it makes mistakes, and yeah, that kind of human element, human creativity, human insight, I think that's kind of the the the direction that that paids go in.

SPEAKER_01

Are you excited for the future of paid social?

SPEAKER_00

And paid media more generally. Um, yeah, I think so. You know, the only constant is change, and yeah, let's keep with you.

SPEAKER_01

Excellent. Well, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00

Don't worry.