Meta & Pinterest: The A&K Guide To Maximising Your Impact For Q4

Oct 29

Paid social in Q4 presents a major opportunity for your brand. As consumer engagement peaks during the holiday season and companies allocate remaining budgets, businesses can use paid social to capture attention and drive conversions. Paid social campaigns enable brands to stay visible, promote seasonal offers, and maximise their reach in a competitive landscape. By leveraging this period effectively, your business can capitalise on increased online activity and deliver impactful results.

Why stay ahead of digital trends on Meta and Pinterest?

Optimise for platform changes — Meta’s and Pinterest's advertising platforms are always being updated and changed. Staying ahead of trends means that advertisers can quickly adapt their strategies to optimise new features, algorithms, and ad formats. Being nimble is key to maintaining effective and high-performing advertising campaigns.
Harness emerging ad formats — Meta and Pinterest continually introduce new ad formats and tools. Staying ahead allows advertisers to explore and leverage emerging formats, such as augmented reality (AR) ads, interactive features, and video innovations. Early adoption of these trends can capture audience attention and enhance engagement.
Navigate shifts in privacy and targeting — Privacy concerns and evolving data regulations impact how advertisers target and reach audiences. Staying ahead enables advertisers to navigate changes in privacy policies and adjust targeting strategies accordingly. This ensures compliance with regulations while still reaching the right audience effectively.

Emerging Trends

AI-powered ad optimisation — Meta and Pinterest will continue to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for ad optimisation. Advertisers could benefit from AI-driven tools that automatically optimise ad delivery, targeting, and creative elements to improve overall campaign performance.
Monetisation of messaging platforms — Meta is increasingly focusing on monetising its messaging platforms in Q4, such as WhatsApp and Messenger. This includes features like in-app purchases, customer service automation through AI-driven chatbots, and targeted advertising within messaging threads. These moves are designed to leverage the massive user base of its messaging apps and drive new revenue streams. For luxury brands, this means a greater ability to customise suggestions and improve purchase journey.
Stricter content moderation & compliance with regulations — In response to increased regulatory scrutiny and a growing emphasis on user safety and wellbeing, Meta and Pinterest are implementing stricter content moderation policies across their platforms, including improved AI moderation tools to quickly identify and remove harmful content. More transparent reporting and appeals processes allow users to understand and contest moderation decisions ensuring that their practices align with regional regulations. It’s important to stay mindful of stricter regulations, as too many ad rejections can lead to account suspension.
Expansion of Shopping and E-commerce Features — Meta and Pinterest are significantly expanding shopping and e-commerce features, capitalising on the trend of social commerce. Enhanced AR shopping tools that allow users to try on products virtually, such as clothing, accessories, and makeup. Integration of digital goods and NFTs into Meta’s platforms, allowing users to buy, sell, and trade virtual items and collectables. This is particularly important for luxury brands, as it creates a seamless purchase journey which allows users to ‘try on’ clothing or put homeware products in context, all from the comfort of their own home.

Upcoming changes

META:

Reminder ads — These ads will soon include external links to drive traffic to specific products or promotions. Meta is also integrating reminder ads into Reels, allowing advertisers to boost engagement around events or product launches. This can be useful, but proceed with caution as the links suggested automatically are specific pages, but we want users to land on a category page.
Promo codes — Globally, Meta is introducing support for alphanumeric promo codes in ads. This feature has already shown a significant reduction in cost per purchase and an increase in conversion rates for advertisers, but we suggest avoiding adding promo codes to creative, and instead communicating in ad copy.
Collaborative ads & shop integration — Meta is expanding integration with platforms like Magento and Salesforce Commerce Cloud, allowing businesses to run collaborative ads that combine shops and branded content. Collaborative ads will also gain more insights and reporting capabilities.

PINTEREST:

New pin format: Collage — Collages help you express ideas visually and see how things come together on Pinterest. In addition to saving Pins to boards, you can save just the objects you love as cutouts and put them together to create an interactive collage.
Premiere Spotlight on search and home feed — Premiere Spotlight allows brands to exclusively own premium ad placements on the platform to promote their campaign for maximum visibility. Pinterest is now extending Premiere Spotlight from search to the home feed to help advertisers reach users from the moment they open Pinterest.
Showcase ads — Showcase ads are a new interactive ad solution that allows users to preview and explore a brand's content by swiping through branded images. Brands can create rich, interactive experiences through the use of cards and features within the format. This adds more context and invites users to dive deeper in their exploration of the brand.
Quiz ad — Quiz ads offer a deeper level of personalisation to a brand's idea on Pinterest. Brands can include up to three questions per quiz to create an entertaining experience for people to engage with, and show consumers more personalised ideas, helping them to move deeper into decisions and towards a valuable purchase.

Quick snappy summary

Stay Ahead of Platform Updates — Meta and Pinterest constantly update features, algorithms, and ad formats. Adapting quickly ensures your campaigns remain effective and leverages innovations.

Tap Into Emerging Trends — AI-driven ad optimization, messaging platforms, and stricter content moderation are shaping Q4. Early adoption of trends improves user experience and drives conversions.
Expand E-commerce Capabilities — Both platforms are pushing social commerce with features like virtual try-ons, NFTs, and interactive ad formats (such as Pinterest's collages and quizzes). This helps to create an immersive, seamless shopping experience.

3 quick takeaways for luxury brands in Q4

Enhance Shopping Experiences — Take advantage of expanded e-commerce features, like virtual try-ons and interactive ads, to create seamless purchase journeys.
Optimise, Optimise, Optimise — Keep pace with platform updates on Meta and Pinterest to maximise ad performance and stay competitive. We will help you stay on top of a fast-moving digital landscape.
Utilise AI & New Formats — Be smart when it comes to using AI tools and exploring emerging ad formats like AR, messaging ads, and interactive features to boost engagement.