It's been a pretty rough year for Meta. They've been met with a plummeting stock price, the recent forced sale of Giphy, along with Apple's well-documented move to restrict cookies, hindering a good portion of Facebook's advertising and resulting in sizable losses.

Then there's the new flagship product, The Metaverse, which has been met with virtually anything but praise, not to mention its development appears to be well behind schedule. All this to say, 2022 hasn't been terribly kind to the tech giant.

This tough stretch has some advertisers spooked and looking at alternative methods of reaching their customers. But Facebook has spent years cementing its position atop the advertising world, and its sales depend almost entirely on mobile ads, so they're going to make every effort to right the ship.

So What's New for Meta?

Well for starters, they're trying to find new ways to deliver the level of success advertisers had before Apple's privacy changes. The plan is to beef up the AI component of their ad targeting – ideally so that these new algorithms will be able to target customers better than when they relied on data from Apple.

They're also clearly investing heavily in The Metaverse and plan to monetize the platform through ads as soon as possible. What this will look like and how many users they'll have to advertise to is entirely up in the air at this point – although they're already testing augmented reality ads through Instagram's filter features within stories and reels.

Beyond this, Meta announced updates to both Instagram and Facebook Messenger that will give advertisers even more ways to reach potential buyers. Both platforms will start to incorporate ads on their respective Reels, Facebook's answer to the recent TikTok craze.

A small number of influencers on Instagram will also be able to incorporate ads in their profile feeds, with that feature set to expand to more creators pending this pilot's success.

As for Messenger, Facebook is incorporating AI to display ads within the app. They've made it clear they are not using users' actual messages to trigger advertisements but are using other browsing data to "reach people who are most likely to make a purchase."

And What Does This Mean for Advertisers?

Even though Meta is stumbling a bit at the moment, let's not forget that they still command 23.7% of the digital ad market, second only behind Google at 26.4%. It's their race to lose. At the same time, if this past year proved anything, it's that titans like Meta aren't impervious to changes in the market. 

Luckily for (most) advertisers, though, the demographics of traditional avenues like Facebook and Google still lend themselves to an older demographic, especially those making more serious purchases. Industries like real estate, automotive, and healthcare are a bit more predictable, whereas D2C brands may have a tougher time navigating the shifting market amid the TikToks of the world.

It's an interesting, if not maddening, time to be in marketing and advertising. Are we having fun yet?

‍