Whilst changes to Meta’s Ads Manager campaign objectives were officially announced in December 2021, some marketers are only just beginning to see the effects of their gradual rollout of the “Outcome-Driven Ad Experiences” framework, or ODAX.
Anticipated to be fully implemented by June 2022, ODAX consolidates the campaign types available in Meta’s Ads Manager, as well as shifting campaign objectives to become outcome-driven.
Read on to find out why Meta is consolidating its campaign objectives, and what this means for you as an advertiser.
What Are The 6 New Campaign Types?
Ads Manager previously had 11 campaign types available to advertisers, however under ODAX, these will be consolidated into 6 core campaign types with the following objectives: :
⦿ Awareness — For Brand Awareness and Reach.
This campaign type targets top-of-funnel prospects. The objective is simply to introduce your product, service, or brand to an audience, rather than to create engagement, consideration, or conversion.
⦿ Traffic — For Traffic
Best used when you want prospects to visit a webpage without performing any additional actions. You can use this generated traffic in later campaigns meant to drive engagement.
⦿ Engagement — For Engagement, Video Views, Messages and Conversions
The main goal of this campaign type is to encourage users to interact with your content or Facebook page. It’s best for building an audience and sparking conversation, rather than for promoting conversion.
⦿ App Promotion — For App Installs
This campaign type aims to motivate your audience to use or install your app. Unlike the Traffic and Engagement objectives, App Promotion is meant for conversion rather than brand consideration.
⦿ Leads — For Lead Generation, Messages and Conversions
This campaign type encourages your audience to convert on “conversion locations” such as Instant Forms or Messenger. Ideally, you should have a method for qualifying your leads and a planned process for converting warm leads.
⦿ Sales — For Conversions, Catalogue Sales and Store Traffic*
This campaign type’s end goal is to generate revenue. You’ll want to use this with any campaign aimed at generating sales online (e.g. through your website, your app, or a messaging app).
*It is important to note that the ‘Store Traffic’ objective is not yet supported by ODAX, but is still available in existing Ads Manager campaigns. This feature will be available in ODAX in the future.
Why Has Meta Switched to Outcome-Driven Ad Experiences (ODAX)?
In Meta’s first blog post regarding the switch, they reported three main objectives for ODAX:
- To simplify objectives. Previous categorisations had become increasingly difficult to use, with many advertisers reporting confusion about which objectives they had to select during campaign setup. The new consolidated objectives are easier to apply to general marketing goals.
- To enable cross-channel campaigns. A smaller pool of objectives will make it easier for advertisers to use Cross-Channel Conversion Optimisations (e.g. website + app, website + shop) in the future.
- To provide guidance. The new objectives will provide better information about advertiser intent. This makes it easier for Meta and Ads Manager to provide the right guidance to help advertisers achieve their goals.
The main motivation for the switch was user-oriented. Whilst it’s inevitable that some advertisers will find the change confusing, Meta is doing its best to streamline the adoption of ODAX in Ads Manager.
Image credit: Meta for Developers
How Will the New Campaign Type Affect Existing Campaigns?
Of the 11 previously available campaign types, Store Traffic is missing from the current ODAX setup. However, there is no need to worry if your current campaigns are using this as it will still be supported as a legacy objective. Your current Store Traffic setup will likely only switch to the ODAX framework when Meta makes the update to accommodate it, however there is currently no timeline for this update.
If the main campaign types you used before were Conversions, Messages and Video Views, the switch will affect you the most. Running successful campaigns with Ads Manager under ODAX will require you to analyse which of the new campaign types and objectives best align with how you used Conversions, Messages, and Video Views previously.
ODAX will not affect how all other existing campaign types work. You’ll only come across the six new campaign types when you create a new campaign.
What Are the Benefits of the New ODAX Campaign Objectives?
The main benefit of the new ODAX campaign types aligns with the main reason that Meta created them: it’s simpler. Although previous campaign types gave you a wider range of objectives, they were also rather vague and had some overlap that made the process of picking the right campaign type for your goals difficult. With the new objectives, it’s easier to find one that aligns with your marketing goals.
You’ll spend less time setting up your campaign and more time seeing results. If your ads don’t have the right goal from the start, they’re more likely to underperform. Even with fewer campaign type options, Ads Manager still offers a good range of optimisation when you begin fine-tuning your campaign settings.
In addition, ODAX will be able to support cross-channel campaigns in the future, opening up new possibilities for your campaigns.
Key Takeaways: A More Streamlined User Experience
The new ODAX framework will make it easier than ever to set up your campaigns. As an advertiser, it’s something to look forward to — the time spent setting up your campaigns will be better used with this streamlined and outcome-driven approach, garnering you the best performance for each of your objectives.
If you want to know more about Facebook Ads and the new campaign types, please get in touch with us today.
