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Meta’s latest update will fundamentally change how your ads are ranked, served, and scaled. However, most advertisers don’t even know it’s already live. This week, I’m joined by Andrew Foxwell, one of the sharpest Meta strategists in the game.
Andrew breaks down Meta’s new GEM model, the “central brain” now powering ad delivery across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. We talk about cross-platform signals, why organic content matters again, and how GEM connects directly to Andromeda’s creative ranking system. We look at workflows and what your team should change immediately to stay ahead of this shift.
In this episode:
03:17 How GEM impacts Meta ads performance
08:00 The difference between GEM and other Meta updates
11:37 How advertisers can train GEM effectively
14:07 GEM’s impact on the role of organic content
19:34 What makes a “good ad” now
23:19 The necessary mindset shift for advertisers
Mentioned in this episode:
Previous Episodes on Andromeda: https://perpetualtraffic.com/?s=andromeda
Foxwell Digital courses and GPT at https://www.foxwelldigital.com/
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Connect with Andrew Foxwell:
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Connect with Ralph Burns:
- LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphburns
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READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
The New Meta GEM Update + The Secret to Meta’s Andromeda Revealed with Andrew Foxwell – Part 1
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:05:15
Ralph
You dropped a bomb this morning on one of your broadcast emails about a new update.
00:00:05:17 – 00:00:12:14
Andrew
The new one is is Jem essentially the central brain that accelerates the ads on meta?
00:00:12:16 – 00:00:16:09
Ralph
You’re finding out stuff before the rest of the world is even finding out.
00:00:16:11 – 00:00:32:19
Andrew
I had two questions that I asked in this and got responses on which are relevant to advertisers. One was, how can advertisers better train Jem? So is it still about volume and variation, or are there new creative signals that matter or more? You know, the response was.
00:00:35:19 – 00:01:05:20
Ralph
Before we get in today’s show, our guest is actually going to be talking about this in depth as to how to deploy it within your department, within your agency. We are running a special right now at tier 11 through the end of the year. This is a limited time offer where you can buy the creative diversification package, which is the ten different ad types and 30 plus creatives per month, 5 to 7 new versions every single week, based upon which ads are getting the most ad spend in reach, which we’ll be talking about today with today’s guest.
00:01:05:22 – 00:01:37:14
Ralph
And you get the media buying, the best media buying on the planet, and the tier 11 data suite with first click Copy Imports. As well as being able to track new customer acquisition costs. Exactly. You get those two things for free when you buy the creative diversification package. Now, this isn’t for everyone. Obviously you need to have some significant ad spend, but for those of you who have not figured this stuff out for yourself and you need some help, we are here to assist you and put a plan in place for 2026.
00:01:37:15 – 00:01:59:04
Ralph
We’ve only got a month or so left this year. Now is the time to start planning for success in 2026. Not push this off till after the first of the year. Book a call with our team so we can consult with you on creative diversification, how that might fit into your overall media plan. This special is going away at the end of the year, so now is the time for you to act.
00:01:59:05 – 00:02:22:11
Ralph
Head on over to your 11.com/cd, or just check us out@11.com by the Creative Diversification package. And you get the media buying and the tier 11 data suite for free. Check it out. Hello and welcome to the Professional Traffic Podcast. This is your host, Ralph Burns, founder CEO of tier 11. And today we have one of the, I would say, the meta authorities of the world.
00:02:22:11 – 00:02:45:11
Ralph
I actually quoted in the wall Street Journal, I just found out this past week, I was like, wow, dude, this is pretty cool. Like, if the Wall Street Journal is coming to this man, Andrew Foxwell coming back on perpetual traffic for a second time. Co-Founder of Foxwell Digital. Also, Foxwell Founders Group, of which my entire media buying team are members of that group, which is the reason why you are here today.
00:02:45:11 – 00:03:09:19
Ralph
We feel and speak so highly of you and they get a lot of information from everything. In fact, you’re finding out stuff before the rest of the world is even finding out. And today we’re going to be obviously talking about the Meta Andromeda update. But you dropped a bomb this morning on one of your broadcast emails about a new update to Meta Andromeda.
00:03:09:20 – 00:03:36:16
Andrew
Yeah, yeah. I mean, as as if we have just an abundance of time to deal with these things as meta advertisers, you know, so easy, so easy on us. The new one is, is gem. This has been talked about before. We’ve heard it talked about in kind of alongside and parallel to Andromeda as essentially the Ads model or what they’re calling like the central brain that accelerates the ads on meta and on, you know, Facebook and Instagram.
00:03:36:16 – 00:03:53:16
Andrew
So it’s interesting, you know, you never know how big of a deal these things are. And but meta is claiming this is going to be what they’re going to be talking about in 2026. This is where they’re going to be focusing. And this is a new model that is happening now in your meta ads that you may not even have known about.
00:03:53:16 – 00:04:14:03
Andrew
There’s a guy, Jason Yim from meta, who has been talking about this a little bit more, and he said that since it has launched, it’s delivered a 5% increase in ad conversions on Instagram, 3% increase on Facebook feed in Q2 of 25, and in Q3 it doubled the efficiency gains. So let’s just like talk about what the hell this thing even is.
00:04:14:07 – 00:04:34:05
Andrew
It’s it’s essentially what they’re trying to solve is, I guess a couple different things are trying to solve. One is, is there’s a lot of signals that they were looking at in Andromeda and Andromeda goes into this a little bit, but, you know, it’s again, they’re kind of in parallel, but it also is alongside of it. So just to take that what it is.
00:04:34:05 – 00:05:01:18
Andrew
But there’s a lot of signals and what Jem does every single day is basically use every user action in real time to find the buyers. And so that’s one of the main things that it’s trying to solve is that signal, the noise challenge. The second one is the data problem. So, you know, they’re sort of what advertisers want awareness, clicks, purchases, how the ads look like a video, a carousel, a static where users are are they in a real are they in your Instagram story?
00:05:01:18 – 00:05:21:04
Andrew
And then what are users do? Do they like comments, ignore, etc. and it has to like make sense of this. So that’s another problem is trying to solve. And the computational efficiency of this. It was quite complicated and it didn’t it wasn’t working as efficiently as it could. So those are the main things that this gem set out to solve.
00:05:21:06 – 00:05:35:08
Andrew
So now what this is essentially doing, I’ll get to the conclusion and then we’ll talk about it and back it out is it’s saying, okay, look this person likes cycling content. Ralph and I were talking about this. Let’s just start the hashtag now. Hashtag Ralph gets a new bike. We’re doing.
00:05:35:08 – 00:05:36:05
Ralph
It for Christmas.
00:05:36:05 – 00:05:56:16
Andrew
Now, but it’s like, this is a person likes. It’s not just seeing, hey, this person like cycling content. It’s understanding. Look, three three months ago this person was looking at cycling shoes. They were looking at training videos for for how to ride properly. And last month they clicked on an ad for nutrition around cycling but didn’t convert. And yesterday they browsed, you know, cycling apparel.
00:05:56:19 – 00:06:19:20
Andrew
So essentially it’s sort of looking at all of these things as a whole. And it does things like sequence features is what they’re calling it. So this would mean the activity history based on what you’ve done and what you’ve engaged with over time. This would be not sequence non sequence stuff. So this would be things like your age location, the ad format creative elements.
00:06:20:01 – 00:06:39:17
Andrew
And that’s basically what it’s trained into. And another interesting thing that he said in this is or that meta has been saying this, is that apparently meadow is still looking at Instagram and Facebook is two different ad serving engines, and this brings them into one, which I kind of thought we were past that, but apparently that’s not necessarily the case.
00:06:39:17 – 00:07:00:11
Andrew
And it’s so this is also able to learn cross-platform. So this is able to look at WhatsApp chats. This is able to look at, you know, what you’re doing in reels, what you’re doing and Instagram or Facebook etc. and you’re you’re learning across based on the ads that you see. So let’s say that you engage with video content and it’s gram but rarely click on ads, but you’re more likely to click on Facebook.
00:07:00:16 – 00:07:19:20
Andrew
Jan will be able to like look at that okay, so Andromeda is our Andromeda. You can see what I’m saying. Like GM is essentially the system in which you’re serving ads. And Andromeda is is a system in which, you know, meta is looking at the ads that you as a advertiser have. So you can see that these are sort of related, but they are similar.
00:07:19:22 – 00:07:36:11
Andrew
And really what what I think is happening a little bit here is like a PR move is this is like Andromeda for ad serving, like for, for the for or for like the, you know, personal social graph of a person. And that’s what they’re calling it. So anyway, that’s I’ll stop there. There’s a lot more to get into.
00:07:36:11 – 00:07:41:11
Andrew
But that’s what GM seems to be at this point and what they’re talking about it.
00:07:41:11 – 00:07:59:22
Ralph
It’s odd because we actually had a really good outline for today’s show and show this email. Hey, don’t tell her you talked to your better person yesterday. I’ve got a lot of questions here, so it sort of seems like one is inward facing, one is outward facing, and they sort of meet at the middle to be able to serve ads more effectively, because that’s.
00:08:00:02 – 00:08:01:10
Andrew
Does that have.
00:08:01:13 – 00:08:17:13
Ralph
A lot of the things that you’re saying, though? I mean, we’ve been talking about meta for years. Like, you know, I mean, I look at Andromeda as like the biggest thing to happen to meta or to Facebook since ads went into the newsfeed and we got like really good targeting into 2013. It was a seminal moment for me.
00:08:17:13 – 00:08:41:04
Ralph
It was like all of a sudden I was like, this is the platform, and completely shifted my entire model from, you know, being an affiliate to being an agency, which is basically what happened. The point is, is, like we’ve been saying a lot of these things that you’re saying for years and years, about absolutely 55,000 data points, you know, way back when that Facebook has now, it’s like, God knows what, you know, how many data points they have.
00:08:41:04 – 00:08:57:18
Ralph
I mean, we intercepted, you know, a Google memo 2 or 3 years ago that they have 72 million demographic and psychographic factors on every human on the planet, like meta knows a ton of stuff about you. But I was like, all the things that you’re saying, I’m like, how are there any do this? Or like, why is this different?
00:08:57:18 – 00:08:58:16
Ralph
I guess is the question.
00:08:58:17 – 00:09:24:21
Andrew
I agree, I don’t in reading this. I think that that’s why, you know, you always have to look at this as like, okay, part of this is like a PR move in terms of talking about this in a in a new way. Hey, this is what makes it different, right? I do think that this is the new way that they’re integrating AI and sort of hedging against I, you know, obviously better AI is like going to make things more competitive in that attention, like grabbing that we’re all trying to do.
00:09:24:21 – 00:09:49:13
Andrew
And so, you know, Andromeda and the way that we can think about that obviously accelerates that. But I think this makes the ad serving and the hyper relevance a lot better. That another really interesting thing that was said here was it was specifically called out, quote, Gen will learn from Meta’s entire ecosystem, including user interactions on organic and ads content across text, image, video and audio that can rank.
00:09:49:15 – 00:10:07:02
Andrew
So, you know, we haven’t talked about organic for a while. And I think as paid advertisers, this is something that we know, but to a degree lives in parallel. And I think that it’s becoming increasingly more important. But we just haven’t seen it as much. And we see that or we haven’t really talked about it as much or seen it as much.
00:10:07:02 – 00:10:27:13
Andrew
And so now I think this is them saying, hey, look, this is going to have an impact on what ads are being served. And if people are interacting with your organic content more, they’re going to see more. Or if they start with that, you know, they they they look at it, it’s going to have more. The other interesting thing is how much of this was based on and how much of the messaging was based on.
00:10:27:17 – 00:10:55:17
Andrew
We are utilizing like across the ecosystem and the web. And so we know that we know that’s true and we know that that’s continues to happen. But I think it’s one of the first times when I’ve heard them really talking about, look, everything you’re doing, we can look at it now because for so it was kind of like the dip after Cappy and you know, like, then you know, like the I was 14 and then Cappy and then it was like, yeah, you’re tracking when they’re on your site only and they haven’t really leaned into saying like, no, we’re looking across the web, which we sort of knew that they were but anyway,
00:10:55:17 – 00:10:58:23
Andrew
so that’s an interesting, interesting thing.
00:10:59:01 – 00:11:18:23
Ralph
That’s a really good point. I’ve sort of assumed it always was. Never. They’ve never actually come out and said it. I mean, maybe they have. Maybe I went to a conference at some point in time where they did say it or some speaker said it, but it’s like I was sort of assume that was the case. Like, if I’m on a I’m on the trek, you know, bike site right now, like meta knows, I’m logged into, you know, Facebook and meta all the time.
00:11:18:23 – 00:11:34:00
Ralph
Obviously, you know, the app is is completely active on my phone, all those sorts of things. So I sort of always felt like that was a given. But now you’re saying they’re being more transparent about and actually saying it. Even post 80 prompts from iOS 14.
00:11:34:02 – 00:11:55:07
Andrew
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s a that’s an interesting one. I had two questions that I, that I asked in this and got responses on which are relevant to advertisers, which I think are really important. One was how can advertisers better train GM? So is it still about volume and variation or are there new creative signals that matter and more?
00:11:55:09 – 00:12:15:17
Andrew
Right. So taking into consideration Andromeda and the way we think about that, which we can certainly get into the, the, the big one, you know, the response was cross-platform learnings. Creatives will perform differently for both platforms, but we will be increasingly intertwined. So again, sort of doubling down on that, like we looked at these separately. Now they’re together.
00:12:15:17 – 00:12:32:22
Andrew
So I think for a while maybe I don’t know about you, but I certainly brands that I work with, it’s like there’s like an Instagram forward strategy, but maybe not as much of a Facebook strategy or vice versa. And so I think in, in reference, organic content is what I’m talking about. And in reference to to ads a little bit.
00:12:32:22 – 00:12:54:08
Andrew
But like organic content really is a big one. That’s one that’s interesting to think about. And then user interactions across text, image, audio and video, diversified creatives. So we know that we that talked about that with Andromeda. That’s a big one. Second question that I had was what’s the biggest workflow change advertisers should make right now to align with how GM ranks and retrieves creatives?
00:12:54:12 – 00:13:14:05
Andrew
And the response was rank both organic content and ads. Organic will play an important role in ad ranking. My question was like, what do we do? What? How is how does it, how does it go get it? And he’s like, it’s going to he said organic twice in one sentence. So that that’s a very interesting thing to me.
00:13:14:05 – 00:13:35:10
Andrew
And I think that for so long, I mean, a lot of people in this industry got their start as organic content people. I certainly did. Right. And like now and then you sort of like, yeah, you know, ads are crushing. Like, do people even look at Facebook pages anymore? Who knows. We’ve had this ecosystem of like Instagram where we’re spending time and people that you follow that are content creators, you know, that come out with really cool stuff.
00:13:35:10 – 00:13:58:01
Andrew
You’re watching it, you’re engaging with it, and it’s really valuable. And they live separately to some degree. And I think now they’re saying like, look, that is going to be an important thing to bring back in. And I think from meta standpoint, from a business standpoint, that’s a good idea because the more people, the more that you pressure brands to say, content matters, spend time on this, the more people will spend time and more you know, time and say it’s going to go up or whatever.
00:13:58:01 – 00:14:08:23
Andrew
I think engagements are going to go up, etc., etc., etc. so it’s all good stuff. But anyway, those were my two things and we can talk about how we think this relates to Andromeda as well, but I thought that was kind of interesting to.
00:14:08:23 – 00:14:32:12
Ralph
A degree based upon the answers that you’re getting right now from that, is this a potential resurgence in the importance of organic and, or maybe even or organic reach? To a certain degree? We really haven’t even talked about organic and organic reach and years literally on the share you probably don’t talk about either. But now I’m thinking, how does this change that at all, in your opinion?
00:14:32:14 – 00:14:32:22
Ralph
I think.
00:14:32:22 – 00:14:58:02
Andrew
It does. You know, the way that we’ve been force with Andromeda into thinking differently, those of us that are trying to lead the way on this right about. Net new concepts and about net new ideas and personas and the way that you’re talking to different sets of people over time. I think that that that mentality and the way that we’ve thought about that has not translated and been thought about in reference to organic content.
00:14:58:05 – 00:15:21:06
Andrew
And I think that what they’re saying is this is a valid way to start to transfer that framework on to your thinking and onto your strategy. I think that if you’re looking at the measurement of it all and saying, are we going to be looking at organic measurement? Absolutely. I think we could potentially in an ideal world, that’s wrapped into, you know, as a reporting to a degree as time goes on.
00:15:21:06 – 00:15:36:21
Andrew
Because if if they’re saying is this important to the engine itself, why wouldn’t you be able to see those two things together? So yeah, I think it has implications on that. And I think the good news is, if you’ve been leading the way on this, like I said, with Andromeda and you’ve been, you know, doing things in a varied way and you’re putting out.
00:15:36:21 – 00:16:03:05
Andrew
Net new concepts, etc., I think you have a leg up, right? You know, you don’t need new creative every week. You need signal saturated creative. You need like, hey, this is good shit. That’s going to keep going. That’s really the way to sort of think about it. And I think from an advertiser standpoint as well, where I think this really comes in, is how so many of us have in the last 12 months, redone workflows of how we create.
00:16:03:08 – 00:16:28:02
Andrew
Net new concepts and how we find them, and new iterations and how we, you know, are changing up visual formats, motivators, hook types. And I think this is going to force us to think about that in an organic standpoint to to make sure that you, you’re, you know, getting your ad served in a more complete way instead of being a one dimensional think thinker about this.
00:16:28:05 – 00:16:58:20
Ralph
So really, I mean, the big thing about Meta Andromeda, we’ve talked about it dozens of times here on the web, more than dozens of times, hundreds of times, at least at this point is obviously it’s created diversification. But now you’re making me think, okay, so you need to do the same thing to your ads manager as you do to your organic, your reach, your feed, your presence online, do the same sort of thing that is going to get you a specific, you know, measure of results.
00:16:58:20 – 00:17:19:23
Ralph
We’ve certainly found that, you know, there is there is a huge difference in how the the old way of doing things as opposed to the new way of doing things. And I can link to dozens of episodes where we’ve talked about this here, but approaching your organic side on meta the same way that you’re approaching the ad side, was creative diversification.
00:17:20:01 – 00:17:26:23
Ralph
Is that a potential? This is maybe what you need to do now that’s coming out of this, and they’ll start to emerge even more so over time.
00:17:27:04 – 00:17:56:09
Andrew
I think that’s exactly right. I think any of these changes, like I said, the big one for the people that are listening to this is about it’s about workflows in your agency or in your brand. It’s about how you’re building systems that allow you to diversify and build things differently so that there’s different visual variations to it. And there’s a lot of ways to think about this, but, you know, these are things like tracking that new concepts.
00:17:56:09 – 00:18:15:15
Andrew
These are things like trying out new personas. These are things like obviously trying out different creative styles. That’s an easy one. But these are things like tagging. How are you tagging ads now? You know, there’s tools like motion that have AI tagging. That’s really helpful. But it’s like, how are you tagging ads so that you can track all this stuff?
00:18:15:21 – 00:18:24:18
Andrew
Because that’s really where it’s going to become a challenge, right? Because gamble, like creative without a system, is like gambling with prettier chips.
00:18:24:18 – 00:18:45:23
Ralph
Like it just doesn’t do anything. Nomenclature obviously very important on ads just to begin with. So you can at least organize your thoughts and organize, you know, which ones are actually performing the idea, maybe getting into, you know, some of that just generalized meta Andromeda change. There’s a couple of questions and topics of conversation that always seem to come up.
00:18:45:23 – 00:19:07:07
Ralph
Are in this new environment. And we’ll have to sort of see how GM plays out. Does it enhance performance? I mean, we’ve talked so many times on the show about like what matters investment in AI is in 2025. And their earnings call out from 71 billion this year to 82 billion. You know, what’s the number there. 11 billion between friends.
00:19:07:07 – 00:19:46:01
Ralph
And they’re going to be investing 115 billion a year by 2027. Like it’s crazy amount of stuff. So obviously like we haven’t seen the end of meta Andromeda this isn’t it. It’s just going to get better and better and better. And this is probably one of those iterations of that, the system learning even more and making things even more laser focused, both on the paid ads side and perhaps even, you know, with this update on the organic side question, this is a lot of people ask because like, I’d love to get your take on it is when you say a good at a good ad is not necessarily the thing that you would look for
00:19:46:01 – 00:20:04:07
Ralph
maybe a year or two ago, like, what are you teaching your students about? All right. These are the ads that you want to iterate on because they’re resonating with your audience. Like how do you sort of start there? Because that’s one of the bigger questions that we get just about meta Andromeda. We have to assume that GM is going to magnify this even more, but what’s your take on that?
00:20:04:09 – 00:20:33:08
Andrew
There’s a lot of ways to assess a good ad. The most simple way to assess a good ad is based on how much meta is spending on it, and that the most. I know that that’s an annoying answer, because the over but say meta doesn’t make the right choices sometimes, and I don’t necessarily disagree. However, one of the things I struggle with is Andromeda forces patients because you’re cutting things off too soon.
00:20:33:12 – 00:20:55:21
Andrew
And I know you’ve said that on this podcast before, and that is a thing that takes place. That’s one. But the simplest way is all right, you know, is it spending that’s like a good ad I think that. And does Medicaid spending number one, I think that then you start to look at, you know, obviously the most important thing you can look at is is this driving purchases like on a click basis.
00:20:56:01 – 00:21:18:19
Andrew
That to me is is an incredible indicator that it does. Well, if you launch an ad, a new ad in an ad set that has great existing concepts in there, and it starts to pick up steam, that’s another indicator to me that it’s use that it’s a good ad that it meta is looking at this and said, and Andromeda has seen this and said look this is visually a net new concept.
00:21:18:23 – 00:21:43:11
Andrew
And so something’s different about it. The visual style, the perspective, the context, the composition, the setting, the product, the talent in the ad. It’s different. And we are going to service against the against ads that are absolutely murdering it. And it’s and it’s gotten some conversions or it’s doing well. That to me over let’s say a seven day to 14 day period that to me or even something, I mean, depending on what you’re spending, if you’re spending a lot of money, you can find that out in 24 hours.
00:21:43:11 – 00:22:04:12
Andrew
You’re like, oh shit, this is a banger. It’s doing really well. And so that’s another signal to me that things are going well. Then I think if you don’t have purchases, some people have smaller accounts and it’s harder to, you know, look at that. And if you’re not getting purchases through the door then you’re starting to look at obviously the classic creative metrics that you want to look at of hooks, hook rate, hold, right, stuff like that.
00:22:04:12 – 00:22:27:09
Andrew
Right that we would call like creative soft metrics of okay, early indicator don’t have purchases, but it appears that people are engaging with this ad at a rate that’s reasonable. I think one way that you can tell if your creative generally is working, that the way that I believe it is one of the most successful ways currently to do this on that.
00:22:27:09 – 00:22:43:08
Andrew
And of course is always changes. So this could be out of date by the time this comes out, but is to look at rolling reach on meta. Right. There’s a there’s a guy that is named Kurt Bullock. He has an agency called Produce Department. I can send you the link. These get a tool that allows you to to plug in your, your, your stuff and pull up a rolling reach report.
00:22:43:12 – 00:23:02:15
Andrew
And, you know, there’s varying degrees of how you think about this. But basically, like if you can see that you’re rolling reach over time is you’re spending more money and you’re putting in net new concepts and you’re building more good ads. And the rolling reach is staying consistent or not declining off of a cliff. You’re doing pretty well.
00:23:02:17 – 00:23:20:16
Andrew
That’s that’s that’s another way to know you have winning ads because you’re reaching a new set of folks. Right. And there’s enough diversity in what you’re saying, and there’s enough simplicity in the account as well, in terms of the structure that’s allowing meta to do its job. And there’s a whole I mean, there’s a lot you could get into with that, but.
00:23:20:18 – 00:23:41:23
Ralph
I think there’s still an apprehension because we’re all, as digital marketers, we’re very untrusting of platforms. I mean, you have a great example of, yeah, this is don’t ever do what Google tells you to do. I mean, we have probably equal ad spend on Google and Meta at this point in time. We do the exact opposite of what they tell us to do.
00:23:42:01 – 00:24:02:22
Ralph
And for so many years, everyone wanted to hack Facebook like I create. Yeah, you and I have been in this thing for a while. Like there is methodologies like we had the Michigan method, we had the ecom ad amplifier, all these ways to hack the algorithm. And so all of those people that still adopt that mindset are having a real hard time with Andromeda.
00:24:02:22 – 00:24:31:00
Ralph
And now was Jim. What do you say to those folks? Because I think that’s that’s one of the biggest shifts. I think I even see it internally in our agency. You probably see it, you know, inflexible founders as well as like, well, I don’t want to give up that much control, you know. Yeah. Or, you know, I see this ad spending so much and there’s no conversions or the CPA is like, it spent $8,000 in the you know, the purchase is $8,000, you know, for one purchase.
00:24:31:00 – 00:24:43:09
Ralph
But no, that’s actually the ad that’s actually driving all the other purchases, the bottom funnel, like getting people to wrap their head around this whole thing, I find, is the most challenging part of it. What would you say to those people?
00:24:43:11 – 00:25:07:21
Andrew
Yeah, so so first of all, validating for anybody, anybody that’s listening to this that feels like I don’t want to give meta too much control, like completely understand I mean, honestly, in 25, 2025, meta has been an absolute shitstorm of issues of like showing random images and texts and, you know, like one of the most viral piece of content I put out all year was I was a person wearing a sandwich board and all of the AI enhancements you have to turn off.
00:25:08:00 – 00:25:29:20
Andrew
And I said, I found the scariest Halloween costume that you could ever wear. And like, that’s it, because it’s frickin ridiculous. Honestly. Yeah. And so, so number one, like, I totally agree with you. And as an as a person like you, Ralph, and as many people listening to this that that has grown up and become an advertiser in the Facebook world of when Micro-targeting was what you sold as your value proposition.
00:25:30:01 – 00:25:51:00
Andrew
That’s a scary thing to take on, right? Because you don’t want to necessarily say, like, we’re not doing anything. By the way, you only have three campaigns running and you’re spending 100 grand a month, like, you know, you want. The complexity lends itself to such that you want to talk about that complexity as still a valid thing. Now, do I think that you have to not have any interest targeting or.
00:25:51:03 – 00:26:07:15
Andrew
No, I don’t think that that’s true. Like, I still think that there’s room for interest targeting that can help with incremental sales. And I think that’s valid and I but is interest targeting and or is I mean lookalikes are trash. I’m not going to talk about those. But let’s say is other other types of targeting other than broad.
00:26:07:20 – 00:26:29:17
Andrew
Is that more valid or going to bring you more incremental results than creating new systems for building better creative that are different visual styles and things like that? The answer is no. Like meta said, no, this is what we want. So you’re resistance. And certainly I’m in this to like my resistance is thinking that old school style. But it’s not going to help you in the long run.
00:26:29:19 – 00:26:51:14
Andrew
And so you know how to do that. You don’t need to keep selling that. And what you need to do is shift your thinking into, we are now marketers back to being marketers, not just lever pullers. And we need to figure out how to market this better and find out the consumer desires and problems and emotional triggers that people are feeling.
00:26:51:19 – 00:27:08:14
Andrew
And we need to have our product speak to those particular issues. And it does not. Everybody needs to be a problem solution, you know, and there’s obviously, you know, I’m sure on this podcast you’ve talked about the stages of awareness of, you know, going through unaware, aware. You know, people don’t a lot of times you’re you’re marketing to somebody you didn’t even know that they need it.
00:27:08:14 – 00:27:33:13
Andrew
Okay. But I call this a podcast Scalability school with two different guys, Brad and Zach. And Zach runs Hollow Socks, which is an alpaca sock brand. And we’ve talked about on that podcast the number of ways that he talks to and sells to hunters, even because hunters are sitting in the middle of woods and you can sell them socks and say you need a better sock, but really what you’re you’re going for is like, you know, comfort in the woods.
00:27:33:13 – 00:27:54:04
Andrew
Then you’re talking about durability, then you’re talking about how you don’t need a full sock drawer. I mean, apparently it’s a major issue that, like so many men, I included, you have so many socks in your drawer and you can’t open the drawer. They had an angle, right? Yeah. I mean, this is a thing, right? And then you’re like, you know, so this is another angle.
00:27:54:04 – 00:28:26:12
Andrew
So my point is, is that to speak to those folks that go through this and trying to hack the system, the point is shift the mindset and say, look, we are now effectively a creative shop. That is that. And we’re back to being marketers. And what we are going to do is get deeply into your, you know, the consumer’s mindset or the potential consumer mindset of your customer and see not only what the previous customers have done and what they like and surveying them, but also looking and saying, here’s the other pieces of this and having frameworks to set up to say, how are we thinking creatively about the problems that we’re not approaching?
00:28:26:12 – 00:28:59:19
Andrew
How are we approaching the personas we haven’t previously approached, and building systems for that, so that you can have a creative factory that’s churning in a way that it wasn’t previously, and that’s not an answer that a lot of people want. And I still think that there’s validity in if you’re a marketer that does, you know, you could do you do Facebook, you do Google, you do landing pages, you do email like I still think there’s plenty of room for those shops who are going to do a really good job on all of those channels, and they’re going to help their clients maintain growth, and they’re going to do well.
00:29:00:00 – 00:29:28:10
Andrew
I think that if you really want to break through and you want to have clients that are, you know, doubling and tripling spend like the old days and the stuff you see on X, I think what the lot of these folks are doing is that they’ve shifted the mindset. And now they’re they’re they’re like fully creative shops and, you know, outside of like getting their pixel shit proper, making sure all of that style then, which is a huge part of this signal, I mean, signaling and all that stuff is like messed up and you can’t scale with it being not in a good place.
00:29:28:15 – 00:29:37:14
Andrew
And you obviously have some landing page work that you’re doing you could do, but outside of that, it’s like you’re your creative shot, that that’s what you are effectively doing. And I think that’s what you’re pitching to yourself.
