Here are the results of our latest test as of January 3rd, 2022.

During our strategy meetings with our Media Buyers (and probably during Social Selling, too), the following thought often comes up:

“Black Friday is like a play you rehearse all year long. But when the big day comes, don’t improvise.”

One of our Account Directors at J7 Media experienced this truth firsthand.

Their strategy was simple: to launch Black Friday campaigns starting November 17th to warm up cold audiences in advance. As the CPM wasn’t at its absolute peak yet, our Account Director was happy enough. Except…

Their TOF campaign wasn’t working at all. With a ROAS of only 1.10 after 2 days, they decided to cut the campaign.

Here are what the TOF ads looked like.

While these ads would work well for a retargeting campaign, we clearly weren’t taking full advantage of our cold audiences.

Our Account Manager started to think, and with very little time and resources, created new ads. There was no indication that these ads would work, and there was no room for error.

He prepared for this moment all year, and having worked on this account tirelessly, knew he needed to save the situation!

So, he analyzed the account and pulled out the best-performing ads of the year. He then produced new creatives that did not mention price or time in the tagline that resembled the account’s top-performing ads.

Here’s what they looked like:

These two "Back Up" campaigns were made up, for the most part, of Evergreen ads that were not intended for Black Friday. And because they worked in the past for cold audiences, the Account Manager decided to try them again!

The lesson here is that if your account has useful historical data, use it to your advantage. As you've just seen, creatives that were not at all intended for the biggest sale of the year beat the ads we created for Black Friday. Always try to replicate what works!

Here are the results of our latest test as of January 10,2022.

As an Account Manager, there are times where the advertiser is not on your side. At least, their business model isn’t.

That’s the case of today’s story.

The client in the question is an infopreneur that constantly changes their budget month to month, alternating between substantial and very low budgets. The problem, of course, is that results fluctuate as well.

In mid-November, this reality threw the account completely out of kilter and our Account Manager had to test several approaches to control the rising cost of leads.

They tried a variety of campaigns, audiences, ads, and even capping. No cigar.

The account was already inundated by creatives, so he couldn’t ask to put more into production. He therefore decided to make long-term investment and launch a Dynamic Creative campaign to a large audience.

By the end of November, he was able to say goodbye to all campaigns that were not Dynamic Creatives, but still kept a campaign that was performing less well. Why? Because Dynamic Creative campaigns always tend to get better with time.

And he wasn’t wrong to think so!

In December, he launched two more to continue scaling the account. Here were his results at the end of the month.

Compared to November, our Account Manager managed to reduce the Cost per Lead by 37% by simply optimizing one parameter: the Dynamic Creative.

This optimization strategy isn’t new to us – it’s among the pillars of PACTO, our optimization blueprint. When you have a lot of creatives in your account, yet none seem to be working well, it’s time to pool them all into one or two campaigns and let Facebook decide which will come out on top.

This has often saved us from producing new ads without really knowing if they’ll succeed. Plus, Dynamic Creatives also have the added bonus of targeting HUGE audiences.

Here are the results of our latest test as of January 17th,2022.

The image below perfectly sums up our strategy for the first half of December, where we relied on Flash Sales for our holiday strategy for one client in particular.

When we come out of a big promotional period (such as Black Friday), we try to avoid launching huge sales in the following month (December) because our offers are bound to run out of steam, and it’s important to keep prospects interested until the end of the year.

However, nothing prevents us from opting for very targeted Flash Sales that offer a product at a discount for a very short period of time.

We call this the ‘Advent Calendar’ strategy, which involves launching 4 to 5 48-hour. Flash Sales

This strategy is a great way to reignite interest in the account and generate purchases before the holidays to make sure consumers get their gifts for Christmas Day.

Here is an example of the sort of content we created for a client that sells various motorsport/racing experiences and packages.

Note the following important elements:

• The offer is immediately visible at the top of the page
• Several call-to-action buttons throughout
• The regular price and the sale price
• Extra features to create a sense of urgency (ex: countdown timer)

Without too much effort (as we waited for our client’s Boxing Day Sales), our Account Manager was able to generate almost $10,000 with a ROAS of 3.57.

And these stats don’t even include the results from our email marketing or Evergreen campaigns that were still running (and benefiting) during this period!

Whether December is ideal for these kinds of offers or not, nothing prevents you from adopting this concept and applying it to other important calendar events.

For example, your brand's anniversary can serve as a great promotional period, especially if you notify your customers in advance that special offers will be coming soon. Keep in mind that email marketing, unsurprisingly, also plays a critical role in this sort of strategy.

The other (BIG) advantage is that with this approach, you multiply your possible offers. While a single specific Flash Sale will surely generate many sales, fragmenting your offers in this way allows you to sell several times to the same person!