Last week, members of Globant GUT, including Monika Diez del Sel (Paid Media Lead) and María Campos Aranda (Head of Paid Media), participated in the Meta EMEA Agency Summit 2024. During this insightful event, we explored various increasingly vital topics for businesses today. We have compiled some key takeaways from the summit that we are excited to share with you.
These insights are particularly significant for Globant GUT as we strive to continually innovate and enhance our clients’ strategies and business models.
A Closer Future – Innovation in AI and Beyond by Martin Harbech
We often overlook certain shifts, influenced by technologies, that affect our daily lives and how we function. It is, therefore, important that when we realize they are happening, we stay open-minded and are not reluctant to these changes. These shifts do not happen from one day to another, they take time, and we need to adjust to them. This is why the sooner we start investing in the future, the better we will adjust to what is yet to come.
META has chosen to invest in building its own AI technology, Pytorch. This featured framework builds deep learning models, a type of machine learning commonly used in apps for image recognition and language processing.
Meta for Business Agency Hub by Stacey Bossard
Stacey showed us the new UI for the Guidance Tool and introduced Test Proposals. This tool will enable us to run A/B tests with specific templates, making it easier for us to optimize campaigns based on results.
Peak Planning in the Age of AI by Peter Buckley
AI recommendation has shifted where holiday gifts are discovered. Peter’s session was fascinating. He gave us some interesting takeaways to prepare for the upcoming peak season. Firstly, he stated the importance of taking advantage of the lower CPMs in months such as September and October, especially for A/B testing. He also suggested starting to prepare for it by activating upper-funnel campaigns now to position ourselves in a good place for the upcoming peak months.
As the busy season approaches earlier each year, automating our approach becomes crucial to staying ahead of fast-changing customer behaviors.
People start researching where they’ll make purchases in October / early November, leading to more landing page traffic. In fact, Meta has studies that prove that traffic peaks tend to occur in early November already (2.5x Increase in LP views events in early November).
We should consider planning a budget for the “Forgotten Friday,” which is the Friday before Black Friday. Outside of peak, it is the biggest day for conversions across the entire year, yet brands frequently overlook it.
The peak season is also an ideal time to focus on “Brandformance.” Meta’s features like Meta Moments or Meta Storyteller are very useful for brands needing a more narrative-driven approach to engage with users.
Search Shift with Search Lift by Rasmus Bruun
Rasmus helped us understand the impact of social media on Google searches, especially branded ones, and how AI recommendations are currently significantly shaping demand.
Bluebird’s case study showed that when you focus on reach instead of just frequency, you obviously reach more users. However, we also learned that a search lift can give us a glimpse into user curiosity, helping us identify the most relevant creative content for the users.
Advantage+ & The Power of A+SC/Non-Purchase Events by Jan Roos and Dounia Kchiere
In this session, we learned a lot about how mid-funnel strategies can help us increase our sales and how crucial they are for – yes, we needed to at least mention it once 😉 – our full-funnel strategy.
Jan and Dounia also talked about Advantage + Shopping Campaigns and how important it is to keep testing and proving incremental value to clients that are new to Automation. Especially given that Meta Advantage is able to apply AI across all steps of your campaign.
The Strategic Imperative of Unbiased AI and Data by Deborah Womack
Deborah shared with us her concern about the critical importance of unbiased AI and first-party data. AI models are often trained on historic data and limited responses, which is why sometimes biased assumptions can occur. It is, therefore, essential that humans check the processes correctly and repeatedly. She stated that “Humans and human-centered design principles are central to unbiased AI.”
Here are three actions that we should all take,
- 1% of your media budget should go towards collecting first-party data.
- 3% of your budget should be set aside for auditing content and organizing metadata to help train AI models.
- 10% of your marketing budget should be reserved for a data management system, regular data cleaning, and model audits.
IG Creator Marketplace & Partnership Ads for Winning Performance Strategies by Rachel Redman
Since we spend most of our time on Meta watching videos (like Reels), creators need to play a big role in our media strategy, in fact Meta has studies that have proven that by adding partnership ads to AO ads, the CPA can be reduced by -19%. They shouldn’t just be used for one-time activations; instead, we should include them as long-term partners. We also got to look more in-depth into Instagram’s Creator Marketplace, the new tool that enables us to directly find creators and communicate with them for specific campaigns.
Drive Marketing Performance with WhatsApp by Lori Spruijt
WhatsApp marketing is still not widely used in Europe, but it’s becoming more relevant daily and has great potential as a first-party data source. It can also help at each stage of the relationship-building journey.
Agency & Meta – Looking back, looking forward by Nick Baughan
The key message was clear: as agencies, we need to constantly rethink, reassess, and adapt our business models. Hourly-based models are on their way out, and shifting to outcome-based models is essential.
As we move forward, we must embrace this transformative potential. The digital marketing sector has a golden opportunity to redefine itself, improve customer experiences, and become more competitive in the digital landscape. The time for action is now, and the perfect mix is technology + creative mindset.. Let’s harness the power of AI to break free from the chains of outdated strategies and embark on a journey toward a smarter, more responsive marketing ecosystem. The future is bright, and it’s time for the digital marketing industry to seize it.
At Globant GUT we revolutionize the industry by bringing together worlds that have historically been set apart: creativity, media, and technology. Feel free to reach out to learn more.
