• by Colin Kirkland , Staff Writer, September 15, 2023

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but Meta is all about automation. While AI has been integrated into Meta’s algorithms for years, the technology giant has found a new purpose in leading the AI revolution –– for social, chatbots, brands, marketers, sales, e-commerce, assistants, media editing, content creators and more.

As more industries continue to move in the direction of AI integration –– advertising included –– Meta is choosing to bulk up its Advantage+ suite of AI marketing tools.

On Thursday, the company said it is prepping marketers for the world's “first AI-powered holiday season” with the launch of automated budget scheduling and bid multipliers to help make the most out of ad campaigns.

For starters, Meta wants to help advertisers better optimize their budgets for “moments in time when they anticipate higher sales, peak traffic periods or other promotional periods” -- crucially, the holidays. “With budget scheduling, advertisers can choose to increase their daily budget to maximize promotional and sales opportunities with an existing campaign,” the company wrote in a recent statement.

So, instead of creating a whole new campaign, Meta is giving advertisers the chance to pre-plan their increased budget and then automatically revert to their original daily budget after the increased-traffic period ends. The company states: “No other steps needed.” 

The feature will launch in early Q4 for manual and automated Advantage+ shopping campaigns.

The company has also announced a bid multiplier -- the targeting tool that specifies the relative weight a marketer wants to be allocated to targeted ad placement opportunities on various channels –– that is currently in testing. Meta's new bid multipliers are intended to automate an increased bid when targeting different audiences within Advantage+ campaigns.

According to a Meta spokesperson, fashion holding company Tapestry has been an early tester of these bid multipliers. The company, which was looking to target a Gen Z audience at scale, said the tool helped it “realize additional performance gains with the audiences that matter the most” to the brand by determining that it should increase its ad spend to reach younger audiences and implementing this.

Overall, Meta is using the integration of new AI tools like these to rebound its ad revenue from a rut caused by Apple’s privacy software updates, stricter data regulations, and its overwhelming metaverse spend. And it seems to be working. Now, the company hopes brands follow suit.