Meta's AI ad platform is glitching, overspending on budgets
What's the story
Meta's automated advertisement platform, Advantage Plus shopping campaigns, is facing criticism for overspending on ad budgets and underdelivering on sales.
RC Williams, co-founder of marketing agency 1-800-D2C, discovered that Meta had used about 75% of the daily ad budgets for two clients, within a few hours on Valentine's Day.
He also noted that the cost per impressions (CPMs) had surged to roughly 10 times the usual rate.
Business impact
Small businesses are feeling the financial strain
This issue is not isolated, as numerous marketers and businesses using Meta's platforms have reported similar problems.
Particularly, small businesses are feeling the financial strain as their ad dollars are wasted due to overspending. Some are even considering leaving Meta's platforms altogether.
Karl Baker, founder of Mindfulness Works, expressed his frustration with Meta's lack of transparency and accountability regarding these performance issues and glitches.
Performance issues
The AI-enabled ad tools have been unpredictable
Advantage Plus shopping campaigns, part of Meta's suite of AI-enabled ad tools, have been reported to be unpredictable and disregard cost caps since February 14.
Aniruddha Mishra from Node Media, noted that CPMs on Meta were three to four times pricier than last year for some clients.
Despite these issues, Meta maintains that Advantage Plus is operating as intended, a stance that has shocked many in the e-commerce industry.
Platform exodus
Some marketers have abandoned Advantage Plus
In response to these issues, some marketers have abandoned Advantage Plus, and reverted to manually buying Facebook and Instagram ads.
Williams noted that this shift hasn't significantly affected his firm's workforce.
Meta launched Advantage Plus shopping campaigns globally in 2022, promising that AI and machine learning models would effectively compensate for the loss of third-party app-based tracking, due to Apple's privacy update.
Despite initial success, complaints about the platform's underperformance persist.