Meta has released its ‘Performance 5’ framework to help advertisers get the most out of their campaigns.

Alvin Bowles, Vice President Americas, Facebook

“The Performance 5 framework is based on five actionable best practices that increase your performance when using our ads products.”

The framework will help advertisers take advantage of new ad formats and investment in AI and Reels, and help put them in a good position for the rest of the year. 

So, without further ado, here’s an overview of each pillar.

Account simplification

Reduce the complexity of your ad account structure to improve performance. Each time you create a new ad set, your account goes into a ‘learning phase’ and the Meta ads delivery takes time to deliver an optimal performance, which means higher CPAs.

Simon Whitcombe, Vice President, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook

“As a best practice, you shouldn’t spend more than 20% of your budget in the learning phase, as doing so can result in weaker performance and higher costs.”

To help with that, Advantage+ was designed to automate ad campaigns. It can help do things like consolidate a set of 69 ads down to 15 – as experienced by fashion retailer Lele Sadoughi. Those consolidated ads returned 41% more purchases at a 1.2x higher return on ad spend.

Use creators

Meta encourages marketers to use creators and launch branded content ads across Meta platforms. An internal study shows that this form lifts average sales by 39%.

Simon Whitcombe, Vice President, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook

“These ads empower creators and brands to work together to create tailored, authentic, original content that helps build connections with existing and new customers.”

Be diverse

Advertisers who used creative diversification saw 32% more efficient DR outcomes and 9% incremental reach. As customers get bored of seeing the same ads over and over again, advertisers should incorporate new, engaging ad formats. For example, try a Reels ad, or use UGC.

Additionally, using new messaging and tones in your mix can work well.

For example, seafood membership service Wild Alaskan wanted to target a broader range of seafood lovers so it diversified its creative to target a health-conscious, younger audience. As a result, Wilk Alaskan achieved a 43% reduction in CPA and 1.8x more purchases.

Use the Conversions API (CAPI)

CAPI creates a connection between Meta and marketing data, which improves performance and measurement. Marketers should focus on two areas:

1. Redundant event set ups to create a more reliable connection that helps the delivery system decrease cost per action.
2. Improve the Event Match Quality score, which can help you see more of your conversions and lower cost.

Simon Whitcombe, Vice President, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook

“Conversions API helps optimize ad targeting and personalization, decreases cost per action and more accurately measures campaign outcomes.”

Business results validation

Sometimes last-click cookie-based attribution doesn’t measure the full value of advertising. To get the whole picture, Meta recommends that advertisers use Conversion Lift to help understand your full investment on Meta.

Simon Whitcombe, Vice President, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook

“Conversion Lift uses a gold-standard methodology to capture the causal impact that Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network ads have on business performance that addresses measurement challenges marketers face such as over-reliance on clicks and shift to mobile browsing.”

As always, Meta is pushing its AI ad tools hard and it certainly looks like advertisers are seeing the value in them.

Alvin Bowles, Vice President Americas, Facebook

“With Meta’s Advantage suite of products marketers can automate their entire setup through tools like Advantage+ shopping campaigns or the audience, creative and placement of their ad.”