Luke Jonas 💥’s Post

Are you stuck in the ASC vortex of doom? We are seeing casualties arriving in Nest A&E. Over the past year your agency and/or Meta rep has convinced you to switch all campaigns to ASC. It all seemed great in the beginning right? Whilst we have tested and believe that ASC is powerful and has a role you can’t deploy it at 100% as it isn't set up for new customer acquisition. Meta is doing great right now, if you have the right deployment. Find out our recommended approach to ASC in the April edition of the Readout, out now: https://lnkd.in/e8HR7xzi

Does anyone else feel like the distribution curve of success has gone wonky? When it comes to brands, we're used to the classic bell-shaped curve. A small proportion of brands are doing badly, a small proportion very well, and everyone else doing OK. I talk to various people each week in the industry and what I am seeing and have also had suggested to me is that we are in a period of odd dichotomy. One one hand we have brands going bust and being gobbled by Fraser’s On the other hand we have brands like Adanola and All Saints posting record results. It feels like that bell has become more of a church steeple. Lots of brands doing badly, a small proportion OK and lots of brands doing very well. What’s driving this? Economic headwind? Has the consumer changed? Has marketing changed? It’s clearly complex, but from where I sit, the brands that are doing well are those that have either evolved with the times or are built for this time. The brands doing well are laser focused on brand and community and have moved on from short-term bean-counting marketing. What’s your theory? #brands #marketing #ecommerce

It's just 219 days until Black Friday. Prep needs to start today. We're putting on an event for mid-to-high volume advertisers at Meta HQ on 9th May, and there are just 6 spaces remaining*: https://lnkd.in/esUu86fP *spaces are first-come, first-served, and for advertisers spending north of £1M per year on Meta

Strike now to save Q4. Meta advertisers in the UK over the past 24 months have enjoyed the combination of improved performance and cut-price CPMs. However, with the UK economy starting to improve, this CPM discount won’t last forever. We are now half-way to peak. All things point to Meta getting more expensive again. Don’t wait: you should be investing in brand building now before Q4. Otherwise, you may find yourself priced out of Peak. Find more ecommerce marketing strategy, data and insights in the April edition of the Readout, out now: https://bit.ly/3W4NJ10

This is your last chance to sign up and join 200+ ecommerce marketers for our Full-Funnel Performance webinar today at 3pm GMT. Nest's Arnaud B. Betourne, Rodrigo Aspillaga and I will share our cutting-edge strategy for implementing full-funnel, including recommended account structure, rollout plan and the different methods available. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/eWNrRAvG

Brands have been driving growth from brand marketing since before the internet. However, the advent of performance marketing allowed for highly targeted marketing campaigns, initially at a lower cost than traditional channels. With more data at their fingertips than ever before, marketers became obsessed with counting things online. Why invest in long-term channels when you can grow your brand without them? Since iOS 14, this is less possible. Meanwhile, performance channels have become more expensive, less effective and much harder to measure, reducing the effectiveness of performance-heavy strategies. Through extensive experimentation, we've found the answer to optimal scale in this new internet paradigm. While our full-funnel performance approach incorporates upper-funnel campaigns, it is still aimed at driving performance. Want the rulebook? This Thursday, we are hosting a webinar on Full-Funnel Performance for online retailers. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/eWNrRAvG

Performance marketing is dead. As you know it. Back in the day, all you needed to do was buy performance marketing campaigns - there was enough data and it was cheap enough to get most brands the efficiency and scale they desired. Today, things are very different. To achieve efficiency and scale from online media, you must buy brand on top of your performance set-up. Investment in the upper funnel has increased YoY by 35% across our advertiser base - all of these brands want growth - not fluffy brand metrics And it's working: Brands running awareness or traffic campaigns alongside performance campaigns saw a 31% YoY ROAS boost in Q1 2024, compared to a 32% YoY ROAS decline for brands which only leveraged performance. Find the latest ecommerce marketing strategy, data and insights in the April edition of the Readout: https://lnkd.in/e8HR7xzi

We've just released the April edition of The Readout: The Full-Funnel Performance Edition. Here are some highlights from the report: > Meta CPM remains low, but will this remain true if the economy picks up in H2? Retailers should be investing in brand building now > Reels is becoming a mainstream channel - CVR is on par or up to 87% higher when deployed properly > Brands running upper-funnel campaigns alongside performance campaigns saw a 31% YoY ROAS boost in Q1 2024 > Meta is tough right now in the US, as the buoyant American market is driving up advertiser aggression > Google wins when cross-channel and full-funnel: with 38% lower CPA and 29% higher ROAS Plus this edition of the report also includes a special feature on Full-Funnel Performance. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/e8HR7xzi

In my recent article in WARC, we tackled one of the biggest themes in paid social: the impact of Meta’s AI-driven ad solutions on brands, and the best way to tackle solutions like ASC. It’s no secret that Nest has been cautious in our implementation of solutions like ASC. I’ll share a link to the whole article in the comments - but here are some excerpts: “The appeal of Meta’s algorithm is clear. Meta has made huge strides in ensuring its platform is optimised for advertising. The recovery of its ad business in Q3 2023 plus positive results from Black Friday suggest that it is succeeding. A key factor driving its recovery is the investment in its algorithm. Improvement is driven by better performance and reduced costs. This is encouraging advertisers during a period of tighter budgets. Seduced by the promise of better results, many brands are being led by Meta's algorithm and in-platform solutions. Critical analysis is side-lined, given the platform's impressive reporting metrics that create a deceptive appearance of success. Meta's algorithm, designed for over 13 million advertisers, is inherently straightforward – it drives sales, but the catch is, the algorithm determines which sales. Progressive advertisers can both embrace algorithmic advertising but also adopt solutions for enhanced control over brand and merchandising. This involves adopting a robust testing framework. Training an algorithm on ROAS (as Meta does) differs significantly from training it on incremental ROAS, which aligns more closely with business needs. For businesses to really be in control of testing, they need to switch from Meta-driven platform A/B tests to their own tests. Principally conversion lift tests.”