Receiving urgent emails from the CMO is just part of an agency executive's daily job, but recently a memo caught the agency executive's attention more than usual.
The client was furious that the entire meta account team had been overhauled and downsized without their input. They felt they should have been consulted given the large advertising costs, but agency executives refused to discuss it. After the CMO cooled down, Meta's previous account revealed to agency executives that he had never even worked directly with the manager.
The agency executives' response was spot-on, saying that not all issues require talking to a live person at Meta, just that it's nice to have.
“They felt it was natural. [Meta] An agency executive, who requested anonymity to protect the relationship with Meta, said: “Given the amount of money we were going to spend on Meta, we asked the team to help, but I have to admit that it wasn't really necessary.'' There wasn't,” he said.
It's no exaggeration to say that the 20,000 job losses at Meta last year certainly had a major impact on the CMO's marketing team (a brand that agency executives declined to name). An agency executive explained: “The client was very upset about this change. [Meta] Teams were not fully automated [but downsized]”
But there are many marketers who share similar complaints about Meta. They are not getting the premium service they believe they are paying for. Meta continues to dominate other social platforms and accounts for the majority of their revenue. Nevertheless, Platforms continue to have bugs and teams and services are gradually stripped away and replaced with AI and chatbot replacements.The marketer is They have accepted the fact that they have to put up with it and shut up until another platform outperforms the meta.
“I would be lying if I said everyone was on our show. [Meta] The account team has impacted our business,” confessed a senior marketer in a consumer goods business.
So when this marketer was informed that the account team would be increasingly automated, frustration gradually turned to quiet resignation.
“We had a lot of people on our account who didn't know what they did or didn't respond to our requests,” the marketer continued. “We currently have several executives on the account, and a chat service for remaining support.”
Indeed, when it comes down to it, these ad executives were happy when Meta gave them a full team at their disposal, most of which were probably non-essential personnel. It's sobering to think about how undoubtedly bloated these teams used to be. In pre-cuts, account teams can swell to his five to 10 people across local, regional, and global marketing departments for the same advertiser. Now, those teams have been slimmed down to two or three players at most, according to executives interviewed for this article. Even for marketers lucky enough to avoid layoffs, like advertising agencies, the pressure on Meta to do more with less is palpable. They are well aware that meta-he account executives are being stretched thin and taking on additional responsibilities from account management to ad operations.
Elijah Schneider, CEO of Modifly, said: “Both personnel and data teams change. The biggest thing we've seen so far was in their lift studies. They [Meta] Rather than automating them, they manage them. ”
Two other advertising executives also supported this. They all said it's unusual these days for Meta to do anything other than automate the process, regardless of the size of the advertiser's funding. This makes sense, given that Meta clearly wants to automate as much advertising as possible across its ecosystem. Look at the arrival of Advantage Plus. This product allows advertisers to automate many of their campaign processes, saving them time and effort. However, by doing this, advertisers are effectively handing over control to the meta and limiting access to the analysis and insights derived.
Impact of AI on measurement
But it's also a sore point for marketers who feel like they're losing control of measurement. Relying solely on AI removes the need for comprehensive measurements and shifts trust to algorithms. This is a reality that Advantage Plus advertisers know all too well.
“They literally said, [via email] We don't offer it as a managed service anymore, but we have a meta-learning platform here that basically has a link and you can download our software from there,” Schneider said.
And then things got worse.
“The worst part is that we told them this. [product] Because we've done this to them in the past,” Schneider explained. “We say, 'Okay, this is what we're going to do to solve that problem.'” But even though we were talking to the rep once a week, we were never told that we would no longer be offering this. No one had. So I have to go back to the client and say, 'I'm sorry,' and explain that Meta has just terminated the service. ”
This point about communication, or lack thereof, is remarkable. Advertising professionals have consistently criticized this issue, from not having enough support in place to help marketers adapt to these changes to not communicating them effectively. Advertisers feel the way Meta has responded to these cuts has been insensitive, to say the least.
This is an example courtesy of the agency executive mentioned earlier. “One American brand that spends $200 million on meta has changed reps seven or eight times in the past year and a half alone. and engagement advertising.”
These changes, and the associated challenges for advertisers, mean that platforms are constantly optimizing and constantly striving to maximize advertising revenue opportunities.
Kevin Goodwin, vice president of performance marketing at New Engen, said: “What we're seeing is those people are helping us more in large strategic areas and relying on us for general support for tactical needs. ”
Over the years, Meta's account teams have been in constant flux, sometimes reorganizing biannually or quarterly to keep pace with the company's efforts to grow advertising revenue. Gone are the days when these teams simply handled customer support tasks like troubleshooting system bugs and campaign issues. Discussions are currently focused on strategic ways for advertisers to optimize their Facebook and Instagram investments. Automation's responsibilities have steadily increased, and its role will continue to expand as Meta seeks to balance costs, profits and investor satisfaction to maintain a high stock price.
“I think a lot of people saw our stuff. [Meta] was doing [laying off staff and replacing them with AI and systems] “That's never really been our focus, as if it were something short-term,” Zuckerberg continued on a recent earnings call. “I think that part of making the company leaner is the more important part going forward, because obviously we're in a place where the business is performing well right now.”
Having a large number of dedicated account teams no longer helps maintain that balance. To be fair, that probably never happened, but it's certainly become more of a problem after Meta's newfound appreciation for operational efficiency, especially considering how the advertising business works. Its growth relies on a long tail of small and local advertisers, not Fortune 500 companies. To be able to serve smaller clients rather than the biggest advertisers, Meta leverages automation and AI to You need to increase the profitability of your advertising business.
“This is primarily about accepting insertion orders from large advertisers; there is no self-service model,” said Jeremy Goldman, senior director of commerce marketing and technology briefings at Insider Intelligence. “Then you have a self-service model, because you open that up as well, and you try to move more and more things into that self-service model, and you improve it. We don’t have people, but we want to make the service more efficient.”
With this in mind, it becomes clearer why some marketers are feeling the impact of these changes more than others. What are the key differentiators? Usually it comes down to how much you spend. Those who have seen their account teams shrink often report that their meta contract spend has decreased or not been paid over the past year or so. However, that doesn't mean these issues won't plague more marketers sooner or later. Remember, Meta's long-term goal is to automate your advertising business as much as possible. This is just the latest step on a long and winding road towards that.
Last year was dubbed “the year of efficiency” by Mr. Zuckerberg, as the company cut its overall headcount by 22% to 67,317 people, according to its financial report.
“Everyone says this was the year of efficiency, but this is the year of right-sizing,” Schneider said. “If a company only needs 40 people and they have 70 people and nothing changes in the business, it's just macro factors that are slowing growth. You need to right-size. If you don't do that, it's not healthy. If you look at their company, [Meta’s] At this scale, 90% of revenue is automated. ”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a recent earnings call: [2023]Not only did we meet our efficiency goals, we returned to strong revenue growth, saw strong engagement across our apps, and shipped many exciting new products… and of course, our underlying world-class AI. We have established initiatives. For many of our future products…a big goal is to build the most popular and cutting-edge AI products and services going forward. ” Meta advertising revenue reached $40.11 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to the company's latest earnings report.
Mehta declined to comment for this story.
