Are your ads that usually perform on Meta not achieving their usual reach or driving leads? Stop typing up those termination letters for your ads team because Meta Andromeda might be the culprit.
Meta Andromeda is Meta’s powerful, AI-powered ad retrieval engine. It was designed to provide a more intelligent and efficient way to match Meta users with relevant ads. Andromeda’s introduction was an absolute game-changer in how ads are processed.
It quickly sifts through and understands millions of ads before getting them in front of the right people. Much like the NVIDIA Grace Hopper superchip revolutionised AI processing, Meta Andromeda is set to transform the landscape of digital advertising.
Although Meta Andromeda was first rolled out in late 2023, its most recent update is what has businesses really paying attention (and panicking).
Instead of being seen as a new obstacle for businesses, the engine’s latest update should be seen as an opportunity to improve your ad campaigns and creatives.
At Blaze Media, we get very excited about the latest Meta updates (we’re aware of how sad that is). In this guide, we will outline everything we know about the latest Meta Andromeda update and exactly how you should change your ad strategy to make the most of it.
What is the Meta Andromeda Update?
Over the last few days, you may have heard that manual targeting is dead. Well, you’ve got Andromeda to thank for that. The latest Andromeda update is one of Meta’s biggest changes in recent years, and it has quietly redefined the way ads are delivered.
Thanks to the update, Meta now matches creative content (ads) to users based on real-time signals. It has completely shifted Meta’s advertising system focus from an audience-first model to a creative-led model, meaning that the key focus is to deliver the most relevant creative to an audience in real time rather than focusing on previously decided manual targeting settings.
So if the person in charge of the Meta ads in your office has been quiet this week, they’re mourning the loss of their previously developed strategies.
Creative is King
At Blaze, we already predicted the growing significance of creatives in your Meta strategy, emphasising the importance of creative testing on Meta, and it looks like we were right.
Before the update, advertisers would define precise audience segments to target specific demographics. This might have been broken up into:
- Age
- Gender
- Interests
- Location
And Meta would then find these desired segments and serve them with ads.
Specified targeting is out, and creative targeting is in. Andromeda will analyse the creative itself, cleverly scanning the visuals, audio, and text, understanding its intent, and matching it with the right people.
So, though it might seem scary right now, the new Andromeda update is set to improve how we approach meta ads, finally bringing quality creatives into the foreground of campaigns.
What’s Changed for Advertisers?
Your meta ad strategies are due for a rethink, as the best practices for your meta ads have changed. It’s important to understand exactly what has changed thanks to Andromeda because it changes the way you should approach your ad campaigns.
We all know just how beneficial social media ads can be for your business. Meta has a huge impact on how you connect with your audience, so familiarising yourself with these changes is essential.
Some major changes include:
Targeting
Thanks to the latest update, manual targeting is becoming obsolete, with creative targeting taking centre stage. Instead of manually inputting your ad demographics, Andromeda now uses creatives to define its audience.
This means that the standard strategy of splitting your ad budget across numerous ad sets with stacked interests won’t have the payoff you expect, with a simplified, diverse creative library set to outperform over-segmented campaigns.
Campaign Structure
The latest update is set to transform ad campaigns from hyper-segmented ad sets to a more simplified, consolidated structure with a broader audience reach.
This means that it is now best practice to have one campaign per objective, with a single, broad ad set containing different creative variations. Offering distinct, creative, and diverse assets per objective is now more effective, as this will give the algorithm more options to play around with, test, and match to different users. The introduction of Advantage+ campaigns aligns perfectly with this new approach, offering a streamlined way to leverage Andromeda’s capabilities.
Optimisation
Meta’s AI now self-learns faster from creative data rather than audience data, which can significantly enhance ad optimisation by allowing the system to adapt quickly and improve ad performance based on the creative elements.
This shift means that AI can focus more on analysing the actual content and design of ads to determine what works best rather than relying solely on audience data.
Performance Tracking
In marketing, performance is everything, and it can be easy for advertisers to obsess over every single ad metric, pulling any ad that doesn’t seem to be performing right away. Thanks to the update, this approach to performance tracking is set to change.
It’s time to stop worrying over every tiny metric and take a more holistic approach to performance tracking. How many clicks an ad gets no longer has the same significance.
Examining the overall performance of the ad now has priority, making it somewhat of a proof-is-in-the-pudding approach, with some ads appearing ineffective initially and still achieving great results. This shift also means that traditional metrics like cost per acquisition may need to be reevaluated in the context of Andromeda’s more nuanced approach to ad delivery.
How Your Business Should Adapt
Being able to adapt is a core skill for any business that wants to survive in the rapidly changing marketing landscape. Thanks to this update, some of the Meta best practices are no longer relevant.
Some ways that your business can adapt to really make the most of the latest Meta Andromeda update include:
Simplify Campaign Structures
Your first port of call should be consolidating your campaigns instead of splitting them by interest or demographic. This will give the new algorithm more to work with and improve the likelihood of your ads being matched with the right audience.
By doing this, you’re not only giving the algorithm more signals to optimise from, but you’re also giving it the resources to match your ads with people in real time, at different stages of awareness, all within the same ad set. That means you can spend less time putting together a strategy and segmenting your ads and depend more on a varied selection of ad concepts that achieve real results.
You have to remember that this is just the beginning. Andromeda is only set to become smarter and better at matching ads with the right people, and helping it by creating a pipeline of high-quality, diverse ad content will only make its targeting more precise.
Prioritise Creative Volume and Variety
Because creative signals are now prioritised over traditional audience targeting, it’s important to have a high volume of varied creatives. The system is literally designed to handle a large volume of assets, and by creating a library of diverse and distinct ads, you’re actually helping Andromeda perform better.
It’s time to stop relying on a small number of pristine ads and start building a portfolio of diverse creative assets, including a range of formats, angles, and messages tailored to a range of customer personas.
Strategic variety is key; create volume that matters and test a range of different content instead of pumping out the same ads with minor changes. It’s time for businesses to shift focus, create distinct concepts, and diversify their portfolios (this is the only time we’ll let this corporate buzzword fly).
So, get your team together, get creative, and ensure that your ads are distinct enough to be recognised as separate signals. To help with this, Meta has introduced the creative similarity score, which measures how different your ads are from each other. Aim for a low similarity score to ensure your creatives are truly diverse and give Andromeda more to work with.
Rethink Budget Allocation
Thanks to the new Meta Andromeda update, another priority that you should have is rethinking your budget allocation. In the past, a lot of advertisers would funnel their budget into a single winning ad, but that will no longer have the same impact.
The algorithm now intelligently distributes spend to find the best audience based on creative signals, meaning you no longer need to micromanage your ad spend, as Andromeda’s AI will automatically allocate budget to the best-performing ads in real time, making small allocations to the most effective areas.
Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean AI has free control over how your money is spent. It just means that Andromeda will use real data to track your ads and allocate your funding accordingly, ensuring that your budget isn’t being wasted on one ad and leading to better long-term performance.
See, it’s not all scary, Andromeda is genuinely set to make your life a whole lot easier.
Embrace Andromeda With Blaze
If the latest update has taught us anything, it’s that it’s more important than ever to work with a marketing agency. It’s literally the job of agencies, such as ourselves, to keep up to date with Meta’s updates and make sure that our clients are prepared.
We understand that meta ads can be confusing at the best of times. With the latest update, a lot of what you may know about your strategy no longer has relevance, which is where we can help.
At Blaze, we understand and work with new meta updates, ensuring that no matter how the algorithm changes, all of our clients’ ads still perform well. With a team of creative thinkers on our side, we are more than equipped to handle Andromeda’s updates. In fact, we have been waiting for the day that creatives are put into the spotlight, as we have long recognised their importance.
Need further advice regarding the updates? Want to work with a team that understands how to get the most out of your Meta Ads? You’re in the right place. Contact Blaze today to find out how we can boost your business.
