With holiday planning underway (believe it!), social media platforms are gearing up to help retailers make the most of the season. Meta, the company behind such popular apps as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has released its annual handbook of marketing tips for maximizing holiday sales.
According to a Meta survey, 54% of last year’s holiday shoppers discovered brands or products on Meta apps, and 55% said those apps influenced their holiday purchases.
The “Meta Holiday Performance Playbook” is organized into four steps: plan, experiment, push, and sustain.
Step 1: Plan. This section details early prep—what you should do before executing any advertising or marketing strategies. With a focus on Cyber Week (which begins right after Thanksgiving weekend kicks off the holidays), the tips include allocating budget for top-performing ads, implementing and optimizing your Conversions API, simplifying your campaign setup, and creating a catalog.
Step 2: Experiment. Meta recommends users learn more about A/B testing and play with its features. This part of the handbook also discusses Meta’s Advantage+ service, which the company says was designed to be the most efficient way to drive online sales through a series of easy-to-use tools. The program offers the use of AI, as well as enhanced creative features. True to form, the marketing guide heavily pushes Reels, with creative ideas for improving content engagement.
Step 3: Push. This is when you review which strategies were most successful during the experiment phase so you can run creative content that sells. Meta explains best practices for increasing sales and ROAs, again citing the pros of its Advantage+ program, and suggests avoiding making big changes to live campaigns during important sales periods, such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Step 4: Sustain. Here, Meta talks about keeping performance going strong through “Q5,” the period between holiday shopping and late January. During this time, cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) drops significantly, offering an opportunity for businesses to run their most cost-efficient campaigns while purchase intent remains high.
The guide concludes with advice for crafting highly effective ads that click to message, so consumers can reach businesses with one touch. “Set expectations that your ad will start a chat through copy, visual elements, and a ‘Send Message’ call-to-action button,” Meta writes. Additional suggestions include setting up automated messages and creating Reels and static image ads.
(Image via Meta)
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