A behind-the-scenes session with Cuddle Clones, a brand deeply committed to social impact and e-commerce growth, highlights key Meta advertising strategies. The core insight emphasizes separating products into individual campaigns with one asset each, using 10–20 well-tested, full-funnel ads to track performance and identify gaps. For optimization, max value is recommended to drive volume and higher ROAS, especially when competing against similar product lines, while TROAS is maintained only if it meets efficiency goals. Campaign structures should include both standard and incremental attribution, with a preference for five to seven-day click-to-engagement tracking. Budgets are set with caution—starting at $500 for new campaigns to manage risk—while weekly budgeting allows for Sunday spending spikes, which can be a strength if the brand sees higher activity on such days. Creative testing is done weekly with two fresh, full-funnel ads per campaign, avoiding redundant or similar creatives. New ads are launched in test assets, with top performers duplicated and scaled, while underperforming ones are turned off after 30 days. The discussion concludes that different campaign types (e.g., max value for high-value products, max conversions for low-cost items) should coexist to capture diverse audiences. No bid constraints are used initially, and AI-generated creatives are accepted if design standards are flexible. This approach balances learning, scalability, and control, enabling brands to grow sustainably without overcomplicating their Meta strategy.
(upbeat music)
- Hello, what's up everyone?
Welcome to the Smartarketer podcast,
it's your host Molly Pittman.
And we are back for another episode.
Hope you're having a wonderful day
wherever you are in the world.
Last week, I was on a call with a company
called Cuddle Clones.
They're in our mastermind, they're amazing people.
We've known them forever.
They're also the biggest donor to my dog rescue,
fields of freedom.
So we love them with all of our heart
and we help them out however we can.
And they had some questions about meta ads.
So I brought one of our senior paid performance specialists,
Mary Ann White, who you guys have met here on the show,
onto a call with the Cuddle Clones team
to talk through some meta ads questions that they had.
At the end of the call, I realized, wow, this was so valuable.
There were probably lots of marketers out in the ecosystem
that have similar questions.
So we decided to share that call with you.
I know you guys love behind the scenes episodes.
So I hope this is valuable to you.
As always, please share this show
with your fellow marketer and entrepreneur friends.
I don't have to tell you why it's valuable,
but it really helps us out here
on the SmartMarketer podcast.
So without further ado, let's dive into the episode.
- Most e-commerce brands stay on overpriced email platforms
because switching kind of feels like a nightmare.
We'll omni-send eliminates that excuse.
Migrate in five days, save up to 35%
and get a platform built specifically for e-commerce.
Check them out at omni-send.com/smart.
- A lot of things happen at once kind of with my Slack
that I mentioned, we changed our theme on July 7th.
And then also we had to take down our hero offer
that we ran for years and years
and had to kind of reposition that as well.
So basically everything you're seeing in the account right now
is almost brand new, like the creative itself
is somewhat battle tested,
but it doesn't have all the learnings
'cause we had to take off offers, change landing pages,
all that kind of stuff.
So it is somewhat fresh.
So the fact that anything is looking positive right now
in my opinion is a win
'cause I think it was Thursday
that was the first full day
that all those changes were made.
So that's kind of the context there.
Right now we're trying to get, obviously,
everyone's trying to get more spend out of the account,
but even if it's another few thousand dollars a day
that would make a huge difference,
I think our main hero campaign currently
is on target ROAS, and I'm thinking cost caps
would probably be better for it
to kind of push a little more volume that way.
I'm concerned is we don't have enough winning ads
to do that just yet.
I don't know if we can get your thoughts there.
Any other big one is we have three flush products
or stuffed animals that are different,
but I'm worried that meta is viewing them similarly
and we're actually just competing against ourselves
in the same auction.
So if you look in our account,
you'll see the original cuddle clone,
therapeutic and puggable.
Those are three distinctly different products,
but my guess is based off of the volatility
that they're probably just competing against each other.
So we had a call with our meta reps yesterday
and they suggested that we put them all into one campaign,
different ad sets, bid at the campaign level still,
but then use their fancy new tool
where we can put percentages on where we think
the percentage of spend should go at the ad set level.
I don't know how I feel about that.
My thought might be put them all in the same campaign,
put them in different ad sets,
but bid at the ad set level, but you know,
put the budgets at the ad set level.
But that's why I would like to talk to you
to see what you think about all of those kinds of things.
- Yeah, for sure.
So what makes them exactly so different,
the Memorial One, the Cuddle Huggable One
and the therapeutic one?
- The therapeutic, yeah.
So the original cuddle clone,
original and Memorial kind of are one and the same.
But they are, that one is more customizable,
probably less of a toy and more of a just kind of,
put it in the corner or put it under desks,
put it on the couch, like not necessarily builds
to be like a toy, it's built more for a Memorial, right?
You can get the pouch in the belly
so you can put ashes in there,
like all of that kind of stuff.
The Huggable One, we are really trying to push towards kids.
So it's going to be softer.
It's going to be laying down.
So it's easier for them to carry and hold
and they're gonna be a little bit smaller
and we're trying to position that as they,
like we're not calling it a toy,
but like position it as they stuffed animal for kids
to either help them grieve a pet
that was lost or they just love their pet so much
and they could take it anywhere.
And then the therapeutic is basically the Huggable
that I just described, but you can also,
put it in the microwave, warm it up.
So then you have like kind of that,
that's why it's therapeutic and then you can also add sense
to it like lavender or, I forget the other one,
but lavender and something else.
And then it's warmable in the microwave
so it's more of that therapeutic experience.
Similar price points.
But my concern is the audience is all probably very similar
'cause you either have an adult
buying the original clone for themselves
or you have an adult buying the Huggable clone for their kid
or you have an adult buying the therapeutic from them.
So like it seems like we're probably pulling
from the same pool.
So I'm looking for the best signal to meta to say,
I don't want to compete against these two products.
I want to find different pools of people with them.
- Yeah, so from what I've seen,
the account really is on the recovery track already.
And if the reps said that you can,
you know, when I'm thinking about the campaign structure now,
it's like it's really whatever you prefer to do.
So you can have it, for example,
my preferred structure for an account like this,
if we have three different products
would have to have three campaigns.
Just because it's easier for me
to understand what's going on.
It's easier for me to, you know,
there is no like kind of a secret setup for meta now
that, you know, we put it on a B or C or you know,
it really all depends on the creative you have.
And the audience will just be targeted with that creative
as I'm sure you know,
'cause we've been chatting about that for a long time.
But yeah, I don't think you need to put it
in the same campaign unless you want to
and you will, I personally find it more difficult
to manage it this way.
Because if I put three products in one campaign
and then I have to manage the minimum spend,
maximum spend and then you have to go in
and like it's just more difficult to manage to be honest.
- Yeah.
- So my preferred structure is like when I go into it
and account that's the first one I start with,
like I just got, you know, a new client on Monday,
so that's literally what I'm doing.
Take their best performing products,
put them in separate campaign, make a one campaign
for that product with just one asset
and put the best ads in there in that one asset.
And don't even worry about having like more assets in there.
Choose like 10 to 20 best ads,
preferably historical ads if you can reuse those ads,
you know, with social proof and so on.
But make sure that you have everything that is like
full funnel in that one asset.
So you will have, you know, the story telling ones
and then you have like more middle of the funnel ones
and then you'll have the offer ones all together.
And that way you can find out pretty quickly
how this is working and if the ads,
if you have enough ads that are fulfilling this whole journey,
you'll see that campaign working straight away.
If you, if it's not working straight away,
that means you have gaps and you're missing something.
And you need to figure out, for example,
if you put 10 to 20 best ads in one asset
and only one artist getting spend,
that is fine, that means that ad is good.
Most 99% of the time that ad, that means that ad is great.
But that means you need to have more ads.
that will support this ad. That means you will need to have more middle of the file
creative. Because when you, you know, so start with the, do you know like how long your customer
journey is more or less from something for the first time? Yeah, for the clone, I think it's like
five to seven days and then the jam that is significantly shorter, but that's the different
conversations. Yeah. Yeah, so five to seven days, that's actually pretty good. So we're not expecting
someone to buy straight away, you know, of course it's, it's not, you know, a cheap plush toy,
you need, you need to consider it. So yeah, so you need ads at the top of the funnel that have a
really good hook rate. And that's, that's what you want to do. You want those ads with like a really,
really good hook rate. And anything under 25% of hook rate is bad. You need to aim for,
I didn't have the chance to check yet what your hook rate looks like. But anything before,
under 25% is bad. Anything above is good. So you want those ads at the top of the funnel,
you want them to be getting a lot of spend. But then you have to aim for those middle of the
funnel ads. And they are all the objections that someone may have. They are all like, how is
it made? You know, any, any question that someone may have, you should have answered in those
middle of the funnel ads. And then you, you need a few of the, like straight to the point we've
got an offer. And that can all go in the same asset. And if it is, if it is the right choice
of us, that will work. If not, then you need to build up on it. And it's just like that,
that's the way, that's the way I like to build those campaigns. Also because it's kind of like,
at least for me, it's a little bit easier to understand what's going on.
And then another type of campaign that I would have is a campaign that is also one of my favorite
ones at the moment. That's a mixed product and a DPA in a campaign. So that's a separate
campaign again. You put, you choose maybe two products, two ads for each product that are,
like, your top ads. And you have, again, one campaign, one asset, and in that one asset,
you have those best ads, but for different products. And you drop a DPA in there.
And that will also work nicely full funnel, because DPA will usually be bottom to
low middle of the funnel. Are you guys on AAA or something?
Yes. Yeah. AAA. Yeah. So you will see that with new visitor percentage. That's one of my
favorite metrics. You will see that, you know, those those ads with like really high hook rate,
they will have like 18, 90% new visitors. And that's great. And then you can, that's an
easy way also to structure it, because you will see that new visitor percentage going down,
down, down, but the row was going up, up, up, because it just means you're retargeting more with them.
Going back to that first campaign and that's that you mentioned, you said 10 to 20 ads,
that's full funnel. I covered that whole funnel within the 10 to 20 ads, or is that like 10 to 20
top of funnel 10 to 20, look at. And I guess taking another step back, do you have a preferred
mid strategy that you're seeing work? Because like I said, we're bouncing back and forth between
cost caps and T-row as, like I said, I think the T-row as is almost too efficient and would like
for it to push a little bit harder, especially so we can start clearing some of the fixed cost
hurdles that we have. So from my understanding, cost gap might push a little harder. Do you agree,
or disagree, or is there something different that you would use? Yeah, so it's not something I would
start with. So I would start without any bit strategy just completely open. Max value, however,
is a good one. If the products have, especially like different price points, then I would go with
my preferred setup would be max value instead of maximize number of conversions, but you kind of
have to try both. I'm recently seeing max value working very, very well. Possibly incremental
attribution if you haven't tried it yet. We're seeing very good results with incremental attribution.
If not, you need to think about the attribution setting that it's either seven day click,
one day engaged, one day view. In most cases, I tend, so it's either incremental and then you don't
have those controls, or you choose that standard attribution. That's at the outset level.
And there, I usually go with, for use, five to seven days, obviously, seven day click,
one day engagement for sure. You want to include one day engagement. And then the question is
only whether you want to include one day view, because it really depends how much of those sales
are coming through your email. And when you're looking at results in triple while,
include all of those, you can use triple attribution, for example, it's pretty good, or linear paid,
or linear. But in meta, it really depends on what you want meta to learn from. So do you want meta
to learn from those views, which came from email or not? It's also a question if you have enough
conversions, if you're struggling to get out of the learning phase, which is kind of mythical, but
you know, you can think about it like the more conversions, the campaign has, the outset has,
the better meta will learn. So if you're only getting that, let's say, I don't know, 20 or 30 per
week, you can increase that count by including that view through attribution. But if you don't
struggle with it, I would take it out so that meta doesn't learn from the view through conversions.
And I would still look at them at the reporting level, but I just want to make sure that meta learns
from the click attribution and from the engaged, because the engaged one is really good. That's
someone who didn't necessarily click, but they watched your ad commented, you know, went to your
profile and so on. Or if you want to avoid all this headache and you trust the new incremental
attribution, you can go for the incremental attribution, which seems to be working pretty well.
And that's the one where meta says it computes which conversions came, I were supported by meta,
and would not have happened if meta did not take part in the journey.
So with incremental attribution, have you seen that increase scale or increase efficiency?
Or both? Well, I've seen that they work either. Let me just have a quick look at an account
that I was just setting this up. That is quite new. Because while you're looking at it, we have
somebody who's managing our count in a different brand just completely went all in on incremental
attribution and seems to be a big fan. So I want to test it, but I also don't, I'm not necessarily
looking for efficiency at the moment, we're looking more for scale. So for volume. Yeah, volume.
Yeah. Yeah. In that case, I would go with standard probably and maybe just start another
campaign with incremental and see what what it does for you. And you'll see this, you know,
pretty well and triple while, you know, how they are, how they are behaving. Because you might see,
for example, different ads working with the incremental. Like, to be honest, I don't think
it's a huge deal. Like, it's, it's not a maker break, you know, whether you're choosing incremental
attribution or whether you use standard, you may see, like, you know, some, some, some small changes.
And yeah, like, for example, here we have, yeah, with the new account, I started some campaigns with
seven day one, seven day click one day engagement. And then I have this mixed campaign with a DPA. And
that's using max value incremental. Yeah. The best results now we have from seven day click one day
engagement. And that is what I'm doing as a standard. And then I'm trying incremental on top.
If I, you know, if I have budget or if I have like some specific reason for it, let me just quickly
check another account that I've done like this recently as well.
Yeah, so I'm having really good results with mixed products plus DPA
and incremental in this case. However, I can see that out of, for example, yesterday,
six purchases, five were return customers,
and one was only a new customer.
So just because it says incremental, it doesn't mean,
and it's actually optimized for new customer purchase.
So just because Meta says that it's going to go
after incremental, it doesn't necessarily mean that.
So I don't think that it's a huge deal to be honest.
- Yep. - Yeah.
- Yeah.
One thing I would also see, this is the campaign
I won't launch recently.
I'm going for Mark's AI enhancements, if I can.
And a lot of media buyers don't like the AI enhancements,
creative enhancements, product add-ons,
and so on and so on.
But if you can, and if you're not super strict
about, you know, that Meta will generate a background
that's, you know, maybe look a little bit off.
- Yeah, they don't care.
- Yeah, if you don't care, then go for Mark's AI enhancements.
- Yeah, isn't that wild, Marion?
That's such a simple thing I'm seeing across the board
that like some clients that are picky about design,
it's like, come on, you're screwing yourself
over a background color, like what?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- And there's so much pushback money
as well from media buyers.
- Yeah, so what is that?
It's like, this is just played the game.
This isn't that big of a deal.
It's not like an AI avatar or something.
Yeah, come on, it's a background.
Yeah, that surprises me.
- Yeah, yeah, definitely open to that.
So with the max value, I guess just kind of going through
what the expectations are there.
So that will spend the full budget, right?
So like right now, we have like our hero campaign,
the T-ROAS for the original.
We have the budget set to like 8,000 a day.
I think it's lucky to spend 3,000 a day.
So if we had it, obviously I don't think I would start
at 8,000 knowing that it's going to spend the entire budget,
would the expectation be efficiency decreases, volume increases?
- Yeah. - Yeah, exactly.
I would, if the T-ROAS one that is set to 8K
is meeting that ROAS, but it's not spending,
then that's a great strategy
when you have like an inflated budget,
as long as it is meeting your efficiency goal.
But then I would have a regular campaign
that you know that is going to spend.
It may overspend, may underspend by 75%,
but that's what meta says,
that it can overspend or underspend up to 75%.
And it's really a weekly budget.
So I'll explain that as well.
But yeah, that is where I start.
So I want to know how much I'm going to spend in a day.
So like it's your company.
So you can obviously, you will know what's happening,
but for me, it's also difficult to manage budgets
when I have a lot of cost cups
and I have a lot of the T-ROAS come, you know,
because then I never know how much it's going to spend.
And I have a budget I have to stick with.
So with the regular non-T-ROAS, no cost cups
that will spend generally the amount you have set it to
on a weekly, but it kind of wraps it up on a weekly basis.
So you will often see that on Sundays, it will spend more,
especially if you've been increasing
the budget of that campaign.
So on Sunday, let's say metacy, okay, on Monday,
the budget was one K, but we've been ramping it
up throughout the week and on Sunday, it's 5K.
So how much would I have spent if that budget
was 5K on Monday?
And it calculates that and it's things, well,
I've got this all the sunspend budget,
so I will keep spending, especially happens on Sundays,
something you have to be aware of.
But if your results are generally good on Sundays,
for example, we have a client that Sundays is their best day,
just generally we're happy for it to spend more on Sundays.
And I'm ramping up that spend knowing that on Sundays,
it will kind of get rolled into that day.
- So just CPA, my guess is CPA will probably increase as well,
if it's hunting for some bid that'll probably be more expensive.
- Yes, it will go a lot wider and it will explore more as well.
That's why you know, we don't want to set the budget too high
because you know, you need to let it spend a bit,
you know, learn for a few days.
I would set up this campaign, then with the 10 to 20 ads,
probably not touch it for at least three days.
After three days, you can start turning things off,
mainly turning things off and adding new.
If it's not performing right off the bat,
you need to see what else you need to add into that campaign.
Do that, that, that's that really.
- And would this be a scenario where you kind of have to turn off
the TRO ask campaign and just fully switch over
or can you run that in tandem or have different ads in each,
like how would that look?
- Yes, so you can run them and turn them or absolutely,
especially that TRO was one with the inflated budget
if it's meeting your target raw as goal,
just keep that one going.
And on top of that, launch the regular one.
I begin using same ads and everything.
- You can use the same ads, yeah.
You can use the same ads.
I would, I normally find that I end up turning off
different ads, so you will have different ads working
and the TRO ask one and different ads working
and the regular one, which is fine.
Because you don't need to have the same ads
kind of like running and lots of different campaigns.
It's, you know, we used to have like lots of assets
and the same ad gets duplicated, duplicated, duplicated.
We don't really need that anymore
if we can have those bigger campaigns
and that ad will be getting expand anyway.
- So there's really no control, like,
let's say it's spending my budget
but the CPA is too high or the row asks is too low.
Like, that's really a creative thing
and not necessarily a control, yeah.
- Yeah, so you need to,
first of all, you know, lower the budget
if it's not working.
But if you have the right creative
and you do in your account, you know,
it's not like you don't have the creatives that are working.
Just put them all together and let them cook together
in the same asset and see what happens.
- So if it's spending, if I TRO has it spending $3,000 a day,
my guess is that's probably a pretty decent place
to start the budget, maybe slightly lower or slightly higher,
but probably right around there.
- Yeah, I would start maybe even,
depends, you know, how adventurous you feel.
But yeah, like, I usually start new campaigns
even for high spending, for high spending clients at 500.
But, you know, maybe because, you know,
I need to be a little bit careful with clients' budget.
So I generally don't start something
completely new higher than 500.
But yeah, if you have a 3K budget
and you have three, you know, products
then you can maybe split that 3K into these three campaigns
for each product or more for the original cattle cloned
because, you know, that this is a more proven offer.
And then I increase the budget.
So then you can increase pretty quickly.
So you set it on the campaign level
and then like for the higher spending clients,
I would go in the morning,
bump the budget on anything that's meeting my goal
by 20%.
Go back in a couple of hours.
Is it still meeting the goal, bump it up again by 20%.
And then again, you know,
and you can ramp it up pretty quickly
as long as you see that it's working.
- And you do that as much as needed.
Not like once a week, once every few days, like, yeah.
- Yeah, I'll do it several times a day if it's working.
- So there's no concern.
And maybe I'm just over thinking this.
There's no concern about the TRO ask campaign
and the highest value campaign
driving up each other's costs.
- No, no.
- Okay.
- It's really,
the learning is happening not only in your account,
it's learning is happening on the whole platform now,
as well as in your pixel.
So I wouldn't worry about a so-called audience overlap
and all that stuff that we used to be warned about.
I usually see that if I have like a unicorn ad
and I put it in the campaign like, you know,
I described it will work amazingly well there.
And I try to keep it there.
I don't then I work on another campaign
for let's see for another product, another offer
where, you know, I will have a complete,
I will have completely different, different ads.
So I don't, I don't try to fragment it too much
in between two, you know, several different campaigns.
But with the TRO ask and the cost caps,
they will go after slightly different people
and the TRO ask one, that will be much more constricted.
You know, like that's,
That campaign, this is what I did with the new client
that just started on Monday.
We had everything very, very constricted,
very strict when in terms of targeting
and very, very high-spend.
And then I just launched this one campaign
and it has tripled the role of all the campaigns
that like, it almost felt like it couldn't breathe,
you know, I just opened up.
And suddenly we have 80% new customer visitors
on that campaign.
Our target role is 0.6, we're at 1.5.
And I'm not saying that it's gonna last forever,
but at least it's like, open up the gates, you know?
So that is just something I would do as a first,
like, you know, right of the gate.
- So I guess you just hear when you say 0.6 target role as,
do you think, again, with the context,
of us trying to get more volume?
Which do you think is the better option?
To just continue to tick down the target role as goal
and see if it pushes volume,
or fire up this highest value campaign or both.
- Well, I would keep that hero as going
as long as it is at least doing something,
but I would expect much better results
from the max value.
- Okay. - Wow.
- Yeah. - All right.
- And if max value doesn't, like,
again, like max value should give you slightly better roles.
That's the whole thing.
If that doesn't work and you just want volume,
then optimize instead of max value,
just optimize for the number of conversions.
And then you will have lower value conversions,
but more of them.
So it just depends whichever you,
you know, is more important to you.
- Yeah, okay.
- All right.
So just to give you an idea,
when I have a client that has one skew,
then it's maxed my number of conversions that just makes sense.
- Is there a point where
highest value probably isn't the right play
in terms of how much you spend a day?
Because right now we're talking about $3,000, $8,000,
but come to you for when we're doing pajamas,
we'll be spending tens of thousands,
but not hundreds of thousands dollars a day.
I want to start because that's all pajamas.
Definitely want to start getting some ads in there.
Probably early next month to warm those up.
But should we put those under highest value as well,
you think, or should we put some kind of--
- No, put that one on the max, yeah.
Yeah, so have different ones.
So that's one of the things.
Like, I wouldn't have just one type of campaign.
I would have maxed value where it logically makes sense.
For pajamas, I would have the maximize number of conversions.
Then in Q4, you don't have to do it straight away,
but run also on one day click campaign for the pajamas.
Sure, there will be plenty of people
who will just see an ad and buy it.
Because that will teach meta to go after those.
There will be slightly different people
than the ones who need seven days, you know.
- Have you guys run a giveaway?
- Yeah, we've done, we've done this historically.
And I think the expectations we set
were probably not correct would be my guess.
On a different brand, we run them like crazy.
And they convert like crazy.
And it was our hero funnel for like months and months
and months was the giveaway funnel, which was crazy.
But it was the best performing campaign.
And then try it again in cuddle clones.
And like I said, I think we probably set
different expectations than what it should be.
Like it's not, shouldn't be necessarily the hero campaign,
but you'll definitely find an audience in there.
So yeah, I was gonna ask you about that.
So I appreciate you running through that.
Sydney, do you have anything?
- Do you like questions for 45 minutes?
- I know.
Well, yeah, 'cause we used to run that
very similar giveaway funnel all the time
and that really worked.
And one thing that we always did on the thank you page
was we would say like, you know, if you buy the clone,
we gave them an offer like we would refund their offer
if they won, which I thought was something smart as well.
But the only thing I said or only question I had,
I know that you talked about the 10 to 20 creatives.
How are you guys going about like testing new creatives
in the campaign?
- Yeah, so it depends, the best answer.
In stable accounts, what I do,
I don't actually test new creatives.
I add new creative stuff to campaigns
that are already running.
And I know that each of those campaigns needs
to be refreshed once a week
with at least two creatives.
And two creatives is actually a very good number
as long as they are completely new creatives.
So pair, so pair, product or pair offer,
I will be refreshing it with generally two creatives
per week.
And that means that there is no problem whatsoever
with good creatives getting spent
because we know what we need to ask there.
So if it's not getting spent, it's not getting spent.
I'm not gonna push it because it's just not good enough.
If it is good enough, it will get spent.
And most of the campaigns are spending very nicely
where we have two or three highest spending ads.
Then we have, I don't know, 50% middle spend
and then we'll have ads that are not spending at all.
And then I just turn them off.
If an ad is not spending anything in like 30 days,
I just turn it off just for hygiene reasons,
but also I don't want to have that kind of that way.
And those campaigns.
For clients where I need to,
they want to see like active testing happening,
I will have, so a really big account,
we were testing batches of similar creatives.
So we would have like an ABO testing campaign
and we would get from their creators, for example,
for videos very similar and they were tested in one
asset and then we were adding those,
those, that didn't work at all.
They didn't work at all.
We were hardly getting any winners,
but also because we were different, the winners,
you know, in this way you're only looking for an ad
that has like a great draw.
But the thing is, not every ad has to have a great draw.
If you create an ad that is great for top of funnel
and the row has a slower but you have 90% new visitors,
that's a winning ad, even if it doesn't meet your benchmarks.
So we switched, so the new way we are testing those ads.
And I'm only saying testing because that's the phrase
I need to use, it's for like we launch,
I thought the kind that instead of launching
like maybe four ads and an ad said,
I want them to give me 10 to 20 again ads
that I will launch all together and that's what I do.
So in this case, this is an ABO campaign,
my only ABO campaign in that account
where I launch 10 to 20 ads that the client
specifically wants me to launch,
that's how it works with them.
But I told them, I don't want similar ads in there,
I want them all, I want every time you give me a batch
like this, that needs to be a full funnel.
And this way, we are getting winners
at every stage of the funnel every week.
And we do it once a week.
So in that case, it's a high volume account.
So we launch 10 to 20 brand new creatives every week,
but we again, we launch them all together.
- Yeah, so you're launching those in a new ad set,
but is it in that campaign
where you have the original winners as well
or is it a completely new campaign?
- No, so that is a testing campaign
where I also start scaling them as well.
Of course, if something is if a batch like this
is working straight away,
then I use the same method like I had 20%
and sometimes several times a day.
If, and this way, we are getting,
because they are all brand new ads,
we often get like one very strong winner
that will get all the spend.
And I don't mind because that means
that got surfaced so quickly.
- Yeah.
- What I will do then, I will duplicate this ad set
without that one ad that is getting so much spend,
because I know that is already a winner.
But I will duplicate it without that winner
and see if I can get another one from there.
But in the ad set where we already got that winner,
I still keep the other ad running
because we will often see after a week
that the spend trickles slightly
from that winner.
And after about a month, I go back
and I turn on any ad in that testing asset
that doesn't get any spend.
Just, yeah, just to keep it clean.
And sometimes I do it several times.
So if I get the first one winner often very quickly,
duplicate it without the winner,
see if I can squeeze another one out of that patch.
And sometimes I can do it more times.
Because, you know, if in the particular week,
we get a really good, really good creative that happens.
- Okay, that makes sense.
I appreciate that.
And then the only other thing,
question I had, this is just for clarity. I know that we were talking about the max volume.
When you're setting that up, are you setting any bid constraints on that?
No, so I start without any bid constraints. Yeah, so the only thing I kind of
fiddle with is whether max value, whether I should use max value or max volume,
and that attribution setting. And I often work quite deeply with AI analyzing the account to try
to figure out which attribution setting will make the most sense.
Yeah, and the answer is usually different for different accounts.
So, to be clear, you're saying max value, right?
Max value. Max value, I would do max value for the cuddle class, but then again,
try both because you know, and just kind of have I think what really makes most sense for each product.
Thank you so much for listening to the smart marketer podcast. If you enjoyed what we shared today,
please help us by subscribing to the show. Not only will you be notified when we have new content,
it also helps get the show out to many more people. We appreciate you, and thank you so much for listening.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Cuddle Clones, a brand with strong community ties and donations to a dog rescue, sought Meta ad strategy advice, leading to a valuable internal call shared with the audience.
The recommendation is to structure campaigns by product with separate campaigns and one asset per product, using 10–20 top-performing, full-funnel ads to ensure comprehensive creative coverage and clear performance tracking.
For campaign optimization, max value is preferred over TROAS for volume growth, especially when targeting higher-value customers, while standard or incremental attribution settings are recommended based on conversion volume and funnel depth, with caution against over-reliance on AI-generated creatives or audience overlap.
Summary:
A behind-the-scenes session with Cuddle Clones, a brand deeply committed to social impact and e-commerce growth, highlights key Meta advertising strategies. The core insight emphasizes separating products into individual campaigns with one asset each, using 10–20 well-tested, full-funnel ads to track performance and identify gaps. For optimization, max value is recommended to drive volume and higher ROAS, especially when competing against similar product lines, while TROAS is maintained only if it meets efficiency goals.
Campaign structures should include both standard and incremental attribution, with a preference for five to seven-day click-to-engagement tracking. Budgets are set with caution—starting at $500 for new campaigns to manage risk—while weekly budgeting allows for Sunday spending spikes, which can be a strength if the brand sees higher activity on such days. Creative testing is done weekly with two fresh, full-funnel ads per campaign, avoiding redundant or similar creatives.
New ads are launched in test assets, with top performers duplicated and scaled, while underperforming ones are turned off after 30 days. , max value for high-value products, max conversions for low-cost items) should coexist to capture diverse audiences. No bid constraints are used initially, and AI-generated creatives are accepted if design standards are flexible.
This approach balances learning, scalability, and control, enabling brands to grow sustainably without overcomplicating their Meta strategy.
FAQs
The best structure is to use separate campaigns for each product, with one asset per campaign containing 10–20 high-performing, full-funnel ads. This makes performance easier to track and helps identify gaps in the customer journey.
No, it's generally not recommended. Keeping products in separate campaigns makes it easier to manage budgets, track performance, and avoid internal competition. Meta will often treat similar products as competing, reducing efficiency.
For volume, use 'Maximize Conversions' to push more sales, even if the ROI is lower. For higher ROI, use 'Maximize Value' to focus on more profitable purchases. The choice depends on your business goals.
Start with a regular campaign (non-TROAS) at a modest daily budget (e.g., $500), then gradually increase it by 20% weekly if performance is strong. Use this to observe behavior and avoid over-spending on inflated budgets.
Launch new creatives in a single asset with 10–20 full-funnel ads per week. Only use similar creatives in A/B tests if needed. If an ad performs well, duplicate the campaign without it to find another winner.
Incremental attribution can improve both scale and efficiency by identifying conversions supported by Meta ads. However, it doesn't guarantee new customer growth—results vary, and it's best used alongside standard attribution for insight.
Chat with AI
Loading...
Pro features
Go deeper with this episode
Unlock creator-grade tools that turn any transcript into show notes and subtitle files.