In August 2022, Meta launched ASC (Advantage+ Shopping Campaign) campaigns. These campaigns have proven to be an extremely effective way to drive traffic to your online store and boost sales, while requiring less effort.
Meta's ASC campaigns can help increase your website visibility and generate more sales. In this article, we take a close look at how these campaigns work, how to set them up, as well as their benefits, limitations, and key considerations for integrating them into your workflow.
What Are Meta Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC)?
Meta's Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, commonly abbreviated as ASC, are automated product promotion campaigns that use machine learning to dynamically serve your ads to the audiences most likely to convert, while making the most of your ad budget.
ASC eliminates the manual ad creation steps and, according to Meta, it can automate up to 150 creative combinations simultaneously.
How to Set Up an ASC Campaign
Setting up ASC campaigns is relatively straightforward, which is an added advantage for those new to advertising on the platform or for small businesses.
To get started, click the "+ Create" button in Meta Ads Manager, then select the Sales campaign objective and click "Continue."
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Configuring Your Meta Advantage+ Campaign
Next, choose "Advantage+ Shopping Campaign" instead of manual setup and click "Continue."
As you'll see in the next configuration step, targeting options and settings are available, but most of the usual campaign options are absent. This is because the Advantage+ process is designed to leverage Meta's AI and automation capabilities, rather than limiting itself to manual criteria.
Give your campaign a meaningful name, select a special ad category if needed, set your geographic targeting, budget, start and end dates if applicable, and your attribution settings. Select your pixel.
During the initial setup, you'll notice the "Audience segment breakdown" section, where you can include existing customers in your account settings and review the split between new customers and existing ones.
You have the option to set a budget cap on your retargeting audiences.
Meta recommends uploading as many ads as possible at the start, and we recommend doing the same to feed the algorithm.
You can also go to the ad level to create new ones.
Benefits of ASC
The key advantage of ASC is that it is 100% automated — no need to test interests or constantly revisit your targeting; the algorithm handles everything.
With the improvements Meta has made in the advertising space over recent years, using their AI through ASC campaigns should help you generate better results.
Limitations of ASC
One potential downside is that if you enjoy finding new targeting angles to test, you'll hit a wall pretty quickly with ASC.
There is also no control over ad placement, meaning your ads will be served wherever Meta's algorithm decides.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we strongly recommend testing ASC in your account and pitting it against your other campaigns by analyzing the KPIs. At datashake, we use this new campaign type on the majority of our accounts, and it is very often the one that delivers the best performance. That said, it requires a large number of ads and a higher budget than other campaigns so that the algorithm can optimize it effectively.
Want support with your digital marketing strategy? Don't hesitate to contact us!
FAQs
Q: What are Meta Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC)?
A: Meta Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) are automated product promotion campaigns that use machine learning to serve your ads to the audiences most likely to convert, while optimizing your ad budget.
Q: How do you set up a Meta Advantage+ Shopping campaign?
A: To set up a Meta Advantage+ Shopping campaign, click the "+ Create" button in Meta Ads Manager, select the Sales campaign objective, choose "Advantage+ Shopping Campaign," and follow the configuration steps by providing the required information.
Q: What are the benefits of ASC?
A: ASC is fully automated, which saves you time. On top of that, with the improvements Meta has made in advertising, using their AI through ASC campaigns can generate better results.
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