Reaching one’s target market efficiently is one of the most appealing aspects about placing ads on social media. But to keep those ads effective takes a combination of accurate measurements and human creativity working together at a pace that keeps up with the demand for effective reach through new content. That’s what ReFuel4, a Facebook 2016 Innovation Spotlight winner in the Creativity Category award, offers marketers.
Vernon Vasu, ReFUEL4’s CMO says that two principle underlie the way the platform operates:
- The vast amount of data associated with marketing campaigns are best dealt with by machine learning and AI, but
- Creativity is still the province of humans.
Setting up a way for the two to work together with maximum impact and efficiency is what their Automated Creative Refresh platform is all about.
It’s an official Facebook and Instagram Marketing Partner that draws on a global pool of over 10,000 designers who are able to turnaround new designs for optimal campaign performance in just 48-72 hours. The machine part of the equation delivers real time data and insights that can predict which ads will perform best and when they need to be refreshed to maximize impact, usually every three to five days.
It uses an algorithm that scans ads, looking at millions of data points in each one that corresponds with targeting information, like gender, age, interests, geography. It correlates that with performance of ads, click-through rates, etc. It’s then able to predict performance and identify which types of ads would be best for the designer to work on. The designers are incentivized by the pay structure that is a percentage of media spending. The more successful the ad, the more impressions it will garner, increasing what the client will spend on it and the payout for both the platform and the designers involved.
Vernon clarified that ReFUEL4 doesn’t position itself as “an ideation platform,” the type of thing one would turn to for a “whole fresh campaign for Coca Cola” or a similar full scale marketing concept. It is “an iterative platform,” one designed to breathe “more life” into an existing campaign. That makes it particularly valuable for businesses that need to maximize their campaign spends in the absence of substantial marketing budgets.
Aiming at just those businesses, ReFUEL4 launched its small and medium business product about a month ago. This is aimed at those who spend less than $10K a month, some as little as $500 on media.
“Businesses have taken to the self-serve platform,” Vernon says. He explains that it is automated and AI driven to maintain maximum impact.
The system identifies the client’s three to five best performing ads and shows them to the client, who in turn selects which ones they want to use a template for the next round of ads. Within 48-72 hours, they get the ads delivered. The platform then tracks the performance. When it starts to dip, it automatically swaps in new ads. When it has exhausted the new ads, it notifies the client of the need to order more.
Through that combination, they seek to remove “the uncertainties of advertising” by providing a platform that provides both the “creative resources” clients need to make ads, and “the A/B testing” that assures them that they are making efficient use of their resources. They’ve “paid for outcome, not for outputs” is the way Vernon sums it up.
