As the 2024 holiday season approaches, Meta has rolled out a series of new AI-powered advertising tools designed to help brands maximize their reach and conversions. This move is in response to the highly competitive holiday retail period, where businesses strive to engage potential shoppers both online and in physical stores.

Personalised Ad Formats and Promotions

Meta’s new updates include enhanced promotional features that allow businesses to highlight special offers, such as discounts for first-time customers and personalized deals. These promotions are designed to seamlessly integrate into platforms like Facebook and Instagram Reels, simplifying how users apply promo codes. The goal is to drive higher conversion rates by making it easier for shoppers to take advantage of discounts while engaging with short-form content (Search Engine Land) (Retail TouchPoints).

Reminder Ads for Timely Engagement

Reminder ads are another innovative feature that will help businesses maintain customer attention throughout the holiday shopping period. Advertisers can send out notifications to remind users of upcoming sales, product launches, or events. These notifications are delivered through Instagram posts and Stories, with prompts occurring at key moments such as one day and 15 minutes before the event. This feature can be especially useful in driving in-app purchases and increasing event participation (Retail TouchPoints) (Retail TouchPoints).

Targeting In-Store and Tourist Shoppers

As holiday travel picks up, Meta has introduced a location-based ad targeting system. Advertisers can now reach users based on their interest in specific locations. For example, tourists or people planning trips will see ads relevant to businesses located in the areas they plan to visit. This feature allows retailers to optimise both their online and physical store traffic, ensuring they capture seasonal visitors (Retail TouchPoints).

Budget Scheduling for Peak Shopping Moments

One of the standout features is budget scheduling, which allows businesses to increase their ad budgets for peak shopping periods without creating new campaigns. The budget automatically reverts to its original level once the promotional period ends. This streamlined approach makes it easier for advertisers to capitalise on high-demand moments without complex campaign adjustments (Retail TouchPoints).

Enhanced AI-Powered Campaigns

Meta’s Advantage+ shopping campaigns, which already use AI to connect the best ad creatives with ideal audiences, now offer more control over audience targeting. Advertisers can prioritise specific audience segments and allocate more budget to those groups, allowing for more personalised and strategic targeting (Retail TouchPoints).

Meta’s expanded ad capabilities for the holiday season offer businesses a range of tools to cut through the noise and reach their target audiences effectively. From personalized promotions and event reminders to location-based targeting and dynamic budget adjustments, these AI-powered tools are set to enhance engagement and drive sales during the busiest shopping season of the year.

These updates reflect Meta’s ongoing efforts to blend creativity with technology, helping advertisers optimise their campaigns for both online and in-store success this holiday season.